Monthly Mindreader 1
An Interview
By Michael Fiore
Copyright 2011 by Michael Fiore and Digital Romance, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution in any way, shape, or form is forbidden. No part of this manual or its accompanying audio and/or video material shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any other means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy- ing, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the author. If you have questions, email legal@textyourexback.com.
Copyrighted materials cited in this course are reproduced here for edu- cational purposes only under fair use provisions of U.S. Copyright law.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative in- formation with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the author is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional advice. If legal advice or other profes- sional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Michael Fiore and Digital Romance, Inc. individu- ally or corporately, do not accept any responsibility for any liabilities resulting for the actions of any parties involved.
michael fiore: Hi, this is Michael Fiore and I am here with our first interview in what I’m calling our “Monthly Mind Reader Series”. Now if you’ve read through the PDF document you got with this as well you know that the Monthly Minder Reader is a monthly program where I kind of bring you inside the minds of men. And sometimes that’s going to mean talking to actual men, sometimes it’ll mean me writing a bunch of stuff, whatever it’s going to be. But I’m very excited this first month that we’re doing this program to have my good friend Mark here with me. Mark say hello briefly.
mark: Hello briefly.
michael fiore: Hello briefly indeed. Mark is not a hoity toity rela- tionship expert like I seem to be. He’s not some syndicated columnist, he doesn’t create programs teaching women how to understand men, anything like that. Mark is even better than all of that I think for our purposes here today: an actual guy!
mark: You make it sound like Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom or something
michael fiore: It’s wonderful. It’s like you got your masters in be- ing a dude or something, with a giant beard. Mark, just to give you, Mark is a extremely intelligent, really tall–what are you 6’4”, 6’5” something like that?
mark: 5’16”
michael fiore: Yeah, and you’re 40 now? 41? 42? 43?
mark: Geez. It’s on the interwebs. I’ve aged gracefully into my middle years
michael fiore: The middle years, as they say. I’ve known Mark for about a decade now or so I think.
mark: Bout that. There abouts.
michael fiore: And so Mark the reason I wanted to have you on, to have this conversation with us is because the point of this program and my Secret Survey Program, and Text the Ro- mance Back and everything I do, largely is to explain men to women. Largely. Now we also sell stuff to men and we explain women to men and it’s a whole other kind of thing.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: The big issue that we keep running into again and again and again and again and again is something I call, I call it projective empathy because I like giving things cool names. Right?
mark: Right.
michael fiore: And what I call projective empathy is essentially the tendency of any given person, whoever they are–male, fe-male, white, black, tall, skinny, whatever it’s going to be–to assume that everyone else in the world is just like them. In some way. . .
mark: Uh-huh
michael fiore: The way this works is for example men make the idiotic assumption that if you take a picture of your penis and send it to a woman you barely know she’ll be turned on. Now why do guys do that? Because well, if a girl took a picture of her breasts and I barely knew her and she sent it to me I’d think that was awesome. That’d be great right!
mark: Yeah. . .
michael fiore: And women do something I think is the opposite.
Right? mark: Uh-huh
michael fiore: Women, and I get, you know if you got my Facebook wall, if you look in my email inbox, which is kind of like the wild kingdom itself in there– it’s very, very frightening, it beats me up sometimes–that men are really complicated and that men are really emotional.
mark: I’m sorry, what?
michael fiore: Yes, I know. I know. No, seriously, seriously. mark: Okay
michael fiore: So I want your reaction on this but let me just ex- plain what it is.
mark: Right
michael fiore: Women, not all of them obviously there’s many va- rieties there’s thousands of women who will hear this, but I do get a lot of emails from women
mark: Right
michael fiore: Who basically think that men are pretending.. mark: Pretending..
michael fiore: To be who/what they are. They’re pretending that men are actually very emotionally engaged in the world. And extraordinarily analytical of everything a woman says and that men are just hiding that. That beneath this 6’4” 200+ pounds, bearded exterior there’s going to be some kind of soft, squishy, little boy. And maybe–men do have emotions, we do have emotions, we feel things. I know that. But women are like “What’s really going on in there? What are you really feeling?” And how I kind of want to open this up by what I think is–when a woman. . . you have a girlfriend, a lovely girl and when her and other women
mark: Improbably enough.
michael fiore: Yes, she’s great. When someone like her, when a woman in the past in the time that you’ve dated a woman
mark: Right
michael fiore: You know you’re dating her, you like her–I hope.
You’re hanging out, you’re having a good time, she says “What are you feeling right now?”
mark: Right
michael fiore: What does that, what goes through your head?
What does that mean to you?
mark: It means that she wants to know something.
michael fiore: Okay. So basically when a woman says to you, as a pretty typical guy–I think you’re smarter than most guys I would say
mark: Well that’s very kind of you to say. michael fiore: Yes but,
mark: Yeah, she asks me “what are you thinking”, it’s. . . you have to come up with, you have to deconstruct that.
michael fiore: Okay
mark: And you have to say “how do I say something complimentary about what we’re doing at that moment in the context of our surroundings”? And you generally have to come up with it very quickly. Because
michael fiore: So for example say you and a girl you’re dating mark: Right
michael fiore: Are at a coffee shop mark: Right
michael fiore: And you’re sitting there reading a book and she’s sitting there reading a book or whatever else and she turns to you and says, “what are you thinking?” So your mind is immediately going to, “is this a trap?”
mark: Well, it is.
michael fiore: And I just think it’s interesting that I say “What are you feeling?” and you turn it into “What are you thinking?”. Was that conscious or was that just kind of a transposition.
mark: There’s no. . . I don’t. . . I don’t remember parsing. . . right. So the first thing, like cause I have, there’s a number, there’s a process. So the first thing is that you absolutely don’t do anything with your face or your hands to imply the fact that you were reading and you were counting on reading some more and you’re enjoying reading and that periodic interrupts of reading interfere with the reading experience. So you don’t let any of that be communicated in your facial muscles, your expression, your mannerisms. . .
michael fiore: So the answer is not obvious. So you’re basically saying don’t just say “I’m reading a book”.
mark: No, god no. No but I mean you also don’t close the book or anything you don’t sigh because undoubtedly something has come up in like the last three minutes and you real- ize your afternoon of reading in the coffee shop is going to be punctuated pretty frequently by really abstract questions such as “What are you feeling?” I feel like I want to keep read- ing my book! I don’t know what are you feeling? You’re ob- viously. . . so she’s obviously bored or something cause she’s asking you and so I don’t know. What am I feeling? I. . . I. . . I don’t know how to answer that question I guess. I was just
michael fiore: What do you think the word means? mark: Feeling.
michael fiore: : When a woman says “What are you feeling?” To you, without over thinking it really.
mark: Right, right. Don’t over-think it.
michael fiore: Like what do you initially think that word. . . what do you actually think the question is? At that point.
mark: Ideally you always, well you always have to over-think it be- cause they’realways. . .
michael fiore: Cause they can’t just be “I’m warm”.
mark: Well it’s never–right! Or “full”. I mean I’m a little wired from the caffeine. I’m happy I’m not outside in the rain, this be- ing Seattle. I’m enjoying you know a couple hours where I don’t have to do anything and I’m reading. And we’re read- ing together and isn’t that great. You know what would be even better is that when we are reading together you didn’t read your phone and then tell me something funny about the wedding cake of the Prince of England when he got married to Middleton whatever. Because. . .
