Introduction:
If you’ve been listening to these podcasts and applying our advice, then you’ll eventually reach a stage where you actually have a choice in the women you can hook up with (or you may already be there, if so, good for you). When that happens, there are certain types of women you should look for and hook-up with, and others you need to avoid (or pay the price).
Luckily, you can benefit from our experience, because we’ve been with all types.
By the end of this episode you’ll know what to look out for in order to find great women who are open to hooking up, and you’ll also know what the big negative warning signs are – and the potential costs of ignoring them.
Podcast:
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Video:
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Key takeaways:
Once you fix your own issues and you’ve started to cultivate attractive traits, you’ll be in a position where you can choose the women you most want to be with.
There are a lot of traits that you should look for (and lots that you should look to avoid) that are important not just for long-term relationships but short-term hookups as well.
The first thing, obviously, is “Is she hot?” Focus on what you think is hot, rather than everyone else. If you think she’s hot, then you’re fine.
Find women who are interested in hookups. Don’t waste your time trying to convince women who are seeking boyfriends and husbands to hook up with you.
One indicator that she’s into hooking up is how she talks about her previous partners. If she talks about “this guy I was hanging out with” as opposed to “my boyfriend at the time” then she’s more likely to be into short-term hookups.
Some more traits that correlate well with short-term mating: political liberalism, openness to new experiences, whether or not she goes travelling.
Also, look at how she’s dressed. If she’s wearing a low-cut red dress she’s more likely to be looking to hook up.
Note: just because a woman wants to hook up does NOT mean that she wants to sleep with any random guy.
Visible tattoos (and the location of them) also correlate highly with openness to short-term mating, as does smoking.
Is she wearing a wedding ring? Don’t forget to check. Most guys are usually clueless about this.
None of these are perfect indicators. But they’re all clues that you need to read together, and apply to the situation you’re in. This is about playing the odds.
Things to avoid: bright red lipstick, big hoop earrings, feather boas. These are indicators that she may not be the best girl to hook up with.
A lot of things that indicate craziness also indicate that she’s open to sex. Crazy girls can be great fun to hook up with if she’s blowing you in the bathroom, but there will be a price to pay for the crazy.
There’s a reason that the median number of sexual partners for men is higher than for women. It’s because there are some outlier women who are having sex with EVERYBODY. The woman who are sleeping with 10x or 20x the average are usually crazy, and not in a good way. They can cause problems, and if you’re hooking up with a lot of women you will inevitably run into some of these types of women.
These women tend to be low in terms of conscientiousness and high impulsivity, so make sure you always wear a condom for starters.
High impulsivity also means she’s more likely to throw things at you, grab a knife, or slash your tires.
Not all women who are sexually adventurous want to have abortions or take the morning after pill, so there are pregnancy issues to deal with as well.
Your reputation could be adversely affected – sexually open women tend to be more open in terms of talking about their sexual encounters to others as well, so other people will hear about it. This can affect you if people look down on you for hooking up with her, or if the vast majority of girls who are normal and stable want to avoid you because you’re associated with crazy girls.
If other guys warn you about certain girls, pay attention. Don’t think you can deal with the challenge, or you can change her. Just get out.
Women with drug problems are terrible. They’ll take risks, lie, cheat, steal, and then try to rationalize their behavior.
Physical danger is another concern. And that danger doesn’t usually come from her, it comes from her father, brother, crazy ex-boyfriend, or some jealous guy that she friendzoned who gets mad at you for hooking up with her.
If there are any big, flashing warning signs, then pay attention to them.
None of this is to say that you shouldn’t hook up with lots of women. You just need to know what the possible consequences are if you do it. If you swim in shark-infested waters, you’re going to get bitten sooner or later.
We’ve said this before: keep your mouth shut about your sex life and who you’re sleeping with. It doesn’t make you safer and it doesn’t do you any good with women.
Try and find out a bit about the girl’s history or family when you’re talking to her. If she has a bunch of crazy ex-boyfriend stories, that’s a red flag.
Links from this episode
In academic terms, openness to hooking up is measured by the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory.
There are a lot of guys who hook up with women using Couchsurfing (not that we recommend it). For example, see this Business Insider article
This data from the CDC show the median number of sexual partners for men (6.1) and women (3.6) aged 25-44.
Toxoplasmosis, the danger that every crazy cat lady brings with her.
For a great example of how protective family can be, check out this scene from Bad Boys II.
Footloose: this movie is set in the Midwest for a reason.
Podcast Audio Transcription:
Tucker:
Alright. On this episode of The Mating Grounds, first off, we’re being joined in-studio by our third writer of the book, Nils Parker. He’s normally not in-studio, and this is pretty cool. But this is more important to the guys out there, obviously, than any of the three of us, is what we’re talking about. Today, we’re going to talk about maybe the most important thing that you need to start thinking about once you get good at dealing with women, which is which women to pick. So, we’ve had a lot of podcasts, and most of these have, admittedly, focused on how to fix shit that either you’re fucked up about, guys, or how to get better at things that make you more attractive. I know that there’s certain guys who think, “Well, I’m fucked up and I have these problems and I’m bad with women, etc.”, right? And that’s all true, for most of you, but once you get that fixed, what you’re going to start seeing is, the dynamic shifts. Instead of being desperate to get any women to talk to you, you’re now in a situation where you get to start picking women, where you have a range of possibilities available to you, and you want to find the best women as opposed to finding any women. Okay? So, to reaffirm, I want to make this clear. We have spent so much time telling you how to fix what’s wrong and how to be more attractive not because you’re a bad person and women are amazing, but because being attractive not just gets you girls at all, but it gives you options with women, which is the best situation you want to be in. Now, everything we’ve told you about your traits still applies, but it’s time to flip the logic and start paying attention to those traits when talking about women. So, Dr. Miller, let’s review real quick, what are some of the major traits that guys need to think about with women? Obviously, the first one that every guy thinks about is, “Is she hot?” Clear as day, right?
