Love Life with Matthew Hussey - Q&A With Matthew: When to Chase in Relationships, Matthew’s Family, and Modern Dating Problems

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

This week on the Love Life Podcast, Matthew Hussey and Producer David dive into some of the most-asked questions about modern relationships. Should you ever chase someone in love, or does persistence risk crossing the line? The conversation also takes a personal turn as Matthew reflects on the strong women in his family who shaped his perspective on relationships and life. This episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating the complexities of love and connection today.---►► Ready to go from casual to committed? Join the free training that shows you how to create the relationship you deserve. Watch now at GetCommitment.com►► Love is hard. Sync makes it easier. Join the waitlist now at TalkToSync.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to the Love Life podcast. We're doing something different today. We don't have Audrey. We don't have Stephen. We just have me, Matthew Hussie, and you, David Kirk. Hello. Why did you want to do this kind of an episode to shake things up? You know, I produced the podcast in the background.

And it was more just, I think, by consolidating, you know, just, one-on-one that I could get some more volume of, you know, what you think about certain things and also stuff that I'm seeing that's going around in my head about what's happening with the podcast, what people are saying, what the, what comments are saying, you know, I make a habit of looking through them. And sometimes I can just remember them off the top of my head. And so I wanted to, you know, kind of field them as they come and kind of just, you know, also I'm just curious to know more about you. There's some stuff that I'm going to ask you that I haven't personally heard you asked before and that might just be because I've missed it, but I want to know.

Well, I'm excited about this because I don't know. I haven't seen a single question that you're going to ask me. I haven't read a single comment that you're deciding to bring me from the audience. And I like the fact that this is a chance for you to kind of not just talk about things people want to hear about but also challenge me in ways that portions of the audience people in the audience would love you to challenge me on so it's going to be fun and if you enjoy this format and this episode let us know at the end of it podcast at matthewhussy.com so with that i will be a hostage for the next hour let's do it i'll be honest i think i agree with this sometimes. Driver's Surf Camp says, this podcast would benefit so much from having a person

with a different perspective. The three of them agree on everything. What do you think about that? I'm curious. I'd love to have that person sort of on the line and ask them, I mean, I suppose it's obvious what they mean that there's, you know, maybe they feel there's, you know, we're all on one side when it comes to gender dynamics. I don't even think that's true. I think it, you know, I do think, I do think that in the past we haven't always given men enough of a fair shake. And that's not ever been an intentional thing. I think that's been a result of spending so much time thinking about and dealing in the trenches with the challenges of women that naturally, that your brain sort of becomes wired for that. And in the process,

you can lose connection with some of the things that men are struggling with at the same time. So I do, I actually think when people have leveled that criticism, when men have leveled that criticism, I actually think there have been times where they've had a point. So you agree with them? Well, I suppose. And I just for the record, I agree with you. I don't agree. I don't agree.

I don't know if, if what they want is for someone to come a lot. I'm assuming they mean they want someone who's more talking about how bad women can be. But I don't know if that's true. Maybe they're maybe they're maybe they mean politically. Maybe they mean I'm not sure, but. Yeah, is there like a moment that they want like, you know, Audrey to like slam her fist out on the table? Yeah. Like, Matt, you're wrong.

And your idea is bad. And then Stephen gets in. want someone who you know comes along and and talks about how women should have less rights and women should you know like we're we're pandering too much and this that i i don't know um but it's probably what you want is not someone with a different opinion on the podcast what you probably want if you're saying that is a different podcast you know it has a 190 i'm just looking at this now it has 190 likes on it which which episode was it on i think it was i think it was the most recent one about um why women are giving up on men which i felt was an interesting one probably was about

gender dynamics it was about gender dynamics okay um but not that likes mean everything but that's a decent number of people it's a decent number of people i have to imagine some of our audiences is liking that comment maybe maybe i'm wrong about that i'd be really interested to know how many if any of those 190 people are women yeah i i would love to know whether that's just overwhelmingly men who agree with that statement yeah in which case and i mean this sincerely i want to invite whoever you know the person who wrote that may not be listening now but whoever whoever is here that agrees with that statement, I would invite you to email us podcast at matthewhussy.com and let us know specifically what opinions you don't think are being aired or

represented because I'm happy, I enjoy playing with ideas. I enjoy, you know, debating ideas. So if there's something that you feel has no air time and you want to give it air time, as you know like you tell us email us and let us know um but i'm i'd be very curious if that was split between men and women then i'd really be like whoa what what are we not representing here but my suspicion is that that is heavily if not all men and yeah and and and and a certain type of of man maybe too but again i don't want to assume it might be that there there are men in there who have really valid points that they feel are not being made on the podcast and I'd love to hear them yeah I think what what is you know I think kind of desired is that we I've I've listened to you

for a year and a half over there and it kind of can it can there's really good advice that you need to hear over and over again and it works and And sometimes that means that you have a lot of people around a table kind of discussing the benefits from it. And no one's like, oh, that doesn't work. It's because they've integrated it into their life and it works. I do think there's some things where we could push back a little bit. So I have one for you where one that I've listened to for a while where I'm like, I actually think there's another side to this. So there's a kind of not just you all through YouTube, social media, don't chase.

