Connor Beaton: Modern Masculinity, Dating Math, and Repairing Relationships Fast
Why 63% of young men are single - and what to do.
I just sat down with Connor Beaton.
Author of Men’s Work and founder of ManTalks, coaching men on modern relationships.
In this episode you’ll learn
How to resolve fights in 24–48 hours using a repair script (55:36)
Why dating apps skew attention to ~5% of men—and how to win offline
How direction, male friendships, and clear commitment timelines raise your odds
We dive into the details later in the conversation.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
09:30 Expectations vs reality in modern dating
19:04 Political divides and relationship dynamics
27:52 Relationships in a disconnected world
39:25 Direction and building a vision
43:40 Cultural shifts in dating expectations
47:26 Men’s role and cultural critique
50:02 Testosterone and masculinity
55:36 Repair skills that keep love alive
1:00:35 The value of male friendships
1:04:14 Moments of transformation
1:12:31 The big why
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Here’s the full transcript:
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (00:00.109)
In 2023, a Pew Research Center study reported that 63 % of US men under 30 identified themselves as single. From your experience working with young men, what is going on? Both men and women are really frustrated. Women are now outearning men. By 2030, we’re to have two female college graduates for every one male college graduate. And that becomes problematic because when you look at dating preferences for women, they still prefer is a man that earns as much as them, if not more.
Men have been demonized culturally for so long. So for a lot of men, when they don’t feel useful, they will generally feel depressed. Women are also just like checking out, going, I’m going to be celibate because I can’t find a man that meets my standards. Where can we go from here, do you think? If you’re dude listening to this, what do you do? What men usually do not understand is that... Wow. Damn.
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (00:57.838)
Welcome to That One Time with Adam Metwally, the podcast bridging the gap between health, hustle and happiness. We were at podcast for a while in Chelsea, New York City, and I’m with renowned relationship and men’s coach, as well as author, Conor Beaton and the founder of ManTalks. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. In 2023, a Pew Research Center study reported that 63 % of US men under 30 identified themselves as single compared to 34 % of women in the same age group.
From your experience working with young men, what is going on? I think a whole bunch of things are going on. Number one, the economy is terrible. And I think the economy is making it so that most young men know that they are going to have a harder time doing better than their parents, than their parents had doing better than theirs. And the likelihood is that most young men are not going to do as well as their fathers. So that’s first and foremost. The job market is challenging.
Even if you get a good job, it’s going be challenging to make a living. And I think that in major metropolitan cities, the dynamics have really changed. So when you look at the data in pretty much every single major metropolis in America, women are now out earning men. So women under the age of 40 are now out earning men in every major city. And that becomes problematic because when you look at dating preferences from women, what
they still prefer is a man that earns as much as them, if not more. So it’s becoming harder for a lot of men who, you know, are sort of working your, your nine to five and they’re making 50, 60 grand a year to find a woman who will sort of that they’ll live up to that woman’s standard. I think that you have things like dating apps, which when you look at the data again on dating apps is sort of disproportionately
incentivizes women to go after the sort of top 5 % of men. And you can see this, right? If you, there’s a piece of research that was done that found that if you had 50 men and 50 women, 45 of the women are going to be going after five of the men. And the bottom 50 % of those 50 men can’t even get a response from a woman. They can’t get a woman to engage no matter how they can swipe through thousands and thousands of profiles swiping rights saying yes,
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (03:24.012)
I wanna talk to you, I wanna go on a date with you. And what they’re met with is just silence. So there’s a whole bunch of men that feel like they can’t even get into the dating pool, whether that’s online or in person. And the ways in which we used to make relationships and build relationships has just fundamentally changed. And it’s changed like that over the course of one generation.
So, you we used to meet at church and at work and in social situations and we used to meet friends or we used to meet, you know, partners through friends. And now all of those have tanked and how we’re meeting people disproportionately is online. So I think it’s a combination of a number of things of, for the most part, women’s expectations of what they’re looking for in a man hasn’t changed.
And so as women have risen economically, and it’s not a comment on whether that’s bad, right? It’s not a bad thing that women have risen economically, but as they’ve risen from an economic standpoint, their expectations of what they’re looking for in a man haven’t shifted. So now you just have way more women that are making a lot of money or making a good salary. And their expectation is that they’re wanting a man that is earning as much of them, if not more.
that has reduced the pool of men that meet their criteria. So I think that that creates a problem which puts some stress on both men and women. And then I think part of what’s happening is that a lot of women are sort dating up in age. So when you look at those guys that are 22, 24, 25,
you know, there’s a lot of women in their age range, depending on where they’re living, right? Usually in big cities, Miami, LA, New York, Austin, that kind of stuff. A lot of those women, you know, where the type of men that they’re going for is the man that’s maybe more established, more mature. And, you know, usually the guy that’s like, you know, like you in your early thirties, right? And you have maybe a little bit more of a career established. You have maybe a little bit more emotional maturity and intelligence. And so they’re drawn to those types of men and
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (05:36.334)
And so the guys that are in their twenties, they’re not in that pool. And I think the last thing is that we have seen a really sharp decline in men going to college and men seeking out higher education. And so right now it’s almost 60-40, right? You have 60 % of college graduates being women. And so we’re on the precipice of by 2030,
if it keeps going the way that it is, we’re have two female college graduates for every one male college graduate. So that’s the inverse of the 1960s. And so we are producing a disproportionate amount of higher educated women who are looking for higher educated men. So again, all of these criteria that women are looking for, men are now not necessarily fulfilling those quote unquote standards or expectations. And so I think for a lot of men,
they’re also kind of checked out from culture and society. I think the last piece that I’ll talk about is we’re coming out of a decade or two of really telling men that they’re the sort of fundamental systematic problem with almost everything in Western culture. It’s like if there’s a problem, I call this the patriarchy virus, which might rattle some feathers, but it’s this notion that
if there’s a problem that exists in Western culture, it is a result of the patriarchy. And so for a lot of men, what they’ve heard, a lot of young men, is they’ve grown up in this cultural narrative of men are the problem, men have problems and they are the problem, and men need to fix themselves and they need to be better, and all men are this sort of way. And I think because of that, men have started to retreat.
and they’ve retreated from workspaces. They’ve retreated from college institutions, which in a lot of ways are not very pro men. know, like I, I hear from a lot of young men that are on campuses or that are thinking about going to a college institution and they’re, they’re kind of afraid, you know, they’re like, I don’t know if I want to go there. I don’t think that my, my perspective or my opinion or, know, like,
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (07:58.424)
being male is really approved of or wanted there. So there’s kind of this anti-male narrative that has entered into the culture in the last decade and that has created some ruptures as well. So I think there’s a lot of different factors that play into it and I have young men on my YouTube channel all the time commenting on some of these things and they’re constantly sort of giving me new insight into what their experience is like.
But, and then I think the last pieces, we have really created this culture that for a long time, last decade or two, has sort of coddled our children. And who I think that has really impacted specifically is young men. Young men need to be able to go and take risk. They need to know how to have a good relationship with taking risk.
because there is a risk in approaching a woman in a bar and striking up a conversation or approaching a woman at coffee shop or at a yoga studio or whatever it is. Don’t do it at the gym, apparently. You haven’t seen all this stuff online, where it’s like all the women catching guys in the background. Yeah, a little bit, but I try and steer away from watching too much of that content these days. It destroys your brain. Fair. just get, people send me that shit all the time.