Geoff:
Yeah. Is she hot? So, that’s kind of the indicator of youth, fertility, is she going to make a good partner in terms of survival and living a long time? Most guys are pretty good instinctively at picking physical attractiveness in women. We don’t have to work that hard at it. We’re pretty well-calibrated by the time we’re in high school.
Tucker:
We don’t need to tell you what’s a hot girl. In fact, you know what? That brings up a good point. Guys, you know what a hot girl is for the most part, physically? The girl that you think is hot. I don’t mean this in the most absolute, relativistic sense, but if you think a girl’s hot, that’s more than enough for her to be hot for you. There are a lot of girls that I don’t think are hot that other guys think are beautiful and vice-versa. I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about what everyone else thinks is hot. Worry about what you think is hot and that’s it. That’s all you need to worry about. What we’re going to spend most of this podcast talking about are the other things and how to pick women. So, what are some of those big ones? Mental health, right? What else? Intelligence, kindness, openness…
Geoff:
Willpower, conscientiousness, and then all of that stuff like the social proof, the social status, the aesthetic proof – not just her physical beauty, but her sense of style and clothing and her apartment and all of that. And we’re going to walk you through kind of flipping the adaptive logic of – we’ve already explained why your degree of willpower is important to her in terms of how good a partner or future dad you’ll make, but a lot of the same principles apply to you in terms of picking her. There are all kinds of hidden costs and benefits to these mental traits, moral traits, social traits, that you’re not very tuned into yet if you don’t have a lot of experience with women, but that’ll be amazingly important even for short-term mating, even for one-night stands, a lot of these things really matter. Not just in terms of making you have a great time with a woman, but avoiding all sorts of trouble that can happen.
Tucker:
Right. Yes. We’re going to get to trouble. Women to avoid will be a big part of this podcast, but I think you brought up a good point. There are basically two types of – I don’t want to say there are two types of women, but there are two types of decisions that guys make when evaluating women, I think, so we’re going to break down the podcast into those two decisions. The two are one-night stand or very short-term mating and then the second type is any future beyond one or two physical interactions, right? I think they’re very different decision processes for guys, and let’s recognize that there are a lot of guys who just want short-term relationships, physical interactions only. If you’re in that stage in your life, that’s totally fine. You have a much broader field. It’s much easier to pick. If you want a future, then it becomes a little bit more complicated, you need to pay more attention to more things. Like we’ve said, women are very selective about who they have sex with but compete to have boyfriends. Men are very competitive to try and have sex, but are very selective about who they date. So, here’s where the dynamic starts to flip. But let’s start with the one-night stands. So, what are some of the specific examples, Dr. Miller, of what men should look for in women if they’re looking for short-term hookups?
Geoff:
I think the most important thing is a small set of traits to watch out for, sort of red flags and warning signs—
Tucker:
Do we want to talk about girls to go for and then girls to avoid? Let’s start with girls to go for. Right?
Geoff:
Yeah. Okay. So, women to go for – if you’re interested in just short-term fun, would basically be a) the women who are most likely to be into that, right?
Tucker:
Right. So, to be real clear about this, if you just want to fuck, find girls that just want to fuck!
Nils:
Put that one on the list.
Tucker:
Right. “Just want to fuck. Oh, that’s genius. I get so much value from this podcast.” That should be obvious, but we have to say that because there are guys who won’t actually understand that. We get emails about this all the time. A guy’s like, “I met this girl and she kind of wants a boyfriend and thinking about marriage, and I just want to hook up. What can I say to make her just want to hook up?” No! Nothing! Leave her alone! Clear as day. So, let’s make this very clear. If you just want to have sex, find girls that just want to have sex. Now, the question then becomes, what are attributes in girls – like, if a girl doesn’t say, “Hey. I just want to have sex. I don’t want to have a boyfriend,” what are things I’m looking for in a girl that make it more likely that she’s just looking for a short-term thing?
Geoff:
I mean, what we talk about psychology is that men and women differ in what’s called socio-sexuality, which is our pretentious academic term for promiscuity, basically. How many sexual partners does someone tend to have over their lifetime? Per year? What’s their likelihood of being interested in short-term mating? So, for females, their socio-sexuality, we know, tends to correlate with…the best predictor of the future is the past. How many guys has she been with? You can’t just directly ask a woman that, but—
Nils:
But you can see it in her eyes.
Geoff:
Maybe, Nils, if you have a good radar for that. But a lot of it is about how she talks about her ex-boyfriends or even calls them boyfriends. If she says, “Oh, I was down in Cancun and met this guy. We had a great three days together,” that’s information, right? If she’s like, “We had a great three days together, but then he didn’t call and I never felt passion like that—“
Tucker:
“And I tracked him down in British Columbia and he didn’t seem excited about seeing me!”
Nils:
And word choice is a big part of that. They’ll never talk about “my date” or “my relationship.” It’s “this guy I’m seeing”, “this guy I’m talking to”, “this guy I met”, “this guy I’m hanging out with.” Like, “You know, this guy…” It’s like, you were blowing him every place you could get.
Tucker:
Yeah. And he was ignoring you otherwise.
Nils:
Yes.
Tucker:
What are some other things that correlate with – what do you call it, high socio—
Geoff:
Socio-sexuality. Well, political liberalism, honestly, correlates pretty well with that. General openness to experience, so women who are willing to travel and have open sex-positive attitudes about political topics, and if you get engaged in a political discussion…This is kind of a no brainer, but if a woman has very conservative political and religious views, she’s not as likely to be high in socio-sexuality and to be looking for a short-term mate, so you can kind of test the waters even by going by…Obama supporter or Romney supporter. I’m not saying all Obama supporters are promiscuous.
Tucker:
Right. It doesn’t code one to one. It’s a set of traits.
Geoff:
It is a correlation.