don't chase don't chase don't chase yeah i disagree i i i've actually pretty harshly disagreed because in my life i'm a trier a bit of a trier uh and you know i have i felt embarrassed from chasing i've probably pushed some people away by chasing um but i've not regretted my actions to do that because i put myself out there i got rejected it didn't work out and I felt like I was stronger for it and the person that I did end up with I chased at a certain point

and it kind of all came back around at the end and I think that this rhetoric online can kind of leave people in a more comfortable place because it's like the activation like people would love to hear don't chase

don't try don't try because it's actually not going to work and you're like oh okay cool I can chill I don't need to chase. I don't need to try. I don't need to put myself out there. It kind of psychologically, it kind of reinforces that. So I'm curious if you think, do you think we've gone over far, far in the pendulum of don't chase?

And we actually haven't added the nuance back in of that there are times where it's effective to. Let me ask you this. Why do you think, looking back, that you're, and I maybe would shift. the word in the context you're using it to persistence. But why did your persistence work for you, do you think, in the times that it did work? In the times that it did work, it worked because I felt that I gave a fair shake to each of the situations that I went into, and I didn't feel like I left anything on the table. I felt like I established myself as a person who shamelessly will send the extra text, we'll send the extra thing, we'll try to reach out. Yeah,

maybe I appear a little bit desperate, but, you know, and maybe I'm a bit of a romantic. But I also felt like that reputation ended up helping me in the end because because I didn't have any shame around it, people started to not pity me or, or judge me for it. It was just who I was. And one thing, I didn't even second guess that it was like a problem. And there are times where it didn't work out and that it actually was counterproductive, but it was. And how did you, how did it affect you in those moments when it didn't work out? Oh, I felt terrible. You did? Yeah, I felt terrible for a while and I felt embarrassed for a while. And then I kind of told myself, I was like, yeah, this is part of the game, right?

This is part of it. This is part of it. I'm not going to change my behavior for next time because I think the person who I'm with, me chasing them isn't going to be the psychological thing that turns them off from me. Because I'm going to pursue the things that I want. And if it doesn't work out, then I just have to let it go. And, you know, that's the nuance that I would add into it is that you really have to know, and have a short memory when it comes to rejection

and that kind of stuff when you operate that way. But I have a sneaking suspicion that there is for you some aspect of that persistence. There were two things going on. Please tell me if I'm wrong because I don't want you to give me the benefit of the doubt. I suspect that there was a cocktail of two different things happened.

one was maybe a little bit of a feeling that David had that I people don't always fully understand what's awesome about me straight away that it that it might take time and in order to truly give myself the chance that I deserve I might have to continue a little further and that the other side of that the other ingredient in that cocktail which by the way is in is already implied is there's something awesome about me that I suspect that there was an act that part of that persistence actually was derived from a kind of confidence that I I actually do know that I have something thing and you may not know that yet and you may never know that but i i do have a sense of that and

the the more persistent i am the more i actually have a chance of you finding that out and maybe i even slightly back myself for you to find that out now i don't know that to be true but i'm curious to know if that resonates with you yeah yeah i think it does i i i think i don't know i don't think you would, I would find it hard to believe if you told me you were chasing solely from a place of, you know, like, insecurity and need. And like, I just got to keep going no matter what. There were times where actually that that was the case. Because it was all that I knew, I think, how to do in a certain, certain level. So I felt like that was, that was your power. That was to keep going. was to keep going.

Right. But you're right. There was a certain level of confidence that I had when I was texting someone or talking with someone that the things that I'm saying are good or funny or interesting and that all that person had to do was, you know, interact with me and more of those moments would come, which is a bit of hubris. But I do think that there was that. But I think that at a certain point, too, you just have to do it. You just have to chase. You have to pursue even when you don't think that you have.