So, you I think a lot of men have retreated. They don’t, they’re afraid to take the risk. And it’s not even that they’re afraid to take the risk, it’s that they’ve never been incentivized to take risk. And so the thought of approaching a woman at a coffee shop or striking up a conversation and trying to get out of the apps and even, you know, how they converse online in the app, they don’t really take risk. Or if they do, it’s not a smart risk. It’s like kind of over the top.
And that gets them shut down. So I think there’s a whole myriad of things that are keeping men single. So there’s a lot in that and there’s a lot of different angles we can explore. It’s probably best if this is a podcast about how men can approach not being single anymore. That we approach what men can control in their own personal responsibility as opposed to saying, what can women do?
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (10:19.798)
Because it’s a little, it sounds like it’s a little hard to change that component versus empowering a guy to, I guess, step up. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s like a both and situation. You know, I do think that for some women, the expectations that they have are unrealistic. I think that is true sometimes. And I think that’s something that people are afraid to say.
You know, and I’ve worked, you know, I don’t just only work with men. I’ve worked predominantly with men, but I do work with couples and I have worked with women. you know, sometimes, sometimes the man that, and this isn’t all women, but it is some women, right? It’s the same thing with guys, right? You can meet a dude that’s like living in his parents’ basement and he wants to, you know, he wants to date like a supermodel, right? And it’s like you.
working at nine to five and you live in your mom’s basement. your expectations of what you’re going to get are a little bit unrealistic. mean, ironically, sometimes some of those guys do manage to... Those are the guys, right? Those are the guys. mean, yeah, I think, yeah. But, you know, I do think that sometimes there’s a both end to some of these things. And I think the other thing is, you know, normally talking about men’s issues or how men are struggling, that conversation is just...
a lot of people, not a lot of people, but certain people don’t want to have it or they take it as like some propagation of toxic masculinity, you know? And it’s like, no, by not having this conversation, you will likely create more of that behavior. You know, you will create more of the incel isolated men. Like that’s the byproduct of not having the conversation about what’s going on with men. So yeah, I think we can absolutely.
you know, talk about what’s going on with guys. Have you heard, have you seen the I’ve Got Standards Bro calculator? I love this. This is great. So basically, it’s a website that’s called I’ve Got Standards Bro. And it’s the female delusion calculator. And it says, what are the chances of finding a man of my dreams? my god, yes. So you can set parameters based on like US Census Bureau data. So let’s just say, what do you think an average
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (12:45.422)
American girl, let’s use New York as an example, average American girl, probably college educated, probably earning, in New York City, probably earning 80 to 100 grand minimum. Probably, yeah. Wants to date a guy above six foot. Yep. What else? Yeah, I think on Hinge, was 60 % of women had their height setting for six foot or above. So it’s like, there you go. So all right. So six foot. So mid-twenties girl. Yeah.
going to want to date somebody who’s probably also minimum. A little bit older. So you’re to want like an early 30s. So not even like, let’s be generous here because we need to be. So let’s say she’s 24. She’s just finished college. She’s earning 70, 80 grand a year. Good for her. Maybe 60 grand. don’t know what the wages I think I was making like 30 grand. Oh shit. Inflation. At 20, I have 24. OK, well let’s say 26 to what? 35? Yep. 35? Yep.
Can’t be married. That’s probably a indicator. Race, white, black, Asian. All of the above. Minimum height, six foot, not obese. Correct. Cause that’s a check. A minimum income, 100K. 100K. Yeah. That’s pretty safe bet. All right. Let’s see what happens. Percentage of the population. You ready folks?
0.63%. According to statistical data, the probability of a guy in the US male population aged 26 to 35 meeting your standards is 0.63%. And the delusion score is four out of five cat enthusiasts. Four out of five cat enthusiasts. That’s phenomenal. That’s phenomenal. So that’s great. On that note, women are also just like checking out and going, I’m going to be celibate because I can’t find a man that meets my standards. Yes. So are we just cooked? Maybe.
You think there’s a scenario where it’s game over here? I think that people have really been taught a false, they’ve been sold a false bill of goods when it comes to relationships, right? It’s like, they should be easy. You should have a Prince Charming. There shouldn’t be any conflict. We’ve also pathologized the living fuck out of relationships. so, you
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (15:03.446)
look at most of the content that’s on there that a lot of men and women are consuming, they are now a therapist, right? They’re now a psychologist, then they’re, you know, they are labeling and pathologizing their partner, right? They’re analyzing their partner. It’s like, you have this attachment issue and you have, like, I’m pretty sure that my husband or my boyfriend has ADHD. he’s a narcissist. Everybody’s ex is a narcissist, right? It’s like that’s, so we’ve, we don’t see the human in front of us anymore.
we see a list of pathologies. We see a list of our own behavioral issues. And because of that, it’s very hard for a lot of people to just get to know one another without over analyzing, without over indexing, like what’s actually going on inside of them. So I don’t think that I’m not nihilistic. I’m not actually that pessimistic. I don’t think it’s irreconcilable. I do think that the younger generation has a hard time because how a lot of these kids are
interacting is through like Snapchat, you know, and there’s just this, there’s just this separation piece of you can say things and you can do things online that you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t do in person, right? You wouldn’t say that thing. You wouldn’t ask for that thing. wouldn’t, you know, you just wouldn’t do those things. So I think that I do think that to come back to what you were talking about, you know, I do think that sometimes we have to be able to,
really question whether or not what we want is realistic. And I don’t think that most people are being told that, you know? It’s like this sort of you go girl notion has entered so deeply into the culture. It’s like, you know, the sort of flippant, if you don’t love me at my worst, you don’t get me at my best. It’s like, well, sometimes your worst is actually reprehensible.
You know, and like your behavior is actually unacceptable. if you can’t hear that that behavior is unacceptable, then you will stay single. And men need to hear that as well, right? There’s some behavior that men do that’s reprehensible. It’s not okay. But that is very much in the cultural conversation, right? If a man does something wrong in relationship, that is very much talked about. It’s socially acceptable to say that behavior is not all right.
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (17:29.164)
But a lot of the times when that is done from a female perspective, it’s like, she, like, I wonder what she was going through. She must’ve had a lot going on. like, and so the behavior is more, it’s more accepted. It’s like, that should be more accepted. And I think that’s a challenge, right? That’s a challenge. And I think a lot of young men experience that. It’s like, I can’t say that’s not all right with me.
because if I have a boundary, I’m to be called the narcissist or she’s going to break up with me or whatever. think a lot of men are afraid to just have some standards. Well, yeah, mean, if you manage to meet somebody that’s actually interested in you based on these parameters, you’re kind of coming from a place of scarcity. Totally. Yeah. And I think a lot of guys know that. A lot of guys, they see
all of that shitty content that you’re talking about, right? If like the women being interviewed, it’s like, I only want a man that’s six foot two and makes 250 grand a year. And so I think there’s a, there’s also a misconception because there’s a lot of women out there that they don’t have those expectations. And some do. Yeah. So where can we go from here? you think?
