Shadowing Practice: The REAL Reason 80% of Men Get Rejected - Learn English Speaking with Video

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We talked about attraction.
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Um, as you move down through that funnel, the next challenge becomes actually keeping someone.
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Yeah.
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And I, funnily enough, because in my early twenties, although I could seemingly attract women at this point,
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I couldn't get any of them to want to be in a relationship with me, especially the ones I wanted.
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Yeah.
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What is useful to get a man
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or a woman is not the same thing as what works to keep a man or a woman.
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Those are two different problems.
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Some people actually make great long -term partners, but they're terrible at attracting.
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They're terrible at the marketing.
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Other people, they get the marketing down, but they lack the substance or they can't really go the distance from one way or the other.
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And so it's harder to keep their partners around.
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They're two different problems.
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The solution for one does not apply to the other.
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In particular, the vast majority of attraction is based on projected fantasy.
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I don't know who you are.
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I just see the outside.
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And I'm going to approach you because I like that outside.
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And my attraction is going to fill in the gaps of my knowledge base with what I want to see there.
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That's why I talk about, I'm in an episode about how most men blow the first date.
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They blow the first date by talking too much.
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They talk too much out of the misguided desire to prove their value to women.
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They usually do it in a very heavy -handed, ham -fisted way.
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And generally, all they do is succeed in disabusing that woman of the fantasy that she had of that man,
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which is why she was sitting there on that date tonight.
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Because the likelihood
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that anything I say is going to match up with what
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you want to see in the privacy of your own mind is functionally zero.
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So I need to tread very carefully because you're not on this date because you like me, because you don't fucking know who I am yet.
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You're here because of what you hope I might be.
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And so I need to be very careful not to disabuse you of that hope too quickly.
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Right?
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It's actually the key to transitioning from one phase to the other.
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It's going to sound real bad, but it's a slow and gradual disappointment.
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Right?
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And you have to do this because if you don't do it, then what do you end up with?
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You end up in a relationship where you're not truly known and you're just performing all the time.
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And that's probably not sustainable, but it's certainly not very satisfying.
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And there'll be a sudden disappointment.
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There generally is.
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I talk about that in the book.
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The crisis of disappointment is one of the first crises that all nascent relationships must pass through.
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And on some level, the relationship doesn't even begin in earnest until couples go through the crisis of disappointment,
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where either through one significant betrayal or the accumulation of small inconsistencies, the fantasy on which the relationship has been based up until that point shatters.
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And the person is really no different from who he or she was the day before, but he or she's going to feel completely different
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because it's almost like the scales have dropped from your eyes and you're seeing this person.
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And maybe what seemed cute and lovable and adorable just a week ago now is completely infuriating and difficult to live with.
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Sometimes the very things that we're most attracted to tend to be the things
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that we dislike most about our partners further down the road.
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It's a cruel irony.
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So interesting when you talk about this moment
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that some relationships go through where they have that sudden disappointment where the kind of honeymoon effect, the halo effect of this person kind of shatters.
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And you say that's when the relationship actually begins.
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Well, yeah, because it's at
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that point where you have the opportunity at long last to see the other person for who he or she is.
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And you couldn't see that before.
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You just saw what you wanted to see.
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You were distorted in your perception by your attraction.
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And you need some of that distortion
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because why else would you have taken the risk and the expense
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and the opportunity to pursue this relationship up until that point.
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Like you need a little bit of attraction.
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Too much of attraction is crazy.
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I mean, it's completely distortive, not enough attraction, and you're not going to overcome the behavioral inertia.
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You're just going to be so in your head and you'll be like, this isn't worth it.
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I'd rather just do something with a higher
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likelihood of success where I can get one of my needs met in a more predictable and consistent way.
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Because relationships are really a roll of the dice, especially today, more than ever.
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So on that first date,
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can women also talk themselves out of it in terms of the women talking too much and the man going, Jesus Christ?
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They can, but most guys just are, they're trying to get laid.
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So like the woman would have to be a total train wreck
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or that guy would have to have enough optionality that he could be picky.
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But most men are not picky because most men are just really hungry.
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for anything that they're willing to get.
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I know that sounds bad, but it's kind of true.
