I just finished recording with Melanie on her show Dear Men, and we ended up tackling some of the most damaging myths I see guys carrying around dating. We spent serious time on three big ones: this idea that perfect confidence is required to be attractive, the fear that approaching women is automatically creepy in today's world, and the misconception that men should always wait for women to make the first move.
On the confidence thing, I talked about how most guys think confidence means never feeling nervous or awkward. They want to control the outcome so they never have to feel rejected. But that's impossible, especially in meaningful relationships. What actually works is being okay with whatever you're feeling inside. Some of the most charming approaches happen when a guy just owns his nervousness authentically. Hey, I'm super nervous right now, but I wanted to come talk to you. When it's genuine and you're still grounded in your body, most women find that sweet and courageous.
We also got into sexual shame and how it stops men from approaching at all. A lot of guys, especially the kindhearted ones, carry this belief that their sexuality is creepy and bad. So they try to hide their attraction or establish a friendship first, and that creates this weird energy. The truth is there's nothing wrong with being attracted to someone and wanting to explore a connection. It's what you do with that attraction that matters. Can you take no for an answer? Are you grounded in yourself? That's the difference between being authentic and being creepy.
The last myth we tackled was this idea that in modern dating, you should let her lead. A lot of men think that's safer or more respectful. But what women actually respond to is a man who's clear about his desire and willing to take initiative. Not in an authoritarian way, but in a relational way. You lead with what you want, then you listen and navigate from there. That clarity helps her get clear too. The more you bring forward your honest desires, the faster you'll find women who are aligned with them.
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Jason Lange: You don't have to keep beating yourself up if you're nervous. You don't have to be this perfectly cool, collected James Bond figure to be attractive. You get to be human.
Melanie Curtin: All right, welcome back to another episode. Jason Lange. So glad to have you. We are talking about dating myths today, and this was inspired a bit by. We've got a bunch of men in the program right now who are dating, who are dating either for the first time after divorce or they're in a. In a separation process or they've been single for a while. But it's 2025 New Year, New you, and we thought we might just bust a few myths around dating. So, yeah. Welcome to the podcast. Jason, anything to say about dating?
Jason Lange: Good to be back. You know, we were just prepping here, and I just wanted to put in the intention. You know, it can be fun and playful. So I think part of bursting these myths is just creating a lot of new possibility would be my hope.
Melanie Curtin: I love that, especially because I think sometimes dating can feel quite intimidating. In fact, the word dating is in the word intimidating. A variety of reasons it can feel intimidating. And I think, yeah, one of the. I would say one of the most gratifying parts of our work that I've witnessed is seeing men transform and then go back to dating and saying, wow, this is a totally different experience now that I know what I know and I've grown in the ways that I have. This is actually a lot more fun and a lot more interesting and a lot deeper and a lot more satisfying. So if you want all of those things, then listen on. So we're going to start with our first myth, which is I can't be nervous, right? There's a myth around men having to have it all together or be perfectly stoic and not really show anything that's happening internally. If. If anything that's happening internally even looks like nerves. So I'm curious if you can say a little bit about this myth and then why is it a myth? Why don't you have to be a certain way?