Just as a general. I mean, for a guy that’s in his 20s trying to figure this out and maybe wants a family with kids, seems pretty precarious. I mean, I think the interesting thing is there was this data that just came out and people were polled. I don’t know if you saw this, but they polled Trump voting men and women and then Kamala voting men and women. yeah, I think I’ve seen it. And it was so interesting because they had like a list of 20 different values or things that they really wanted.
And Trump voting men, the number one most important thing in their life was having kids. I was like, what? And then the Kamala voting women having children was like number 12. It was way down the list. And the first priority for them was financial independence and stability. And so there’s just been this swing where,
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (19:46.306)
there’s a little bit of a mismatch in terms of like what men and women want culturally. And then you have a complete political divide, right? So you, you know, again, you look at the stats and some of the research, I think it’s through pure research as well. And it was looking at the last, the last decade of men moving more conservative and women moving dramatically more liberal. And so that gap is felt and you have a lot of people that
now have a political line, right? It used to be, you know, we went through an era of segregation where you weren’t allowed to date outside of your race and then that was abolished, thank God. And then we went through a phase of you can’t date somebody outside of your religion and we kind of moved through that. And now the new thing is you can’t date somebody outside of your political sphere. And so we’ve started to segregate and separate ourselves along political lines. And so this
There’s kind of like this divisive piece where individuals don’t necessarily know how to disagree with one another anymore and still maintain a relationship because the oppositional political preference has now become so extreme and so polarized that that person is an enemy. And so you literally have people moving into these political camps that look at each other and say, you are the enemy.
Right? You’re a woke liberal. You’re the enemy. You’re a, you know, you’re a Nazi conservative. You’re the enemy. And that is getting worse and worse. And so I think part of the challenge is that what I think what people need to do to make it sort of tactical is get out of their echo chambers. Like you need to get out of your echo chambers and you need to learn how to have relationships with people that you just fucking disagree with. And you know,
This used to be something that was just normal. We didn’t even think about it. It was just a normal thing to be in a society, in a culture, in a workplace, and a community where you’re like, I don’t really like Frank Nextdoor. We disagree on some things, but we get along and it’s okay. And now it’s like, I don’t agree with Frank Nextdoor and I wanna try and get him evicted so that I don’t have to live next to that motherfucker. That’s the type of hostility that has started to bleed.
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (22:10.292)
into dating and relationships. And the problem is that maybe I’ll just bank hard right into attachment theory. The problem is that from an attachment theory perspective, there’s some basic things that we need in order to create secure, healthy attachment with another human being. One of them is to be able to go through a hard time in relationship with each other and come out the other side okay.
And that has broken down within individual relationships and community relationships where people are no longer able to just go through a tough time with each other, maintain the relationship and come out the other side okay. So that’s one piece. The other piece is that in our culture, it has now become completely socially acceptable that when you disagree with somebody, that disagreement is the grounds for ending the relationship.
So we no longer have to be in relationship with any type of tension. We no longer have to be in a relationship with any type of discomfort. And we have prioritized relational comfort as this kind of deity. And that is deeply unhealthy. The best relationships in the world do a couple of things. And this is all research backed by the Gottmans. You can go.
look up the Gottmans, they do a bunch of work on relationships is great. They do a couple of things. Number one, you have to be able to give love in a way that your significant other receives. So there’s a book called The Five Love Languages, there’s words of affirmation, there’s giving gifts, there’s acts of service, et cetera, quality time. And so we have to learn how to give love to our partner, to our significant other, spouse, in a way that they actually receive.
The other thing is that we need to be able to resolve conflict in a timely and efficient manner. And so when you look at some of the best relationships out there, the ones that are functional and healthy and they last a long time, when conflict happens or an argument happens, they’re able to resolve that within 24 to 48 hours, right? They don’t just let it blow up and they never talk about it again. They actually come back and they’re able to repair quite quickly. For a lot of young people,
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (24:33.26)
they have not been taught that that’s an important skill for them to learn. And so a lot of young people at the first sign of relational disconnection or conflict, it’s like, I’m out of here, right? This must mean that the relationship’s broken or it must mean that there’s something wrong with them or that they’re not the right person or they’re not the one. And so they bounce. And the true test of a relationship and what’s going, partly what’s going to determine longevity
is your ability as a couple to go through disagreement and to go through conflict in a way that there’s resolution and repair. But we are creating generations of people that just don’t know how to do that. So, you know, I have empathy for a lot of young folks because I’m like, you actually just haven’t been taught the skill set of how to have a functional relationship. And so at the first site of disagreement and conflict,
you get overwhelmed or you shut down or you’ve been told that that’s totally acceptable for you to just cut that person off and that’s it. you know, obviously there’s times to do that if somebody is abusive or violent or whatever, of course, but not to the degree that it’s being used so far. seems that people are very replaceable now. Totally.
Is that because there’s more people in the world? So, mean, they’re... So, on a number of phases you are? Like population collapse conversation incoming? I don’t know. I don’t think so. mean, I think that... So it’s a cultural thing. Yeah, I think it’s a cultural thing. What’s the culture of replaceability coming from? Well, when your relationships... The deeper your relationship is...
with somebody, the more there is there to hold on to, to get, the more belonging you feel like you have, and the less likely or the less quick you are to want to replace that relationship. But a lot of our relationships in today’s culture, they’re very shallow, right? They’re sort of, they’re very surface level. There’s not a lot of depth involved in them. And so for a lot of people, it’s like when you have a shallow relationship, it’s easy to replace that person.
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (26:57.484)
The other thing is that we, you know, we really live in a kind of cult of specialness and individuality. And this in some ways was brought on by Freud, you know, sort of like in the early 20th century. But, you know, modern psychology and modern therapy is meant to be a tool.
to support an individual in understanding themselves to a deeper degree so that they can be more functional human beings in relationship and in culture. What’s happened though is that people have become self-obsessed. And so instead of like, I’m doing therapy to be a more effective girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife or, you know, business owner or whatever, it’s I’m doing this to get something for me.
And it’s become this very... What are they trying to get? I think most people don’t know. think that’s the It’s a good label. Like, I’m in therapy, so therefore I am better than you. It feeds the We should have added, I’m in therapy into the list of those things. Yeah, yeah. I’m in therapy. boy. I think people are oftentimes trying to get something selfishly that we actually require relationally.
So we’re social creatures, we’re social beings, we’re relational beings. Our brains are neurologically designed for relationship. Our bodies, our nervous systems are designed for relationship, right? We actually, we co-regulate with other people. And yes, you can regulate yourself and you can calm yourself and you can ground yourself and you feel anxious or depressed or whatever. But we as human beings, a lot of our
mental duress is actually resolved through relationship. It’s resolved through exposing parts of ourself in relationship with people that genuinely care about us and having that witnessed, having that loved, having that be accepted, having that be challenged and pushed back on, being held accountable, those types of things. And the problem is that we have, I think, over-outsourced
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (29:21.26)
what should be happening relationally to institutions, to college professors and work environments and therapists. I think that we’re over relying on these sort of, they’re not faceless institutions, but they’re institutions where it’s like that person’s, you’re paying that person to be in your life. And yes, they can help you in a huge, huge way.
but they’re not meant to be a replacement for a significant other or a child or a best friend or a mother or father. They’re not supposed to replace those things. And I think that we’ve outsourced what we would normally get from intimate relationships into these ecosystems and institutions where our needs actually just never get met. And so we kind of project those things onto institutions. And I think that’s happening at a very large level.