Tucker:
Like, if she’s in a lot of church youth groups and stuff like that. Of course. Now, listen. Don’t get me wrong. There are a subset of those girls who say all that sort of stuff and then are fucking dirty dudes in the alley, like, guys like me. No doubt. I’ve fucked those girls.
Nils:
But who are super stealthy about it, typically.
Tucker:
They’re very stealthy about it, and…look, you can take that strategy. Not a super positive strategy. Not one that’s easy to execute unless you tend to be the type of guy that has a lot of the attributes that women look for in short-term mating. So, not really recommended, right?
Geoff:
Also, the way she talks about other women. So, if she does a lot of slut-shaming towards other women, then she’s got a big moral issue about that, right?
Tucker:
Well, she has an issue. Maybe not a moral issue, but an issue.
Geoff:
Yeah. So, she doesn’t want that to be flipped around on her, right?
Tucker:
At least in public. Right. Yeah. So, if you’re talking to a girl like that, best course is to avoid her. If you’re looking for short-term relationships, that’s not the girl you want to deal with. But if you still want to keep dealing with her, then make sure she knows that nothing you do with her anyone will ever find out about. So, political liberalism, openness. Traveling’s actually a big one, I think, you kind of skipped over. I was reading something about this. There’s an entire subculture of couch surfers where it’s dudes who only…you know couchsurfing.com or whatever? They’ll only let girls stay at their place, and they basically pick and it’s basically the girls who are going to fuck them, and they can tell. I forget where I read it. It was this really skeevy article, but it kind of made me laugh ‘cause I was like, these guys are actually at least learning something. I mean, if you want to be a skeevy dude, this is the way to do it. They looked on their Couch Surfing profiles, and if the girl had stayed with a bunch of guys and all the guys wrote positive reviews, like, “Oh, she’s so fun and open and we had such a good time,” she’s looking for guys to sleep with and then she’s basically picking guys in each city where she can stay at their place, sleep with them, and they get a free apartment, they’ll show them around, etc. Things like that. It doesn’t mean every girl who couch surfs is a slut. Nothing like that. But girls who travel, definitely.
Geoff:
Also, honestly, how a woman dresses has a lot to do with signaling what she’s interested. Other women understand this a lot better than guys do. So, there’s a recent study about how if a woman’s wearing a red dress, other women pick up on that signal and they’re like, “Oh, my god. She’s out for short-term mating. Be careful.” Their defenses go up.
Tucker:
Women get catty.
Nils:
She’s on the hunt.
Tucker:
Right. Yeah.
Geoff:
And a lot of guys are oblivious to this, so bear in mind, if a woman’s looking for short-term mating, that does not mean she’s indiscriminate. That does not mean she wants to sleep with any random guy. In fact, women have more power of choice when they’re just doing short-term than long-term. So, don’t go into this rape culture bullshit about, “Oh, if she’s wearing a low-cut red dress, that means she wants any guy.” No, no, no. That contradicts everything we have said for the past fifteen podcasts. But, it does mean she’s probably more into it than if she’s in a gray burlap sack and Birckenstocks.
Tucker:
Right. By the way, I’m not sure if this podcast is going to run before or after the one we do about the differences between short- and long-term mating and what women look for attractively. Because for the most part, we talked about this before, about 80-90% of what makes you attractive is the same for short- and long-term, but there are definitely a set of things at the margins that are very important for short-term mating that are not that important for long-term and vice versa, right? There’s a reason why certain types of girls have their secret, naughty, hookup boyfriends and then they have the guys they’re dating that they want to marry. Not all women do this, but quite a few, and they’re very different guys. Like, I’ve been both guys on both sides, and I’ve seen how it works. So, make sure if you’re at a bar and you’re looking for short-term mating and you see a girl in a red dress, you need to think to yourself, “Do I have the set of attributes she’s looking for? Am I maximizing my short-term mating attractiveness attributes?” So, if you are tall, dark, handsome, strong, muscular, good-looking, you can signal social status, at least in that small group, etc. You’re verbally skilled in whatever that sort of social group is. Not necessarily smart in any of these things, then you’re probably going to do well. If you’re a really intellectual pensive professor who has all of these genius-level books but you don’t know how to order a drink at a bar, that girl in the red dress might be into you at a conference. She’s not going to be into you at this bar. Right? Generally speaking. Not always, but generally speaking. Is there anything else you should look for in women?
Geoff:
Visible tattoos tend, I think, to correlate to openness in short-term mating, although there’s no research on this.
Tucker:
There’s no research on that?
Geoff:
No.
Tucker:
Wow. I would say definitely.
Geoff:
Actually, I do have data on that, and…yeah. I haven’t published it, but yeah.
Tucker:
You’ve actually done the research.
Geoff:
Well, we’ve asked 200 undergrad women at UNM how many tattoos do you have and we also have sexual history, so there definitely was a correlation there.
Tucker:
How big?
Geoff:
A moderate correlation. Probably about .3 or something.
Nils:
Okay, so what were you correlating?
Geoff:
Number of tattoos and number of past sexual partners.
Nils:
See, I would be interested not based on the number of tattoos but location. If you’ve got girls who’ve got tribal sleeves, those girls are…that’s like that crunchy Portland thing where the sexual morals aren’t quite the same from short-term to long-term as the girl with the fucking sun on her belly button, you know? It’s one tattoo. It’s not fifteen, but that’s a big bulls eye.
Tucker:
Right. So, we can’t spend too much on the podcast, ‘cause we could talk about all the different tattoos and girls forever. Maybe we’ll do that as a separate thing, but this is one of those things that as a guy, you should start looking for. What are the things in my social group or the places I hang out that indicate girls are into short-term mating?
Geoff:
One last thing. Is she wearing a wedding ring or an engagement ring? You would not believe how oblivious guys are to this. The first thing that a woman notices about a guy apart from body size and faces, she looks at the ring finger, right? Is he available? You wouldn’t believe how many guys I’ve talked to, they’ll meet a woman in a bar and you ask them, “Was she wearing a ring?” “I don’t know.”