Jason Lange: Yeah, Well, I think this is part of kind of, you know, man box culture, in a sense that men are always supposed to have it together, be super cool in that women only want confident. And, you know, there's some truth to that, but I think it's. It's the definition of confidence is the problem here where, you know, I've told many men we've worked with. I've probably even talked about it on the show before. We. We get guys coming to us and they're like, I want to be more confident. I want to be more confident with women. What they really mean is, I don't want to ever have to feel awkward or rejected or bad. So I want to be able to enter any situation and control the outcome. That's confidence. And the truth is that's impossible, particularly in meaningful relationship, because, yeah, you might make the approach. But I can tell you, you know, seven years into your marriage, you're still going to have to share something that's scary. So confidence isn't the thing. It's, you know, we. We teach courage and vulnerability as the difference. And then a lot of men will spend a lot of energy, you know, whether it's coming in through the pickup world or even sometimes engaging with some of our stuff with like, I got rid of that feeling. Got to get rid of that nervousness, which ends up making things worse, because then they're trying to not be what they actually are when they're approaching a woman. I gotta be cool. I gotta. And that often comes across as inauthentic, right? It doesn't come across as, like, solid in a sense. And so the, the myth that you, you know, you have to be totally confident, relaxed, and never ner. This is one I just love to smash in that we, you know, have worked with a lot of men around. That's actually when you become okay with whatever your internal state is. It's not a problem. It doesn't have to go anywhere. It doesn't have to stop you from approaching. And frankly, some of the most charming approaches just actually integrate that, right? They have to do with what you're feeling inside. Like, hey, I'm super nervous. I don't know what to say right now. Or. And when it's done authentically and without any stickiness or collapse or self shaming, most women don't care. They're like, oh, that's really sweet. Like, you were so nervous and you still talk to me. Oh, wow, thank you. Right. And it's just this idea that it's this. It's another type of pressure men carry about how they have to be a certain way in order to be attractive. And it's just not true. And, you know, we don't want to have you totally collapsed in the nervousness. You still want to be able to move your body quite simply and still be able to breathe. But when you can do those things, the nervousness doesn't have to go away. It's actually just energy. You know, one of my teachers, he used to say, right, Fear is just excitement and drag. It's the same kind of something. Something is possible here. Something is a little unstable here. I don't know what the outcome is going to be. That raw energy we can interpret as nervousness or fear. It's also excitement. Right. I'm. Wow, I'm so excited to go to this party tomorrow because I don't know what's going to happen. It's, it's. It's kind of the same thing. And we're just really supportive of men realizing you don't have to keep beating yourself up if you're nervous. You don't have to be this perfectly cool, collected James Bond figure to be attractive. You get to be human.
Melanie Curtin: Yes. And there's something I want to say also as a woman, which is when you include your nervousness, when you include that, right. When you're like, hey, I'm pretty nervous to be talking to you right now, and I thought you were really cute. That's the truth. When you include that, I feel your heart, and when I feel your heart, I feel safer in my body. So I feel like I can trust you because you know what's going on for yourself. And you were able to share that with me. That's a big deal. Because I meet a lot of men who don't know what's going on with themselves. They don't know what's happening in their internal world. Emotionally, I'm often, I can feel more than they can feel about what's going on for them, and that doesn't feel trustable. So there's something, something I really want to convey about actually you, including your nervousness, you, including however you're feeling or vulnerability or whatever it is, actually has me feel safer. That's not necessarily going to be true, let's say, for all women, but for a lot of women, that's going to be the case. And the other thing is that it makes it feel safer for me to not be perfect. Right. If you're including your experience in terms of being nervous, it makes me feel like, oh, I don't have to have it all together. I don't have to be the cool girl. I don't have to be perfect, perfectly confident either. I can be like, actually, I'm really nervous to say this, and it makes it okay. So, you know, in our, in our free training, one of the things we talk about is leading with vulnerability. And this would be an example of that of you including your state. Right. I'm kind of nervous to be, to be here, feel a little Awkward, to be honest. And I really. I really like your. Your vibe. I liked what you said at the meeting. I was interested. Whatever it is, whatever. Whatever you're doing, it's okay. It's okay to include that. It's more than okay to include that. To me, that's healthy leading, and that establishes emotional safety in the inter. Interaction in the, I would say, relationship. But if you're just getting to know someone just in the exchange, and it establishes a lot of safety right off the bat. And to me, the irony is that you actually come across as brave.
Jason Lange: Right.