Otherwise, you're never going to like put that to the test. I think that in some ways, I think that's easier for a man to do. Because I think that we value those qualities in men, romantic. more than societally we value those qualities in women. Like I do think there is a societal conditioning that says if a guy is persistent, there is something attractive and chivalrous about that. If a woman endlessly pursues, she's crazy. And I think that that imprint does serve men more than it serves women.

um i also think that you're that like firstly people who don't have and you're know in the spirit in which i mean this but people who don't have the burden of ego of like thinking like whoever decides they're the best looking person in the room in life like maybe that started in high school like they got really popular they got told they were the best looking all the time that person is really hard for them to chase because they have an ego to maintain in that department where they're like holding on for dear life to this idea they have of themselves that they've decided is their value so for that person is really hard for them to like be seen to be chasing even by themselves because it it god forbid they get rejected

it calls into question this entire identity they have for themselves and there is there's something that happens for a lot of people where they've never attached themselves to a very stifling identity like that and they're a lot freer as a result they can go out and make mistakes and get rejected because their whole identity doesn't ride on the idea that i never get rejected so once you don't have that identity you are naturally a lot freer but the part that turns chasing or again I think persistence is a better word but the part that turns that into something that winds up being attractive is when it ultimately does get paired with a standard because if you if you did it indefinitely and it never ever came with a kind of standard of like at the end of the day like if you really if you don't don't see what's valuable about me, then no, you don't deserve for me to keep pursuing you. And as long as like that, you meet that point somewhere along the way, it actually does

become very attractive. It can be very attractive when you persist, you persist in going after someone, and eventually they do see, like, oh, I get it about you. There is something about you. And then, by the way, you in that relationship, what they feel is that this person who did persist is also someone who has standards about the way they want to be treated now that you're in a relationship together. Whereas if you are someone who persists and persists and persists and persists and now that you get them, you are in the relationship, someone who is just never, never feels good enough and always feels like I'll let you walk all over. me just please don't go anywhere like you're not going to hold on to that person for very long and i suspect that again the reason that you have been successful in in having a long-term relationship and i don't

know your relationship history before but i know something about your relationship today you you know i think the reason that that has lasted is because even if you did persist in the beginning the person they discovered at the end was a person who actually did have standards yeah Uh, I, at the risk of, you know, more, uh, having the same perspective. I agree with that. I agree with that. I think the one thing I, I think I do disagree with a little bit is that I think women, actually it is, I think it's becoming more attractive for women to be persistent. Maybe it's, maybe it's, like, it's my perspective and it's anecdotal, but I don't see anything wrong, like, and probably you don't either. And I don't see anything wrong with,

someone who is being persistent, a woman that knows what she wants, and will tell you that. So, yeah. And I have to believe, I actually do believe, I think that that's changing because I think there is with earlier what we talked about on the podcast with changing economic, like that comes with a level of, oh, well, I can actually, you know, like get what I want. And I think men have to, a lot of men that are, you know, in a situation where they're finding that if I am attracted to that, that actually could be my benefit. If I'm attracted to somebody that is pursuing me and I don't find that unattractive, that widens my pool. And also, it's

kind of cool that women are able to, I don't have to be the only one who does things. And I, maybe it's just a feeling. It could totally be an anecdotal feeling, but I think that it's changing. I think you're not wrong. I think so much of it comes down to what's the source of that chasing like what's the what's the core of it if the core of it is i need you then we have a problem if the core of it is i'm doing this because you're wrong yeah there's something sexy about that there's something like that's the kind of energy that's you you realize okay this person's trying harder than i am they're not going to do it forever I can sense that because they're not coming from a, like, you know, weak, needy place.

And, and, you know, they seem to really think they're onto something and I'm starting to think they're onto something. Yeah. Like that is, Audrey wasn't not persistent. Yeah. Audrey was persistent, but she was persistent in a way that said, I know I have something. I know we have something. you're wrong, I'm right, but I'm not going to give you the benefit of the doubt in being a

moron who doesn't figure that out forever. And there were times where she tried harder than I did at 100%. And I think to me, what this always comes down to is a scale between pride and proactivity. And I think that scale is very, very important. And it's very important to be self-critical about where you fall on that scale. because if you go all the way to the end of the scale on proactivity, you're someone who becomes a masochist who gets taken advantage of and walked all over

and always chases and gets hurt. If you're on the other end of the scale at the very end of the spectrum on pride, you are someone who will die being able to say, I never got rejected. Good for me. but you never lived, you, you, you never put yourself, you know, in any risk. You never, you couldn't have even begun to see how many relationships could have been

available to you. Like, you just spent a life in full protection mode. And there are so many people who are too far on one side or the other. And I think that, you know, I've talked about this many times that I really value this word robustness, which is, you know, a measure of your ability. I think David White puts it, you know, something like your, your ability to meet the world and survive the encounter and that whether that's going, you know, reaching out to someone you like and asking them out, whether it's, you know, getting involved in a sport and losing, whether it's whatever, trying a business and failing, can you meet the world and survive the encounter?