Tucker:
Dude. That’s happened to me so many times. I’d be hitting on some girl and she’d kind of seem into me, and then she’s like, “Oh, my goodness. If I was single, I would take you home right now.” I’m like, “What do you mean you’re not single?!”
Nils:
“Why are you talking to me like a human?”
Tucker:
Right! “What’s wrong with you? I don’t want to talk to you. You’re married. Get out of here.” And then of course, it’s always like, “Well, is it a good marriage?” “Yes.” Like, that’s worked once or twice in my whole life. The worst.
Nils:
Where does environment play into that?
Geoff:
I mean, if she’s going to a bar to meet somebody and she’s still wearing her wedding ring, she doesn’t really…they can take them off.
Tucker:
Well, going to a bar and going to a bar to meet somebody are not the same thing. I can’t tell you how many bachelorette parties I’ve dealt with where it’s like…if there’s ten girls, three or four of them are looking to hook up that night. By the way, that’s a big sign. Bachelorette parties, okay? There’s at least a percentage, and they might be the ugly, single ones. You never know. But there’s usually one or two who have a boyfriend or husband or whatever, depending on how old they are and the dynamic, and every now and then, it’s going to be the bachelorette who’s doing it, which is always the dirty, fun story that’s like, “Oh, wow. Some dude doesn’t realize who he’s marrying.” But look. We can probably do a whole podcast on things that we’ve seen anecdotally that tell you that a woman’s hooking up. Like, I would say if she smokes, done. She’s fucking somebody. In fact, I know there’s data on that. It’s not a super strong correlation, about the same as tattoos, but girls who smoke tend to have more sexual partners, etc. Again, guys. There’s not one thing that you can look at. Guys all the time are like, “Oh, what can I know a girl’s into me?” or “What can I know a girl wants to hook up?” You can’t know. There’s not one thing that’s going to tell you. It’s sort of like reading body language. There’s not one tell. There’s a suite of tells and they pair up with who that person is and all these. You have to actually think and you have to actually have some experience and you have to apply it to the situation in life. There’s not a fucking checklist, okay? Life’s not a video game.
Geoff:
Yeah. We’re just talking about playing the odds here. Visible signals from a distance where you can assess, “Do I want to approach the woman who’s dressed like an Amish virgin or the woman with tattoos who’s smoking and has—
Tucker:
And rode up on the Harley and is sitting at the bar with her legs open. Okay.
Geoff:
It’s still statistics, but if you play the odds, it’ll…
Tucker:
We should talk about Bayesian logic in regards to hooking up. I bet the nerds would get that. Alright, so those are the things you should look for when you’re picking women for short-term mating. What are the things you should avoid when you’re picking women for short-term mating? I feel like I have a lot of experience in this subject.
Nils:
I feel like we should refer to your anecdotal history.
Tucker:
Alright, let’s see. So, the first I avoid – and this is me; this is after a lot of experience – is super bright red lipstick. I don’t mean red lipstick. A dark red or even a medium shade of red is fine. Great. But once you get brighter than, let’s say, cherry red, you’re looking a girl who is crazy. That doesn’t mean that it’s bad short-term. You might have a great night with her, okay? But in my experience, I avoid those girls. The other big signal for me are big earrings. Big hoop earrings, like, big. Any earring that’s bigger than the ear? I don’t know of an exception that I’ve ever dealt with in my life where that girl’s not crazy.
Nils:
Feather boas. Because that says “I’m fun” when in reality it says “I’m bat shit insane.”
Tucker:
And a whore. We could tell the feather boa story. We won’t get into that. God forbid your wife ever listens to this, right? So, yeah. Feather boas are a huge one and here’s the thing. Here’s what’s hard for guys. Guys, a lot of the things that indicate crazy in short-term partners also indicate very open to sex. So, here’s what’s going to happen, guys. This is especially for younger guys who have a lot of energy, like going to bars, want to hook up with a bunch of women, right? You kind of fall into my category. You’re going to, at the beginning of your short-term hookup stage – let’s say it starts in college…In college, short-term hookups are different. We’re generally talking about young professional on. You’re going to think it’s awesome. You’re going to think crazy girls are fun, ‘cause they want to – “Oh, this girl blew me in that bathroom! So fucking cool!” And you’re going to think you’re awesome and you’re going to think they’re fun, right? No. They are a disaster. I’m not telling you not to hook up with them from a shaming perspective or from a moral perspective. What I’m telling you is that there is a price to pay for crazy.
Nils:
There is a blast radius of that one-night stand.
Tucker:
Yes. And you might not suffer it two or three or four times. You might get through a bunch of crazy girls and think, “Oh, the sex is amazing and I don’t call them again and it’s no problem,” and then you hit that one and she burns your fucking house down. I have dealt with a lot of crazy women, which obviously says something about me and where I was at that point in my life, as well. So, I’m not trying to sit here and say oh, I’m some perfect guy and I just somehow came across crazy women. No. That’s not how it works. When you’re a young dude and you’re going out looking to hook up, it doesn’t make you crazy necessarily, but a lot of the women that you’re going to end up hooking up with are going to have a lot more sexual experience than you, right? It’s not you. It’s them. That’s one of those hard truths. It took me years to understand. There’s a reason why. Guys, listen to this. There’s a reason why the average number of sexual partners for men is higher than the average number of sexual partners for women. Statistically, it seems like this doesn’t make any fucking sense. How could it make sense that the average number for men is, like, ten and the average number for women is, like, seven or whatever it is? You’d think it has to be the same. No. It’s not the same, because women have these extreme outliers. I’m not even talking about prostitutes. I’m talking most women are at six, but then you have this portion of women who are 50+ or 100+ and those girls are the reason why most men are not at six, they’re at ten, ‘cause those other four to five are with these girls who are fucking everybody, okay? Those girls, generally speaking – a sexually free girl is like…she’s double or triple the normal. The girls who are ten times the normal or twenty or thirty or fifty times the normal, generally are crazy and usually not fun crazy. They’re fucked-up crazy, okay?