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Well, I mean, it's supported by data as well, isn't it?
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That, you know, I've heard repeatedly that the top 10 % of men are having most of the sex.
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They are killing it.
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It's like, what a time to be alive these days, man.
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And that seems to be kind of the end state of a dysregulated sexual marketplace.
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And it's not unusual.
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It's not uncommon.
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Like we see this in all kinds of animal species,
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elephant seals, wild mustangs it's like you see some alpha males dominate the females who congregate in harems around those men.
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And if that man is defeated by another contender, the women aren't loyal.
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It's not like those females love that individual and they'll stick with it even after it's defeated in combat.
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They just move on to the next one.
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85 % of cultures on this planet, according to people who know more about this than I do, have been polygamous.
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and what we see is that when women are able and empowered to make their own sexual decisions in the sexual marketplace,
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they target the top 10 % of men.
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That creates a lot of problems though, creates a lot of problems, both for men and women.
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It creates problems for women because the likelihood
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that any one of those 10 % men are going to give up their insane sexual optionality
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and enter into a monogamous exclusive arrangement with them is very negligible.
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Like that guy has to be so done with playing the field and so ready to start a family and settle down.
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So it's really about timing as opposed to being the right woman.
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You kind of just have to be good enough at the right moment to kind of capture that man's attention.
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And for the vast majority of those women, they're not going to be it.
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But what's the alternative?
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It's like, how about this, uh, you know, this guy, he's, he's completely average.
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There's nothing bad about him.
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Nothing that great about him either.
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He'd make a great husband.
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Like that doesn't sound very attractive.
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I can understand that.
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Do you still think that relationships are a exchange of value between two people? Of course.
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And what is that exchange of value?
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Cause when I, when, when you, when I read that, it kind of sounds like gold digging or something.
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Well, that's because often people take value very literally,
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and especially economics, that word just is associated very strongly with money in the collective imagination.
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I think in one of the footnotes, I use a definition from von Mises from the Austrian School of Economics,
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and he basically defines economics as the study of human behavior
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in respect to means and with respect to ends and scarce means that could be applied in other ways.
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The easiest way to explain the value is that people don't move towards people they want nothing to do with.
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They have better things to do, especially when they have these scarce resources like time,
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like energy, like attention, and that they want things from other people.
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If I, at a distance, can see there's, it's like going shopping.
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I can look at a distance, there's nothing in that store that I want.
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I don't have to go in and waste my time to figure out whether that's absolutely true or not,
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because I have other things to do today so it's like
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if there's nothing that i want from that store i'm not going to walk through its doors
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right people don't move towards those they don't want anything from
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so what is value value can be all kinds of things value is anything
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that can be bought or earned okay not everything can be bought
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and earned and i have a whole chapter about that
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but a lot of things can be bought and earned okay
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so give me some examples of the most important types of values values
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that we exchange in the context of a relationship sex yeah security yeah excitement yeah emotional support
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yeah child rearing okay and do women and men value those types of value differently of course
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And what do men value more
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And what do women value more
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That's a tough one
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Because not only do men and women value those differently
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But men and women value them differently
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At different stages of their life
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Like I'm sure when you were doing the bottle service
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You were not really thinking
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Whether these women had good maternal capacities No Right?
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You were Trying to get laid
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Exactly You were approaching those women
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With a different set of needs or desires
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There's nothing wrong with that
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Because it's actually very difficult for one person to meet this hyper -conflated set of needs and wants.
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That's one of the reasons why relationships tend to fail these days is we want too many things from one person.
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And we expect one person to be all things across our entire lives, which is very difficult, if not impossible.
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It's like incredible that it even happens at all.
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That didn't used to be the case, did it?
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Well, it didn't used to be the case, mostly because it was so difficult, if not impossible, to divorce.
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And there were a lot of social taboos against separation.
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But I would have been living in like a community where I could have got, you know, we're living much more isolated and lonely now.
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So I would have been, you know, the village would have given me some of those things that I'm looking for in terms of value.
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I would have had a big social structure around me.
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Absolutely.
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I talk about that in the book is
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that we used to live in small communities where we actually
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had lots of different kinds of relationships with lots of different people
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and also in extended kin networks and intergenerational housing, for instance.
