Transcript of How to Make Bold Moves without Being Creepy: A Top Coach for Women Tells All! (with Evan Marc Katz)

I just feel like everybody's overcomplicating this. Authentic people could put themselves out there, and it doesn't mean you're weak or needy or desperate. You could be really confident and still say, I like you. I want to see you again.

Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, Dating Coach, Conal Barrett. I am here to help you learn to flirt, gain confidence, and get an amazing girlfriend, all by being authentic. No pickup artist moves needed. Today, I've got a very special guest who is pretty much the OG dating coach. He has spent 20 plus years as a dating coach, coaching women on how to find a great man. Who better to help you understand what women really want than a man who coaches women? Evan Marcatz is my guest. He's the original dating coach going way back to 2003. He solved over 13,000 Women Find Love. He's also got a really good podcast called The Love You Podcast. That's the letter U, which is racked up over 3 million downloads. You've seen him in places like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Today Show. Yeah, he knows women very well because he coaches women. And you can find out more about Evan Mark Katz at his website, evonmarkatz. Com. Evan, thank you so much for being here.

Ronald, thank you so much for having me. This is a delight and a surprise, and I think we're going to have a lot of fun today.

I know. I feel like mirror opposites in a good way. It's like Superman and then Bizzarro Superman.

I don't know if I'm the Bizzarro one in that place. I'm the Bizzarro one, definitely. It's all good. Again, I love that you're leading with that, but the truth is we're probably quite similar.

Let's find out. One of the things that you help women with is you talk about helping women attract a high-value, commitment-ready man. I help my guys try to become that guy. Basically, I want my clients to have women see them as, Hey, here's boyfriend material. Here's a high-value guy. Maybe give us an insight into what women think they want in a man. What are they looking for? How can my guys be what women want while still being themselves?

It's a pretty tricky thing because fundamentally, you don't want someone to have to change their personality to find love. That's not the answer. There's contradictory advice. There's just be yourself, which be your authentic self. If your authentic self isn't working, then there's probably something to learn, but you shouldn't have to go through a personality ectomy to find love. I think in most dating coaching, it's both and. People can change within a certain capacity, but the pickup artist guys who wear pimp hats and use pickup lines and stuff, you could play that role, but it's not Not really you. You can't keep that up for the rest of your life. At some point, you have to find the point in the Venn diagram where there's what women want, there's who you are, there's a small overlap, and all you need is one. So I think that's the key, is you don't have to contort yourself to be who you think women want you to be as much as be the best, most confident, most evolved version of yourself, and some woman will be thrilled to have met you.

Yeah. As opposed to trying to do retcon yourself to be what you think she wants?

I would think it'd be really difficult. And as a coach for women, I say the same thing. If you are a sweet girl next door, we're not going to turn you into a seductress. If you're an introvert, I'm not going to turn you into an extrovert. We have to work with what we're given. And so there is a lid for every pot. Some pots have more lids than others. That is true. But at the core, there are 50 million married couples. Do you think everybody he had to pretend to be someone else to find love? I don't think so.

A lot of my guys struggle with, and I wonder if women struggle with this. I'm actually dying to ask you this. So maybe the most universal problem I hear from men is some variation of I don't know what to talk about, or I don't know what to say or how to say it in a way that works with women, whether it's a dating app opener, or it's, What do you talk about on a date without running out of things to say? Do women struggle with these things? And if so, how do you handle that with them?

That's a great question. I'm already enjoying this as much as I enjoy a lot of my other interviews because these are genuinely different questions than I get. It forces me to think a little bit more. I think we're really coming to an introversion, extroversion thing. Dating is set up for extroversion. Extroverts thrive because their default is to talk. As a card-carrying extrovert, it never occurred to me that I would run out of things to say. There's literally never more to talk about than at the very beginning when you know nothing about each other. When I was with my wife, I remember we were having our second kid and we were in Tahiti and we were not working, we were not dealing with the kids, so we were just away. And we was five, six, seven years into the relationship. I was like, Oh, we ran out of stuff to talk about because everything had already been said. There's literally never more than when you're talking to a So people like, I don't know if I should say too much on text. You have 30, 40, 50 years of history.

I might run out of content.

I don't see how we actually run out of stuff to say. But I think some people are more temperamentally suited to it. And then there are people who are more interested in the world. And if you're interested in the world, you're going to be more interesting to talk to. I had an introvert. Back in the day, I mentioned it before we got online, I used to coach men for the first five years of my career. I was just a unisex dating coach. My first online dating program was a unisex program. I had a guy who had this very question, which was a new one for me. It turns out his interests were really out of step with what most women were interested in. He was a unique guy. He was a sensitive guy. He was a Russian immigrant. He was interested in poetry, and he could identify all the trees on a nature walk, and he volunteered as a suicide hotline. He was a very unique individual, but he wasn't really well suited for conversation. At the time, I remember telling him, read Entertainment Weekly, read Esquire magazine, and read the New York Times. If you just know what's going on and you have a life of your own, because there's your life and then there's the world outside of you, the intersection of those things is going to provide plenty of fatter.

And when you say, What do I talk about? Ask her about herself. She would love to talk about herself.

It's our favorite subject. Everyone's favorite subject within reason is themselves.

Right. So if you're genuinely curious, and actually, I think that's a flaw that most men have even more than women, they're actually not curious about women. They want to get a girlfriend, but they're not really that curious about what they have to say.

So get curious.

It helps if you are organically curious, but if you have to fake curiosity, maybe it'll surprise you. And then if we want to go a little bit deeper beyond talking about stuff, because a lot of the things we're talking about, Conal, are stuff. The best things? Friends, family, relationships, hopes, dreams, fears. That's where actual real intimacy comes from. And that's why you're going to have a better date than someone who's talking about what they're streaming or their latest workout or their latest travel plans. There's the surface level, and then there's the next level, and both of them are... It's good to be fluent in both.