And robustness is a measure of confidence. How can you go out there and, you know, get hurt or try something and it fail and survive the encounter? Well, people who have so much pride they never try are very low on the robustness scale. You know, I would say that there's a, your ability to go out there and push and try and be persistent, it was also a measure of your robustness, which I see as a measure of confidence in itself.

And I think anyone who spends too much time avoiding sending the text, you know, I'd never double text. I would never do that. Anyone who spends so much time obsessing over the tip-for-tat nature of who gave more, who's doing more, who's doing more, did I do give more than they did or what, is actually betraying their insecurity in how much they focus on those things. Because I know the more confident I've become in life, the more I'm willing for a time to be the one who puts in more effort. But

I also have the confidence today to know when that has become unrewarding and therefore to stop my efforts. But even in friendships today, I used to be someone who's very like, you know, while I don't want to be looking like I'm trying to be friends with them more than they're trying to be friends with me. And so I don't want to like send that text and ask them to coffee and they might not. Like I wouldn't have done that in the past. These days, I'm far more proactive over prideful in trying in relationships. And it served me very well because relationships have become available to me that never would have been available to me in times where I was less persistent.

So to that extent, I think you're right. It strikes me, everyone listening, that this is a really good opportunity to mention Matthew AI because one of the things that Matthew AI is really, really great at is giving practical advice for specific situations and if you are anything like me and you've had a realization in your life that you could stand to be more proactive than you have been even by five or 10 percent and you feel like you know maybe you've gone through life missing out on a lot of opportunities because you don't put yourself out there enough maybe you're a little too afraid of rejection maybe you feel like you don't even know really what putting yourself out there

more looks like. Maybe you overthink your texts or maybe you feel very sensitive when you try to get a bit more proactive and it doesn't go to plan. Matthew AI is really fantastic at giving practical contextual advice for these situations. If you haven't tried it, go check it out now at askmh.com. You get a few free questions anyway so you can just try it out and see what it does for you. people have their minds blown routinely by how good this tool is. And if you sign up for it, it remembers your conversations. You get your own dedicated number so you can text or call me or WhatsApp me anytime you want and get answers to your questions. So if you have not tried it yet and you know that you're not creating enough opportunity in your love life,

this is my invitation to you to go and try Matthew AI at ask mh.com. there's a kind of cynicism i think that is in dating right now relationships in general and we've even to an extent allowed that to kind of pervade our podcasts or some of the stuff that we make i'm curious if you think that we are in a truly unprecedented era of it being difficult to find love and that just the the culture, the mechanics, the things that put us in proximity to each other are causing true dysfunction when it comes to finding someone. I think we are. I, you know, it's been happening for a while. It's been happening, you know, since we got addicted to our phones, that has made things more difficult. You know,

it's true that our social skills to some extent to you know to greater or lesser degrees depending on the person have been eroded a lot of people now are simply not comfortable being anywhere without this device to pick up and look at you know if you you only have to just imagine standing in line for a coffee many people just feel genuinely odd standing there now without being able to pick up their phone. You only have to imagine your friend going to the bathroom at dinner in a restaurant and you don't have your phone on you and just sitting there and feeling deeply uncomfortable at the idea of just sitting there for a few minutes while you wait for your friend to come back. Do you think though that like we're kind of over-emphasizing

that challenge, I think a little bit in that if you look at a hundred years ago what were the challenges that people were facing to find love like there was you know major economic influences and the general freedom you know for people to choose who they love wasn't there why are we so like obsessed that now oh now it's really gotten bad and it seems almost arrogant i don't know what you think about that by the way i think that a hundred years ago the version of someone going to the bathroom and you're not knowing what to do it would have been lighting up a cigarette yes like that was the way you looked like you had something to do yeah uh it had other there were other issues a hundred years ago but the particular problem of our time i think is

this over stimulation that happens when we are able to look at on our phone and seemingly infinite buffet of people. Whether you're seeing them on a dating app or on Instagram, that conveyor belt just seems like it's endlessly producing new human beings that could be right for us. With each one, maybe being having something that the other one didn't. And so there is a kind of decision paralysis that I think happens today