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And so with the advent of the nuclear family and the dissolution of real community, we expect our partner to be all things,
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to be an entire village and an extended family.
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And that's just really not possible.
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I mean, the love marriage in particular may even be a paradox in terms because you want kind of, let's say, an emotionally stable,
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safe companion who is also your passionate lover and sexual partner.
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Spontaneous, risky, novel.
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So difficult, if not impossible.
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Yeah.
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Like you certainly can't do both of those things at the same time.
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The best you can hope for is to kind of vacillate between the two of them to kind of create a proportion,
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just enough passion or spontaneity and risk to keep the kind of bedroom alive, but still maintaining the stability and long -term security of the relationship.
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It's very difficult to manage.
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I find this difficult.
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I find this difficult.
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I find it difficult to be in, I'm in a five -year relationship now.
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I'm like, how do you, how do you go for another 50 years?
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Cause I, I, you know, with the, with the same person and maintain the spontaneity and excitement for 50 years,
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you know, and being the kind of novel, sexually attractive, whatever, while also being stable,
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safe, predictable, comfortable, present at the same time.
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Like, they feel like paradoxes.
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It's very hard and you have to be creative.
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It's part of the reason why there are...
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that places like Victoria's Secret exist.
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You know what I'm saying?
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It's like 21 year old girls aren't shopping there really.
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So if you're not willing to actually open up your relationship, then you have to kind of make your partner feel new,
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which could mean different outfits.
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It could mean play and entering in and experimenting with different roles behind closed doors.
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It can also just mean travel.
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I mean, one thing that really seems to spark sex life in couples is foreign bedsheets.
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and I think that you've just sort of changed the context
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and that's enough of a spark of novelty to bring some of the sexual interest back for the man.
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I think novelty is more important for men than for women.
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One of the things that really works in my relationship that I've observed is just being away.
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Absolutely.
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So I come out here for, you know, I'm out here for a couple of weeks now.
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I'm not going to see my, and then I was doing
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Dragon's Den before this in the UK, so I was away for a while then.
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In total, I wouldn't have seen my partner for about four weeks.
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So when I come back, it's kind of like the, a new person.
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It is.
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I mean, one of the things about what made relationships work back in
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the day is men didn't really spend a lot of time with women and vice versa.
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James Sexton, the divorce lawyer, he had this great line on the Softwaite Underbelly interview when he was responding to the spike in divorces during COVID,
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when everybody was shut down and forced into close company with each other for extended periods of time.
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He said that men and women signed up for better or for worse, but not for lunch.
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It's really hard to just be in each other's space all the time.
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And the fact of the matter is when we lived in extended kid networks and communities,
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men had a bunch of men to do things with and women had a bunch of women to talk to.
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And even in the fifties, which is kind of romanticized as the paragon of conservative traditional marriage,
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that was the time when the man was a traveling salesman
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and he was on the road for 200 days out of the year.
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Having an office has kept more marriages alive than probably any other toy or therapy or intervention on the planet.
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Like you need to leave.
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You need to leave.
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And it's even harder to do that with the advent of cellular technology.
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It's like being physically absent doesn't matter if the whole time you're there, I know where you are at all times
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because I've put a tracking thing on your phone and I'm constantly communicating with you throughout the day.
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Like now there's no uncertainty.
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There's no mystery.
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There's no unknown.
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So when we get back together, what do we have to talk about?
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I'm not interested in you because I believe you're an entirely known entity.
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You need to have something that I don't know yet to attract my interest and curiosity,
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which is the spark that eventually potentially leads to passion and sexual intimacy.
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But what does this say about the very nature of monogamy?
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Because if you need to, this doesn't feel like a natural thing.
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If I go back, you know, we, once upon a time, we couldn't just get on a plane or go to the office.
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We would presumably be around each other most of the time.
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I'm trying to understand if you think like monogamy is quote unquote natural.
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Oh, probably not.
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Like I think that humans are probably monogamish, but like strict monogamy,
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which should be really rigidly and explicitly defined by the individuals in question
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because there's clearly behaviors that are in the gray zone, like is harmless flirting cheating?