What are the frameworks that you’re teaching the people that come to work with you in regards to handling all of these challenges effectively? in regards to the economy, the replacement society, individuality, technology. What directions are you helping to get people to better results? I like to say that relationship is the antidote to addiction. Relationship is the antidote to despair.
Relationship is the antidote to a lot of things that people are experiencing. And unfortunately, we really have done generations of people a disservice by not teaching them how to just do this, to just be with one another. And so honestly, like in part, what I teach people is how to just be a good human in relationship, how to see your own shit, right? So I use a Jungian lens.
shadow work. do a lot of shadow work, especially with men being able to take the parts of ourself that we hide in relationships that we’ve disconnected from that we’re ashamed of and actually start to bring them forward in a healthy integrated way so that all of ourself can be in a relationship instead of just this mask or this performance. You know, there’s a lot of men that
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (31:39.534)
that feel like they have to perform in order to get a woman’s attention. They feel like they have to perform in order to be a good man. Do you know the performative male meme? Oh, feel Oh, this is so funny. I feel like I’ve seen it. It’s so funny. It’s basically something along the lines of a guy who’s dressed really well and is kind of femme in like all these jewelry and he’s reading books like the creative act and drinking matcha and going to yoga. So even, it’s funny, even
a guy who’s trying gets labeled something negative. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You can’t win. You can’t win. There’s probably people listening to this that are just like hating what I’m saying. I I’ve had like girls call me out and being a performative male and I’m like, and it’s great. I’ve gotten here from first principles. I mean, it’s great. I like these books. I like matcha. mean,
I like to dress well. so you’re the, I’m the meme. I’m the actual meme. That’s great. That’s great. You know, I think, I think that we have, we’ve devalued masculinity in our culture as a kind of, we’ve devalued the way we want to call it a substance, the energy, whatever we want to call that. But we’ve devalued that quality within men.
And I think part of that quality within men is being a little unapologetic. Like, this is how I am. I don’t care what you call me. You can give me whatever fucking label you want. I’m not that label. Right? This is actually just- And I’m that label. Or you can do that, right? That’s what I was like, yeah, I’m actually how I am. Okay, so what? You know, like no big deal. But I think that there’s, I think that for a lot of men,
There’s merit in a few things to make this more tactical. Number one is being able to start to develop skills that you genuinely give a shit about and that those skills help you to contribute to something larger than yourself. Super important, right? Men find meaning in contribution. The majority of men find meaning in contribution, some type of service, whether that’s I’m providing for my family or I’ve created this business or I’m,
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contributing to this business, but men really find a sense of meaning and purpose in being of contribution to something bigger than them. That can be, you know, being of service to a country, to a movement. So looking at what skills do I need to curate, right? Do I need to get very good at copywriting? Do I need to be very good at public speaking? Would it help if I understand operational systems? Like learning those skills so that you can be useful because
When you look at the research, I’m gonna again, just bring something in. Richard Reeves from the Institution of Boys and Men did this big piece of research where they looked at a whole bunch of suicide notes from men. And what they found was this reoccurring word, which was useless or helpless, right? I just feel helpless to do anything about my circumstances. So for a lot of men, they don’t feel useful,
We don’t feel like they’re contributing to something meaningful. They don’t feel like they’re able to have value in some way. They will generally feel depressed. They will really start to shrink and isolate. So that’s a big one, right? Devoting those skills. Yeah, I mean, I feel like young men are told a lot, even by women and by the workplace, that they’re not wanted or needed. I don’t need you. Yeah. I think that’s one of the big reasons why men are checking out from culture and society.
You know, when people are talking about like, you know, incels and isolated man and lonely man, I’m like, man, if I was 19 in today’s culture, or even like five years ago, I get it. I wouldn’t, I would not be incentivized to want to be an active participant in Western society as a man, because what I will have heard if I’m watching the news, if I’m tuning into content, for the most part is I’m not wanted, I’m not needed.
I’m the fundamental problem. And so when you tell people hard enough and long enough and loud enough, you’re not wanted, you’re not needed, and you’re the fundamental problem, what do you think they’re gonna do? They’re gonna check out, right? They’re going to just sort of just be like, okay, you don’t want me in culture and society, then I won’t do that. And I think the problem with that is that that’s really dangerous. And we know that from, you know, as dark as it is, we know that from school shootings, they’re all men.
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Right? It’s all men. Now it’s the majority of mass shooters. mean, again, mass shooters, all men, but the majority of them are also men on SSRIs. They’re like almost 100 % of them are men that are on antidepressants. And so, you know, I think that there’s merit in being able to have that conversation. The majority of people that take their lives, right? 75 % of them are men. So, you know, there’s a conversation here that we need to have of...
what is actually going on with men? How do we support them? How do we create programs for them so that they can enter into the workforce? another example of this is we have the largest number of unemployed men in the United States pretty much in history, minus the Great Depression. So there’s something like 7.2 million men that are of working age, okay, of like 19 to 55.
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Lots of stuff, skill issue, addiction. They’re incentivized through social programs to not go back to work. They can collect a check. There’s lots of different things. They’re living off of baby boomer wealth. mean, the baby boomer generation has a lot of money that’s coming down the pipe. So there’s a lot of different things. But I think part of it is that you’re just checking out. And there’s not a lot of opportunity in different places. If you’re in a place where, you know,
There’s not a lot of technical jobs and a lot of trade jobs. You know, you can really find yourself in a situation where it’s hard to just find work period. Just quickly though, I love doing this podcast. If it’s positively impacted you in some way and you would like to support us, please subscribe. By subscribing, it allows us to build a much bigger base of listeners, which results in better guests, better production, and a better show overall. Alternatively, please take a look.
at the affiliate links of the products that I use and love in the comments below and consider purchasing using those links. They’ll give you a discount and they’ll also provide the podcast a small kickback. These are two very easy ways for you to support us as we continue to grow the podcast that we absolutely love doing. Thank you for your support and I’m back to the episode. I’m noticing an interesting difference between Australia and America.
In Australia, we have a way to capture and productively employ the men that might fall under the in the cracks of the non college educated. And then they have a pathway to earn really good money because they go into trade schools. So basically, there’s a split in year 10, where you go into something called VCE in
Victoria, or you go into VCAL, which is more like hands-on carpentry, electrical stuff. And then that’s a pathway to then go into trade school, which is a pathway to get an apprenticeship, which is then a pathway to get a job in a trade. then trades in Australia are culturally respected. And you can earn 100 grand plus in a trade. But here, seems like trades are kind of treated like a lower
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quality job and it’s a job done by sometimes illegal workers for low money. And there’s not this like craftsmanship. And I think that’s a difference that. The track isn’t there. The track isn’t there. I mean, I worked construction after high school for a few years and worked in the gravel pits in Northern Alberta and built sidewalks and a construction crew, like a concrete crew.
there was something genuinely really enjoyable about it. You know, I was using my body. It was physical. I was building things for the city. You know, I was creating things. And so I do think that for a lot of men, it is a worthy craft. I think a lot of men get value out of it. I know some of my friends from childhood are electricians and they’re tradesmen and journeymen. And so I do think that it’s very valued.
in male culture. I don’t know if it’s very valued by culture. And I think that’s a different thing. We have a term in Australia called tradies get the ladies. like, it’s so weird. I’m just like, thinking through this now. There’s, there’s a cultural understanding in Australia that guys working on the trade side are attractive to women in Australia.