Melanie Curtin: That's a pretty brave thing to say and a pretty brave thing to do. So that. That. What, is there some quote about how courage is experiencing the fear and doing it anyway? Courage is not the absence of fear. It's. It's experiencing it and doing. Taking the action. Anyway. And one of the. Yeah. What a memorable. A memorable story of one of our clients. I remember because I would say a lot of our clients, when they come to us, go into freeze a decent amount of the time when it comes to attractive women. They might be kicking ass at work and doing all these things with friends, but when it comes to women, there's just a certain type of freeze that sets in. And I remember one of our clients was like this, where he just. When there was an attractive woman, he couldn't move his body, he couldn't do something. And through the course of the work that we did together, he was able to do this. And in a pretty memorable circumstance, he was at a beer garden and caught eyes with a woman across the garden. And before he would have thought, wow, she's really cute. I wish I could do something, but nothing's happening. And so instead, in this circumstance, because of all of the groundwork that we'd laid and the nervous system support that he'd gotten and all of the work that we'd done in the program, he. He said, I heard your voice in my head, Mel. And you said, just go over there. Just start moving. Just start moving. And so he did, and he walked over and he said hi, and that was it. And they started talking. And later he told her. He was like, yeah, I was pretty. I was pretty nervous to do that. And she was like, I was really impressed. Liked that we caught eyes, and then you. You, like, came right over. Like, to me, that felt really confident. And he thought that was hilarious because he didn't necessarily feel confident. He just felt like, all right, here we go. I'm moving, I'm moving. It's happening. I'M doing. I'm doing it. But he could feel that support of. Of me, of the group of the people that were now in his life to support him, and he knew that we were going to be proud of him no matter what, regardless of the outcome. That's something that we, you know, drill into our clients is. It's not about the outcome. The win is not the outcome. The win is the action that you take. That is the win, and we are going to celebrate the shit out of you regardless of what happens with. With the outcome. Do you have any other. Any other comments on this section before we move to the next myth?
Jason Lange: Well, just the. The way I love the way you phrase that, because I'm just imagining as a woman, it might actually even be kind of flattering to know he was scared, and yet he still liked me so much and thought I was so cute. He still came over to talk to me. Right. He didn't get rattled by that. Like, wow, he must be pretty interested in me because he, like, moved through some fear. Like, to me, that's totally courageous and brave.
Melanie Curtin: Definitely. And I also wanted to mention that, you know, to your point, Jason, this. This skill is not. Doesn't end once you're in a relationship. And I had a. An experience with a partner once where he shared. We were sharing in voice notes at the time, and at the end, he shared something in a voice note. And at the very end, he said, just so you know, this is pretty vulnerable for me to be telling you. And the way that he had shared it, I don't think I would have known that. I think I had some. Some concept of it. But him including that and naming that, it had me feel very let into his world. I felt trusted. I felt. I don't know what the word is. Like, included. Included, like, wow, he's really sharing something from his heart. He's really sharing something tender for him. And that had me pay attention in a different kind of way. I was already paying attention, but it felt more. It felt like there was more depth, and it felt like there was more potential for closeness between the two of us because it felt like, oh, he's really telling me something deep. And so I think that this skill that you can build during dating also serves you deeply in relationship, and maybe you can touch on that as, as a man who is in relationship. How. How does. Including your vulnerability or including your tenderness or including your nervousness, whatever it is, how does that impact your partner or the relationship?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, longtime listeners will know the paradigm of my Relationship a little bit. But for. For us, she always feels let in. She just feels let in. She feels closer to me. She feels like she knows where I'm at so she can orient to me and her nervous system will relax. You know, this. This is different than me being in like a panic. Oh, my God, sky's on fire. That's different. I'm still grounded. I'm sharing the tenderness. You know, I'm connected to her and my resources at the same time. But it, it makes a big deal. And, you know, in some ways, this, I think this skill and capacity becomes more important the longer you're in relationship because there becomes more solidified patterning in behaviors and to some extent, for some people, more sunk costs and meaning, the, the what's at stake. For me, revealing something could actually be quite a bit higher because there's kids involved, there's finances involved, you know, who knows? But it's still just as important for us to live in integrity and in truth and to be honest and create, you know, a real place of connection. So it's always a powerful thing for me. And it is almost like a superpower. When I start to tune into, oh, I'm nervous to do this thing or scared to do this thing that when I do it, it ends up being a pro. So in a way, it's like a metal detector for, oh, here, here's a way to deepen our connection. It's actually this thing I'm scared of revealing. What if I reveal that? Because when it's revealed, it almost always does bring us closer at this point in our relationship because, um, it's something we value.