michael fiore: Yeah this is actually really interesting because I can hear the women who are listening to this
mark: Uh-huh
michael fiore: And they’re thinking, “Well she’s obviously just try- ing to be engaged with you. She’s trying to spend time with you. She’s trying to be. . . ”
mark: But we already are spending time together
michael fiore: “No,no but you’re not talking, you’re not commu- nicating, you’re not. . . ”
mark: She’s two feet away from me. We’ve spent the entire like 48 hours within 20 feet of each other–this being like a weekend.
michael fiore: Sure yeah.
mark: We’re continuing to be together. There’s. . . I’m sorry. . . michael fiore: No, no, no, don’t be sorry. This is actually a really
good perspective because it illustrates with like um. . . to use myself as an example: My girlfriend, love her to death, we have a fantastic relationship. Great girl. We travel together, we went to her hometown in Ohio and it’s interesting because we’re getting on a plane together–it was our first time getting on a plane together. Now I travel a lot. You know this, going everywhere all the time
mark: Constantly
michael fiore: And I have. . . I think a lot of guys are like this, I have my travel mode setting. I get on an airplane, I put on my headphones, I put on my neck pillow, I close my eyes, I don’t want to talk to anybody. But to her, she was like “we’re going to be sitting next to each other for 5 hours on a plane. We can share so many things”. Right?
mark: Right as opposed to the preceding week or the next week to come or any other moment. You’re. . . I. . . I. . . It’s interesting, you’re totally right this is an interesting point because the flip side of this, for those guys out there who are. . . the other answer that isn’t the right one to this question is then to an- notate to her exactly how much time you’ve spent together because apparently that doesn’t. . . .I’ve tried that
michael fiore: Oh I know. I’ve seen you try.
mark: Yeah, yeah, and saying, “No, in fact we have done all of this together. Spent every single moment I am not at work. . . ” Be- cause sometimes in my current relationship we ride–I ride the bus with her to work and sometimes we like, if I get off from work on time, we’ll ride the bus back together. I’m literally with her constantly. . .
michael fiore: When you’re not at work
mark: When I’m not at work. The moments I have to actually sit in a chair so someone will give me money, that we regrettably have to be all of 5 blocks apart in downtown Seattle. But other than that, and then so this idea that you know, I’m going to see you again after the 9 short hours after we’ve been apart and have something new to tell you about my day analyzing databases. . . no, not a lot’s changed and I don’t care about the cake. I still don’t care about the cake. Can I read? I’d like to read. And she can read too. She can read she can do whatever she likes, you know as long as her appreciation of the cake doesn’t necessarily involve me having to give a rip about the Royal Family.
michael fiore: I think there’s something in there about. . . no, no, seriously
mark: I hope this is interesting
michael fiore: Actually I find it fascinating. Our listeners will probably find it fascinating too because you’re like an alien to them. Right? Cause men are aliens to a to of women.
mark: So women are listening to this. . . okay. . . michael fiore: And they’re confused as hell by men. mark: I don’t think this is really confusing.
michael fiore: I know you don’t. Women don’t think women are confusing either.
mark: Well that’s cause they have thicker brain bridges. No they do.
michael fiore: No, the Corpus Callosum.
mark: Yeah exactly, and when we are all. . . we all gestate as female originally and then there’s this wash of hormones, like month 3 or something, that’s for some of us
michael fiore: Causes us to become female
mark: Well we either remain female or we become male. Right. And part of that hormone wash reduces the Corpus Callosum and that has the connection between the hemispheres and sets the ground work for all of this.
michael fiore: Which in a lot of ways makes it so we’re not as. . . there’s not as much of a stall going on for men.
mark: No.
michael fiore: One of the things that I think is interesting to point out here is that you’re talking about reading a book. . .
mark: Right
michael fiore: And being with your girlfriend. mark: Right.
michael fiore: And I’ve done this myself. I actually find it very satisfying to be in a room with my girlfriend, not doing any- thing with her. right? Like I actually find that quite engag- ing. I like when she’s around, I like having her around. She’s there, she’s doing whatever she’s doing, I’m playing my gui- tar or reading a book–we’re not talking the entire time. . . it’s totally cool. It’s not a big deal. But I think a lot of women are like “well how can you spend time together without being en- gaged? How can that be satisfying for a guy to be like “you’re just here and I like having you here” and have that be okay. As opposed to being, “let’s engage. Let’s talk. Will you pursue me? Will you do all these things.”
mark: I don’t have anything new to say though. Nothing’s changed. michael fiore: So in that case you’re just like “what would I say?”.
But for a lot of women it’s like “but we just talk”. If you watch
women talk to each other, they just talk. Like me, I’m a chat- terbox right, I’ll talk to anybody. You know this. Which is why I can do this job right? It’s because I can actually go out there and take these things that guys don’t say and just be like let’s put them in the language even though most guys are like “why would you want to put that into language? I don’t understand”.
mark: Uh-huh. Right. Like a language class.
michael fiore: Exactly. mark: Yeah, ESL.
michael fiore: But the idea that it can be satisfying for a guy to just sit and be with somebody–and actually I think it’s also the way that men interact right? A lot of times women will say, “well do men ever share their feelings?” Right? With other men. And I say, when I talk to them about this I say, “very occasionally if there’s two guys who know each other well and are, have done some work to be emotionally intelligent–like my brother and I were having a conversation today and I, we had a pretty deep conversation. Sometimes guys will say “well here’s how I feel about this, blah, blah, blah”. Most of the time, we kind of just grunt through it. Right? Like the most emotional conversation’s I personally have with most of my male friends are around the poker table.
mark: Sure.
michael fiore: Right?
mark: No, it’s always doing something else.
michael fiore: See this is actually very important right? So for women, and again we’re making generalizations ladies I know you’re not all the exact same person and men aren’t either, but for women it’s like the emotional engagement is the ac- tivity. Right?
mark: Right. Uh-huh.
michael fiore: Like what’d you do? “Oh we had a conversation about something. We gossiped, we talked about our feelings, we talked about our family, we talked about our friends”. And that can be in itself the activity.
mark: Yeah
michael fiore: So if I were to say, “Mark,” if I called you up one day on your phone and just said, “Mark let’s get together and talk”.
mark: Yeah. Yeah. That’s like detention. It’s like I’ve been called down to the principles office.
michael fiore: Yeah. It’s like abhorrent right? You’re like. . . mark: What do you mean talk?
michael fiore: Am I in trouble?
mark: Yeah exactly. What are you pissed?
michael fiore: Are you going to hit on me? What’s going to go on in this conversation?
mark: Do I owe you money?
michael fiore: I suppose if I said, “hey do you want to get together and get a drink?”
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Right. Or if I said, “Do you want to go bowling?” mark: Yeah bowling is great.
michael fiore: Or “hey do you want to come over and play a board game” or whatever else. Right. Or “hey we’re having a poker night, come over and play poker!” Like okay we can play poker.
mark: Right, right
michael fiore: I think it’s actually weird cause oftentimes it’s. . . I think about how men are not as good as multitasking as women are.
mark: No they are absolutely not. And it get’s worse when they– when women get better at it when they have children. They get better at multitasking and more intelligent. Yeah. Yeah. Just leave men in the dust.
michael fiore: Yeah we’re just like we can only do one thing mark: Completely hapless
michael fiore: I think it goes back to when you were saying before you were reading a book and what are you doing? You’re reading a book.
mark: And now I’m not reading a book.
michael fiore: She’s reading a book and she’s also thinking about, she’s observing what’s going on in the coffee shop.
mark: Right
michael fiore: Cause that’s actually. . . I love that when women talk to me about all the things they notice going on socially.
mark: No idea.
michael fiore: In environments when you’re like I have no idea. . . I was just reading my book, I was just playing Words with Friends, what are you talking about?
mark: I would be lucky to notice the place was on fire.
michael fiore: Yeah. Exactly. But for women that’s impossible.