But not here. Maybe here. don’t know. think they are here. I mean, it’s different in Manhattan. It’s probably a little bit different. But I don’t think that they’re valued for some women in the same way as they are in other places, for sure. I think in places like in Canada, where I grew up, they absolutely were. Electricians, oil rigs, that type of stuff. You can make a ton of money. And it’s definitely valued there. I’ve noticed that like,
you know, in the hubs in the States, like in LA, in New York, Miami, it’s a bit of a different vibe. It’s a different vibe. know, like you gotta be in finance or tech or an entrepreneur or, you know, that kind of stuff. So I think it just depends on where you are in the States, but I do think that it’s still very valued. And I think for the future, you know, with AI on the rise, I think for a lot of young men, that’s a phenomenal track to go down.
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to become an expert journeyman and buy somebody’s business. Find somebody’s company that’s retiring, get in with them for a couple of years and take it over. A friend of mine upstate, it’s what he did. He worked for NASCAR and didn’t want to have the corporate job anymore, even though he was like, this is a cool job, it’s great, but he was corporate. And he started dating his girlfriend, who’s now his wife and they have kids, and her father ran a
construction company that built houses and he didn’t know a damn thing about it. And he just started, you know, sort of apprenticing with him and took over and, you know, took over the business and away he went and he loves it. He’s like, could not be happier. So I think for a lot of men, it’s like having some vision of what you want your life to look like. And I think if you develop those skills and you develop a vision of here’s the future that I want to have and you are
working diligently towards that, that is appealing to women. That will be high value because in a sea of men that are lost, confused, they have no idea what they want, they’re not ambitious, they’re not working towards what they actually want, being able to say, here’s where I want to be in five years. Here’s what I’m actually working towards. And at that point, it doesn’t really matter if you’re working towards launching a
hedge fund or you’re working towards, you know, creating a contracting business. Having that direction is attractive to women and knowing that you are wanting to go somewhere, right? Women want to generally, I’m not going to speak for way I’m going to be in the comments, but generally women want to be with a man that is going somewhere and that he has a sense of direction in his life. That’s very attractive for a lot of women. Nothing is maybe not nothing, but
there’s not much that’s more unattractive than a man that’s like, have no idea where I’m going. And it’s not that that’s bad. I’ve been in that place in my life multiple times where I was like, have no fucking clue. You know, I just don’t know. But when you do get into that place, something happens and women are definitely drawn to that. Yeah. I’ve felt that personally with my, my experience going from Australia to America, I’ve gone from like a clear direction to no clue. And
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it’s really impacted my ability to meet girls. know the ability to meet girls isn’t the issue, but to keep them around, think, has been challenged because of the lack of direction, which is clearer now. And I’m noticing, already noticing a shift just because when I’m asked, what do you do? I’m like, I’m doing this and I’m doing this and this is where I’m going. It’s like, great. Well, it’s probably harder for you as a man as well, right? Like, I think about the times where I was really lost. There was just something inside of me that was like,
how can I commit to a woman if I have no idea where I’m going? And inevitably the relationships that I would find myself in, in those moments in my life never worked either because she was like, you’re kind of a mess and you don’t know where you’re going or because I made the relationship my entire focus. I lost myself in the relationship. And because I...
I didn’t want to face like, don’t really know where I’m going. You know, I’m like in this transition phase. So, and I think that happens to a lot of guys, you know, where guys just sort of make the relationship, their purpose, their function, where they try and get meaning from and it collapses the relationship. Yeah. I heard a...
piece of content that Alex Hermosy did a while ago. I don’t know where it was, but basically he was talking about how he met his wife and he was saying that he was about to go bust at one point.
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He said, you should leave. And she said, I’d stay with you under a bridge. And I was like, that’s really nice. Would that happen now? I don’t know. Who knows? I yeah. I mean, my wife and I talk about how she’s like, I’m your ride or die, through thick and thin. And I believe her. I believe her. think she probably would stay with me through almost anything.
You know, I don’t like maybe there’s caveats in there. I don’t know. but I think that that’s becoming more rare, you know, where people are looking for like a real life partner of I want to go through life with you. And some of it’s going to suck. Some of it’s going to be hard. Some of it’s going to be amazing and beautiful and way better. Like there’s parts of my life now with my wife and with my two kids where I’m like, Holy shit. I had
no idea it could be this good. None whatsoever. And so obviously it’s personal preference, but I do think that there’s a lot of men that really value and desire a really meaningful, deep relationship with somebody that they can share life with and they can move through life with. So you don’t think that there’s...
a, we’re not moving away from a desire to pair up. Like moving towards like polyamory. No, just generally like moving towards being alone. there a humans in the, maybe in the Western world specifically, cause this, a lot of these issues aren’t in like the Arab and the Arab world, the Jewish population and having the most kids out of all populations. So it just seems to the West and some of Asia. And most of Asia. Yeah. I mean, I think
I think there is a, I think some people are being disincentivized from actually really pairing up from a long-term perspective. And they’re being told, I mean, I’ve seen the content like sort of like marketing itself to women saying, you know, statistically women without kids, you know, live longer.
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you know, or they’re 5 % happier. Who’s marketing that though? I can’t remember who I saw talking about it, but there’s like, there’s real people talking about, cause there’s, there is some research that talks about how different, like if a, you know, if a woman doesn’t have kids on average, she’s going to live a little bit longer. And, you know, I think that there is this narrative and this push for people to, and it’s interesting cause I think it’s hard to not make it like,
political because I think on the one side of the aisle it is a little bit more of a push to like individualize and be by yourself. So yeah, I mean, I think that some people are being incentivized to move towards a more isolated individualistic lifestyle and that like your highest form of happiness is going to come when you’re by yourself, you know, and I think that that’s just not true. I’ve had some amazing moments by myself.
traveling to Scotland and traveling the world and traveling through China. And I’ve really had some amazing times. again, we are designed to be in relationship with people. So I do think that there’s that movement. If you could steel man the argument that says men aren’t needed and aren’t wanted and
aren’t valued anymore. Honestly, because a lot of people think it. I mean, my view and my understanding of how to reach people is to understand their side first. The steel mounting for it would be something along the lines of men have predominantly run major financial institutions and institutions for a very, very long time.
That’s caused a lot of challenges, both socially, economically, within individuals’ lives. And so because of that, men should back down, sit down, and let women take over. I think that’s largely the steel men. It’s like, you’ve done it. You’ve had your turn. It’s There’s been a whole bunch of problems that have emerged from it. We’re $37 trillion in debt.