Would you suggest you're typically introverted, more shy guy, a guy who's not naturally extroverted like you. I'm a card-carrying introvert. I've worked on myself. I've had to come out of that shell in a lot of ways, and I certainly bring out a more extroverted side here on a podcast or when I'm coaching. But naturally, I'm actually pretty introverted. So for that guy, would you say on a date, first date with a woman, he's a bit shy, he's not quite sure the art of curiosity, start off with something a bit more surface level, topical, and then get into more deeper curious questions about her as the date goes on? Would that be a good strategy?

Could be. I want to ask you a question, if I might. Please. And there's nothing snarky about it. This is a lack of understanding because I've never had to have a script or a template for a conversation. So I'm not diminishing the fact that people who don't feel comfortable with this need that. That's what we're here for. I would ask a challenging question. Every other conversation you've had in your entire life, did you need a script for it?

Absolutely not.

Anytime you ever talk to someone in the grocery store, the doctor's office, or at a party, how do you know the host? Wow, this is a cool ladies mix they're having. Have you tried the punch? We don't really need that many prompts to memorize because then we get all in our head and we make dating far too big a deal. And so, yes, you're a dating coach. Yes, I'm a dating coach. But a big thing that I would tell my women who are also inexperienced, insecure, shy, is think of it like you're sitting next to a stranger on an airplane, and the guy in 22B is sitting next to you. And you're not worrying about whether the guy in 22B likes you or whether he's your future husband. He's just the guy sitting next to you when you say business or pleasure, you're going to visit your family? That's great. Are you close to your parents? What's that book you're reading? It's just contextual. You're really just picking up on the elements and good conversations just darts and weaves, and we pass it back and forth like we're doing right now. I don't know if you have a script, but I certainly don't.

No, you nailed it. You said something that I have said to many clients in a slightly different way, but very similar. I said, Why are you asking me what to say to her when you don't do that with your best friend, your workout buddy, your boss, your sister? Why are you planning and scripting everything with her? I think the answer to that is something... It's different from guy to guy, but it's some variation of, Well, I want to make sure it's good enough. I want to make sure that I'm interesting and I'm saying the right things.

That's coming from a place of fear and insecurity. That's the The difference between competent and insecure, introvert and extrovert is paper-thin. Because if you ask most introverts, I'm really funny around my best friends, my family. Oh, my God, I'm totally. We have this mental construct that somehow dating is different, and we have to bring a different persona when actually the best you is the one you are around your best friends. Bring him or her out to the date and treat that person like someone who's familiar instead instead of something new, scary, foreign. And your comfort level will make someone else comfortable. If you are uncomfortable with conversation with strangers, that's going to show, too. It's going to impact how you show up on the first date. So how do we bring the comfort side that you have in other places to a first date and get out of our head a little bit?

I love the word curious that you said a few minutes ago. Get curious about her. Find out about her, what makes her tick, for a lack of a better term. Can you talk a little bit more about from women who you coach who come back and say, Oh, my God, our date was great. He was so interested in me. What are some of the ways that you have seen your women just be lit up by a guy who shows that curiosity or interest?

Listen, the biggest complaint women have of men on dates is that they show a complete and utter lack of curiosity. Most guys either are veered towards some narcissism, which is talking about all the things that fascinate them and not being curious about her, or because they're insecure, brag about themselves. Hey, I got 90 minutes to tell you. Did I mention that I went to an Ivy League school? Did I mention that I'm a Black Diamond skier? Did I mention that I've got That I speak two languages. Guys just try to drop all this stuff to impress them, which is invariably unimpressive because they're trying so very hard because they're treating it like it's an audition. I tell women, my A central metaphor to women, and we could flip this around, you're the CEO of your love life, men are interns applying for a job. The problem is your clients think they're interns. If I were coaching them, you're the CEO and she's applying for a job. If she's the intern and she has to impress you, you could be very curious about the intern. Because there's no pressure. You already have the job. She's here because she thinks you're cute.

We already know that. You're already in. So now that you have the job, be really curious the person who's interviewing for the job, and that could take on any number of forms. It could be surfacey, like what do you do for your work? Are you passionate about it? But it's the next level questions. It's the one that shows that you're listening to the answer that really makes for good conversation because most conversation is not Q&A. This is how texting often works. It's this very dry one-line Q&A. It's not how dinner time conversation works. It's so How do you enjoy your work as a corporate attorney? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, What would it be? It's funny. I always want to quit my job and become a yoga instructor. I don't have the courage to do it. Now we're off to the races. And I just did that in 10 seconds.

And something real, too, from that character you were playing.

It's a follow-up question to the question. There's a book sitting on my shelf. I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like it's something that's up your alley. It's the David Brooks book, How to Know a Person.

Okay.

Having not read it. David Brooks from the New York Times. I think there's an art to this, and we think it should just come naturally. And it's a thing that is practiced and practiced and practiced to the point where it becomes you. I think that's probably fits squarely within your advice.

Well said. You You struggle with dating, right? Sure, you have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren't sure how to flirt. The apps don't work for you, and sometimes women put you in the friend zone. It's frustrating. Hey, I struggled with dating, too. As an introvert and a total nerd, I didn't just live in the friend zone. I owned real estate there. But I escaped using the dating philosophy of radical authenticity, which I've used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It's what I wrote about in my best-selling Dating sucks, but you don't. Radical authenticity is why psychology today called me the best dating coach in America. Now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend. Go to datingtransformation. Com and book a free call with me. On our call, I'll tell you how my one-on-one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend, and you'll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity. No creepy pickup tricks needed. Go to datingtransformation. Com Cotation. Com. Book a free call today and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend. You reminded me of a first date I had once many years ago with a woman who became a good friend, but we dated for a while.

We became Jerry and Elaine from Seinfeld. Dated for a while and then became good friends. But on our first date, I was feeling pretty tired, shy, and I didn't really have a lot of extroverted energy, but I was still really present with her. I I just said, You know what my goal tonight is? I just want to find out about her. I'm going to ask questions. I'm going to try to find out what makes her really interesting. She did about 80% of the talking. I was fine with that because I was asking questions. Plus, at the time, I was a journalist, so I'm pretty good at asking questions of somebody if I really am focused in. Anyway, the date ends. I'm thinking, It went fine, but I didn't really offer much. She sends me a text message before I get home. You're the most interesting person I've met in so long. I It didn't really say that much about me. To your point, I feel like that old saw, right? If you want to be interesting, be interested. To me, that was a really good lesson. And, oh, wow, if you just show genuine curiosity, to use your phrase, gosh, that can go so far with a woman.