Like how can you not be aware of everything that’s going on around you with all these women.
mark: Totally not. Yep. On the other hand there’s a. . . you know a girlfriend and I witness an accident and she liked the fact that I didn’t respond to it.
michael fiore: How interesting.
mark: Yeah. So she was actually, she was on the bus and I get off the bus, you know, going to work and literally the bus is stopped at a stop, I’m sitting there in the corner and I wave to her cause they like the connection thing. In spite of the fact that we’ve just been together. It’s a little punctuation, romantic, she likes it whatever.
michael fiore: You’re analytically choosing to do that. mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: Okay. mark: Because. . .
michael fiore: It’s not something you just like kind of like “I should wave to my girlfriend now”
mark: Well it makes her happy so look you hit the button you get the pellet and life is better. So I have now, that’s good, I hit the pellet. I hit the button I get the pellet. So anyway she’s watching me and a car anticipates a green and runs a red and so this, like 30 feet away from me these two cars collide and then start sliding towards me as I stand there on the corner. And she’s watching me during this entire thing and what she said afterwards was that she was amused because I didn’t respond at all. And what I said to her was, “well I was watching sort of the combined vectors of the two automobiles to see if I needed to step behind the column I was standing next to or if they were going to stop before they got to me. So I was very carefully focused on the very dangerous thing and I wasn’t doing anything extra because I was concentrating.
michael fiore: You saw the tiger run. mark: Right and I started making my plan.
michael fiore: And you were like, what am I going to do about the tiger now? Cause there’s a tiger.
mark: But, right. But you know so on the other hand, you know, there are things I believe my sort of, you know stereotypically male psychology are good for. I’m not worried about the peo- ple in the car, I’m not having an emotional response to you know what I’m seeing in front of me besides I already knew no one was probably hurt cause it was you know t-bone humvee.
michael fiore: You’ve also seen a lot. mark: Yeah a lot of car accidents.
michael fiore: Mark was an EMT for many years so he’s seen a lot of these things.
mark: So I’m not that worried about it to begin with but you know anyway it was an interesting sort of. . . cause she freaks out on the bus but part of that sensorium that typically female sensorium is having such an immediate sort of emotional re- action to things whereas you know, I. . .
michael fiore: Which evolutionarily is very useful. mark: Totally useful.
michael fiore: Like in comes in really handy you know for deal- ing with other people, for children and for all those kinds of things.
mark: Oh yeah.
michael fiore: Whereas for guys it’s much more like there’s a tiger.
I gotta deal with the tiger.
mark: It does seem to be sort of task focused. Like “meh”. michael fiore: I think going back to the idea of men sharing when
they’re doing other activities right? I mean I’ve read some stuff. You read evolutionary psychology books they talk about how often time the reason, you know they’ll actually do things where they’ll say when men are having personal conversa- tions. . . and when women have personal conversations they’re ventral, they face each other right?
mark: Right, no. No, no, no.
michael fiore: When men have personal conversations they face the same direction. Right?
mark: Same way. Yup.
michael fiore: That’s actually one of the reasons men are great at having conversations between men in a car.
mark: In a car.
michael fiore: “You wanna go for a drive”, is a great way to have a talk.
mark: It is totally the road trip man.
michael fiore: To open up cause you’re doing something. mark: Right
michael fiore: You don’t have to look at each other. mark: Nope.
michael fiore: Cause no guy wants to look at the other guy. He’s like what’s going on?
mark: Not head on, no.
michael fiore: And some people seem to think it’s because it goes back thousands and thousands of years, you’re hunting and you’re both facing the same direction cause you’re hunting and while you’re waiting to hunt and you’re really focused on that you also kind of talk about stuff. Though you don’t talk about it the way women talk about it. Typically speaking.
mark: No.
michael fiore: I was talking about how a good friend of mine I wrote this in one of the things, I think it was in this program actually. I’ve learned how to kind of amplify his code to a certain degree right? He said to me, “yeah man I’m having a really hard time”.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Right. And I was like oh he’s having a really hard time. A female friend of mine would come to me and say, “I’m really upset right now because of this and because of this and because of this and blah, blah, blah. To me my friend saying “I’m having a really hard time” says all of that. Right.
mark: Right and it’s also tends to be a little bit. . . if your guy friend calls you up and says he’s having a hard time it’s probably the end of the world. I mean he probably has like testicular cancer
michael fiore: It’s a big deal.
mark: Yeah something is going seriously off the rails.
michael fiore: He’s gotten arrested. He has cancer. Somebody died. Something horrible has kind of. . .
mark: He has to donate a kidney. Yeah it’s. . .
michael fiore: Now how much do you know of this, and women will see this as kind of emotional numbness or retardation or not being in touch with your feelings.
mark: Sure.
michael fiore: I always say to women it’s like yes men are often not in touch with their feelings and we just are not getting as many of them. Generally speaking.
mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: You know, it’s like being color blind I always say.
You know a lot of guys are color blind and it’s like mark: I’m color blind
michael fiore: Yeah I know you are! And a lot of women I know are like are very aware of all these emotional tones that are going on at any given moment. There’s, you know it’s like an Eskimo having a thousand words for snow or whatever that method is right?
mark: Right and it’s interesting though because I do, I do dissect a lot of scripts and sort of character and plot dialogue with my girlfriend. She’s very into writing and it’s not that I can’t spot what’s going on in the script, emotional beats, why things are done certain ways in melodramas and like. So it’s not that I’m illiterate in them, I just don’t communicate my own that way. So it’s just a set of vocabulary that I know but I don’t use.
michael fiore: It’s almost like you’ve learned German as a second language right?
mark: Right.
michael fiore: And you’re like yeah you can get what they mean. mark: Yeah but when I stub my own toe I don’t say “Schitza!” michael fiore: Yeah
mark: Right. Cause that’s not my go to, it’s not my native tongue.
michael fiore: So I think the key is there, like you know my friend calls me up and says “Mike I’m having a hard time”. For me I know that is. . . if I had a girlfriend or a female friend who said “I’m having a hard time”, I’d say “oh okay let’s talk about it. It’s probably something relatively small”. Right?
mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: It’s like “oh I’m just feeling kind of down this week blah, blah, blah”. If you called me up and said. . . and I’ve known you for a decade, we’re pretty good friends, and you said “Mike I’m having a hard time” I’d be like tell my girlfriend I’m going to cancel everything I’m doing today. I have to find out what’s going on.
mark: Yeah cause my worlds ending. I don’t know what. I just you know, I’ve had buddies and those conversations are generally like my relationships ending. But not, not that they’re having trouble in the relationship, not that like, yeah seriously, not like something was thrown at somebody, my stuff’s on the lawn, I need you to help me move.
michael fiore: She’s screwing the mailman. Blah, blah, blah. mark: Right you know. I have to take these big pills for the next 3
months sort of thing.
michael fiore: Yeah bad things mark: Yes.
michael fiore: And I think it’s interesting like guys will even when these tragedies come up we often talk about them in surface terms. Whereas women, like I said women will oftentimes– again generalizations–but women will often go so deep into every emotion. And when a woman hears about a guy who’s going through this she’ll want him, “well why can’t you open up to me? Why can’t you tell me what you’re really feeling? Oh you have cancer! How does that make you feel?” And as a guy you’re kind of like “I’m not happy about it” but almost like being forced to open up about it and use all this German.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Use all this foreign language to talk about it, is actually more stressful.