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you know, there’s all types of health issues and there’s all types of polarization and there’s all types of racism and misogyny and all these types of things that have become so ingrained into the systems. And I don’t agree with this part. But from there, from that perspective, the idea is that because men built those institutions and because those institutions
are based off of hierarchy, and hierarchy is a power dynamic that is a part of the patriarchy, then we need to demolish those hierarchies and those institutions, because those fundamental systems are the problem. That’s the steel man. OK. So, everything, what’s their alternative? That’s a good question.
I do not know. don’t think they ever have a good alternative from every time I’ve heard. I’ve just, yeah, it’s, it’s, um, it’s sort of like a French revolutionist ideal. Figure it out later. It’s like decapitate the king and bring it, bring it out in the square and, know, destroy the parliament and then we’ll see what happens. And then we’ll figure something out after. Usually a more aggressive man takes over. Right. And that, you know, Trump is kind of a byproduct of that, you know, he kind of is it’s like,
Men have been demonized culturally for so long. And when that happens, know, some men are going to go along with it and they’re to be like, yes, you know, we are the problem. and some men will reflect and kind of look at like, where am I an issue in the relationship or in the culture and community? And then some men are not going to do that. And then some men are going to be very reactive to that. And when you tell men hard enough, loud enough, long enough, you’re the fundamental problem.
and you just kind of need to take a back seat, you’re going to have a response to that. And that response is usually not going to be one that’s necessarily like, hunky dory, know, like, yeah, I’m totally self-reflective and I’m going to, you know, that’s not it. So I think Trump is really in part a response to some of the
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more progressive push. And like I came up with, I came up this, a comment that I’ve been writing this article that I’m to put out about, it’s called the original sin of men. And in the left and in feminist ideology, there is this sort of repackaging of the idea of original sin from Catholicism, right? In Christianity, original sin, you and I, if we’re born Christian, then you were born with sin. You were just born that way.
born sort of fallen from God, from the higher power. And in a lot of more progressive, more sort of feminist ideology, there’s a notion of original sin for men, right? As you were born a man, you were born with original sin as a man. All men are rapists, all men are misogynists, all men are a certain way, and you need to repent to the cultural God of whoever.
and you need to repent your sins as a man. And then if you do that in a very public way online and you sort of like, yeah, you repent, then maybe you can be accepted as a man by a progressive culture. And I think on the other side, conservatism has just boxed men in, right? It’s a very rigid dogmatic. You have to be this way. And if you deviate from this way,
and you’re a beta cuck soy boy, right? So there’s like no middle ground, right? It’s like you either have to live by this very extreme, very rigid doctrine, or you have to fundamentally admit that you were born defective because you have a penis. And I think that’s the conundrum that I think a lot of men live in right now. Speaking of beta cuck soy boys. Good segue, good segue.
That should be a clip right there. Speaking of beta-cocked soy boys. Speaking of beta-cocked soy boys, I read somewhere that...
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Men who have higher testosterone levels tend to choose what they think is the right decision when even potentially in spite of consensus of society versus low testosterone men. I can’t exactly remember where I saw it, but the general premise of the idea was that we have a loss of testosterone in the male population and that’s leading to
basically having men act more like women who are more consensus driven than individualistically okay with going ahead against the herd and not caring about being name-cold and not caring about any of those things. So maybe the solution. Just TRT for every get more, the boys need to get more testosterone flowing. Just chew some up. And then we will be better. Have you heard anything like this before? I...
I think a little bit it’s interesting, know, because I do think that there’s kind of a push to remove biological impacts from gender and sex specifically. And, you know, that’s somewhat problematic. It’s like if you’ve ever been a...
13 year old boy who’s going through puberty and getting a boner on the bus and wanting to punch holes in the wall. And you’re like, what the fuck is happening? You know, and it’s like, that’s a very specific experience that is largely brought on by testosterone. You know, and I watch this in my son because not a lot of people talk about this, but boys from the age of three to five will actually go through like a mini puberty. And so they’ll have this big spike in testosterone. And what you’ll notice in boys age three to five, and this is again, it’s research based is that
they get much more aggressive. get, they take way more risks. They get much more wild. And so, you know, and again, it’s not that testosterone is necessarily fully responsible for aggression, but it is responsible for a kind of mating competition and risk taking. And so you do see a spike in that. And so, you know, men that have very low testosterone, and I,
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which are a lot of men right now, are going to be more risk averse. They’re going to shy away from doing the things that they know they want to do in order to create that direction. They’re going to shy away from sort of big conflicts and arguments. And in some ways, yeah, they’re probably more likely to go along with things that might create conflict by standing up to them.
The found in the study, so published in social psychology and sorry, social psychological and personality science, measured basal testosterone and came to the conclusion that higher natural testosterone levels were positively associated with greater openness to minority positions. There was no correlation with majority influence, meaning high testosterone individuals.
didn’t simply conform to consensus more or less. were just more, they were selectively more receptive to non-mainstream ideas.
it makes a little bit of sense as to where we’re at. Yeah, I mean, I had this gentleman on whose name is completely escaping me right now. he was a primatologist. So he studied chimpanzees and primates. And he sort of came up, he was the original sort of like granddaddy of studying chimpanzees and looking at the different sort of like alpha males in chimp culture. And he was the one that sort of pointed out
that it’s not always the most aggressive male that leads the group. And that the most successful alpha males are the ones that can quell the aggression from the other men in the group, but they are also the ones that are able to create social coherence. And they do that sometimes through the threat of dominance, through physical dominance and aggression.
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but they do it more often than not by actually creating social coherence between other people and between other people, between the other champs, right? So they would encourage, if, you know, if one of the competing males got into a fight with one of the other ones, they would encourage them to go and groom because that’s a kind of, it’s a submissive experience and it’s something that it sort of signals between the champs that you’re like, I’m good with you.
It’s like, we’re good. I’m to let you groom me. I’m going to groom you. We’re OK. It’s kind of like hugging it out as guys. And so I think there’s this misconception within our culture that the most dominant, most successful men are the ones that are the most aggressive. Generally, that’s not the case. That’s not the case in chimp cultures. That’s not the case in human species. Maybe for lions, if you’re the most aggressive, most dominant lion, you’re going to have the pride, for sure.
But in our culture, it’s this balance between being able to be unapologetic, being able to be assertive, being able to have direction, but also, and this is the skill that so many men struggle with, it’s being able to create social coherence between you and another person. And this is like, this is really at the epicenter of what we try and do within Man Talks. It’s like teaching you how to have healthy functional relationships that are creating coherence.
being able to navigate through conflict, through disagreement, through challenges. Because for a lot of people, again, that skill set’s just not there. It’s just not there. And they end up trying to dominate, or they just completely check out. Well, I mean, on that point, it’d be good to get a bit more of a detailed kind of frame list or a checklist of maybe some of the basic changes a guy can make to improve his dating.
Ability from like large macro perspective At some point What the hell do you do? Stop the podcast here. It’s just yeah the world is over. I would just say that it’s like one It’s not hopeless to I know it sounds Bad in some ways because things things aren’t great. Like if you look at the dating world It’s not it’s not exactly a great scene for a lot of people
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What can men do? Okay, if you’re dude listening to this, what do you do? A couple of things are important. Number one, you need to learn the art of repair. You need to learn how to lead through relational repair. So when a conflict happens, instead of being like the classic people pleasing, nice guy that just goes back and folds and fawns and says like, I’m so sorry, like whatever you need and I’m in the wrong and you take full blame, which is what a lot of guys do. You’re able to go back in and you’re able to
own your part of what caused the conflict or caused the dysfunction, but you’re also able to encourage accountability in your partner. Are there any good books or references that you like around that specific You can read No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover. He’s great. You can read my book, Men’s Work. It gets really deep into that. There’s a whole section on leading a relationship. mean, the most common one is Wear the Spirit of Man. Some people love it. Some people hate it.