that did not exist. before in the way that it does. I don't think we're not designed to see this many options and to, and by the way, to add to that, not just to see, like, I think of, okay, if we take the 100 years ago example, we're in our town, wherever we grew up, and we have access to whoever happens to be geographically where we live and we get used to the faces of those people we see we're seeing those people in real life so however attracted you may be is you're probably you probably have a pretty good gauge of how attracted you are because whoever you saw at the local shop today it's them that you

saw now we're not seeing them we're seeing their However, that person is filtering themselves on Instagram and everyone who's out there dating right now has, knows that experience, that lived experience of, I wonder what they actually look like in real life. I wonder how, you know, I've been on, and this was going back many years now, but even many years ago, I had the experience of going on a date, going to a coffee shop and not being able to find the person that I was supposed to be meeting for the date. I literally couldn't find this person

and it turns out she was in the coffee shop the whole time. I just walked past her a couple of times before realizing it was her because she looked so different in her pictures online. And I'm not saying that as a female only thing. Men are doing it too. Everyone to some extent is doing it, some far more than others.

but we are at like peak levels of distrust and even by the way now throw AI into that and it's a whole different ballgame because now you don't even know from someone's writing who they are because you you have no concept of whether they have written that themselves so until you meet someone in person like our trust levels are on the floor in dating right now and in life in general guys one of the most challenging things about modern dating is not just finding someone that we like which can be challenging all by itself but even once we have and we find someone who likes us back it still feels so difficult to get to the point of actually having a real committed relationship

with that person that's because of something called the investment gap it is the time in early dating where we are willing to give and invest and commit more than the other person is. I have put together a free training called From Casual to Committed, where I talk about how to overcome the investment gap. It is one of the most common things in the world right now. And I show you very specific things that you can do and say that actually start to progress the relationship in an intentional way that leads to real commitment. And I know of what I speak in this area, not just because I've been coaching people in this area for two decades of my life, but also because in the beginning of my relationship with my wife, Audrey, I was the one who is having

some fears around commitment. And some of the things I talk about in this training are things that she literally said and did with me that made all the difference to my ability to commit. It's amazing what the right language and the right actions can do in creating a relationship that actually goes the distance. I want to show you what they are in casual to committed, which you can watch for free right now at getcommitment.com. That link again is getcommitment.com. I have to tell you about something brand new that has never been possible before and is going to be a completely new way of finding love. It is called sync.

I said I would never create a dating app, and I haven't. What I have created is something I am far more excited about. It is an AI-driven matchmaking app that talks to you, gets to know you, understands you and what you want in your love life better than you even know yourself, and then recommends you matches,

based on knowing you at that deep level and the matches that sync recommends for you are people with whom it has decided you are likely to have deep compatibility with it has been trained by me as well as a ton of research on compatibility science attraction and personality science to get you results that actually make people you meet worth your time and we are even measuring success differently at sync by measuring our success not in the number of swipes but in the number of second offline dates we create and five year anniversaries if you want to be one of the first people to try sync we are going to be testing it in new york coming soon and there is a wait list at talk to sync.c sync is spelled sync talk to sync dot com and if you're not in new york but you want to be on

the wait list anyway. Don't worry. Once we've tested in New York, we will be looking to roll out to other cities so that you can try it too. Get on the waitlist now at talktosync.com and join what is a completely new way of finding love. You have an ability to project some trust onto your audience and women. And I'm curious. this, you know, can you nail down like a source of like maybe it was in your past or it was a moment where you, you kind of like felt like that you had a connection to certain people's viewpoints that, you know, in this case, generated your audience, women. And I'm just curious if maybe it's, maybe it's someone in your life or if it was an event in your life, but that

where you kind of felt like you had a resonance to, to women. And, and it gave, and it gave me that resonance or I started to notice that you started to notice it you started to notice that you had a kind of resonance god I don't know I when I first started out I was kind of dubbed like I don't know you know the the man whisperer or some version of that nonsense of like you're you know that was like the interesting thing about but to be fair at 21 years old doing this I needed something that was interesting about me because it was hardly going to be like decades and decades of life experience that I didn't have. So, you know, the kind of like the PR angle that I didn't even caught it, but it like came

to me was this like, oh, he's a guy and he knows men and how interesting that he. And I, even at the time, I thought that was a tacky angle. But it was a kind of in a way, a useful angle to get me through the door. but I can't you know that seems so stupid now that concept of you know I'm a guy so I know men and I'm going to tell you about men and whatever it's just silly I think in fact it's like it's not really very representative of who I've known right where it's like you're not like you're not like kind of like constantly you know identifying with the dude you have many masculine kind of traits about you and we can connect on that level but it's like there's a genuine kind of I