Nils:
They’re the fill-the-hole-in-my-soul crazy.
Tucker:
Right. Exactly. That can mean borderline personality disorder, which we’ve talked about on the podcast with Dr. Berlin. That can be toxoplasmosis which is, like, crazy cat lady. It’s a real disease. That can be manic-depressive, that can be drug addiction. These are real fucking problems. Not just, “Oh, that bitch be crazy.” No. These are real mental issues, right? So, I’m not telling you you have to go out and give a girl a Myers-Briggs test to figure out if she’s crazy or not or something, but understand that if you meet most girls and they like you but they’re not fucking you in the bathroom, and all of a sudden, this one girl’s really into you and she’s pulling you into the bathroom to blow you, I’m not saying say no, but understand if you do that a lot, there will be a price to pay. In fact, in my career, a large portion of the stories in my books are about the price I paid for fucking crazy girls. It seems funny to a lot of you and it is, but it’s because you weren’t the one that had to pay the price. I mean, we could talk about…
Geoff:
Well, let’s talk about some of the specific forms of blowback, ‘cause I think it’s…if I was listening to this and I was twenty, I loved crazy women. They were so dramatic and fascinating and I was a psych major, so of course I loved crazy women. But it took me so long to learn what that blast radius could consist of. One thing is those kinds of women tend to be pretty impulsive, like low-conscientiousness. That means they typically have sex with a lot of guys and not always safe sex, right? So, one thing is sexually-transmitted infections.
Tucker:
Okay. Right. That’s easy, though, you wear a condom. I can hear dudes right now, and I said this too. Wear a condom. Fine. but you’re totally right. Low impulsivity also means when you have an argument, she might grab a fucking knife, right? Or she’s going to break your shit or she’s going to slash your tires or she’s going to freak out at a restaurant. And listen, this is not all women. This is a small percentage of women. Most women are perfectly fine and normal, but the ones that aren’t, low impulsivity means she can’t control herself.
Geoff:
No. High impulsivity.
Tucker:
Right, I’m sorry. High impulsivity means she can’t control herself. That’s really sexy to you when you want to fuck a girl in the alley. It’s not sexy when she’s coming at you with a fucking bat.
Geoff:
Yeah. Or when you’re having to bail her out of jail at 4am in Oakland ‘cause she was caught with her coke dealer or whatever.
Tucker:
Oh, I wouldn’t take that call. That’s your fault for taking that call. What are some others? High impulsivity’s a good one.
Geoff:
So, STIs. But also, how the woman’s going to deal with pregnancy, right? So, if something happens, if the condom breaks, if she gets pregnant, that’s going to raise a whole bunch of issues. Don’t assume that just because a woman is sexually adventurous that she’s going to go take the morning-after pill or have an abortion. If she’s borderline, for example, she might feel very, very attached to you and she might want to rook you into being the baby daddy.
Nils:
A little baby leverage.
Geoff:
Right. Baby leverage.
Tucker:
Yep. Especially if you’re highly attractive, you have a lot of resources, etc.
Geoff:
That can ruin your life forever. So, that’s one big blowback cost. Another is just social reputation. The women who aren’t that worried about their own sexual reputations are going to be less inhibited about telling other people, “Oh, yeah. I hooked up with that guy and I’m going to spill all the secrets.”
Tucker:
“His dick is not very big.” Or whatever. Or, “His dick is huge,” or it could be whatever. Or, “Oh, he didn’t call me a whore during sex. He’s such a pussy.” Good or bad, they’re going to talk about you.
Nils:
And depending on how far down the crazy train she is, it’s like, “We hit it off. We’re meant to be together. We have so much in common,” and now you’re suffering the reputational effects of “How do you have anything in common with this girl?”
Geoff:
Yeah. Other women notice which guys tend to get sucked into the crazy woman sphere, and there’s a kind of second-order avoidance where, “I don’t want anything to do with that guy because a) she might stab me.”
Tucker:
“And b) he’s the type of guy who fucks girls like that!” Listen, by the way, there’s two sides of this. I kind of fall on that side and I’ve fucked all of those girls and other girls, too, etc. Again, we’re not trying to tell you to do one thing or the other. We’re trying to give you as much information as possible to make the right decision for you in your life depending on what you want to do. Just understand, every action has consequences, so at least know what those consequences are and if you think it’s worth it, that’s great. I did. Here’s the thing. I’m never going to sit here and tell you don’t go fuck a bunch of crazy girls because some of the most fun times I’ve ever had in my life were hooking up with those girls. Also some of the worst. So, understand I’m sitting here. I would never say I wouldn’t do it again, but if I had to do all over again, there are definitely some better decisions I think I would make, you know? We’re trying to give you the information to make those right decisions for you, whatever they are.
Geoff:
A particular danger is that women who are very impulsive and like to live on the edge will kind of want to bring you into their adventures and they’ll kind of dare you to do stuff. Like, “Oh, it’ll be fun to break into that warehouse and have sex in there!” And that’s fun right up until the moment that you get arrested.
Tucker:
Or worse, “It’ll be fun to have sex in this bar bathroom where my boyfriend’s a bouncer.” And then you get the fucking shit kicked out of you.
Geoff:
And then you get to experience, “Oh, that’s what pepper spray feels like.”
Tucker:
Or “That’s what a steel-toed boot feels like to the fucking skull.”
Nils:
“I’ve never had tetanus before.” You know?
Tucker:
Yeah. Right. So, just think about these things. What are some other ones?
Geoff:
So, sexually-transmitted infections, pregnancy dangers, physical dangers, legal dangers, reputational damage, and there will be situations where other guys will actually do you a solid and warn you.
Tucker:
Listen to them.