But I think that’s another good book to read. It’s a little bit more esoteric and sort of conceptual. But yeah, and it’s like a very energetic based version of it. Outside of leading and repair, I think you need to be able to create a vision for the relationship and to create the direction for the relationship. So, you know, there’s a good saying, which is mostly true, hopefully.
I’m getting in trouble for this one too, but generally speaking, women are the gatekeepers of sex and men are the gatekeepers of commitment. And so a lot of the times in relationships, men are sort of trying to figure out like, is sex gonna happen and when is it gonna happen? And women sort of decide and discern when that happens. But then with commitment and the progression of that commitment, right? When are things going to, when are we gonna move in together? And when are we gonna get engaged and are we gonna get married and are we gonna have kids?
A lot of women when they’re in a relationship with a man, a lot of their fear and anxiety is coming from this place of like, are you progressing the commitment? And I’m looking to you to progress the commitment with me and to communicate what that progression is going to look like. So for you as a man, one of the best things that you can do is be very clear with the woman that you’re dating. We’re talking about a heterosexual relationship, but be very clear about the, with the women that you’re dating about where you see things progressing.
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And if you want things to progress or how quickly or how slow, and if you’re not sure, that’s okay too. You can communicate like, I need a month or two to sort of think about this, but be very clear about the progression of that relationship and say, you know what, I’m not interested in moving in together for the next year. That’s where I’m at. Or you know what, in a year’s time, I’d love to move in together. That’s something that I can totally see us working towards.
So as you create that vision in that direction, then you’re helping your partner’s nervous system settle. She has a sense of where you’re wanting things to move. She can communicate whether she’s OK with that or she doesn’t like it or she wants things to go faster or that’s too fast for her. And then the two of you can have some type of conversation out of that. But being able to sort of set that pace is going to be very, very important. Do you have any good references for somebody to?
learn more about that skill? I mean, you could check out some of John Wynand’s work.
I don’t know, you can come to my podcast. I talk about this shit a lot. You can definitely tune in there. I don’t know, I’ll think about that. Anything else you want to, any other good frameworks for somebody listening right now? Have really good men in your life. Have good men in your It’s also hard for some people to find. I mean, men are lonely. It’s like one in five men can’t identify a closer best friend. They do not have somebody to call.
shit’s really going sideways. And the problem that a lot of men have is that when they get into a relationship with a woman, again, she kind of becomes his emotional processing center. So everything that he’s feeling, everything that he’s stressed out about or thinking about or wanting to do, it kind of all gets channeled into her because he doesn’t have good male relationships that he can go and talk about, man, this thing’s happening at work. What do you think I should do? Or, you know, this stuff’s happening in my health and my finances.
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And I’m just struggling with it. know, like really I’m beating myself up. I feel like a piece of shit. Like, I don’t know how to fucking handle this. And if you have guy friends that are like, get the fuck over it, they’re probably, you know, not the best ones to support you in the life and the direction that you’re wanting to have. go find really good men that are going to challenge you, that are going to hold you accountable, that are going to call you forward into the version of the man that you’re wanting to become.
that are gonna support you in your relationship. That is one of the best things that you can do for your relationship. It’s so underrated. I’ll say one more piece about that that I think is super important. What men usually do not understand is that women are also...
looking at your value as a man, I almost hate to say that, but they’re... I guess we got to call a spade a spade. Right. What’s the word I’m looking at? I’m like looking for a very specific word, not analyzing you, but they’re getting to know you and your value and how they perceive you.
And a huge part of that in the dating process are the men that you are surrounded by. If you look like you have it all together and you got a good career and you got a good life and you got a lot of good things going and you’re just surrounded by ass hats that are completely, like they’re just a shit show and they’re immature. She’s going to look at that and be like, something’s off. Something’s really off. But if you’ve got some good direction and a good job and whatnot, but you’re surrounded by really quality men.
That is going to elevate your status. Because women know how hard it is for us as men to have exceptional relationships with each other. Do they know that? Yeah. They do now. Absolutely. What do you mean now? So a lot of women that I’ve talked to over the years, mean, what they’ll usually say, what I mean by now, what I mean by now is women see the data on how lonely men are. Women see how little most men talk to their male friends about.
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (01:08:37.598)
anything of substance, right? It’s like, yeah, you’re talking about the golf, you know, tournament or what’s going on in hockey or football or whatever, but you’re not talking about real substantial shit that’s happening in your life. So women know that it’s challenging for men to have substantial meaningful relationships with other men that are deeper than just how did the boxing match between Canelo and Crawford go, you know, which was a little disappointing because I wanted Canelo to win. But
So they know that, right? They know that they see that they’ve dated other men, right? They’ve seen their father who maybe didn’t have any male friends. So a lot of women know how challenging it is for men to have meaningful, good relationships with other men. So if you are a man that has that, they, that elevates your status because they’re like, you’re able to do something that not a lot of other men can actually do. What are some good tools for men to find other
good men to have in their life? I mean, join a men’s group, honestly. Really? Yeah, absolutely. Join a men’s group. There’s tons of them out there. There’s Everyman. There’s the Mantox Alliance. We have one with over 1,000 guys in it. That’s all over the world. We’ve got Aussies in there, and guys from the UK and Europe and all over North America. There’s Everyman. There’s the Mankind Project. There’s a whole bunch of them.
Really, it’s like. What about aside from that, maybe in general, day-to-day society? Yeah, I mean, go join a sports club where you can do something alongside men. Go take a course around building something. And go build something with somebody. Go volunteer for a project. In my early days, I went to Costa Rica and helped to rebuild a school with a group of guys. Oh, nice. And I didn’t know any of them. It was exceptional experience.
So do stuff like that where you’re getting to meet men that are sort of outside of your normal circle and you’re doing something with them. You’re being active with them. You’re working on something or building something that’s going to go a long way. I’d like to wrap up with a few closing questions to explore more of the philosophy of life. So did you ever have a moment in your life where it changed in a flash? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. You want me to tell it? Yeah.
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (01:11:07.884)
My rock bottom came in this moment where I had been lying and cheating and I was really struggling behind the scenes with substance abuse and the woman that I’d been having an affair with I had tried to cut things off with and she ended up showing up at my apartment and my girlfriend at the time was staying with one of her friends because we’d had a falling out and because of the affair.
And I was dry, like, you know, took this woman that I was having an affair with and I was like, you’re not staying here, I’m not doing anything, I’m taking you home. And I’m driving her through the streets and it’s, you know, snowing out and I had to drive her home because there was no buses. It’s in Canada, it’s snowing in the middle of the winter. And I pull up to a set of lights, there’s nobody around and across the street walks my girlfriend and her best friend.