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You know what I'm saying?
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That some people might say, no, that's just part of the fun of being a social human being and it's not gonna lead to anything.
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And other people might think, no, that's totally inappropriate and incorrect.
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So these things need to be discussed.
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Monogamy isn't just something that everybody agrees on and understands what that means.
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But yeah, I think that it's generally not something that we do naturally.
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One way to think about this is monogamy actually benefits men on a utilitarian perspective
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because there's generally more women than there are for men.
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If you maintain strict social monogamy, we have this many men and this many women, what that means is that even the worst men in society,
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in that community, can be functionally guaranteed of a wife.
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I want to really close off on this point about exchanging values.
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And that's really what a relationship is.
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When I spoke to James Sexton, the divorce lawyer you referenced there, we started talking about gold diggers.
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And he would reference divorce cases where there's a 70 year old, significantly overweight man, who's, you know, with a 30 year old woman.
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And I said to him, is that not gold digging?
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And I said, is that love?
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And his response to me, I'll always remember it was, he said, well, it's a transaction.
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She's getting something from him.
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And in the words that you've described, it might be safety, it might be, I don't know, money or whatever.
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And he's also getting something from her, which is, I guess a feeling.
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I guess it's an emotional feeling.
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Presumably he's getting sex.
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Sex, yeah.
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He's getting the opportunity to walk in the door with a beautiful 30 -year -old on his arm, which is certainly a bump to his ego,
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but is also good for the social game.
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The fact of the matter is, is that most women, most men would have sex with most women,
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but most women would not have sex with most men.
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So we also know that men's threshold for selection is much lower than women's.
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Generally, women have more optionality than men do.
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And so when we see a woman with a man,
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we more or less assume that that's the best man that she could get given her range of options.
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Oftentimes with the men, it's the only woman that would have him.
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Not quite the same thing.
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So if a very attractive woman is with a man,
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then that's an automatic status boost in any social circle
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that he navigates in because everyone is going to assume that there must be something really important or significant about that guy,
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given the fact that we assume that that attractive or beautiful woman could pretty much have any man that she wanted, and yet she's with him.
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For better or for worse, it's more difficult to know a man's true value.
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given the reasons why men and women transact in the sexual marketplace.
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Like women's value in terms of sexual marketplace is just so much more explicit.
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Like it's men's downfall that we're too monomaniacally focused on the reproductive cues and the physical attractiveness for better or for worse.
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And that's hard for women because some women have it and some women don't.
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You know what I'm saying? but for a man
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when it comes time like is he it's difficult to even calculate a person's net worth
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if you have all of their income documentation like you have accountants to do
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that right steven you certainly can't do it on site no like
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if i didn't know about your podcast
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you were just walking down the street with your plain old black tea
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i'd be like you you might be functionally invisible you know what i'm saying
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and that's that's actually kind of good it's nice to be able to be incognito and invisible when you want to be.
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To be so famous that you can't go anywhere without being recognized would be a liability more than an opportunity.
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But it would take somebody to be curious about you, to learn about all the interesting and valuable things about you and your lifestyle.
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And unless you advertise that in some way, most women would not go through the trouble of trying to figure that out.
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And that's not the same for a woman.
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Of course not.
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It's really hard for women to just be alone.
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Oh yeah.
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Like, and that's, I can, and sometimes they complain about that.
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And I get that.
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There's been times when I've been approached and I would rather just be left alone.
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It's annoying to have to reject people.
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It's uncomfortable to be sexualized against your will when you don't want to be.
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Right.
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I was actually watching something yesterday in my green room over there, just cause it came up on my phone.
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It was an ITV documentary where they just basically followed a woman at night through a major city with a camera.
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And it is pretty horrific.
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The one man comes up to her, puts his arm around her.
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She's alone at night in the middle of the street.
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Context.
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Puts his arm around her and basically stops her.
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Hey, please, what's your name?
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Please.
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Another man who's in his 60s or 70s comes over.
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Hey, do you want some piano lessons?
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I play piano.
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Would you like some piano?
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And she can't move down this high street without someone making a sound, a gesture, some kind of proposition.
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Jesus Christ.
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That's what it's like to be like Justin Bieber or something.