think connection with with your audience that a lot of people lack a lot of people lack empathy with you know people that maybe are gender wise different from them and you have that and I'm just curious if if like so so that was how you you know started that that was what you were branded as was so then was it was it after that that actually and and do you agree with that by the way what I'm positing about about you yeah I look I think um I come from a family of really uh amazing women like i come from really strong stock when it comes to women they're like you know right going back to like my great grandmother's like she she was alive while i was you know she died at 98 and she was like the toughest woman around she had a a giant anchor

tattoo on her arm and you know people could be afraid of her you know she was tough really really tough and then you know she she birthed this incredibly tough woman in my grandmother and then you know she birthed these twins in the form of my mom and my aunt and they're tough way like they're all you know women who i really respect in their ability to like you know you know weather the storm in life and but there but but there are also people who i identify with as people who didn't have you know who weren't taught the right things and they weren't given the opportunities that they should have been given and they weren't taught the right lessons when it came to men and so i think i've been able to get angry plenty of times in my career

about the what I see happening with women and to women and the way men talk about women or what they feel entitled to with women I'm I'm I don't have to dig deep for anger and that anger I think has served me very well because it's not come from a place of like deciding one day from a kind of virtue signaling place that I'm a feminist and then enjoying the bandwagon of being that person who's fighting for women and it came from a much more like a raw place in my life of being raised. I was raised by women. Like I was not, you know, I, for me, my background and my family, they're all from the East End. They're not, the men did not raise the kids like the men were not the men were somewhere all day and the women raised the kids and on

Friday night it was the sleepovers were at our house or my cousin's house and the women were the ones making the sleepovers happen and you know the weekends the adventures were the women taking us for our adventures and so like I was raised by women and and when I then see women have women like the women that raised me having a hard go of it it's not hard for me to relate that back to my own life and that's where that comes from for me so I don't it's never been hard for me to to relate to women in that way speaking of that that anger you know and kind of tying it back to where we started this is you know, the conflict between men and women that I think we've even been exploring as topic

on this podcast. There's like, there's a comment that I saw earlier today. And there's, there's tons of these. We've like, you know, seen these. And I kind of want to talk to you about like breaking it down. I have a little bit of a, of a theory or a lead in on it. But, okay, so from Dimitri 3876, this is from the episode, what's behind the male fear that women only care about money. Dimitri 3876 says, it's always about money. No matter how sophisticated tales women make it,

stable future, safety, smiley face. So like staying in that zone of anger, of kind of anger when, you know, it's not difficult for you to get angry about people mistreating people. I get kind of frustrated when I see comments like this, not because there's a kind of desire to remain in this distrust and remain in a reality that's worse than the reality that women actually are very nuanced and diverse and have

many interests and that there are many different types of people in the world. No, it is just about this. We are kind of, I think, trying to engage with men more, but when you see a comment like this, like, it's, it's kind of interesting, like, I don't know if you have the same feeling. I kind of want to bring them in and say, hey, you know what, it's, that, that's not the reality. The reality could be much better, but also the, just the bruskness and the, like, anger that's behind it makes it difficult to do anything but revile. Can we talk about, like, these, these guys in our comments, like, it's interesting that they're there and what do we say to them? What, what do we, how do we interact with them i i think anyone is capable of arriving at that place of pure just such

frustration and disillusionment at the the state of things and what they perceive to be that just that like universal truth that you you kind of uh you know you give up or you you you know you want nothing to do with the whole thing and it's a you know you can find examples of this everywhere really you can find the female example with men it's always about looks or it's always about age or it's always you know like there's totally we see that all the time yeah you can find and and you know I really I sympathize when I hear that I hear someone has had a lot of pain someone has been made to feel quite small. I don't know who buy, but, you know, they've also, I think, been around the wrong mentors. I don't think that that's someone with healthy mentors because

so much of what men end up believing came from their own childhood, whether it's watching their mum and the way their mum behaved or whether it's everything that their dad or the male role models in their lives told them their whole lives of truths about women and what women are like and and that gets carried over and you know at a certain point you know if you're mad that it's all about money there's a good chance that money is a trigger for you there's a good chance that money is an insecurity for you and that it's an area where you never quite feel good enough. And unfortunately, yes, it gets validated by, if you want to find evidence of women caring too much about money, you will find it. That's, there's plenty of it. And there's plenty of women