And she looks in the car and she sees this chick that I’ve been vehemently denying that I’ve been sleeping with even though she found some stuff that, you know, proved that I was. And she saw this woman just like, I could see the heartbreak, you know, and it was, it was like a scene, it was like a brutal, terrible scene out of a movie where I was like, fuck, I just destroyed this person’s heart. You know, somebody that I really loved and cared about. And I couldn’t not see the damage that I had caused and
the pain and yeah, everything changed from that moment. Damn. Eventually for the better. Eventually for the better. Yeah. It’s a lot of hardship and heartache for a while, but it changed exponentially for the better. Yeah.
I guess there’s these moments in time where you’re forced to reflect and you’re forced to make a choice of, going to continue this way or is it, you’re going to spiral into demise? Yeah. And it was, it was an inflection point for me where I had to, I really did have to decide, you know, like, am I going to keep doing this? Am I going keep going down this path or am I going to change my ways and become a version of myself that I know I actually can be, know, somebody that’s not acting like this and not.
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (01:13:17.826)
constantly out of control and blaming myself, you know, and shaming myself for what’s happening. I’m curious. There were two pathways there in that moment. And a lot of people would take the pathway of this is a too hard basket. I’m going to just continue to further divulge into chaos. What stopped you from doing that?
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (01:13:49.836)
I mean, I’d like to say that, you know, I put in some hard work and did some blah, blah, but, you know, that, that helped. honestly, like I, I think in part one, I had a mentor that was in my life who I think like really saved me, and really took me under his wing. He was in his early seventies and
It’s one of the things that put me on this path in the first place. I ended up two and a half years apprenticing with him and learning about Jungian psychology and training with him. you know, that kind of put me on a different path. And I think without that, I don’t know. You know, I don’t, I don’t know. think I’d probably maybe still be struggling. And so was, you know, somebody really, he said this thing to me once that,
a couple weeks after it happened, because for a few weeks I ended up living in my car, in the backseat of my car. I moved all my shit in storage. I didn’t want anybody to know what had happened. I was so ashamed. I felt like such a piece of shit and was really hard on myself and, you know, justify myself. And living in the back of my car and finally I called him up and went and talked to him. And we just, you know, he started just helping me and one day we were working together and he said, you know, sometimes
you have to have somebody that believes in you more than you believe in yourself. And he said, right now, I believe in you more than you believe in yourself, that you can make it through this. And I just broke, you know, I just broke, because I didn’t feel like I had had anybody believe in me that way in my life. And, you know, I think in some ways it gave me a little bit of hope. It gave me a little bit of clarity that
I was like, man, I respect this guy so much. And if he says I can, then who am I to say I can’t? Because he’s like this wise elder figure. So I think that, I think enough. I really started to learn to let life humble me.
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (01:16:06.978)
Part of my motto is I let change change me. I let change change me. It’s like this sort of gospel, you know, this is like motto that I live by is that when change presents itself in my life, I move with it and I allow it to happen and I don’t fight it. You know, a lot of people don’t change because not because they don’t want to change, but it’s that they refuse to allow change to happen because changing means that we move into this unknown territory.
We literally go into the unknown. What’s known is our sabotage and our bullshit. You know, I talk about this all the time. Like we do not sabotage to be out of control. We sabotage to remain in control. We sabotage to move back to what’s familiar, right? The shame, the pain, the disappointment, the frustration. Sabotage is this like well mapped out cycle that we know super, super well. And we’re very comfortable in it. And so we actually don’t want to leave that.
territory, psychologically, emotionally. So, you know, I think those things really supported me. And I think there’s, there was a certain amount of grace, you know, of, what do want to call it? God or source or spirit that just intervened in my life and kind of pushed me in a different direction. And I like to think that my, his name was Bernard, my mentor. I like to think that he was an extension of that, you know, and-
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he’s just, you know, like a Socrates, like just like this kind of guide that showed up and just would drop these like things once in a while. I was like, fuck, what? And, you know, it kind of gave me this image of like, I could move in that direction. I could be that for somebody one day, you know, it’s like if, if I
really whatever did the work, if I really meant it and stuck with things, like I feel like I could get there. And so that just put me on a whole different trajectory. And I think, you know, in large part, what I’ve built with Mantox is an extension of that. It’s like a place where men can come and get some, I believe in you more than you believe in yourself. And to get some direction and some tools and some guidance and some
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (01:18:35.854)
like some genuine, I give a shit about you. You know, it’s like, it’s hard to describe, but in that moment, I just felt like that man cared for me in a way that I couldn’t reject and deny. And I hadn’t had a lot of that in my life, you know? And I think that’s the case for a lot of guys. I think a lot of guys have lived most of their life without the deep,
knowing that somebody just fucking gives a shit about them. And they walk through life with like, I don’t really give a shit about me because not a lot of people have really given a shit about me. And I think that’s why a lot of men are struggling is that they feel like culture, society, women, other men, family, their boss, don’t give a shit about them. And so outside of all the sort of like tactical practical tools that
I try and give people, it’s like, I really just try and give a shit about the man that I meet because I know what it’s like to be him. I know what it’s like to be in the situation of, I don’t feel like anybody gives a fuck about me. You know? And that’s crushing. What do think he saw in you in that moment? Probably himself. You know, probably himself in his younger years in some capacity.
Maybe his son, you know, he had a son as well. Or maybe just...
you know, maybe just a familiarity of, I know what that feels like in some capacity, but I would imagine that part of what I was going through, even though our stories were wildly different, there was just something human about it, you know, that he was like, yeah, I get that. Why do think we’re here? All this, you know, all this, this back and forth and
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (01:20:38.028)
The challenge is, what’s the point of it all? I think that’s above my prager head. You know, I don’t think we’re fully meant to know that. I can give you some philosophical answer that much smarter people have conjured up. Yeah, I mean, I’m a huge proponent of Jung and...
I’ve studied a lot of initiation, like understanding the process of initiation. And I think in many ways for us, I’ll speak to the masculine to the male experience specifically, but I think in many ways we’re here to be a vessel of service to something greater than ourselves. And I think that that’s universal. I think that’s a very human thing. We’re here to be of service to something greater than ourselves. There’s a great,
there’s a guy named Christopher Langham who he, he was like America’s smartest man for a while. He’s like this very interesting guy. He’s kind of like reclusive and lives off on his farm. But he wrote a paper called the computational model of the universe. And I tried reading it and I got some of it. I understood some of it, but some of it was like physics and mathematics is well beyond my comprehension. But the core premise of it is that
Reality is language talking to itself about itself. That our universal experience is just being in conversation with one another and sort of sorting out what it means to be here and having these sort of different iterations of hereness. And I had this conversation with David White, who’s this amazing poet. I love his work. I love his work and his writing. And he talks about the conversational nature of reality.
And I think that’s largely it. It’s like we are here to be in conversation and to play out this conversation and to be the awareness that is watching the conversation happen and to enjoy the beauty of that, you know? And outside of that, it’s above my pay grade. I like it. That’s a good place to wrap up.
Metwally — That One Time Podcast (01:22:59.448)
Awesome. Thank you, Connor. Thanks, man. Nice. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please go to YouTube. Search that one time with Adam Atwelly. Click Subscribe, like the video, and leave us a comment.