Jason Lange: Yeah. You know, a lot of men we work with kind of come from more the context of the nice guy and, you know, are, are just kind hearted men. And oftentimes underlying this is the kind of belief that my sexuality is bad and creepy and it's something to be ashamed of. So for me to approach a woman is me revealing that I'm attracted to her. And that's a no go. Right. That's creepy. Women don't want men to approach them, and a lot of men fall prey to this. Right. And it actually is gonna link into one of our next ones in terms of what that creates. But there's this feeling of, oh, I need to hide my attraction or first establish, you know, a friendly relationship or something. And that causes so many problems for guys. And really what it's pointing to, I mean, the myth is, yeah, that, you know, in this day and age, it's creepy to approach a woman. Whereas, you know, what we really want to kind of share is there's nothing wrong with being attracted to someone and wanting to explore a connection with them. Nothing creepy about that at all. And as it ties into this sexual shame thing, which we've talked about before, it's. It's not your desire or attraction that's the problem. It's what you do with it. Right. So if you don't take no for an answer. That's one of the biggest things that makes sexuality, you know, from the masculine in particular creepy or not good or, you know, simultaneously when we don't actually own that we're attracted to a woman so we kind of are coming up to her, but, like, trying to pretend like we're not. And then there's this kind of this weird energy versus just, yeah, I'm okay with my attraction, and I'm approaching you because I'm attracted to you. The more we are okay with that as men generally, the more the feminine person we're approaching is going to be okay with it. If we think it's creepy, that's part of what creates the creepiness. Right. Because it's like, oh, I shouldn't do this, or they're not going to like it or whatever. And that's like, us intention. And the masculine intention never feels good. Right. Like a tense masculine that's doubting himself. Like, yeah, that's not. That's not going to feel great. But the more we can get relaxed with. Yeah, it's totally natural for me to approach someone because I'm attracted to them. And it's. This is the other thing I would say for a lot of guys, I think, in this belief is it's particularly creepy if I approach them and they're not attracted to me back. They don't like it. Then there's something really bad or wrong with what I did because, like, who am I to think, you know, she was attracted to me, really gets in deep with guys. And that myth will prevent a lot of men from approaching that. Yeah. You know, in 2025, we shouldn't be approaching women because I don't want to be the me too guy and those things. There's a lot of distance between approaching a woman because you're attracting. Attracted to her and, you know, being a sexual abuser. And a lot of guys kind of think that's less distance than it really is. Where, no, most human beings, not just women, as I often say, want to know the person they're with is attracted to them. We like knowing. It feels good knowing people are attracted to us. Right. And so as we become okay with that and burst that myth that, no, it's not creepy, it's totally normal. And particularly in this day and age, actually, it's becoming more rare. It's actually even more precious for a man to be courageous enough to just be like, hey, I wanted to come talk to you because I find you beautiful. Right. Like that. It's even more Special, I think, in some ways, particularly in the real world. So, yeah, that. That. That myth stops a lot of men.
Melanie Curtin: Absolutely. And I. I appreciate what you said about. I just felt a lot of compassion as you were speaking, and I think that's true. Just, I think the more that I work with men, the more empathy I have for this issue, in particular, of shame around sexuality and all the ways that, particularly here in North America, we as a culture are. I would say, are shaming of the masculine. We have a lot of weird stuff around sex in North America, and. But we think that we don't. Right. We think that we have a healthy sexual culture. We really, really don't. And, you know, a lot of attention is given to the Me Too movement, and with good reason. Right. There's been a lot of abuse for a long time, and there's. As someone who's lived around the world, I can say that it feels like there's extra shame here in. In North America around shaming men for being interested in sexual. It's like. It's like a blanket or something. It's really hard for me to pinpoint, but there's some extra layer of. We just have so many men that we work with that are really terrified of a woman throwing a drink in their face of being humiliated around this topic, being humiliated because they're. They're outed, or they're seen as a pervert, or they're seen as creepy because they have a sex drive, because they have. Because they're interested in someone sexually. And what I would say is that in my experience, that has. What is the word? Dampened. To your point, Jason, I am very rarely approached in North America. I am much more frequently approached in other countries. And there is a lot more fear. There's a lot more of a culture of fear here than I've experienced elsewhere. And so this myth is that it's creepy to approach a woman. It is not creepy. I find it refreshing. I feel great. Tear point Jason, when. When he's approaching with his full self, right. When it's like, yeah, I'm. I'm right with myself. I'm good with myself. I think that you're attractive, and I also see you as a person. And here I am, and I'm. And there's a certain sense of playfulness or, you know, openness or receptivity, flow, flexibility, like you're talking about. I think that what happens is, you know, a lot of the guys that we worked with, they stop breathing. They tense up. They don't want to Approach because they feel like they're going to be making her uncomfortable, they're going to be doing something wrong, that there's something bad about them because they're interested, because they think she's attractive or cute. There's nothing wrong with you. The, the statement I would offer instead is it's healthy to approach women. It's healthy to approach women. And it's healthy to attune, right? To listen to the cues, to respond to her body language. If you approach her, she closes up and she shuts down. She's a no. And that might have nothing to do with you. That could just have to do with her day or what's going on in her world. But you're going to get some yeses. And I get a lot of our guys when they start working with us and we start saying, you know, just. Just start approaching, you know, low stakes. No, you're not trying to get a number, you're not trying to do anything. Just start being more friendly. Just start saying something. Just start moving, right? That again, coming out of freeze. Coming into action. Just start making movements, just start making overtures. Just see what happens. And then what we find is a lot of men start saying, oh, it starts to be really obvious, you know, when a woman is like hitting the ball back over the net, right? I can feel that she's like, oh, this is fun. I'm having a good time, you know, bantering with you. Just a barista or a clerk or whoever it is, versus the ones that are like, oh, whoa, she's definitely closed. I don't know what's going on, but she is not interested. And so they get more of a data set. Like, they get more of an n. More. More data points for what it feels like to approach someone and have them be open versus approaching someone and having them be closed. But when a man is walking around holding all of this shame and holding all of this tension and holding all of this, you know, belief that he's bad just for being interested in sex, then he shuts himself down. It's like he. He self censors. There's no movement at all. So I think pretty memorable experience of this is we had a guy who, long story short, had never really asked women out. He'd always sort of gone with whoever had pursued him. So he'd been pretty passive in his dating life and he'd had some pretty abusive relationships, pretty terrible relationships. And as he was moving through the program and growing a lot, he did his first ask out, right? He was like, you Know what I feel? I feel that pull, that drive that you guys have been talking about. I finally felt it. And this. He was a little shut down. He was kind of depressed when he first started with us and so he wasn't feeling a lot.
Jason Lange: Right.
Melanie Curtin: There wasn't a lot of fire going on. But he did meet this one woman and he was like, oh, this is what it feels like. I can feel my desire. I want to see her, I want to ask her out. And. And he did. He, he did. He actually asked her out. I think it was over text. I don't remember. They gotten connected in some, some way and basically she said yes. And this was the first time this had ever happened to him. So he was celebrating. And what was interesting was that that particular relationship didn't really go anywhere. I think he went on a few dates, maybe three or four dates, and it just always sort of felt kind of hard. Like it never really felt easy and she never really felt available. Right. But he took that skill with him and then he was able to have another short term relationship with a woman who he pursued and said yes. And she was a lot more open, so there was more of that sense of flow. So he got that contrast of the first woman and kind of like pursuing and he kept pursuing and it kept feeling hard and it never really flowed to this other woman who it did flow with and she was much more open and available and there was much more play and engagement. And eventually that ended because I think she got back together with an ex or something happened. Where I'm going with this is he is now in a really happy and stable relationship with a woman that he pursued. And I don't think he would have been able to do that if he hadn't had the other practice ones. So there's something, there's a virtuous cycle that happens as men basically claim their sexuality, claim their essence as, yeah, I'm a man and I'm, I'm a good man. I'm good. This part of me is good. It's okay and healthy to be sexually attracted to other people. That is not. That doesn't make me bad inherently. And I get to choose who I pursue and how I pursue. And I'm going to listen to the signs, I'm going to listen to the signals. Right. Just because I want sex doesn't make me a pervert. It actually just makes me a healthy man. Right. It just makes me healthy. So that reclamation of his essence is part of what allowed him to then pursue the other women that actually were available and now he's in this great relationship. So I think there's something, there's something really powerful about that process of reclaiming your sexual essence. And, and, and we, we have several episodes about this, if that's something that you're interested in. But I, I would love if you could just briefly share a little bit about again, briefly. We're not going to do a whole episode how a man does reclaim that sexual power and that sense of, I'm okay, there's nothing wrong with me.
Jason Lange: Yeah, there. Lots of ways in terms of just how we're handling our bodies and what we're doing with our sexual energy, something we work with in the program. And frankly, just being part of a community, a pro sex community like ours, where we get to unwind a lot of the pretty gnarly beliefs that get hammered into most of us, you know, from a broader cultural context for some people, in a very specific and harsh religious context where we just get to bring back the humanity part that sex is one of the most pleasurable things in the world. It's one of the most connecting things in the world and there's nothing wrong with it actually. Right. If everybody in the world was having healthy, great, connected sex, it'd be a much better place, right? Like, people would be happier, there'd be less strife, there would be less struggle. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. And like I said, pretty much everyone I know wants to have some kind of healthy sexual relationship in their life as a way to express themselves where they feel safe and deep in their connections with someone. So we start to just kind of unwind that those deep beliefs around shame, that it's bad, that there's something wrong with you wanting it, that you're just a horn dog or something that no, in most men we work with, when we really start to dig in with them, they don't just want sex. It's like that in itself is another myth that they get to relax deeper that no, yeah, I want sex and connection, right? I want to be connected to someone meaningful and use sex as a way to express that connection. And the more men do that, the more right they feel in that attraction with themselves and the easier it gets to, to approach where it's just like, yeah, this is a part of the human experience. And you're right, it's actually healthy, right? When our system is healthy, as men, we're horny and we want to have sex when it's not healthy, we are not horny. We do not want to have sex. Erections are harder. So it is a sign of health and it's one that we really encourage that. Yeah, it's okay to bring this part of you forward. There's nothing wrong with it. Again, it's. If you're really unconscious with it, that can be what causes the harm. Or if you don't pay attention to the nose or the signals. That's the problem. But your job is just to open the connection and be honest about what you want. That's it. If you do that, you're winning. You are winning. And then some women are going to be a yes to that. Some are not. And if they're not, there's nothing creepy about that. Right. You're just sharing your honest truth of your body. You know, we wouldn't say, like, the impulse to breathe is creepy. No, the impulse to connect sexually is not creepy. It's a totally natural thing.
Melanie Curtin: It reminds me of hunger. Right. We would never shame someone for being hungry. We understand that's a human need. And yet we have all this weirdness around sexuality. And I really wanted to. Yeah. Just highlight what you said about my. The experiences I've had in my life that have been creepy have been about him not respecting my. No, that has been what has been creepy. Not him approaching, not his interest. It's. I get the sense that it doesn't matter to you if I say no. You're just gonna take. That's fucking creepy and scary. But just you being interested in me is flattering, even if I'm not interested back. It makes it's life affirming. It feels good to receive. There's certain complexities and nuances around that, you know, with respect to women and trauma and things like that. So there is there. It is complex. It is complex. And, you know, it's not creepy to approach women. That's. That's the myth. We're going to move on to the third one, our third and final one, which is that you have to wait for her. You have to wait for her. There's a myth, I would say it's a little bit more understated, but it's definitely present in lots of the men that we work with, which is that you have to wait for her to give you permission to give you permission to any number of things in the dating world. Right. That you have to wait for her or that there's a certain amount of time that you need to wait to text her or to call her or to ask her out. That there are some rules or that just. Just you have to wait for permission in some way. There's so many men that we work with who feel like they need to wait for permission from her. And this is sort of a polarity killer. Right. Waiting for her kind of kills the polarity, and it puts you on your back feet so that you're kind of always on edge. Right. It's. It's. It's. It's not comfortable to be waiting for her. A memorable experience of. This is a client we worked with years ago who, yeah, when he came to us, he was seeing a woman, and he was always waiting for her to let him know when she wanted to see him. Or it was something around the holidays, and she was like, maybe you can come over for Thanksgiving, but maybe not. I'll let you know. And there was just a lot of waiting. And I would say that this goes along with the word passive. Right? A lot of passivity when you're waiting, there's a certain quality of passivity. So can you say a little bit about this, this myth and how you've witnessed our men kind of overcome it?
Jason Lange: Yeah. Again, you know, it relates a little bit to the second one, and it relates a lot to kind of nice guy syndrome, which is, I don't want to ever make anyone else feel uncomfortable. So I. I want them to initiate and drive, and I don't want to be that, you know, creepy machismo man who just says, my way or the highway. So the. For a lot of guys, the pendul pendulum just kind of swings to. She has to let me know before I can do anything. You know, I kind of call it my grade school version of this was like, I need to get the note back from her that says, I like you before I can approach her or talk to her or share attraction or anything like that. And it just usually doesn't work that way. In that the. The. The myth here of, like, you know, in this day and age, I should let her lead because that's safer. That's going to make her feel more comfortable. It's kind of woven in here. That's part of what we're bursting. And it's that, no, what you want is important, and you stepping into the driver's seat of your own life is important. Now, there's an infinite variety of human beings. So are all women going to 100% like that? No. But are a lot of them? Yes. And if that's the type of relationship you want, it's your job to kind of come forward in that way. And to start to take more initiation in lead with, you know, a big thing. What we teach our guys is lead with your desire, your wants. It ties right into the vulnerability thing. You have to be clear about what you're wanting so you can bring that forward. And oftentimes our willingness as the masculine to bring forward our desire, that helps the woman feel clear or get it. Get clear about what she's feeling. Oh, yes or no. But if it's like, you know, the classic, like, do you want to go out for lunch? Where should we go? Right? And you're, like, waiting for her to, like, say the thing, because you're like, yeah, I actually want to go get a steak. But what if she doesn't like steak? Then she probably won't like me. And then it becomes this, like, kind of awkward gray area thing. And it usually doesn't feel good to anyone. And so part of what we're saying is, no, be clear, like, hey, I'd love to take you out, and I'd love to go to this restaurant, because I love the steaks there. And I think you might like X, Y, and Z. You know, like, you just. You come with a plan, you come with a desire, and you drive things forward. That's one of the biggest things we can do. And, you know, so many women these days, just because the way our culture is oriented, spend so much time in the driver's seat of their own lives. And then men think, well, that's how they want to live all the time. And, no, I don't care if you're a man or a woman. Most of us, at some point want someone else to take the driver's seat where we can just relax and go along for the ride. And so it's okay. Men, you don't always have to wait for her to initiate or give approval or whatever. And I'm not saying you just then override, you know, a woman's desires. It's not what we're talking about. It's this classic thing that we teach, right? You lead with what you want, you put it out there, and then you listen and you navigate from there. So it's still relational. It's not, you know, authoritarian in a sense. It's, hey, here's what I want. And then you get feedback and you see, you know, how does she respond to that? But, you know, you can share probably more than. More than I can. But, you know, we've worked with enough clients that like, yeah, as men start to take the lead, women relax. They love it. They're like, oh, my God, you made a plan for the date. Like, how to get there, what time we should leave. That feels great. Yes, I'm in. I can't wait. And it's such a relief.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I want to say that I think a lot of this comes from a good place. Meaning related to the last part. Right. A lot of the men that we work with, they don't want to be that guy. They don't want to be the dominant guy. They don't want to be the asshole or the fuckboy or the man who doesn't care about her experience. And so they've swung to the other side, like you said. And I want to make this point about passive. So there's passive, there's dominant. You can think of them as sort of ends of a spectrum, and in the middle, there's leading. So passive is you don't call her, you don't text her. You're waiting for her, right? You're waiting for her. Dominant is, I'm taking you here, and I don't really care what you want, or we're doing this. I don't really care what you want. Or in a sexual scenario, I don't care what you want. I'm doing what I want.
Jason Lange: Want.
Melanie Curtin: Yes. And we have lots more on each of these topics, so I'm going to drop a few more episode suggestions in there if any of this piqued your interest. And if you are interested in working with us, you can go to evolutionary Men apply and. And have a new year. Right. Have a new year, get some support, get some new stories, get some new growth, get some new energy in the system. It's pretty incredible what can happen. So here's to inspirational growth and shifts and change.