There's that, and that's the baseline of building trust, comfort, intimacy. Then there's the thing that I think a lot of your guys want to know the most, which is what's going to give me the masculine edge sexual energy strategy. And that's a different dial. It's a both and, it's not an either or. Because you could do the thing we're talking about and have a really pleasant date and easily friendzone yourself.

Oh, yeah, big time.

It's not that this is bad advice, it's that it's a piece of the advice. It's not the whole thing. But for people who initially just struggle with conversation, the more we normalize dating, it's just another person. You could be talking to an old man or a six-year-old boy. How do you talk to people? It does not require that much strategy. I promise. I agree.

I love that phrase. You just said masculine edge, that dial. The masculine edge dial. And can I ask you about from speaking on behalf of thousands of women who you've helped and also being a former coach for men as well, what do women want, generally speaking, in terms of that masculine edge? How much is too much? A lot of guys come to me and say, Well, I can't flirt with her. I can't say anything. I'll be a creep. I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want to say something wrong. Any thoughts on the right way and the wrong way to dial up the masculine edge in a way that women like?

This is definitely a different conversation I've had in many years where I get to talk as a single guy rather than a married, 16 years married dating coach for women. I was single from 25 to 35. I went out on 300 dates. It's part of my credibility. I was the original adopter of online dating, and it was better to me than real life. I was never going to be the cuteest guy in a room, but I was really good at reading people's profiles and writing funny things. I succeeded at online dating. I found my milieu, wrote a book about it, but I was just running through people. I didn't I didn't really know what a good partner looked like, which is a different journey. It's different than how to get a girlfriend and how to have confidence and how to get laid. It's one step at a time. While I was dating prolifically, I reverse engineered things, probably as any coach does. You reverse engineer what works, and then you try to put it into words to make it make sense. What I've figured out is that women, whether you use the same terminology or not, but I bet you a degree in concept.

The nice guy story is women want assholes. They're just attracted to jerks. And I'm not a jerk. I'm never going to be a jerk. I don't want to neg a woman or make her feel bad. So there's that story which has a half The truth. Women want guys with confidence. So I call them the nice guy with balls. They really do want to be treated well. They really do want you to pick up the check. They really want you to be sensitive to their needs and listen to them and validate them. They don't want to be treated like shit. But they want you to have enough confidence in yourself that you can make a plan, make a dinner reservation, make a move at the end of the night. Pick up the check, no questions asked. There's this very basic behavior. It's a guy with a plan. So jerks who do that will get women in spite of the fact that they're jerks. They don't get them because they're jerks. They get them in spite of the fact that they're jerks because they exhibit Confidence. All we're talking about is confidence. I don't know what to say.

I need to come up with a plan. I don't know if it's going to be interesting enough. We're living in our fears and our limiting beliefs and our insecurities. So So if we can just flip that model and be like, You already have. Like Wizard of Eyes, you already have everything it takes to get a woman interested in. All you need is to believe that she's attracted to you, she wants to kiss you at the end of the night, she wants to sleep with you, she wants to be your boyfriend. And it's literally the same advice I give insecure women. Assume the answer is yes. Yes, he likes you. Yes, he wants to kiss you. Yes, he wants to fuck you. Yes, he wants to marry you. Assume the answer is yes. Yeah. And work backwards from there. The guys who assume the answer is yes, don't spend too much time at the end of the night worrying about what did I say or do I have permission to make a move? They put themselves in the position to do so so that most of the time the answer is yes. Every once It's been a while you go make...

And again, I did the same thing, but sometimes you make a move and she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. But most of the time the answer was yes, all because I assumed the answer was yes, and that made her feel more confident in me. Confidence breeds more confidence. If you If you don't believe in your own product, you could sell your product. If you don't believe in your own product, no one's going to buy it.

You should really be a dating coach. You're really good at this. Thank you. You're. I will look into that. Please don't move into my space. You You just stay coaching women, okay? You just stay.

Do you know who David Weigand is?

Absolutely.

David Weigand and I were the first guys. It was David D'Angelo. Oh, yeah. Evan Pagan writing the original books, and David Weigand and I were the first guys doing this 20 plus years ago. Once a year, he and I would have lunch together and compare notes on how we were doing. I discovered that 80%one of my clients were women, and he discovered that he did better in the male space. He wasn't a particularly sensitive guy, so he did better with men. We had the same tech team. We had the same marketing people sending out our emails and building our websites. He's like, Okay, Truce, I take men, you take women. We divide and conquer. It's not that I can't coach men. It's that I had a handshake deal in 2009 or '10 to seed the male space to David Weigand, when there were no dating coaches but us.

Yeah. So David DiAngelo, he helped me or his content helped me back in the day because you remember his thing was cocky-funny.

There's what works. There's just a million different ways of saying it. I'm good friends with, I guess we'll call him Trip. I know his real name. You can say Trip. Yeah. I'm I'm really good friends with him. I know his real name, and he does work like you, does it in high integrity. I think there's a lot of people who need help. The internet is a very vast space as As long as you're doing it from a place of kindness and not cynicism, I'm always glad to promote it. I think a lot of the male space is toxic. At least it was. And so I disassociated with the pickup artist world. And I ensconced myself in the women's space where it was just a little less icky.