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It'd be really annoying.
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Yeah.
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It's interesting, because that behavior is just point blank unacceptable.
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But what I saw in that video as well was just how desperate men must be.
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And especially in the way that the world has changed following the Me Too movement,
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and we understand what consent really is and the experience that women have been through.
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I go, there's a subset of men now
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that are going to be even more terrified to walk up to someone and say, hi, my name is Stephen. Can we talk?
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I've done so many consultations with guys who are terrified of being MeToo'd,
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of being cancelled, of being surreptitiously recorded and humiliated on the internet,
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especially in San Francisco, which is sort of like the epicenter for progressive feminism and politics in general.
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I have done cold approaches to get over my own approach anxiety hundreds and hundreds of times in San Francisco.
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And I have never once been slapped or had a drink thrown in my face or had an angry, uncomfortable interaction.
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Like the worst I got was I went up to a girl, I was like, hey, how you doing?
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And without even responding, she just sort of looked at me and then like looked away.
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And I was like, ooh, okay, all right, not interested.
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Understood.
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That was the worst thing that happened to me.
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I think if you approach women in the right way, you can leave them better than you found them,
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even if they're not interested in having a relationship with you, which most women won't be by definition.
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So get used to striking out.
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If you love the Diver of a CEO brand and you watch this channel, please do me a huge favor,
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become part of the 15 % of the viewers on this channel that have hit the subscribe button.
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It helps us tremendously.
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And the bigger the channel gets, the bigger the guests.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “The REAL Reason 80% of Men Get Rejected”. This video has 337 sentences and 4071 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:29. The speaker talks fast, about 181 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

WordPronunciationMeaning
attraction noun/əˈtɹækʃn̩/The tendency to attract.
disappointment noun/ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪntmənt/The feeling or state of being disappointed: a feeling of sadness or frustration when something is not as good as one hoped or expected, or when something bad…
divorce noun/dɪˈvɔːs/The legal dissolution of a marriage.
attract verb/əˈtɹækt/To pull toward without touching.
marketplace nounAn open area in a town housing a public market.
economics noun/ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪks/The study of resource and wealth allocation, consumption, and distribution, of capital and investment, and of management of the factors of production.
piano noun/piˈænɪː/A percussive keyboard musical instrument, usually ranging over seven octaves, with white and black colored keys, played by pressing these keys, causing hammers…
differently adverb/ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/In a different way.
spark noun/ˈspɑɹk/A small particle of glowing matter, either molten or on fire, resulting from an electrical surge or excessive heat created by friction.
likelihood noun/ˈlaɪklihʊd/The probability of a specified outcome; the chance of something happening; probability; the state or degree of being probable.
vast adjective/væst/Very large or wide (literally or figuratively).
stable noun/ˈsteɪ.bəl/A building, wing or dependency set apart and adapted for lodging and feeding (and training) ungulates, especially horses.
passion noun/ˈpæʃən/A true desire sustained or prolonged.
sudden adjective/ˈsʌd.ən/Occurring quickly with little or no warning or expectation; instantly.
strict adjective/stɹɪkt/Strained; drawn close; tight.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

WordPronunciationMeaning
go through verbTo travel from one end of something to the other.
move down verbTo demote
come back verbTo return to a place.
come out verb/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/To be discovered; to be revealed.
come over verbTo affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse.
come up to verbTo approach.
figure out verbTo come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
get back verbReturn to where one came from.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

  • I don't know who you are.
  • You know what I'm saying?
  • Hey, please, what's your name?
  • Hey, do you want some piano lessons?
  • Would you like some piano?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

StructureIn the video
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer trueused to be · used to live
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters nowhas been based · have dropped · have taken
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does itis based · has been based · were distorted
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thingpeople who know · lives, which is · fifties, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 87 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

  • The “sh” and “zh” sounds: attraction /əˈtɹækʃn̩/, passion /ˈpæʃən/, unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/
  • Long words — get the stress right: disappointment /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪntmənt/, economics /ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪks/, differently /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, invisible /ɪnˈvɪzəb(ə)l/

How to practise with this video

  1. Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
  2. Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
  3. Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like attraction, disappointment, divorce.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →