414: What to do with, ‘You’re great! … I just don’t feel attracted to you.’ | Dear Men

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think it's pretty common for a lot of men we work with. I know it was common for me at different times. Sometimes it was that explicit. Sometimes it was more just the kind of ghost fade away. Oh, if you want to hang out, you can hang out with me and my friend. You know, you can feel that there's a movement away from romance, in a sense. And I think what's challenging for a lot of guys around it is it definitely happens to a lot of nice guys. And a lot of times there's like a. I don't know what to do with that. Like, what do I do? Like, I don't know, am I supposed to feel good that she thinks I'm a great guy but not attracted to me? Like, I think it's a confusing energy for us men to receive sometime because it's kind of a compliment, but kind of not, obviously, because you're not getting the type of connection you might want with the person. And it's definitely a real thing that, you know, men we have worked with, have heard. And there's so many things I think behind it in terms of what leads up to that point, a lot of which we'll cover today, both from the kind of male side and from the female side. And we'll Mostly be talking about the clients we work with here in heteronormative relationships, but that there's definitely some levers as men in particular, we can start to pull to get different results in this sense, if we consistently get that feedback. Because if we are consistently getting that feedback, particularly from women we're interested in dating, there's definitely something going on with us. Right. In terms of how we're showing up, and that's the part we can take responsibility for as men.

Melanie Curtin: So I really liked that part of taking a note. There's definitely something going on with us. Was. Was the note. Yeah. So I want to talk briefly about the friend zone, because that is part of what we're talking about here. And I have. You know, it's definitely a sort of a question out there in culture is, you know, can you. Can you escape the friend zone? Can you get out of the friend zone? And in my experience, it's quite rare. So it can happen. It has happened. It does happen, but it's very rare. And one of the interesting things is at the very beginning, you know, before a man opens his mouth, before he says anything, before he asks anything, before. Before anything, I, as a woman, am feeling his presence. I am getting a sense of him from across the room or from sitting next to me on the bus or seeing him across a train platform or whatever. And I really want to emphasize that because I think a lot of times there's emphasis on what to say, how to say it, when to say it, saying it, yada, yada. And yes, there is nuance in communication and verbal communication and talking about. But there's a way of being. There is a. There is a way that you are existing in the world. And what I've noticed is that most men that I experience are pretty tight and anxious in their bodies. They are often distracted. They feel. I keep coming back to the word tension. I can feel the rigidity and tension in their bodies, often, you know, across their shoulders, their back. It's the way they stand. It's the way they walk. It's the way they move. And so I feel. Okay, I'm just gonna be really blunt. I kind of feel sorry for them. I feel a little. I feel a little bad for them. I feel compassion for them. I feel care for them. That is not the same as feeling attraction. And I don't think that's something that we talk about very much. I think, particularly in the world of dating or pickup, that's being addressed. And I'm thinking in particular of, you know, one of our clients that I would say that when he came in, this happens with a lot of our clients, but I can think of two right now. I'll just focus on one. But when he came in, I felt like, I don't know, like he, like he wasn't breathing very deeply and he was kind of. Yeah, he just felt a little locked up, right? He felt a little locked up. And he's a really good looking guy. Really good looking guy. We get these clients sometimes where it's like you have all the trappings of what, you know, what culture says is attractive, right? You've got broad shoulders and you've got, you know, I just, I'm not going to go into all of that stuff. But you, you kind of have, you have the look and you're. And you're not having success. And I really want to emphasize that because I do think that there's a perception that if, you know, you just look a certain way, that things will flow for you. That is not my experience at all. And I have had many encounters with men where I've thought to myself, I bet you slay with women. And you are not conventionally attractive at all, right? You're, you're short, you've got a big nose. You, you know, you, you don't you, you would not be cast in the lead of a rom com. But I can feel your balls. I can feel, I can feel you. I can feel you, you know, and you're personable, you're approachable, but like, I can feel you all the way head to toe. And when you look at me, I can feel you seeing me. I can feel you seeing my body, right? And so that tracks and counts and generates polarity way more than just how a man looks. So I just wanted to kind of slow that down and talk about that guy who came in and was like, not really breathing, pretty rigid, et cetera. And then over the course of, I would say, eight to 10 weeks in the program, I watched him shift and I watched him kind of, I would say, open up, right? Breathe more, drop more into his body. He was doing the embodiment practices, et cetera, and he started to have way different experiences. I remember him saying, wow, this is the first time I've ever, I've ever been chased by a woman. And his main concern when he came into the program was, I feel like I'm always chasing, I'm always chasing. And he didn't say it like this, but I'm never catching. Like, you're just endlessly chasing and it's never working and it's really frustrating. And I don't know how to change this. I'm so tired of this pattern. And that pattern shifted within eight to 10 weeks. And it wasn't that he was saying different things or I mean, he probably was saying different things. But it's not just about that. It's really, really, really at its core, at its base, it's about your presence. It's about your presence. And so I feel a lot of compassion and I feel a lot of care for men that are kind of trying to change the surface stuff endlessly. They're endlessly trying to change the surface stuff. And like, why isn't this fucking working? Without actually dropping into the body, without actually doing the personal growth work required to change one's presence, which solves for a lot of things at the same time. I'm curious if you have any comments on that?