Geoff:
I’ve had this experience visiting a woman’s house on a third date and have an ex-boyfriend show up at the house to get his stuff. He used to live there, he moved out three days ago. He’s just picking up a few things and he takes me aside. He’s like, “Good luck with this one. I don’t know you, man, but just fucking run for the hills.”
Tucker:
Yeah. Pay attention to how and what he says. If he’s got a resigned, defeatist attitude and looks at you with, “Oh, man. I feel bad,” pay attention. If he’s bitter and angry and pissed off at you, then probably he’s the loser. Just because a guy says something, don’t – pay attention to how he says it.
Nils:
What did you do in response to that guy?
Tucker:
Doubled down on her?
Geoff:
Yeah. I doubled down. I was like, “Oh, he’s weak. I’m a better man than him. I can handle her. I’m a professional psychology guy.” I almost thought, “Oh, this is an interesting challenge.” That was exactly the wrong response. What I should’ve done was run for the hills and not have this delusion that oh, she’s crazy, but I can handle it. No. There are certain women who cannot be handled.
Nils:
Or fixed.
Geoff:
Or fixed, yeah.
Tucker:
I mean, what about girls who have drug problems? Those are the ones that fuck the most, usually. That’s a huge category and here’s the thing. If you’re doing a lot of coke and you want to fuck a cokehead, okay. Go have cokehead sex. Whatever. But if you’re not? Alcohol’s sort of separate. I’m talking about coke, heroin, meth, whatever. Dude, those are messes. Those girls can seem like a lot of fun, right? You meet a girl, it’s a lot of fun, and then you find the three bottles of fucking oxycodone in her fucking bathroom and you’re like—
Nils:
“Where are my car keys?”
Tucker:
“I’ve got to bolt. Stat.” I fucked one of those girls in Orange County. There are lots, of course, obviously. Where else would the hillbilly heroin addict be? No. That’s a mess.
Geoff:
Sketch out why, though, ‘cause…
Tucker:
Okay. Drug addicts, basically, have all the problems of mentally ill people, right? They have…Basically, they’re willing to take any risk, they’ll do anything for drugs, you don’t matter. They’re almost like sociopaths and risk takers and mentally ill people all rolled into one. It’s like the worst shit ever.
Nils:
With the profound ability to rationalize every behavior, every choice.
Tucker:
And lie and cheat. Don’t listen to a fucking word a drug addict says, man or woman. This is a podcast about girls. Don’t listen to them. They are all liars, ‘cause they’re lying to themselves, right?
Geoff:
I think that also applies to alcoholics. There’s different kinds of drugs, so I had a big crush freshman year on another cashier who worked at the college grocery store. We called her Supergirl. And Supergirl was awesome. She had a blue Mohawk and alternating days – like, odd-numbered dates, she always took LSD, even-numbered dates, she took heroin. So, she was a hardcore.
Tucker:
Supergirl was your name for her?
Geoff:
Supergirl. Supergirl was so much fun, but of course, she flunked out of Columbia within that semester ‘cause you can’t maintain that lifestyle. For a short-term thing, maybe that’s fun, but if somebody has a drug addiction it means they’re going to have legal problems, financial problems, health problems, mental health problems, and they’ll be unreliable and lie a lot. You can’t imagine how much trouble that can become.
Tucker:
Let’s think of some really, really…guys. Listen to this. If you ever see a big flashing warning sign, just don’t fucking ignore it, okay? What are some good ones? You’ve got a great one about the cat tattoos?
Geoff:
Oh. Yeah. So, I was in New York last year and met a woman who seemed nice and I pray to God she’s not listening to this podcast. She probably won’t. But she talked a lot about all the cats she brings home to her small Brooklyn apartment. I’m like, “How many cats do you have?” “Eighteen.” “Oh. So, you’ve been doing this for a while? Collecting them a while?” “Yeah. Well, you know, I have, but eight of them have died.” “Oh, that’s sad. Eight died?” “Yeah. From old age.” “How did you cope with all that grief?” “Well, I had a little cat face tattoo on my back for each one of them.” “You have…eight tattoos of your dead cat faces on your back?” “Yeah. It’s so I can remember them.”
Nils:
That’s like Mexican gang tears.
Geoff:
And I thought, “Okay. There’s not going to be a second date here because that is…that’s toxoplasmosis, number one.”
Tucker:
I was going to say, my god! The best part is, “I have them on my back so I can remember them.” You can’t see your back, you fucking weirdo! That’s actually the first thing I thought, is you can’t even see them on your back! Forget how weird the other shit is.
Nils:
But her dates can.
Tucker:
Yeah. Right. Oh, my god. And you have cat sex.
Geoff:
Yeah. I was like, yeah, I don’t want to be looking at little dead kitties staring back at me from her back if we’re doggy style, so…that did not work.
Tucker:
Oh, wow. There’s another person on this list that I know we’re not going to talk about. Like, I know these initials. I know exactly who you’re talking about.
Geoff:
Oh, you mean…
Tucker:
Yes. Ssshhh. ‘Cause she will find out. So, I have so many. Honestly, I’m not even sure what stories to tell from my life. You probably should read my books. Here’s this thing about my books. A lot of guys for whatever reason think – we’ve talked about this in previous podcasts – “Oh, you look so cool. Your books are so awesome. You get so many girls,” and I kind of look at those guys and I’m like, you do realize that I’m the one holding the short end of the stick in a lot of these stories and I do a lot of fucked-up, stupid things. Not even morally fucked-up. Like, I do stupid things for me and they kind of look at me like, “Oh, yeah. I hadn’t thought of it that way,” and I’m like, “How did you not?” You know? But for whatever reason, guys don’t look at my – young guys. Older guys do, but younger guys don’t look at my stuff that way. The women who read it love it for that reason, because it’s a guy who’s honest about all of the stupid things he does. Young guys don’t see it that way. Young guys, if you’ve read my stuff and you like it, you think I’m awesome, go back and read some of the stories. Especially in the first book there’s one about…what’s the one at the end with the hooker I hooked up with? What’s that called again?