mark: Well, and I don’t. . . I. . . in so much of this, you know it’s. . . I see my role in the relationship is not being that random.
michael fiore: Yeah.
mark: I see my, you know my role is to be more foundational and that women are you know the beautiful filigree adorning the cathedral and I’m the flying buttress. Alright. I’m sort of the foundation you know. If we’re walking home and it’s raining
michael fiore: Yep.
mark: I’m not going to sit there and talk about the fact that my shoes are wet and by socks are wet and so then it’s kind of seeping through my. . . I just don’t. . . I’m gonna get us. . . .I want to get home. I’m focused on getting home. I might be cold and miserable. I’m not going to talk about that though because it’s not really going to help anything. You know I would rather be colder and have her have my coat
michael fiore: Yep.
mark: Than be warmer and have to listen. . . cause I just want her to be okay.
michael fiore: Cause you just don’t want to deal with it. Right? mark: Well I don’t want it to have to be dealt with. I would rather
take it on me and then not have to have it be a problem be-
cause I’m ignoring the problem because I’m enduring it and I’m going to get home and then I’m going to be dry. As op- posed to having the act. . . to talk about a problem that we can’t do anything about that we’re in fact even solving by heading home. I mean I know it’s a problem.
michael fiore: Yeah.
mark: And I’m going to do everything I can to. . .
michael fiore: But there’s really no point in enhancing it.
mark: No. Or I don’t want to mull at it. I don’t want to keep poking at the sore spot. You know is there anything I can do to keep you from being unhappy?
michael fiore: So if she said, “How are you feeling right now?” it’s like cold, and wet, and annoyed and I want to go home.
mark: Right, except for I wouldn’t tell her any of that because then she’d want to talk about that.
michael fiore: So actually this is important. . . okay. . . mark: Okay. . .
michael fiore: So women often ask. . . they say “why won’t he an- swer me when I ask him how he’s feeling?” or “why do men lie about what they’re feeling?” right?
mark: Safer
michael fiore: Explain that. What does that mean?
mark: Well I don’t. . . there are a lot of. . . .things might not be okay but I don’t want to talk about them enough to have the con- versation which might go anywhere.
michael fiore: And by anywhere that could be, it could become this big like, “and why were you flirting with your secretary”. And like where did that come from?
mark: “Why aren’t you happy with me in the coffee shop? Why do you want to spend any time not together?” When you anno- tate like I’ve spent all my time. . . ”do you not want to spend all your time with me? How. . . you don’t? do you want to do other things?” Why can’t. . .
michael fiore: You’re just getting trapped.
mark: Right. “Why can’t you do those things with me?” Well it’s just you don’t like playing violent video games and I like play- ing them with my friends. “Well so it wouldn’t be the same if I went there? Why not? Why can’t, you know, why can’t we share things?” And I’m like because you actively don’t like them and 5 minutes into it you’re going to start sighing and complaining and wondering why everything has to be the way it is.
michael fiore: And you won’t be able to relax.
mark: So I don’t do those things and then we don’t fight about them. But yeah it’s. . . I don’t want to have a random conver- sation about my feelings escalate into. . . spiral off into some substantive exploration of fissures in our mutual unblem- ished happiness. And it’s just like no look I am here, I was here yesterday, I’ve made plans to be here tomorrow. Please stop asking me if I’m happy or what I’m feeling. Might not be that into it, you know right now. . .
michael fiore: At any given moment. . .
mark: At any given moment not gonna talk about it and it’s prob- ably going to go away if I just. . . but you know what won’t go away? This big screaming fight in public. That won’t go away because all the stakes will be so high.
michael fiore: Yes.
mark: And blah, blah, blah.
michael fiore: It’s almost like walking through the rain right? Right?
It’s like. . .
mark: Yeah I’d just like to get through it. michael fiore: I just want to get through it.
mark: I just want to get through to the other side.
michael fiore: I just want to get to the other end. And I don’t want to have to talk about the rain. I certainly don’t want to stop in the middle of the rain.
mark: Certainly don’t want to talk about how the city sucks or the weather sucks or how much better it is other places.
michael fiore: And you’d rather just get as little wet as possible. mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: And go back to the way kind of things are. mark: Right.
michael fiore: So one of the things that I. . . when I survey my email list and things like that the real question women have is not “how do you feel?” or “what are you feeling right now?” They’re actually fishing for one, one very specific question. That when I ask my email list or my Facebook wall what’s the one thing, you know when I say, if one thing I say. . . when I ask the women on my list “what’s the one superpower you want?” can you guess what it is?
mark: Mind-reading.
michael fiore: Mind-reading, correct. mark: Got it in one!
michael fiore: Yes. mark: Awesome
michael fiore: I would say 90 mark: Nah. . . heal the sick.
michael fiore: Well yes, that’s a good
mark: Cause then you wouldn’t have to teleport, everyone would come to you and you’d have all the power in the world.
michael fiore: You’d have all the sick people come to you. But they want to know. . . when they say “how do you feel?” they’re actually “how do you feel about me?” is the question.
mark: Right. And you know what’s really important in a relation- ship is asking if the other person still likes you every 8 min- utes.
michael fiore: So why. . . so this is interesting to know because like. . . now my girlfriend and I we have a very good relation- ship in that she has no question whatsoever how I feel about her.
mark: Okay.
michael fiore: And I’ve not had that in the past right? So I don’t think it’s actually that I’ve gotten a lot better at it.
mark: You could have.
michael fiore: I think I’ve gotten somewhat better at it than like my ex-girlfriend or things like that. But I’ve been in rela- tionships personally with women in the past who constantly, constantly trying to get reassurance. Right?
mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: And it’s one of those like, it’s like, well I told you I love you and I washed your car.
mark: Right
michael fiore: Like what do you mean? mark: I made breakfast
Micahel Fiore I made breakfast. I don’t like making breakfast but I did it.
mark: Did the dishes yesterday.
michael fiore: Yeah, I went to that thing that I didn’t want to go to
mark: and
michael fiore: With you. michael fiore: Yes
mark: Right
michael fiore: And then women are you know, oftentimes still com- ing back and
mark: But see you can’t say that though because they’re like “you didn’t want to go to that?! Why didn’t you say? Blah, blah, blah”. And I was like, yeah I’ve had conversations with girl- friends saying “no, I specifically did that so that you would be happy. Sometimes I do things I don’t want to do for you”.
michael fiore: To make you happy.
mark: And I’m not going to tell you that because you freak out and you want to talk about why I don’t want to do it or what it means. . .
michael fiore: Cause she wants you to want to do it mark: And that’s the cruel part.
michael fiore: Okay, great.
mark: That’s the cruel part. I don’t think. . . I don’t need her to want to do everything. . . that’s the mind control part. And I think that’s the messed up part. Anyway first of all anyone who thinks that reading minds is going to make them happy is effing insane.
michael fiore: Oh it’d be awful
mark: You’d immediately just become a complete pry and you’d hate humanity. It would be a curse.
michael fiore: Yes cause you would know about the darkness in everyone.
mark: Right and the fact that, yeah we’re all isolated living in our own little fantasy worlds. We’re all completely disconnected from reality.
michael fiore: We’re all perverts and demons and we’re all hyp- ocrites.
mark: Right and we’re all insane. It’s just yeah. I don’t know why anyone would want that.
michael fiore: I personally wouldn’t
mark: It’s great it’s at the top of the list though. But also it’s the whole thing of you know, relationships involve you know a great deal of sacrifice and pain. So in exchange for the sacri- fice and pain I get, you know the sort of emotional stabilizing force of this other person that I have to. . . that in catering to I am more outwardly focused and it helps me psychologically. I don’t become so inwardly sort of narcissistic and self-involved and spiral off into my own sort of fantasy world of needs and sort of desires.