Jason Lange: Yeah, this is, I mean we're going to cover a couple of different things, but this is so key and it's, it's, it's the foundation of everything else. And we've talked about it before, you know, the whole program, pillars of presence is all about, okay, how do we actually cultivate that. And you know, attraction is a offshoot of that in a sense, as we get more present and connected to ourselves in one of the core areas, we do tend to work with it. With a lot of the guys we work is some kind of disconnection from their power, their sexuality, their desire, their want, their, okay, being themselves in. When a man has any kind of doubt or shame around his attraction or desire, particularly nice guys, what they tend to do is disconnect from that. And so they relate from a mental, a heart centered place. And lo and behold, if I'm not feeling my sexual energy, the person I'm trying to magnetize is not usually going to feel their sexual energy. There is literal polarity there in a pretty significant way, right, as part of what you're talking about. So before you even say anything, which we're going to get into some of that stuff, there's just this thing we always come back to. It's how are you being, how are you connected to yourself? How are you being present in your body? How grounded are you? How solid do you feel? How directive are you in your intentions and in movements? And that piece alone can completely change things, right? Where you just walk into a room and you have a different experience of how the feminine, right. Perceives you. And then, you know, it's just a different Type of thing. So that part you just, you can. Can't skip presence, guys. And there's almost always a correlation there of there's something inside of me I don't feel comfortable connecting to. And because of that, the way I express and communicate get shifted. And thus it brings back a different energy. She doesn't feel me or see me in that way or I'm not willing to be more direct. Right. So there's a very key part here that regardless of everything out there, we as men have a lot of control over changing, which is what is our relationship to our body and how present are we in the moment?

Melanie Curtin: Yes. And I want to talk briefly about modulation. So I think that often there. So if you sort of think of it as a 0 to 10 scale and 0 is no sexual energy, no vibes at all. And 10 is hardcore player, which is all sexual vibes and no sort of substance. I, I want to be clear that I have met men where I have felt the all sexual vibe. I'm thinking of a guy I met. I met him twice. I met him at a conference, ended up making out with him, and I knew he was a player. I just really wanted to make out with him. But then I saw him at this other event and he had no modulation. So he was just at a 10. And he put women off because, I mean, he, he got action. Don't get me wrong, he definitely got laid. But there was a way that he was judged or perceived or seen as, as a player or a fuckboy because he wasn't modulating that energy at all. It was just out there all the time. And then on the flip side, I meet a lot of men who are at a zero. They don't want to make women feel uncomfortable, they don't want to make women feel creeped out. They don't want to make women feel unsafe. And so they hide their attraction, they tuck it away, they sort of pretend it doesn't exist at all. And there it is, zero. And I want to be clear that what we, what we're pointing to and what you want to be able to do as a man and a woman, by the way, this happens to women too. Women get friend zoned. Not as often and not in the same way, but it does happen. And I will give you a story about that. But what you want to be able to do is you want to have flexibility to turn the volume up. You want to be able to get to a 6 or 7 or an 8 or a 10 once you're with the person or when you're on a date, for example, or if you're at an event, you don't want it to be a zero. If you're interested in someone, you don't want it to be a zero. You want to be able to turn it up to a 3 or a 4. If it's a networking event or whatever it is. And this is absolutely possible. It doesn't have to be something that you say explicitly. And that's something I keep coming back to is it's not necessarily something that you explicitly state. It's your willingness to be with your attraction with her in the moment. And sometimes it requires a little bit of practice. Right? And that's one of the things that we work on in the program is how to do that, how to modulate attraction so that you're not at a zero and you're not at a 10. And I have been to places, you know, I'm thinking about one, a dating event that I was at, and I was paired up with this man and he was kind of like. I was like, I don't know, maybe, you know, I wasn't totally feeling it at first, but he brought enough depth and he brought enough attraction, I'd say probably like between a 2 and a 3 that I said yes to going on a date with him. Later, after the event, he reached out and I thought, you know, I'm kind of on the fence, I'm not quite sure. But he brought enough. He brought enough of the attraction that I said yes to the date. And we ended up dating. We ended up being in a relationship, so. And that would not have happened if he'd been at a zero, right? I needed to feel something. I needed to feel his. I mean, we talk about cock energy, right? I needed to feel his balls. I needed to feel his power. I needed to. I needed to feel that part of him enough so that I thought, okay, yeah, let's see. Let's just let me go out again and see what happens, see how it goes. He also was the one to reach out and he also was the one to ask me on a date. And that was another point of feedback for me. I thought to myself, oh, if he can be direct enough here, that's attractive. I find it attractive. Which is, relates to polarity, right? He wasn't kind of wishy washy and he wasn't like, oh, do you maybe want to get coffee? He was more direct and that was