who will leave this guy to get with that guy who has more money. Like, there's those women are out there. But when you've become convinced that that's the only reality that exists and that there's not also an entirely different reality of women whose value system does not revolve around money, I can tell you, my wife's sister has been in town with us for the last week. She's awesome and she's in a happy relationship and she's strong she's ambitious herself you know she's a top lawyer like she's a long list of wonderful qualities i can tell you right now this is not someone who who's where money factors anywhere near the top of the list in their value system. It does not register. This is someone who believes in having enough to live a comfortable

life. And beyond that, does not care. And I always wonder, like, I don't have to look far in my life to find women who are not making decisions based on who has the most money. Like, it does not, I don't have to go far at all. I suspect you don't either. I don't. I suspect Harrison doesn't either like who are these men who are lacking any examples of the opposite of what they're talking about that that's what I think they're either they have either truly embedded themselves in a world of people that I want nothing more to to grab them by the hand and pull them into a different social circle and a different network of people and say look or they are they are willfully ignoring the the examples that would be antithetical to everything that

they've decided to believe and here's even more i mean we got a couple emails from that episode of women who were coming to us to say hey look this is my story of of how it's not true um i think that this one is very interesting uh hey matthew audrey and team this episode really resonated with me. Though I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, I make 150K in a major Texas city, about three times when my boyfriend earns when we first met. He was living with his grandmother while I owned my own home, and I made the deliberate choice to look beyond those differences and see the person, not the circumstance. She goes on to kind of talk about this life where she makes much more than her counterpart, and that she says that she's found someone that she's

deeply in love with. He's attractive. We share the same values and care for each other in a way that's rare. It's just that navigating love, gender expectations, and money at the same time is more complex than I ever managed. So she kind of is talking about like those navigations are there, but the rare love is the important part about that. And that speaks to her maturity that she's not, she's not saying, as you say, there are no dynamics. There are some dynamics that they're like she's learning to navigate or has learned to navigate but that sounds like a mature healthy person who understands what her north star is and her north star isn't i have i must at any cost find someone who has the same uh earning power as the same lifestyle as i do or more that's

clearly not the way she's making decisions and you know if you want to resent if you want to be a guy and someone for even acknowledging that there were there are some dynamics to figure out well this like that's cuts both ways like there are always dynamics that you certain things that you make peace with that you decide okay I'm not you know as like a a woman saying I resent a guy for being attracted to a younger woman but acknowledging that like he's with me and he's made a conscious choice to choose someone who's his age or older when okay the option maybe was there for him to date someone younger but he chose no I'm I'm choosing someone who I have an incredible connection with someone who I think is attractive but yes is not 10 years

younger and and like it's we we decide certain things in life because we go this is more important. It's not like, yes, this person might be have more money and there might be something fun about that or it might be some make life easier in some way. This person might be more attractive and initially there might have been a different kind of sex appeal that I felt initially with it. But you know what? This is who I want a life with. And if you're mad at people for like even having those thoughts, then you're kind of just mad at life. Because people have those thoughts. And I, I, I, I do think to almost in a way shine some light on women too, I do think that what has

the changes that have happened in recent decades, where women, you know, are more educated, more women coming out of universities than men, where the earning power of women has gone way up and there's many, many women out-earning men. And like all of these changes, which I see as nothing but positive, require evolution on both sides. Because you naturally have women whose standards have gone up, which they should have. There's a movie. I remember watching a movie about the East End of London, where all my family is from. And I remember in this movie, It was set in the, I want to say it was set in the 70s. But the guy says to the wife, like, they're having a big argument and she's frustrated about

something in their relationship. And he's like, what, you know, what's so bad about our relationship? I put food on the table. I've never raised a hand to you. And she says to him, like, never raised a hand to me. That's how it should be. And it's like, if we've evolved to the point where women's standards have gotten to the point where now it's not enough that a guy just earned.

a paycheck and isn't abusive. Good. But that doesn't just leave men wondering, okay, some of my regular ways of impressing someone are no longer as valuable. Like, I can, I have a decent job, for example. I, you know, I'm a generally decent human being. Like, that's not enough anymore. I'm sorry, but it's, or rather, it's not even that it's not enough. It's that women who don't need you for a paycheck and have a completely different level of freedom naturally are going to be saying, well, what, you know, I'm looking for more. So men have a long way to go in getting comfortable with that. But women also have like some soul search. to do, because, or at least the women who are now completely rewriting what it is they want

in relation to themselves, they have some soul searching to do, because you're going to have to get really clear. When you say, like, I want a guy who earns what I earn, why? Like, why is that so important? Is it as important as you once decided? it is like what you have to get clear on what you're actually looking for now that you you know you have the ability to decide you have the responsibility to decide as well and i think that that what is interesting to kind of take it to this guy who who commented is that we can trust that choice we can believe that that choice could be made from very you know good reasons and It's like, I want to choose to be in a world where someone is going to value me, even with all the choices in the world, like you were already saying, all the choices in the world, they're going to value me if I have a connection with them.