Nils:
Wait, which book?
Tucker:
Beer in Hell. She was an escort and I didn’t know it. She had an abortion and then came over to my place.
Nils:
Oh, god. Yeah.
Tucker:
I know the girl’s name. I can’t remember…whatever, I think it’s the last story in the book. And then in Assholes Finish First, there’s the story about the LA girl and then in Hilarity Ensues, the story about how the LA girl had a threesome with me and my then current girlfriend. You were there for all these stories. You know. So, read those again. Those are all stories about how I got messed up – or mixed up – with incredibly beautiful and also profoundly fucked-up girls and the huge impact it had on my life, pretty much all negative. Alright? Which again, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It just means, understand you’ve got to pay that price, you know?
Nils:
And a lot of times, there’s that short-term price of just the misery of the craziness, but then there’s the long-term price that weighs on your conscience. It’s like, you were a part of some part of the downward spiral and it’s going to end – ‘cause it is downward.
Tucker:
Even if it’s not your fault.
Nils:
Even if it’s not your fault, you…if you’re a normally-adjusted guy, you are going to have those pangs of guilt that you were a part of this downward spiral as an aider and abettor of the craziness. It will come up and it’s something you’re going to have to deal with.
Geoff:
And again, we’re only talking about a very small percentage of women, but that very small percentage accounts for a vast ocean of human misery in all directions because they interact with a lot of guys.
Nils:
That Venn diagram overlaps significantly.
Geoff:
So any given borderline personality disorder a woman will have, like, thirty or fifty or a hundred guys in her past who have suffered the costs of her drama. So, as a proportion of your drama in your whole life, a big chunk of it will be taken up by that tiny percentage of women who were really kind of toxic.
Tucker:
Generally speaking, you’re going to come across a lot of fucked-up, toxic women for three basic reasons. If you are really fucked-up and toxic, you’re going to probably be into those women, or if you have emotional issues, traumas, whatever, where that’s how you’re replaying them. Like, you had a mom like that or loosely speaking. Those two, or three is if you are going out and your only goal is to basically hook up with as many women as possible, which was my goal for a lot of years. So, again, I don’t say that judgmentally, but if that’s your goal, it’s basically impossible to hook up with a bunch of women without having a lot of those women in there. That’s how it works. Listen, I have no idea how many women I’ve hooked up with, but I would say the vast majority are really great girls in most ways. I don’t have fifty books. I have four, you know? If I wrote a story about every book I hooked up with, I’d have to have fifty books, and most of those stories would be boring and stupid and no one would care. “Oh, we watched Gladiator again and we petted my dog and then we had some burgers and we had sex three times.” No one wants to hear that shit! It’s fucking boring, right? But most women don’t fall into that category. If your goal is, “I’m going to sleep with over 100 women,” you’re going to come into contact with at least twenty or twenty-five.
Nils:
‘Cause you’re going to go swimming in shark-infested waters, you’re going to chum the water, you’re going to get bitten by a shark.
Tucker:
Yes. It’s sort of like…a buddy of mine rides bikes. You understand, Harleys or whatever. And he bought it and he wrecked it one time and he laid it down and I had to go pick him up and…this is Stydie, actually. He was like, “Yeah. It’s funny,” like, he’s a young dude, he’s like, “Oh, bikes are so cool. Vroom, vroom,” and then three days later, wrecks it. The insurance agent showed up to do the assessment, and the insurance agent says – Stydie was all freaked out at the accident. And the insurance agent’s like, “What are you freaked out about, man? You walked away from this. This is the best result you could hope for, owning a bike.” And Stydie’s like, “What do you mean? I wrecked my bike.” The guy looks at him and he says, “No, man. When you buy a bike, the question is not if you wreck it. It’s when you wreck it and what you want is to wreck it in a way where you walk away. You’ve got the best result possible. My advice? Don’t buy another fucking bike.” Of course, Stydie went out and bought another bike. But that’s a different discussion. I think I have Stydie in some of the books. Yeah. If you read the clown pub crawl and the RV story, that Stydie is the one that has the Sippy Cup. That’s who I’m talking about. Anyway, so here’s the point. Nils’s point, my point, you ride a bike, it’s going to get laid down. You swim with sharks, you’re going to get bit. If you’re cool with that, that’s fine. Just know there are consequences and some people want to pay those consequences. I did, you know? That’s how it works. So, we kind of brushed this over a little bit, but I think I want to come back to it. I know you have some good stories about this, Dr. Miller, but here’s the thing. Physical danger you’re going to face from having a short-term mating strategy and dealing with – especially the crazy type of women that you’re going to meet in short-term mating, which will not be the majority but they’re going to be a healthy minority that are basically going to create all the stories, right? It’s real, guys. This is a real thing, right? What do you think of it?
Geoff:
I mean, the physical danger that you face in short-term mating partly comes from the women. I mean, most women are not going to physically assault you. The crazy ones will. I’ve had heavy stuff thrown at me and only a couple attempted stabbings, but that’s not really much fun, and depending on what kind of subculture you’re in, she might have a gun. The majority of the danger, really, in any kind of human mating comes from other guys, and it could be her male relatives, her dad, her uncle, her brothers who are protective of her, even if she’s not crazy, right? A lot of ordinary, normal, great women have very protective male relatives, and I completely understand this now that I have an 18-year-old daughter, right? I trust her current boyfriend, but if I didn’t, I would sit him down and have a long chat with him about my gun collection – whether or not it actually exists, I would make one up, right? And like, “Dude, I love my daughter. Here’s what I would do to protect her: everything. Here’s what I wouldn’t do to protect her: nothing.”
Tucker:
There’s a reason that’s a cultural trope in America, is the dad cleaning the shotgun when the guy goes to get the daughter for a date. There’s a reason why, and if you have a daughter – I don’t have a daughter, but if you have a daughter, you understand, you know?