I know that area well. In fact, David D'Angelo, the name he used at the time, his thing, as you know, was being cocky-funny. And if anything, I think that helped me back in the day because that's actually genuinely who I am. Maybe not cocky, but I'm a smart ass. I'm I'm snarky. I was voted Mr. Smart Ass in my college dorm awards or something like that. I love Letterman back in the day, just a snarky Midwestern smart ass. But I think what can happen is there's so much advice out there that a guy reads a piece of advice, be alpha male, be a bad boy, or be cocky-funny back in the day, or whatever is making the rounds now. What I found is that, well, one size does not fit all with what works. If you're doing something that's completely in authentic and incongruent to who who you are, then you're just going to come across as unrelatable to a woman. I guess the question I'm asking... Oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, it's okay. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, you're fine. There's the performative Andrew Tate-like alpha male. But remember, it's short-sighted. A, that guy's awful. He might get women, but he's awful. B, the person that would want to be with someone like that isn't really someone you want. She That might be hot, that might be her only property, but she's hot and has really, really low self-esteem. You don't want a woman with really low self-esteem. A woman with low self-esteem is a really challenging partner. People often think one step ahead. If I say the cocky neg thing that I learned how to do to show my alpha-ness, to show I don't need her, if I wait three days to call her, you only get insecure women. One of the things The concept of the three-day rule is so ridiculous, and I'm sure it's still being taught. I'm so important. I'm so busy. I haven't even thought about you for three days. Where, think about it this way, you have a You have a date with someone on a Friday night, and I know this is a tangent, you didn't ask for it. You have a date on a Friday night.

The date goes incredibly. You text her the next day, Had so much fun. What are you doing this week? She's like, Oh, my God. He texted me. I'm so happy. She responds immediately. You have a date on Friday night. She wasn't attracted to you. She was bored. Attraction was a 4 out of 10. You text her the next day, Who is this needy stalker who won't leave me alone? But the follow-up action, the text the next day is the same action. What determines how she felt about you the night before. So a guy being authentic and consistent works. You don't have to play games. You don't have to be busy. If you like her and you demonstrate that you like her, a healthy woman A woman will be like, This is great. An unhealthy woman will want a guy who's more distant. So which one do you want?

So glad you said that. I always wondered what makes the women who go for the, quote, mysterious guy? What makes that happen inside of them? Because a lot of men here, there's a million different pieces of advice out there, as you know. But occasionally, I hear from men who say, Hey, Conal, should I play it cool? Should I make her chase me or withdraw a little bit. In other words, should I be distant? And what I'm hearing you say is if you're being distant, you're attracting the wrong woman anyway.

Games beget games. When I coach women, I say the same thing. Games beget more games. I was going to say something about someone I'm coaching who's notable. I'm not going to mention it, but there's someone that I'm coaching, and her thing was, I've got my ex-boyfriend, he wants me back, and she likes to have power over him. And I was like, The best thing you could do is just cut him off and say, Hey, we had a nice relationship. It's not working out. We gave it a shot. Best of luck. Please leave me alone. Don't text me. I need to heal. Clean break. She likes having power over him. What I see of these dynamics were there's a power dynamic. Texting is always a power dynamic. Who's waited the longest to text has the power. If that's the relationship you want, where there's a power dynamic, by all means, participate in it. When women are like, So when should I return his text, I was like, You read the text? Revenue the text.

Reverse it.

If you texted him, would you want him to wait eight hours to text you back? No, you want him to read it. I just feel like everybody's overcomplicating this. Authentic people could put themselves out there, and it doesn't mean you're weak or needy or desperate. You could be really confident and still say, I like you, I want to see you again. I think everybody's just so in their head about strategizing If you're strategizing, you're already losing.

Yeah, I have a client. I won't name him. I love him. He's actually doing great. I'll do whatever works with a guy, as long as he's being genuine, as long as he's treating women well, whatever works, bro. But he's just like... I gave him a drill. I said, I want you to go out next week. He had 17 steps for every night out, all these different judo-approaching moves. Not neg, but tease here. I said, Hey, dude, I'll call him Martin, not his name. Hey, Martin, here's what I want you to do. Go out Friday night. I want you to let go of everything except I just want you to be really present and listen and then let the thing arise in the moment to do. And he couldn't do it. I should say he decided not to. He gave me a field report about his night out, and he said, Yeah, I went out there, and I tried it for 10 minutes. It didn't work. Then I followed the 47 steps that I've been working on. I'm like, Okay. If strategy is the thing that gets you out there taking action and putting some romantic risks on the table and taking some swings at love, hey, more power to you.

But I do like the less is more mindset.

I think it's dance steps. If you don't know how to dance, you need it instruction, give you some dance steps because you don't really hear the beat in your head. If that gets you on the dance, learn dancing, and then you get some more comfort with it so you could move your sofa a recipe that you follow, and then you can go off recipe. I don't powerly object to any guy who's turning to a male dating coach and looking for some steps and guidance because he doesn't trust himself. You can't live life by a book. It's impossible. I'm in an advice-giving business. I've written real books in real bookstores. You can't live your life by a book because real interaction, when you're building a life with someone, if that's what you want, if you want to get married and have kids like I do, you can't keep on referring to a bunch of steps. That has a really short half life. And so when that mask comes off and the real you comes out and you soldier on the steps you, It's what we started the conversation at. We want to start at the authentic core of who you are.

If you're a little awkward or a little Asperger's or just a sweet, nice guy who doesn't want to make women uncomfortable, there's a place for you in the world. It's really just shifting like 10% instead of going 100%. That's my opinion anyway.

I agree. Totally. Take off the mask as much as you can. A couple of things I wanted to ask you that I haven't gotten to yet.

Yeah, we're good.

What are some of the qualities that your women who you coach insist on in a man, a partner? What are a few of the qualities they're looking for? Because my guys might want to know what women are looking for.

Sure. I mean, some of the stuff, the number one thing that people... Let's see. There's what they look for, and then there's what they need, and it's not always the same thing. What they look for is the stuff made of cliché. Height, money, education. You can't fake your way through It's a hype money education. Those things are valued the way youth and beauty is valued by men. So it is what it is. You make the most of what you got. With the things that can't be faked, the umbrella under which everything falls, and we've mentioned it a couple of times, is confidence. Women are not gold diggers. They are confidence diggers. Why do they go to rich guys? Because they have the confidence of a rich guy. It's not gold diggers. They are confidence diggers. Why do they go to rich guys? Because they have the confidence of a rich guy. It's not Just because of the money, because a lot of my clients, they have money. It's that the guy, because he has money, comes across as more confident. Confidence is everything. Confidence determines how you handle texts, how you handle dating multiple women, how you handle sex, how you handle communication.