michael fiore: There’s a service there.
mark: Yeah, yeah exactly. I mean I. . . being. . . I think it helps you be more. . . this is outside of whatever pleasure you take out of the relationship it’s just fundamentally good for you to have some sort of a biting interest in at least one other person’s happiness because it gets you a little out of your head and out of your shell.
michael fiore: And to have someone to protect in a way. To have somebody to take care of
mark: Well see that’s just. . . you know, who doesn’t like. . . michael fiore: We find that satisfying.
mark: Oh totally!
michael fiore: I love doing that kind of thing.
mark: Yeah. I mean yeah. As a guy it’s just nice to be able to carry the heavy things and to, you know, I have to schlep around this huge frame because it has to be good for some- thing. Yeah. I actually yeah.
michael fiore: I’m schlepping around this huge frame and I’m go- ing to have a hear attack 20 years before you do.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Hope it’s worth it
mark: Exactly. You’re going to live the next 15 years without me because I’m going to die young cause
michael fiore: Cause I’m too big and. . .
mark: I’m twice as big as you. Right. I don’t get to punch things and to drag them home very often for food so let me do that.
michael fiore: What does the word “romance” mean to you? mark: Oh, god.
michael fiore: That’s the definition right now.
mark: Romance means an explicit effort that is tailored to the emo- tional and intellectual peculiarities of the other person. An explicit gesture that is made to feather the nest. To show, to relate somehow the importance of the person, the time with money and resources you just kind of make this ges- ture to. . . well. . . bring forth solid concrete evidence of your affections.
michael fiore: Why would you ever be romantic?
mark: Well it’s a great way to buy time between now and the next time you have to be romantic.
michael fiore: So it’s almost like putting money in the romance bank or the affection bank.
mark: Yeah a parking meter. michael fiore: Okay
mark: It’s the relationship parking meter.
michael fiore: read a great quote from Brian Cranston, who’s the guy who plays the main character on Breaking Bad.
mark: Okay. That’s a show I’d go to for dating advice
michael fiore: It’s a fantastic show. But anyway the actor, they were interviewing about something and they were saying “Brian you wrote a screenplay for your wife how incredibly romantic”. And he said “Well yeah I did that thing cause you know she’s pretty awesome and we’ve got a great marriage and I really figured that would buy me a couple years”.
mark: Right. Yeah
michael fiore: It’s like. . . I like doing romantic things, I don’t want to have to do them all the time.
mark: Right, right.
michael fiore: And I find a lot of women that are like “I want him to do this every day. Why can’t he write me a poem everyday? Why can’t he do this? And do this?” And most guys are like I’m gonna go shoot myself now.
mark: Yeah. . . a poem everyday. . .
michael fiore: Or whatever it’s going to be
mark: You can’t. . . okay so I just object to that entire, that concept.
Anything you do everyday is not going to be romantic. michael fiore: Okay, explain.
mark: It’s just not. I mean you can, if I make. . . if because of the way our schedules–for instance like in my current relation- ship like I make breakfast
michael fiore: Yes
mark: And we’re getting out. . . you know it’s nothing fancy but she gets to shower and blah, blah, blah now normally that’d be romantic but I do it everyday. So now it’s just kind of the background noise of the way our relationship works.
michael fiore: It’s the expected thing. mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: And then if you don’t make breakfast mark: Right, it’s a big deal
michael fiore: “Oh my god why didn’t you make breakfast?”
mark: Exactly. And so. . . on the flip side it is...so I’ve. . . women need constant, like very frequent low level contact.
michael fiore: Yes.
mark: So touches, gestures and this is actually michael fiore: Or as I explain, like text messages. mark: Right.
michael fiore: The whole reason that product exists is because you’re like well you can’t be together all day and this is easier anyway right?
mark: And in fact it’s if you only...if you wanted to fail one direc- tion, one or another, if you do a grand romantic gesture you’re going to end up eating an expensive dinner by yourself with flower petals in your hair because at that point the ground is not going to be prepared. She’s not going to be ready to accept it if you ignore and over compensate.
michael fiore: She’ll wonder who else you’re sleeping with.
mark: Yeah. It just won’t work. Whereas small gestures, you know just things like touching when you walk past, you know the body language, acknowledgements, cooking breakfast, notes in lunch bags, you know all of this I think the net affect is. . . it stabilizes the relationship so that if anything does go wrong you’re starting, you know there’s not enough. . . there’s less energy in the system so it doesn’t spin off as fast. As op- posed to if you are somewhere more neglectful. You add the energy of the romantic gesture but you don’t know which di- rection the energy is pointed. It’s a vector but it’s acting upon a body. . . you know you’re relationship that’s in an unknown state. And so you don’t know where the net. . . you know it’s like shooting a cue ball really hard but you don’t know where the pocket is. You know your shots just not lined up. So it’s not. . .
michael fiore: So you have no idea what’s going to happen. mark: Right and the slot might get you in but if you know there’s
certainly not a called shot and so you might not get in. So
gosh that might be an excellent example of over thinking it and a woman sitting there in the audience saying “let me get this straight, he’s talking about emotions, relationships and he’s talking about combinatorial vectors on body in an un- known state and that’s really his. . . ” And yes, yes in fact that is, that is my mental model for our relationship.
michael fiore: Your particular mental model. mark: Thank you very much.
michael fiore: Not every guy has that particular model. I think there’s something interesting that you said though because the idea of the small touches and also the idea of. . . you know the small touches are something I’m a big fan of. I am not a person who does personally grand romantic gestures very often. My girlfriend and I were chatting the other day about the fact that I’ve never bought her flowers. Right?
mark: Awesome conversation.
michael fiore: Awesome conversation. But the great thing about my girlfriend is she was like “I think it’s kind of funny that you’ve never bought me flowers”. But she wasn’t doing the whole like “why won’t you buy me flowers” because she knows I love her and we’re really. . . .I do a lot of I tell her I love her. I
show her I love her. I do little acts of service for her. I send her little text messages sometimes out of nowhere. Like yesterday I posted something on her Facebook wall saying “I feel bad for other guys sometimes because I have this amazing feast of a girlfriend and so many other guys are starving”. And I did it on Facebook, in public.
mark: Big points
michael fiore: Yes. Huge points and every female friend that we have in common liked it.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: And she liked it and she was really happy. And she didn’t even mention it back to me. She just liked it on Facebook, never brought it up and was like “oh Mike that was so sweet”. It was just something that I do. Right I do these little things. She knows exactly how I feel about her. The thing about the breakfast thing. . .
mark: Right
michael fiore: Right. If you cook breakfast everyday, then when you don’t cook breakfast you’re in trouble. Right
mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: But if you cook breakfast every once in awhile. This goes back to a question we get a lot, why is it so hard for guys to say “I love you”? Right? Or why won’t he say “I love you” more often. And a lot of guys when you try to get them to say those three words to a girl, even a woman they obviously love right?