Geoff:
Yeah. And typically, the male relatives only get pissed off and come after you if you’ve really taken advantage of her, broken her heart, whatever. But there’s also the ex-boyfriends or the would-be boyfriends or the guys who are hanging around who have been kind of friendzoned and want to be with her, and they’re mad at you and they are actually dangerous. There’s a lot of genuine homicides that happen from jealous guys getting into it. There, it doesn’t really matter that much what the woman’s personality is. True enough, crazy women tend to have crazy exes, but she could be a perfectly great woman who just happened to fall into something with a guy who turns out to be a stalker.
Tucker:
Or he could just be a fucking stalker. You know? Some women don’t do anything wrong and they just get stalkers, you know?
Nils:
And there’s also those women – and there’s a fair amount of these, who are average, normal girls who make that one impulsive choice. They live in small towns, tight-knit communities, neighborhoods, somebody finds out and the reputational damage that comes with being that girl trickles down into the family and the male relatives get real pissed. That’s where the avenging comes into play and all that sort of stuff. That is a very real phenomenon, not just in Pakistan, not just in India, but here, as well.
Tucker:
Yeah. That’s no joke. It’s something you should think about and be aware. If you live in Brooklyn, it’s whatever. You live in big cities, probably not a problem. But smaller cities, smaller communities, it’s something to think about.
Nils:
If you live in a 2800-person town in rural Kansas. There’s a reason Footloose happened in the Midwest and not in Philadelphia.
Tucker:
Right. Exactly. Exactly. It matters, so understand where you are and, like we talked before guys, it usually doesn’t pay for you to talk a lot about who you’re hooking up with. It doesn’t make women want to hook up with you. It doesn’t make you safer. It doesn’t make you more popular. I made a career out of writing about all the stupid, drunk things I’ve done with women I’ve hooked up with. I’ve never used any of their real names except one time, and that girl sued me and that was on the front page of the New York Times! Now, I won the case, but it doesn’t ever, ever pay to be that guy.
Geoff:
Yeah. So, it can be worthwhile just to get some little sketch of the woman’s kind of recent sexual history and has she had any problems with guys and is her ex-boyfriend still around and is he a Sheriff’s Deputy who recently got laid off for excessive force or whatever?
Tucker:
Police brutality, right. “He’s on paid leave ‘cause he shot a bunch of people! So, what are you doing tonight?” Maybe go to the next girl.
Geoff:
Yeah. Exactly. That’s some useful stuff to know, even before a one-night stand.
Nils:
And it’s stuff that you can find out through normal conversation.
Tucker:
Don’t give her a spreadsheet and say, “Hey, fill this out. Is your boyfriend dangerous?” It’s not going to work. Just talk to a girl normally. You can even make a joke. “Oh, yeah. Most of my girlfriends have been great. I had one that was a little bit…I didn’t realize what was going on before I started dating her.” You didn’t call her crazy, you don’t look like an asshole. And then if a girl goes, “Oh, my goodness. You don’t have to tell me. I’ve got so many crazy exes! Let me tell you about the one who shot up my house.” Then you’re like, “Let me go to the bathroom,” and then never come back. Pretty simple, you know? Are there any other big red flags for short-term dating? Guys. I can’t talk enough about the drug addiction one. That’s so easy to miss when you’re young. So, simple things. You see a girl messing with her nose a lot, unless it’s allergy season and she’s got a big pollen allergy, probably a cokehead, right? If she’s got red roomy eyes and they’re all bloodshot, she’s kind of ditzy or seems out of it, probably a pothead. Pot’s probably the best of those things, but just understand, again, that tracks with high agreeableness, high openness to experience, which also tracks usually with a lot of sexual experience. What are some other things? Meth. Man, she’s super high-energy or, God forbid, pits in her face, meth head. Stay away.
Geoff:
Another New York date. If you’re on a lunch date with a woman and she seems kind of sleepy and depressed and then goes to the bathroom for five minutes and then comes back and then she’s so talkative that she tells you about her business for fifty solid minutes without you being able to get a word in edgewise, there’s probably a cocaine issue there. One other danger actually I wanted to mention for young guys that they almost never think about is actually driving. If you’re in a car with a woman and she’s driving and she’s a sucky, dangerous driver, that sounds like a wimpy thing to worry about, but it’s actually—
Tucker:
You bring up driving safety all the time, dude. You’re obsessed with it.
Geoff:
It’s the number one cause of death for young men! That’s why.
Tucker:
But they’re driving! Young guys are driving.
Geoff:
Typically, they’re driving, but not always. You often get situations where she’s driving, you’re too drunk, whatever.
Tucker:
Well, a young guy or a young girl. They’re both terrible drivers. That’s why they’re all dying in cars, ‘cause they’re fucking terrible drivers.
Geoff:
So, pay attention. Don’t feel like if she’s drunk and driving in a way that you think you might die—
Tucker:
Okay, well, if she’s drunk, of course.
Geoff:
…Then pay attention to it.
Tucker:
That’s probably a life rule. I don’t know how much that has to do with sex. If you get in a car with someone who’s fucking smashed and they’re driving, that’s real stupid. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. What are some other…? We kind of covered a little bit, schizophrenia, bipolar, borderline…I’ll tell you, how much did we go over narcissism? Histrionic stuff?
Geoff:
That could be, like, a whole hour.
Tucker:
Yeah. That’s a whole hour. That’s the thing. If she’s just narcissistic, generally, she’s going to be pretty easy to hook up with and…those crazy are usually easy to deal with.
Geoff:
If you can stand them.
Tucker:
Right. You just don’t talk to them anymore.
Geoff:
If you see her and she’s so narcissistic that you just want to vomit everywhere in all direction, and you know who I’m talking about.
Tucker:
I know exactly who you’re talking about. We’re going to talk about as soon as this podcast is over, because I can’t believe she ended up on this outline. Alright, so we’re going to cut this off. This is going to be the short-term mating, what to look for in short-term mating. The next podcast will be what to look in medium- to longer-term mating partners.