Confidence is the thread throughout everything. If I were to give one piece of advice to my women, the women who turn to me, and make a little Jesus bracelet, WWJD. What would a confident woman do? That's the answer to every question. What would a confident woman do? Not the insecure you who had a father who left and a mother who criticized her and a husband who cheated on her. What would a confident What can do in this situation? And that answers almost every question that you and I give answers to. We're working backwards from what a confident person would do. So that's the killer app is confidence. Within that, what women look for that they don't know that they're looking for is a guy who can make them feel safe, heard, and understood. Most guys, it's never even occurred to them that that's what they needed to do with a woman is to make her feel safe, heard, and understood. Probably even the ickiest pickup artist figured that piece out. But that's the thing that could get a guy laid is if you make someone feel safe. Now, hopefully, you're a good guy and you take that responsibility seriously.

But Neil Strauss figured out safe, heard, and understood in different language once upon a time. Conversely, what women don't know that men want is to be accepted, appreciated, and admired. Every guy has that deep-seated need, and he doesn't even know that. He just thinks he wants a young, thin blonde with a good sense of humor and big boobs. But, no, you need someone who accepts you as you are, appreciates the efforts you make for her, and admirers what you do. Holds you up in high esteem. And so men choose women who don't make them feel accepted, appreciated, admired. They choose women who they think are attractive and then put up with all the bullshit, all the criticism, all the guessing games, all the histreonics. Why? She's hot.

Right. Well, they're getting the admiration, perhaps, but from the external source of their guy friend saying, Whoa, dude, your girl is so hot.

That's useless.

Right. But So they're meeting their need at a low level as opposed to the actual core need they need met from her.

Right. For appreciation. But now we see the parallel. And again, I wrote a long blog post about this many years ago. Gosh, I can't even remember it. I can't remember the title. Why... I'm not going to remember the blog, but I wrote about it a long time ago, and I came up with this paradigm that helped women shift their view, and I'm just going to reverse it for you today. So we've got this story of the guy who thinks that women want jerks. He's a nice guy, and he thinks that women want jerks. That's his observation. There's evidence of it everywhere. And then he learns, oh, no, no, no. It's women don't want jerks. They actually want men who treat them well. Thoughtful, sensitive, chivalrous, listening to their needs, going the extra mile. They go out with those guys because the nice guy lacks the confidence and the masculine energy. And so the flip side for women is... I'm losing my thread, sorry. I haven't said this piece in a long time. But if we say that nice guys fail with women because they don't have that masculine confidence edge, smart, strong success to women fail with men because they don't make men feel accepted, appreciated, admired.

They think they should just get by, I'm hot, I'm I make good money. And they don't provide. They're just relying on their resume. So men put up with hot and crazy. And women... Men put up with hot and crazy. Women put up with alpha male douchebags. But nobody likes it. You put up with it because the guy gets hot and the woman gets confident. But they're missing the important stuff. Safe, heard, and understood, accepted, appreciated, admired. And if we chose our partners based on those feelings, not the external, as a coach, I tell women, of course, you're attracted to what you're attracted to, and rich is better than poor, and lean is better than fat, and all the things you're attracted to, that's fine. But if he can't make you feel safe, heard, and understood, he's useless to you. And I would say the same thing to your guys. If she can't make you feel accepted, appreciated, and admired, I do not care if it's the best blow job you ever had.

Well, that goes back to That's the CEO analogy you made, where you need to be, in a sense, interviewing for the right person to, quote, hire as your partner, and making sure that those three things are at the top of her resume.

But nobody does that. You can't do it on a dating app. Those characteristics don't appear on a dating app. Only the shallow stuff appears on the dating app. It rewards more of that. It's 5% of people competing for 5% of people and everybody else getting the straps. The The system that we've created doesn't really reward the vast majority of people. It's harder than it was 20 years ago when I was just doing it on match. Com and JDate. It's gotten harder because we don't even have the written profiles or the longer emails anymore. The thing that would allow a decent person to shine conversationally has been taken away. It is genuinely the most challenging time to date. Even though there are more options than ever, it is a genuinely challenging time to date if you not in the top 5% of men looks-wise. Don't fast forward.

This is not an ad. It's a free thing that's going to help you flirt with confidence because I'll bet that you struggle with what to say to women and how to flirt, right? Well, let's fix that. I'm going to give you what I call the Flirty 30. These are 30 flirty questions to ask women on the apps or on dates or when you approach so that you can confidently connect with cool, sexy women starting today. It's time to stop running out of things to say and start asking them flirty questions that are going to make them want to date you. To get your copy of the Flirty 30, it's totally free. Just go to datingtransformation. Com/flirty30, and that's F-L-I-R-T-Y-3-0. Datingtransformation. Com/flirty30. You're about to start confidently flirting with women, going on dates, and soon getting a great girlfriend. Go get your flirty 30. You're so right about how shorter the conversations are now, the interactions. It's all so much more shallow and surface level on the apps and the interactions before you meet up in person. I started dating around the time, a couple of years after you became a dating coach, but I actively began working on my dating life in 2005.

That's when I said, I've got problems and I need to start working on this. So it was in '05, '06, '07. And even back then, basically before Tinder, you would send five long, or I would anyway, five long emails back and forth before you would... On match. Com's desktop site.

I still recommend it, by the way, but go on.

No, I was just going to say it was like, I look at it now 20 years ago, and I may as well have been sending messages, dipping my quill pen into my inkwell. These long emails. And they would write me back, long back and forth. And that was a lot of effort, more effort than now. But maybe a little side benefit of that is at least I got more of a sense of who that woman is, and maybe she got a sense for who I am. Whereas now it's three quick little text messages. Hey, you want to meet up? Let's get drinks. But I have no idea if she is that woman who can help me feel appreciated. She has no idea if I'm the man who has that real core confidence. So you're right. I'm just trying to underscore No, it's okay. That you're so right.

It's okay. I'm glad you shared that. I put a lot of thought into this. When I created that unisex dating program, it was called Finding the One Online, I came up with an idea, and I literally did a TED talk about it. You can Google Evan Marquats, no more bad dates.

Okay.