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Or anybody who has any observational skills what- soever and understood men to some degree would be like he is obviously crazy about her. Right? But he’s like uuhhhhh. Yeah.
mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: What is it about that phrase do you think? Is the expectation? Is it there’s something embarrassing about it? What do you think is kind of, creates so much weight around that?
mark: Wow hitting a wall. michael fiore: It’s okay.
mark: I think it’s. . . there are so many nuances in our relation- ships. Particularly, you know for those of you, you know for those listeners who aren’t in their. . . gracefully aging in their middle years, like if you’re god help you in your 20’s. I mean I really don’t think the vocabulary is set. I don’t think a lot of particularly younger guys even know all the different. . . there’s so many different ways you can be in love with somebody. There’s so many different ways that. . . and what. . . I mean kind of by using. . . okay you know how Ger- man has those 17 letter long words they’ve gotten by mashing them?
michael fiore: Yeah.
mark: They’ve gotten by matching them? That’s what it’s like it’s like
Michael Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung mark: Exactly and you’re just like
michael fiore: It’s like 7 words pushed together with a verb and a gib
mark: Exactly. And so you use that and you’re taking all of what this could possibly mean. 4 letters and you’re passing it back and forth. And the idea that either of you have the same sort of weight or meaning of that word
michael fiore: Or definition
mark: Yeah, is frightening unlikely. It really, really isn’t. It’s a lot, you know. . . and it’s relationships. . . the very nature of the re- lationship between men and women is so, so unbalanced. It’s just. . . fundamentally. You know, starting at that whatever 3 month wash of hormones that separates the Corpus Callo- sum. You know it, you know. . . I can. . . you know carrying home groceries to what sex means. Because the care of feed- ing of men sexually is much, much more straightforward and just about all the consequences of sex land on women.
michael fiore: Very much so.
mark: And the whole you know, care and feeding of the reproduc- tive system and the like and it. . . so exchanging this word is this token about our relationship is incredibly fraught. And as a guy you’re either one completely flipping about it. So you don’t care that either of you aren’t saying the same thing and you’re just saying yes we both cha-chunk love each other.
michael fiore: Whatever your definition is that is definitely what I have.
mark: Right, exactly. Whatever you have going on is exactly what I feel.
michael fiore: Because it prevents us from having the conversa- tion which is like walking through the rain right?
mark: Right exactly.
michael fiore: don’t want to walk through the rain. We already had this conversation. What’s going on?
mark: Yeah, versus you know the other guy who’s more mindful about how fraught it is. Either you don’t care. . . basically you don’t care or you care too much. And there might be a rational sweet spot in the middle there but it’s much more comfortable to you know express your affection in like, look you know I’ve. . . we’ve been together for 6 months this is what I do. It doesn’t matter what I say.
michael fiore: Yeah.
mark: And really doesn’t. I mean if you’re dating and you’re ever confused about what the other person intends, you know ig- nore what they say. Especially when you talk to young women who are trying to figure out men. And they’re being treated like crap and they say “buddy says he loves me” well it doesn’t matter what he says, it doesn’t matter what she says.
Michael He’s sleeping with your sister! mark: Exactly! “But he says he loves me”!
Michael But he’s sleeping with your sister and your cousin and
mark: Yeah and it’s the same for guys if they’re treating you. . . how they treat you. Ignore what they say and then focus on what they do and often in a relationship you know, you say “look I am what I am. You might think of me as emotionally illiterate or stunted but you know when you need me, when you need someone to whatever
michael fiore: Kill a tiger
mark: Kill a tiger, change the tire, you know do this stuff that you’re–you know I’m not be sexist, you’re totally capable of doing–but if someone has to take the hit and be cold and change the tire and I have twice as much body mass as you do so you know hypothermia’s a long way farther off for me
michael fiore: And I’m not possibly carrying a baby
mark: Exactly. I’m not, I don’t have any of those sensitive things you know physiologically speaking. You have a. . . the blood flow to your extremities closes down more profoundly than it does mine so when you look at survival cases you know women tend to survive better than men but they lose fingers and toes. Verses guys who usually keep everything or die.
michael fiore: Fascinating.
mark: Because we’re not as good at controlling our capillary sys- tem.
michael fiore: I gotta interview EMT’s all the time. Love it.
mark: No it’s just one of the host of ways that you know since you know we’re dating people of a different sex we just have to allow for. So again boils down to the idea that when we say this word we’re talking about the same thing because you know even the entire sort of children thing women have a biological clock. I used to joke that women are the hands on the clock face of men’s mortality. I mean a guy
michael fiore: That’s a great phrase
mark: Yeah guys you know bupt-duh-duh-duh you’re happy, you’re you know fall out of trees you don’t hurt yourself and then your nuts get fuzzy and your voice changes and then there’s about 50 years and then you know hair starts turning gray and then you die.
michael fiore: Yeah
mark: There’s just not punctuation. There’s absolutely none. michael fiore: It’s kind of a degree case you just start getting phys-
ically less viral.
mark: Right and but yeah. . .
michael fiore: But there’s no menopause there’s no like what- ever. . .
mark: No there’s no menstrual cycle, there’s no menopause, there’s no idea of you know the sort of concept of your fertility, which is I know not exactly true for men but largely true in it’s raw gestures. And so yeah you can just be completely insensate to this entire process. For women you know it’s so much of their thinking in relationships and how it has to do with careers and when they’re going to choose to kind of make themselves so incredibly vulnerable as to be pregnant. And you know then the aftermath.
michael fiore: It feels like women are just more aware of their bod- ies.
mark: Well they have to be. They absolutely have to be.
michael fiore: Cause most men I know are completely divorced from their bodies.
mark: Oh yeah you mean the meat sack that carries my brain around? Yeah!
michael fiore: There’s no like. . . it’s like when I talk about sex with women you know for most guys the physical aspect of sex
mark: Right
michael fiore: Is tiny. It’s like the physical pleasure of sex for guys. . .
mark: Yeah
michael fiore: I mean it’s there, don’t get me wrong mark: No, no, yeah.
michael fiore: We like the way it feels physically mark: Right
michael fiore: But that’s like 10 mark: Well yeah.
michael fiore: And I’m like really? That’s cool.
mark: Again I’m assuming that your audience is a little more in- terested in this sort of thing
michael fiore: Yeah.
mark: Because they’re taking this seriously and they’re paying at- tention.
michael fiore: I make a point of never patronizing the women that listen to our stuff which means talking honestly about this.
mark: So yeah. . . so speaking on average you know when you’re with someone and she’s you know plateauing for the 2nd or 3rd time or you know just talk about it with her afterwards. How many times have you had the conversation with women about how you know the second orgasm or whatever is differ- ent? I mean they have this whole like you know like Eskimos in snow. There are like 400 different. . . I was like well I had, you know guys maybe have 2. There’s that one that was fun and then there’s the one that’s like wow
michael fiore: That was amazing
mark: But there are about 2 of them, they last about 45 seconds maybe a minute and then you’re like okay now I have to do the whole cuddle, sweat, wet spot calculation thing. Yeah and women will just plateau and you know depending on what you two are into can just bang around in these orgasmic nether regions for however long. No I, you know, I’ll go on record man, women enjoy sex more than men.
michael fiore: Way more than men mark: Way more than men.
michael fiore: And why do guys want it so much more? That’s not always true
mark: Well I have an answer for that. michael fiore: Great, awesome.
mark: Because women get to make the choice. So you have a system where you’re trying to come up with these pairings right? And we’ve all, you know, again your readers are prob- ably more interested than most so everyone knows about like within the first couple seconds of contact everyone’s judged by lateral symmetry as a gross reflection of lateral
michael fiore: So lateral symmetry means?
mark: Right. That genetically you have a well expressed genetic code that you read. . . they’ll be picking up on cues about your social status. Which is important because that expresses how well you have developed sociologically. How well you have integrated with the system around you, which is great be- cause you know you don’t want to date some sort of crazed loner.
michael fiore: No, of course not.
mark: Because then you have children who are crazed loners. michael fiore: Especially one who has no resources cause then
they have. . .
mark: Exactly. And so...and then they’ve done. . . .they say studies have shown that women have a rough idea of the delta be- tween their immunological system and yours based on your blood type as expressed by your pheromones. So preference to guys who have a more divergent immune system.
michael fiore: What that basically means is women like the way guys who are not very much like them, smell
mark: Yeah, yeah. And then when they become pregnant they tend to like people who smell like them.
michael fiore: For protection
mark: Yes for protection. And all of this, all of this goes through and of course her. . . all of these her choices and preferences change based on where she is in her menstrual cycle and all of this. So with all of this in mind. . . what was the question?
michael fiore: It’s like a super computer versus a calculator. mark: Yeah, exactly. And this...and all of this goes into a, into
this idea this hand shake and this. . . what the relationship
means.
michael fiore: Let’s go back, we’re almost out of time mark: Okay.
michael fiore: I want to come back and re-hook to kind of where we were starting in the beginning, which was about feelings. And I think we’ve gone, we’ve stayed in that kind of wheel house but also diverged off into some other kind of things that I think are interesting and informing a certain way. But the main thing we want to talk about in this is why men are kind of closed down emotionally.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Comparatively. And how to kind of change that.