They're going to value me if I am in touch with who I am, what makes me special. And I don't want to live in a world where it's now that people have a choice, they're always going to be. choose the best thing if that makes sense and yeah i i i'm i'm glad that there are people in the comments that are that are expressing this in a way because i would like to invite them and i'm sure you would too to like believe in that better alternative on both sides and i think people have to recognize that it might at a certain point say something about the choices you you're making that everyone you're choosing cares the most about money at some point you have to take some responsibility for that because you are whether you admit it or not if that's your

truth every time you date you are playing in a certain world you are playing with a certain kind of individual and we rather than shaming all of women or frankly all of men because the choices you're making keep bringing up people who only value X you might have to take some responsibility for why you keep being drawn to people like that because other people exist and is there something about those other people that you have some kind of contempt for that means that you're never entertaining them i i it just i could have gone through my whole life getting steamrolled if i wanted to i could have gone through my whole like i've been hurt i've been heartbroken i've been uh uh uh broken up with for somebody who

you know, more looked to the part or was the part or whatever. Like, I know, I, I think sometimes people talk as if, like, no one else knows any pain. And the reality is, like, I've, I've been through the heartbreak of feeling like, not only did I get dumped, but I got dumped for someone who was everything that I didn't feel like I was. And it sucks, but at those points, you kind of make a choice. Am I going to spend the rest of my life trying to get the person who dumped me in another form? Like that person, but just with another face and another name? Or am I going to realize that there is a game being played here that I actually don't want to participate in again and I want to participate in a

different kind of game with a different kind of human being and and if when you do that you have to check yourself and your own judgments and your own hidden contempt for this group of people over here who are playing a very different game who maybe at one point or another you decide were uncool didn't quite like they weren't the cheerleader or the football captain or this or that or whatever like if there's if you start going towards another direction a different kind of human being and you start finding some contempt there then now now you're on to something why is it you have such contempt for the and why is it you you are so hell bent on getting these people over here that apparently treat you so badly and decide every time that you're not rich

enough or tall enough or this enough or whatever because they're just not the only people that exist and if you think they are you're not paying attention yeah uh yeah 100% um you know earlier we spoke about the women in your life your mom pauline is one of the most lovely people in the entire world. I've had the pleasure of meeting her and interacting with her over the last year. You know, every time that she comes in through the door, like, oh, how are you love? Like, gives me a kiss on my cheek. And I'm just curious from your point of view, this is something I've been wanting to ask you for a while. Like, are you concerned that I'm now her new favorite son? Well, the problem is you also enjoy. So there's this English dish for everyone listening called pie and mash.

it's a very it's not even the kind of dish that you could ask people in england if they knew about it because it's not even a like nationwide treasured dish it's like a local east end of london kind of dish that that is very very regional and it's like old Dickensian food the liquor pie and mash and liquor see you even know the lingo by the way it's not it's like a meat pie and a side of mash and you pour over it what's called liquor which doesn't mean alcohol it means this sort of parsley sauce yeah this glutinous kind of like thick stodgy parsley green sauce it the whole thing looks like something that belongs in a dr suce cartoon yeah and it's a problem that you even got taken for pie and mash when you were in england for our team retreat yeah and you really enjoyed it

and you cleaned your plate i did i couldn't i couldn't do the two pie two match It was too much for me that day. I think I did one pie. So when you go into a pie and mash shop, you say you want a two and two and a one or a three and a one or a three and a two. And that basically equates to how many pies, how many mash. And they only take cash. Yeah. So you now, I could be replaced because even like you could go home to mom.

She'd take you for pie and mash. And we'd been talking about it for months. There's very little at this point that I can offer that you. you can't well i'm glad that you're you're a good eater my mom loves a good eater yeah well i'm i'm glad that you're coming to to terms with that um if you have enjoyed this episode and you'd like to see us do you know maybe one of these every few weeks every once a month maybe something like that let us know podcast at matthewhussy dot com and if you were listening to this going i've got something i'd like to challenge matthew on and i'd like to challenge matthew on and i'd like

to use David as my vehicle. I'm your vessel. Then email us podcast at Matthew Hussie.com. And by the way, even if you just have comments that you want to make that you'd like David to read out, email us. We'd love to hear from you. And let's know if you enjoyed this because it's a first time doing it and we want your feedback. Thank you so much.

We'll see you next time. Thank you.