It's about the very thing we're talking about right now. It was when dating apps were rising, and I made up a thing, and it's not a real thing. You don't have to adhere to it. Back in the day of match. Com, it was called 222. A couple of emails back and forth on match, couple emails back and forth on Gmail, couple phone calls, then a date. Now, again, I don't expect you to adhere to this on dating apps. It's a principle. Don't worry about the… We don't want to follow a script. It's an idea. It's a paradigm shift. But it's the same thing that works with pickup artists. If you ever read a pickup artist book, you meet someone in real life, you make some conversation, Hey, let's step outside and grab a drink. You isolate. Make a connection. Let's move. Then you move, you talk for an hour. Back in the day, you get her number at the end of the night on a napkin, you call her the next day. People liked that because it was organic. You can't tap someone in a bar, Hey, I see you're wearing red. I love red.

Here's my number. That's what people do online. Hey, you've got a dog. I got a dog. Let's take our dogs for a walk. Here's my number. You would never do something like this. To be successful in online dating, you have to treat it more like real life. You have to zig where everybody else is zagging. You have to actually slow down. I call it deliberate dating. If every other guy is like, You're hot. Here's my number. Let's meet. And I'm the one guy who actually reads her profile and writes a paragraph, even if it's a text, says something funny, interesting, offers an opinion or an observation. Now, I'm having meaningful email-like texting conversation. Every other guy is like, What's up? How's your day? You up, all that stuff. There's one guy who just differentiates himself from everybody else. And in a couple of days of building trust, rapport, excitement, anticipation at the next thing that I'm going to say, I can be like, Hey, you seem really cool. I want to do a FaceTime conversation tonight. And she's going to be like, Aha. Because every guy is trying to go as quickly as possible to meet, see if there's chemistry, spend as little money as possible.

I want to get to know you. So Instead of going on blind dates with total strangers for coffee, and no one's ever made out at the end of coffee, I'll remind you, I would spend a couple of days building trust and rapport, getting to know someone on text, do a FaceTime conversation, this is your coffee date. No one has to get dressed up, drive anywhere. If this conversation, which could be 20 minutes, but ends up lasting for an hour and a half, right? Great. If it's 20 minutes, we both realize we don't want to meet each other in person, no harm, no foul. It goes an hour and a half. What date do you think I'm going to have at the end of that? I could ask you out for Saturday night. I could pick you up. I could drive you home. I could be invited inside just by spending a week going from texts that are longer and more informative, a FaceTime conversation, which is your real first date. Now your first date feels like a second date. You've built up trust and comfort and excitement and anticipation. It's real dating. I love it.

Nobody does this.

Well said. I got to follow up on something. You talked about zigging and zagging, giving women something they're not used to in a positive way on the dating apps. What are some examples of ways that men can zag on the dating apps, whether it's their photos or the way they send their openers or their prompts? What ways can men zag on the apps?

I have an idea that I coined, and it's hard to describe. I call it the opinional Opener. And that was actually named by Evan Pagan, who created W Dating and David D'Angelo. David D? He helped me with that name because he's good at that stuff. But basically, most people, when they read people's very minimalistic profiles, it's hard to write something good because they don't give you anything to work with. It's hard for women. It's hard for men to make good conversation. There's a skill. There's an art to it. But if you could pull up one detail from their profile, any detail. We want to avoid doing what everybody else does. We're talking about zagging. So asking a question, a flat question, is zigging. It's not zagging. I see you're a lawyer. What law do you practice? I see there's a picture of you in Spain. That's my favorite vacation spot. It's flat. There's no personality. Because when you're asking a question, what are you? You're a journalist. Your personality isn't in it. And that's what most people do. They ask really, really flat questions because they don't know what else to do. In real life, what do we do?

We offer opinions. Opinions show personality. Everybody's afraid to do this, but it is the most powerful thing you could possibly do. If you're talking about cocky and funny, that's an opinion. A question can't be cocky and funny. Got it? On the surface, right? Oh, you grew up in Boston. How about them Red Sox? That's nothing.

Right.

You said you're a Red Sox fan. I hope you guys are over your inferiority complex. You know you're pretty much the New York Sockies, right?

Nice. Yeah.

Very, very different tone. And you add a little smiley face emoji. You're basically starting a conversation about the Red Sox. It's not about you or the person or what you have in common, which is all awkward and ingratiating. You don't want to be awkward and ingratiating, where it's this Q&A that leads nowhere. Everybody knows what it looks like. It's one line back and forth. You ask a question, she gives an answer or vice versa. Why doesn't the person say anything? It's just questions and answers, opinions and observations. If you could have an opinion or an observation that is funny, interesting or memorable, now the conversation takes a whole turn. And I could do this shit all day. You can give me a thing. I can give you an opinion. It's like a party trick. I wish I were better at social media. I would do this on Instagram every day. Give me a thing to talk about. I will come up with something that is interesting. That's an opinion. If you have the capacity to comb through their profile, and it's not what you have in common, it's not what you like the most, it's the thing that's the easiest for you to rift on.

Oh, he grew up with three sisters. If you grew up with three sisters, I'm grabbing that. I'm offering like, that had to be brutal during the teenage years. I hope you were the baby of the family. You didn't understand what was going on. Whatever the hell it is, we're just grabbing onto something and starting a conversation about the thing. And that is how people talk in real life.

When you ask a woman a genuine an opinion question that-It's not a question.

It's a comment.

Sorry, comment. I want to make sure I understand the tip. Can you give me an example? Another one, please.

How about here? I'll do one that I did once upon a time with my mom. My father had passed away. My mom was single. She was looking for dating advice. We went on to a dating site, and she found a guy and looks through his profile. She's like, Oh, he's got a son in Los Angeles. I said, Okay, mom, what are you not going to do? You have a son in Los Angeles? I have a son in Los Angeles. I miss him so much. I wish I got to see him more often. That would be the most obvious thing to do. It's not bad, it's not wrong. It's flat. It's obvious. So I said, He's got a kid in LA. You got a kid in LA. It means you both know LA. Now take that, write on a post-it note. What are 10 things that you observe about LA? We're just talking about the subject. What's your opinion or Is it about Los Angeles? Is it about the Liberals? Is it about the surfers and the beaches? Is it about the weather? Is it about the traffic? What's the thing when you think of LA that you think of?