And I want to ask you a couple questions. 1. How do you feel about women?
mark: Feel about women? It’s. . . I miss not having them in my life. When I don’t have an intimate relationship with a female, sure you get horny but you get horny all the time. Even when you’re in relationships you know if you don’t catch yourself your head will turn. That doesn’t really matter. It’s just back- ground noise but I do, I do miss having someone in that, sorta to check in with, to report with. You know, even the annoy- ing bits I just feel like having someone else in my life keeps my head straight and you know, ideally if you’re romantically involved with someone as opposed to a good friend then you know you have a greater sort of emotional landscape to draw on. Because then you have you know you can by gestures of, non verbal gestures of caring and the like you can you know have this sense of an in obscene comfort that you don’t, that you don’t, that you can’t have with just you know platonic friends.
michael fiore: Specifically connecting with someone who is fun- damentally different from you. Right?
mark: Yeah and having them be different is important.
michael fiore: And having them even frustrate you in a way is kind of part of the deal.
mark: It’s part of the deal. It’s you know you gotta pay to play. michael fiore: I mean a lot of guys we sit around and say why
can’t women be more direct? Right?
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Why can’t she just. . . one thing I get all the time I get questions from men saying why can’t women believe me when I say “I love you”?
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Cause women
mark: Because you need to make more small gestures. That’s. . . michael fiore: Because she needs to be able to read that in her
every day life. And when I’ve talked about women is realizing that he’s not thinking about you all the time.
mark: Nope.
Michael Yeah. mark: Really not.
michael fiore: Which is hard for women by the way. Cause their biggest desire, if you read romance novels or anything like this–which don’t do it, I do it for you, you don’t have to– it’s. . . that fantasy is about the guy who is obsessed with her, but not creepy.
mark: Yeah see that’s the, right there. . . but not creepy. You don’t get that. That’s not an ice cream flavor that’s on the menu. No if you need that sort of thing that says that actually you’re unbalanced. That you don’t, you. . . it’s like people who like pugs. Okay. Any dog that can bark so hard that it’s eyeballs pop out, okay, I’m sorry that’s not. . . .why do you need some- thing that needs you that badly. Why do you need a pet that needs your help to get another one of its kind pregnant? It just. . . what are you doing? What is the point of this? Why do you need someone who’s either you know helpless or is constantly hung up on you. It’s like people who like dating people who are much, much, much younger than them. Yeah, no there’s something wrong with you buddy.
michael fiore: I find that problematic as well.
mark: Yeah. You need a power imbalance in your relationship?
Really? That’s great.
michael fiore: I’m like the hot young body is nice and all mark: Oh sure.
michael fiore: But I personally would never date anyone under
25. Personally mark: No.
michael fiore: I’m only 34 and I would just never do it.
mark: No. I mean yeah you can go out and have fun, but the idea that you’re going to have a mutually like sort of intellectually, emotionally satisfying relationship–they’re at a totally differ- ent point in their life. They don’t have anything like the vocab- ulary so yeah that’s it. If you know. . . you don’t wish that the other person is like you, but you just need to focus on what their„,you know if you’re trying to figure out a guy you figure out what their sort of non verbal vocabulary is as it comes to you, you know? Do they, you know, maybe you want some- thing because when you go to parties they run off and you can find them at the keg and they’re talking to somebody else. In which case stop listening to what they’re saying.
michael fiore: Observe their behavior
mark: Yeah. He’s an asshole and you should be with somebody else. But you know if he’s treating you well in a thousand little ways and you’re trying to dream up this sort of grand gesture involving pirate ships and whatever sort of romance fiction that’s a women writing a woman.
michael fiore: It’s fiction yeah.
mark: He doesn’t ask that you be a porn star and you don’t ask him to be a romance character.
michael fiore: Neither Jenna Jamison nor Edward Cullen actu- ally exist.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: They’re both fantasies. mark: Right.
michael fiore: Yes there is a woman named Jenna Jamison–she still doesn’t exist.
mark: No, she doesn’t
michael fiore: Yeah. Okay well I want to kind of sum up here and finish what we’re doing. You know we called this module the emotional crowbar method right? How to open up a guy. Cause I like writing things like emotional crowbar. And I think it’s. . . there’s a couple things I think we covered here and I covered in the written material as well. One of them is the amplification method which is when you’re talking. . . .when a guy/guy standpoint you learn to interpret what men are saying in a different way right? When a man says “I’m having a hard time dude” it means my balls got cut off and fed to a dog and I don’t know what to do.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Guys tend to understate. Not because they are ly- ing, not because they’re. . . it’s partly because of socialization but it’s largely just because they are like we don’t tend to com- plain that much.
mark: Well you’re a whiner.
michael fiore: Yeah, you’re a whiner. Guys will be like why you whining so much!? If I showed up to poker and was like “I’m sorry I’m just having a hard time me and my girlfriend had a fight today” they’d be like “dude are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital? Like what is wrong with you?”
mark: I mean you can talk about it but context is important you know.
michael fiore: The talk we’d have is, “yeah me and the girlfriend had a total fight today and really I’m kind of upset about it.” Right? And there is no emotion in the voice there. I mean there’s a little bit but there’s nothing kind a there.
mark: Yeah I know. . . go no crying or anything.
michael fiore: No. no. Men don’t do that together unless they’re going to some kind of men’s group in the woods where they play drums.
mark: Right or punching each other in the nuts.
michael fiore: And the second one I think is really about that. . . the number 2 thing I think is the best way a woman can actually get a guy to actually open up is not by saying “I want to have a serious conversation”
mark: No.
michael fiore: it’s by. . . it’s the opposite. . . it’s actually the one place where men are better at multitasking. Right?
mark: That’s true
michael fiore: It’s like the only time a man kind of multitasks is if you kind of give him something else to do and you have the conversation around that activity that you’re actually doing right? So whether it’s hunting or playing a game or playing pool or having a beer or looking at other girls. That’s what we do; guys sit around and we look at girls and talk and we have conversations that are actually rather deep in a way. Right?
mark: Sure, sure.
michael fiore: But it’s if you make it. . . it’s a little ninjitsu there, or jujudo there. It’s like you can’t make it the “we’re having a conversation” though. The conversation needs to almost be secondary to what’s going on.
mark: Well yeah cause he gets pinned down and it’s like well what have I done wrong?
michael fiore: Yes.
mark: Why are you upset?
michael fiore: And defensive. And men don’t want to have those conversations.
mark: No, no. I want you to be happy.
