3 Minute Monday

Hi friend,

I’m in LA, Qatar later today then Dubai on Friday.

So much exciting new stuff coming out soon, and some huge names coming on the show.

I got sent a quote this week…

“Men often don’t want to tell their romantic partner that they’re sick, or injured, or having difficulties at their job, or anything that indicates a loss of mate value. Because women initiate most breakups, and men don’t want their partner to leave them.” — Diana Fleischman

This is pretty interesting.

A man’s mate value is much more hidden in this regard.

A woman can’t choose to not tell her partner about the weight she’s gained or the wrinkles she’s accumulating (although changes in clothing, enhancement and makeup can help).

But a man CAN choose to not tell his partner about his loss of status or financial prospects or status.

This sounds like the story of a sitcom where the husband would lose his job and leave the house every day dressed for work just to hide in a local cafe so his wife didn’t find out.

Why?

Well in part perhaps because men need to learn how to open up better.

But also because the sorts of things men open up about sometimes can be at the expense of their mate value or status and they’re scared of their partner seeing them as lesser.

This creates an asymmetry for what is easy for men and women to open up about, because a woman’s emotional or statusful vulnerability doesn’t impact her mate value massively, but for a man it does.

And this asymmetry may be one reason why women are generally more perceptive and socially aware than men – to identify frauds and cheap signals.

Women need to be able to detect whether the man she’s considering partnering up with is actually resourceful, or just acting like he is.

On the other hand, men can afford to be more socially inept because women’s primary indicators of mate value are much more present and obvious, meaning they don’t actually need to be as vigilant.

If nothing else, this should help both men and women to appreciate why their communication styles sometimes don’t seem to make perfect sense to each other.

**I’ll save you from a long rambling caveat about how mate value doesn’t influence your worth as a person, that of course women care about a man’s looks and men care about a woman’s intelligence and drive etc etc. You’re all too smart and reasonable to need me to state that disclaimer.**

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MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast which has had 160 million+ downloads. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Dr Andrew Thomas – one of my favourite evolutionary psychology writers and researchers on the 5 evolutionary theories that explain human mating and a ton of fascinating studies.

Thursday.
Gurwinder Bhogal – one of the best Substack writers joins me for 2 hours of psychological biases, insights, stories from history and more. So so good.

Saturday.
Abby Davisson – the most popular course of its kind at Stanford teaches people how to make important life decisions around love and money, today we go through it.

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THINGS I’VE LEARNED

1.
​Premarital partners strongly predict divorce likelihood.

People with 9 or more premarital partners are 151% more likely to dissolve their marriages compared to people who tie the knot as virgins.

In other words, this level of premarital sex increases the chances of divorce between twofold and threefold.

Having between one and eight premarital sex partners increases the odds of divorce by 50%.

Few Americans marry as virgins these days, the median American man now has five lifetime partners, while the median woman has three.

There’s no gender difference: premarital sex raises the divorce rate for both men and women equally.

Social scientists theorised that this association can be attributed to sample selection: the kinds of people liable to have a lot of sex partners are the same kinds of people who will get divorced.

Or the experience of having premarital sexual partners might change people’s beliefs or behaviours in ways that make it harder to sustain a marriage later on.

This recent study from the Institute for Family Studies suggests that these mechanisms cannot account for the relationship between premarital sex and divorce rates.

More investigation needed. — h/t IFS

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2.
​Elon is populationpilled.

“Twice as many people died in Japan last year as were born.

Population freefall.

Rest of the world is trending to follow.” — Elon Musk

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3.
​CEOs compete, who knew.

“Compared to the average worker in their company, CEO pay jumped from 20:1 in the 1960s to 100:1 in the 1990s.

Companies began reporting CEO salary to shame CEOs into lower pay.

It backfired.

Knowledge of peer salaries led CEOs to compete harder.

The salary gap increased. As of 2017, the ratio was 130:1.” — Rob Henderson

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LIFE HACK

Crocs and socks for flying in.

Hate me all you want, but this is what peak comfort looks like.

Seamlessly go from shoed to deshoed without everyone being disgusted at you taking your trainers off.

Sports Mode in case you need to sprint to make a gate.

Plus huge amounts of swag.

Enjoy elite travelling.
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Big love,
Chris x

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PS
600 episodes!! Thank you for all the support.