She goes, It's the valet parking. It is out of control. You go there. And so I said, There's your thing. And then now it's not just a one-liner. It's a paragraph. Because if you're a comedian, I used to write comedy before I did this. If you're a comedian, you have to set up the joke. Otherwise, it's like a one-line knock-knock joke. So it starts, Hey, Allen, right? Saw you had a son in LA. I do, too. That's not the point of the email. It's the set up for the joke. I got to tell you, I don't think I'm ever going to visit him again. Because the last time I went, it was like $20 valet parking if you wanted to go to the grocery store. With the amount of money I spent on valet parking, I could take a dinner cruise off the Coast of Fort Lauderdale, right? Leave it. Now he has to respond to her joke about the expense of LA Valley Parking. No one's trying to ask boring questions, and no one's trying to move it forward and talk about when they're going to get together He just has to comment on the price of LA Parking in LA, and now we've got banter.

It's surprising. Then the other person reacts to the banter. Again, I could do this all day.

I didn't know you were a comedy writer. I've taken a lot of-It's my old predating coach life.

I was in a Project Green light with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in 2000. I finished third out of 7,500 screenplays, and Matt Damon gave me his email address and was like, I was like, Dude, I'm going to work for you one day. And I never fucking heard from the guy. It was just like finishing second in the Miss America contest. Nothing happened. But my 20s was screenwriting, and then I became a dating coach at 31.

Okay. I'm not surprised about the screenwriting history and your use of humor. The idea is you look at something on the person's profile and you make some associations with it that can lead to an observation or an opinion that you're giving them, getting them to react to something that breaks them out of the pattern of what they're used to.

It's anything. It's a pattern interrupt, but it's the thing that we do in real life. Again, I use this earlier, but if you're at a party and you don't really know anybody and they're playing some '70s disco mix, you start talking about the '70s disco mix. You either make fun of the fact that they're playing '70s disco music or they're like, Hey, they don't make music like this anymore. This is pretty great. Now you're just talking about disco music. It's not a pickup line. Because the pickup line, what's presumed in any pickup line is if you go up to any woman, all she knows is you want to with her. She don't know anything. That's the one thing she knows when you go up to her is, You want to sleep with me? I know you want to sleep with me. You know I know you want to sleep with me. And you have to figure out a way to hide it. So a guy who's good at it is not talking about that. He's talking about anything else in the world.

Two more questions, and then we can part ways, and this has gone great. I'm so glad.

I'm thinking of things I haven't done. I haven't talked about having to coach guys in such a long time. So it I'm a little rusty, but it's fine.

No, you're great. This is great. I want to take your course.

I'll give it to you for free.

You used to work on screenplays, you said?

Yeah. You're a movie guy.

Okay, so you know the movie Freaky Friday? Cool. If you and I, as Bizzarro dating coaches, if we switched bodies, Freaky Friday, I'm coaching women, you're coaching men, what is the first thing you would tell my guys, even if it's brutal?

It wouldn't be brutal. Okay. Find a woman who's happy and sane.

That's not brutal. It's just true.

If she's unhappy, and sane is the wrong word, but if she's unhappy or if she's unreasonable, she's very easily triggered your circumstances beyond your control. You can't have a discussion with her and resolve conflict in a peaceful There's no point in hanging on. It doesn't matter what a connection you have, how much you have in common, how hot she is. She has to have a baseline level of happiness and has to be basically reasonable. It takes a lot of experience because I... I don't know about you, but that was my 20s was I was feeling really lonely. I would go out with anybody who was semi-intelligent, semi-attractive. We'd get together. Anybody who was interested in me became my girlfriend. Then I had these girlfriends, and it was this crazy roller coaster ride always. The person I married is just the happiest, sanest person I know. And I've gone out with people who were more impressive in every category, taller, cuter, thinner, smarter. It was just And here's the other thing on top of happy and sane, find a relationship that's easy.

Yeah.

Easy, easy, easy. If your relationship is difficult, it is not worth having. There's no point. Life is a long time. It's You have to be metaphorically in a car with someone driving cross country without a radio. Are you going to want to throttle this person after a few hours or are you going to make it cross country? So finding someone who it's just easy and you pretty much basically dig each other and 90% of stuff you agree on, the 10% is negotiable versus these high conflict, high attraction relationships where 50% of the time they're fighting and it's silent treatments and they're talking past each other. I mean, that's a move that people do in their 20s and people who don't have any confidence that they can do better do. And so I really want to give all your guys the confidence that if your relationship is difficult, leave it.

Yeah. My advice for your ladies, first thing that comes to my mind, and I'm not an expert at coaching women at all. That's why I don't do it. But I would tell women, You know what we love as We love when you give us some green light that you like us or that we can flirt with you, whether it's a compliment to give us the green light to then keep talking to you if it's an approach situation or a smile and just give us an off-green, yellow to green light. And so many men, I can see how their confidence unlocks and awakened when they get some clearer signal than some women give. That just can really help two people just really open up. That would be what I'd say.

I agree wholeheartedly. My Love You course is a 26-week course. Each week is broken into a different topic. There's one on meeting men in real life, there's one on flirting, there's one on online dating, there's one on first dates. These are all separate categories. The thing you said is absolutely in there. In fact, if I had to do another TED Talk, this is one thing that I've always been really excited about, is how easy it is for a woman to be a good date. A guy has to memorize a hundred things. Call in advance. Make a plan a week in advance. Don't call at the last minute. By the way, is all great advice. Call a week in advance. Keep in touch during the week before the date so she's not wondering if you're going to ghost her. Confirm the date the day before. Choose a place that's near her home so she doesn't have to go too far out of her comfort zone. Don't go to some chain restaurant. Choose a place that's interesting. It It's dinner. You're not trying to cheap out on it. It's a real date. Ask her questions, listen to her answers.