michael fiore: And the third one it seems to be about the learning to actually read. . . I totally agree with this, is that learning to read what he’s telling you right?
mark: Yeah
michael fiore: Guys are. . . and both ways. A man can be extremely verbally expressive and not. . . I’ve done this myself. Right?
mark: Sure.
michael fiore: I’ve been with. . . I had a girlfriend several years ago who I really wasn’t that into right? I liked her as a person, we enjoyed each other, I was physically attracted to her, I enjoyed being around her and I just was like, you know I’d tell her “I love you” and you know it was like I kinda did but at the same time
mark: In a way
michael fiore: Wasn’t really the right person for me. mark: Right and you knew it.
michael fiore: And she picked up on it and you know she did pick up on that and notice that my actions were not meeting up with my words.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: And words are not really that important. mark: No. If you have to have one or the other.
michael fiore: Yeah if you have to have one or the other I’d rather have. . .
mark: Actions
michael fiore: I’d rather have a mute guy who washes the car. mark: Right.
michael fiore: Or get its fix or you know, when somebody’s being a dick to you punch him in the nose or whatever it’s going to be right?
mark: Right. Or is nice to your mom in spite of the fact that, you know. . .
michael fiore: Yeah. Or is protects in some way. But it’s really just about a like. . . accepting that men are men, they’re not women right?
mark: Right.
michael fiore: We’re not as verbal. mark: Nope
michael fiore: We don’t generally want to have these conversa- tions. The reason we lie and tell you what you want to hear is because we really don’t want to have this conversation. Right?
mark: No. It’s...yeah. . . don’t really want to have the conversation michael fiore: Don’t want to have the conversation cause it’s like
torture. It’s like walking in the rain. Luckily it’s raining and
pouring in Seattle right now so there we go.
mark: Yeah, it’s more like. . . it’s like more of a quantum mechanics sort things where of once you want to talk about the conversa- tion and shine a spotlight on it then it changes and suddenly I don’t have any idea really what to say
michael fiore: And you get confused. You know in my experience I’ve been in those conversations and you’re not even really sure what’s going on.
mark: Right well and it’s also so far up your freaking head cause you’re like “oh well let’s come up with a taxonomy for every one of the emotional nuances of the last week. And what did you mean by this or this or this, you know?” You know, did I piss you off? Tell me something I did that pissed you off so then I’ll know not to it again.
michael fiore: So I can fix it.
mark: So I can fix it. That’s, you know. . .
michael fiore: Cause I don’t want to have this happen again, I want things to be good.
mark: And I sure as hell don’t want to talk about it for 90 minutes. michael fiore: Oh god.
mark: You know. . . it’s. . . you know
michael fiore: And I certainly don’t want to talk about this for 90 minutes over and over again.
mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: And have the same conversation several times. So really it seems like the emotional crowbar aspect is more about learning to interpret his actions way more above his words.
mark: Yeah.
michael fiore: And actually trusting your gut to a certain degree.
If he is telling you one thing and doing something totally dif- ferent there is a danger there though. Because sometimes I find that women will misinterpret. . . by actions I mean how does he treat you in a day to day basis in a direct way. Not, for instance we get in emails sometimes. . . I got an email from a woman awhile ago, “my boyfriend posted a picture of him and his ex-girlfriend on Facebook. What does that mean?” And I said well it could mean several things.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: Right. It could mean he has deep abiding feelings for his ex-girlfriend though my read would be if he has deep abiding feelings for his ex-girlfriend and actually is thinking about cheating on you he’s pretty stupid to put that picture on Facebook.
mark: Yeah he probably wouldn’t.
michael fiore: He probably wouldn’t. It could also just be he didn’t really think about it.
mark: Yeah it could be that he navigated to that folder hit select all and upload and there you go.
michael fiore: Yep and just simply didn’t notice it. And didn’t even think about it. And then when you get mad about it he’s like it’s just a picture.
mark: Or the flip side is he doesn’t think about it at all and so didn’t see any emotional weight at all.
michael fiore: He doesn’t even know the pictures there.
mark: Right or he doesn’t think about her in that way anymore and so he didn’t see her as any sort of insult to you.
michael fiore: She’s not important to him and therefore. . . maybe it’s good news, “oh she’s not important to you”.
mark: Right. I mean it’s not like he can pretend it never happened cause that’s not healthy.
michael fiore: But the thing I think is then for women to un- derstand is how men actually feel about women is to read the ways he’s telling you in an indirect way. Does he hold your hand? Does he stand on the outside of the sidewalk when you’re walking down the street? Does he make break- fast sometimes? Does he go out of his way and do things he doesn’t want to do to make you happy? That’s totally cool.
mark: Right.
michael fiore: We all do that right? mark: Yeah, course.
michael fiore: Like it’s just part of the deal. And you’re like I’m going to choose to be happy about it because it’s something you want me to do and it will make you happy. And that’s how it kind of goes from there. And instead of overreacting to all this stuff or looking for. . . rampant analysis. We actually, I got one question from a women recently saying “why do men overanalyze everything?” I’m like. . .
mark: Men?
michael fiore: What? mark: Why do men do it?
michael fiore: That one and the one from a woman that said, I posted of Facebook “why don’t women think about sex more?” just to see what the answers would be. And a lot of the women said “I do! I do!” and the women said “oh I think about sex so much. I think about sex like ppffff way more than anybody you know. I think about sex 10 times a day.” And I was like. . . I think about sex more than 10 times a minute.
mark: It’s. . . yeah. michael fiore: I’m a guy.
mark: You gotta. . . yeah. . . there’s that whole michael fiore: The scale is different.
mark: It really is. But that’s because men are yes and women are maybe.
michael fiore: True.
mark: That’s actually. . . now I remember why we were talking about the whole blood type thing.
michael fiore: Yes. Yes.
mark: It’s because the whole. . . yeah. . . one of these people is al- ways saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And the other one is saying mmmm maybe.
michael fiore: Mmmm maybe. Are you good enough? Is it going to work out okay?
mark: Yeah exactly. So it’s a really kind of funny when people think that men have the sort of prerogative cause no it’s really women. Women choosing, it’s always women choosing.
michael fiore: Yes. This might even be why sex is often or usually emotionally powerful for women than for men.
mark: Oh yeah. Well again all the consequences. michael fiore: Yeah.
mark: I mean she’s just making a bigger commitment. Period.
Straight up.
michael fiore: She better choose a good guy. mark: Yeah
michael fiore: Cause for a guy it’s like I’m just gonna do this and run away.
mark: Exactly. I’m visiting and she’s yeah.
michael fiore: We are out of time, we could talk all day. mark: Yeah that’s true.
michael fiore: I could bring up everything in my brain mark: It’s a lot of fun
michael fiore: We could talk for 3 more hours about this stuff and maybe we’ll have you back again in the future for something else we’re doing. But. . .
mark: Leave notes in the comments if you like it.
michael fiore: Yeah totally. Actually do that. So Mark thank you so much for being here. For everyone who’s listening men and women. Women I hope you got some insight into men and why men are the way we are and why we think. Men if you happen to be listening to this in some way learn to show women how you feel a little more directly. If I was doing this call for men I’d be like wow women actually want you to talk about your feelings here’s what that means and here’s how to do it right? In a way that they’ll actually accept, even though that sounds like totally alien mumbo jumbo to you.
mark: Right
michael fiore: Right but that’s a whole other thing in the future.
So I’ve been Michael Fiore my friend Mark is here and thank you so much for being here on our first module of the Monthly Mind Reader program.
mark: Thanks for listening.
No comments:
Post a Comment