Don't go on about your ex and how much you hate dating. Pick up the check, end of the night, no questions asked, no a place you can go to right after that. Walking distance to go to the next bar after dinner because you've already thought about it. Drive her home, walk her to her door. You do those things. It demonstrates to the woman That's what she wants to hear. He's thoughtful, he's generous, he's confident, he's chivalrous. Demonstrates all these things in action. But that's a list of 15 things to memorize. It's not brain surgery, but that's a guy who he could be a dick and he can memorize that and he's going to get laid. Because if you do those things, she's going to feel I'm in good hands. Fantastic. Very, very competent man does that. For a woman to be a good date, and this is the reason I'm saying this, it's so much easier. Because we think of men's agenda. Men have two agendas. If you're a cocky guy, your agenda is to get some action. If you're an insecure guy, it's to procure a second date. Maybe impress someone enough to get a second chance at that.

Most people are somewhere between those two things on the spectrum. A woman's job is to hit both sides of the spectrum. When I give advice to women on how to be a great date, number one, for the insecure guy, give him the green light, let him know he's doing a good job, look him in the eye, touch him on the hand, touch him on the knee, grab him by the arm while you're walking on the street. Tiny things like that will give him the confidence to be the best version of himself. For the guy who wants to get laid, let him know that one day, if he plays his cards right, he has a chance to get him laid. Not tonight, but don't act like it's icky if he shows physical interest in you because that's pretty normal. You boost this guy's confidence. You give this guy hope, but slow him It's a science. It just works. It works on just about everybody.

Fantastic. It was between our second and third date, my now girlfriend Jess sent me a picture, very G-rated picture, from her bedroom. She had just moved into a new apartment, and she was showing me her empty windows without any drapes or curtains. She sent me a picture that said, Gee, I wish I knew a tall, handsome Ginger who would come over and help me put these curtains up. I knew things were going in a good place with the two of us, but I didn't know for sure how well. That just made me feel so good to know, Hey, she's liking me. She wants me to ask her out again. She wants me to put up her curtains, if you know what I mean, maybe. I really appreciate that.

If I could add one thing to that, and I agree. But what I see a lot these days, and I'm going to not blame the guys because there's not blame as a useless emotion, but you really want to know what women want. They want you to take control. So you're waiting for a signal. She's waiting for you to just make a goddamn plan. So that's the problem. Most women's criticism of modern day men is that they're very, very passive. You could call me sometime. You could ask me out, too. She's like, Oh, fucking just make a plan, make a move. I've gone out with this guy seven times. He hasn't even tried to kiss me yet. Jesus. So If she's there, she wants to be there. All you have to do is the day after the date, that was fun. You, me, Saturday night, dress sexy. I'll pick you up at 9: 00. It's really easy to do.

It's so simple.

Guys are waiting for a signal, I'm saying you don't need a signal. If you can get past that... Because remember, if you follow up and she doesn't respond to you, she already didn't like you. Her mind's made up anyway. If she likes you, she's going to say yes. She's going to say yes to the date The day after, she's going to say yes when you make her first move. Acting only reveals what she's already thinking. It doesn't change her mind. So there's not a downside to action, and that is what they want. I really appreciate, and I do tell, I shared, I tell women to show interest for the nice guy, the inexperienced guy, the insecure guy. It unlocks that. But we don't need to have that unlocked. It's the introvert-extrovert thing. You got to bring that. You have two people waiting for the other person to make the move, to make the call. How about you just take that responsibility on as a guy? Just do it.

I'm a big fan of tennis. I love playing tennis. I'm very mediocre, but I love playing. I tell my clients, Do not play a balls in your court game here. You serve the ball. You make the plan. You ask her out. You lead the dance to switch metaphors.

She volleys it right back and forth. That's what I tell women, no games. He He calls you, texting you back. He calls you, call him back. He says, I can't wait to see you. I can't wait to see you. I call it mirroring. If he makes an effort, you reward it. You do not initiate with him because a guy who's worth his salt, knows that's his job. People still like some of these old-school gender roles. Whether we care to acknowledge it or not, women still want you to call and plan and pay. So fucking do it. If you just wait, the right woman will do that for me. We're going to meet halfway. Okay, you're going to lose a lot of women that way.

Yeah. Well said. Final words. Evan, you have one more chance to tell the single men who are trying to find love one piece of advice. What would you like to leave them on?

We talked about a lot today. I'm rolling through my mental rolodex of things I usually say. Oh, okay. Let me jump in. Things I usually say. I've said a bunch of my good relationships are easy. Find a woman who makes you feel accepted, appreciated, and admired. Come up with a plan. Take control. The answer is yes. She does like you. That's why she's there. But lead me out. What do you want from me?

I'm always just saying, lead the dance. Dating is a dance. It always has been. It's the man's job to lead. It's her job to say, yes, I'll dance with you, or no, thank you. Either way, it's fine.

That's right. Well said.

Evan, thank you so much for being here. For the person listening to this, maybe the sister of the man listening to this who might be looking you up, what's the best way for people to find you and reach out with you if they want to?

Sure. My name is Evan Marquats. I'm a dating coach for smart, successful women who have everything but the guy. I've got a podcast called the Love You podcast. I'm Reel Evan Marquets on TikTok and Instagram and on YouTube. I'm everywhere. But if you're serious about this, if you're a woman who really is tired of being alone and wasting your time on the wrong guys and can't seem to find a guy who you're attracted to, respects you, treats you right, the whole thing, because online dating is a bit of a chore. Go to evonmarkets. Com/girlfriend, which is a link I made just for today's podcast, evonmarkets. Com/girlfriend, and I will give you a quiz. Are you wasting time on the wrong men? I predict the answer is yes.

Okay, listener, this is your call to action. I would like you to send this episode to or send your sister or female friend or mom or whomever, whatever woman you know in your life who could use a little bit of dating help. I want you to send her to evonmarkcats. Com/girlfriend. Thank you so much. So much, Evan. This was fantastic, man. Thank you for coming on.

No, thank you. This was a really fun conversation, Marine, too. You did a great job.

And thank you for listening. There's only eight million podcasts out there, and you listen to mine. I really appreciate that. Don't forget, girls already like you, and your future girlfriend is already going to be into you, but she's going to have to meet the real authentic you. So be authentic. Go out there and take action. Carpe Datum Sees the date. Until next time..