attractive. And so I went on the date and then it unfolded from there. So I wanted to make that point because I think a lot of times it can feel binary. It can feel like either I'm a nice guy or I'm a fuckboy and there's no in between. And I think that that's fallacy. I really think that there's a lot of data points in between, in between those. And I just briefly want to say that the woman that I mentioned, I was at this event and we were talking about dating and attraction and she said, I don't know what it is about me. I just, men often say to me, you're like a sister to me. And she was basically saying, it's frustrating because I can't seem to get men to date me. I can't seem to get out of the friend zone. I don't know what it is about me. I'm not sure how to handle this. And it's really frustrating. I want to be in a happy romantic relationship. Want to be desired. I want to be desired. And I think there's, I do think there's kind of everybody wants to be desired. Right? People want to be wanted. But I think there's a nuance for women in particular of I want to be seen as desirable, I want to be desirable, I want to be approached, et cetera. And so it's, it feels extra painful in a way to feel like I keep getting the feedback that like, oh, you're so nice. You're, you're like a sister to me. Which is no, the most non sexual thing you can say. Just like I like having you around, I kid around with you. I don't see you in a sexual way at all. And that was really hard. And so, and, and I would say that the journey for her was very similar to the journey that a lot of our guys go through around sexual shame. You know, she had to process a bunch of sexual shame. And what would happen if she was actually seen in that part of herself? And what if she was rejected in that part of herself? Then it would be even worse and blah, blah, blah. So that was a lot. Do you have any comments on that section?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, so I think you were kind of naming, you know, they have to have enough of a certain energy. Part of how I would kind of frame that is they have to be transmitting enough of a signal to you that there's actual sexual interest. Right. That it's not just friendly. And I think this is the trap so many of us nice guys fall into. Right. I, I, I joke for me, you know, it was kind of framed as the, the School notes thing. It's like, I'm going to write a note and my friend's going to pass it to the person who's going to pass it to the girl, and it's going to say, do you like Jason? And then, you know, there's like a yes or no in. I think that encapsulates nice guys a lot where it's. We want to know there's a yes before I approach or bring my interest or say, hey, I like you, you know, oh, yeah, she's attracted to me, so it's safe for me to bring it. And the bind with that is that frame alone of prevents that from happening. Right. So if I'm leading, I'm not leading. In that case, I'm waiting to see, are you already attracted to me? Without expressing. And, you know, we talk a lot about in our program, it's often the masculine desire that ignites the feminine desire. Right. She doesn't know if she's attracted to you unless she feels your attraction for her in some sense. And that is vulnerable. That is a courageous thing for a man to bring because it's not always going to be reciprocal. And the. Right. The data you and I were looking at underneath this is, you know, what we kind of call the perception gap. That a lot of times there's miscommunications in a sense, and there's just a fair amount of research you found this Time article, and there's some other ones that basically point to men tend to overestimate sexual interest and women tend to underestimate it. So we're looking at all these signals and assuming she's interested and she's often not seeing our signals, and then if we're nice guys on top of that, we're sending very muted signals. So we're not giving her a whole lot. And so it gets into this kind of mushy territory in that. Right. They talked about. They did some polling. This was, you know, almost a decade ago, but I imagine a lot of it would stand true today around, like, what's the label of our relationship? So you and I were even talking about this before the call. Like, the context we've kind of met someone in carries some weight. Right. If we meet someone in a friendly context, sometimes it's hard to unwind that context. So that kind of matters. Like, what's the label our relationship has so far? How are we communicating? What is the activity I'm proposing or we're meeting in and then what's the day? Like, these are all things that Point to signals. They're signals that we have a lot of implicit belief around in our culture. Right. That one thing they showed, right. Was like, um, being in person or talking on the phone is a much more direct signal than texting, which I think a lot of guys assume if I'm texting her to say something, she must know I'm interested. No, it, like, totally falls off a cliff, you know, according to their data. And then the activity, you know, am I asking her to go for breakfast or to meet up for drinks? Right. The word drinks, really heavy, carries a lot of weight in our culture that, oh, this is a little different. And then what day, you know, hey, do you want to get a. Get brunch on Sunday? Is very different from, hey, do you want to. Want to get drinks Friday night? Right. And so these things all contribute here. And just point I'm saying is there's kind of this bubble where the perception gap lies. And a lot of friend zone stuff happens there where the signal isn't strong enough, so she's not seeing it. Right. And then finally he, you know, becomes more direct or something. And, you know, this is definitely something I've heard from women. Like, I'm surprised. Like, oh, I didn't know. I had no idea. Like, this feels suddenly out of left field. And that can be a bit jarring. So what's important about this is downstream of that, getting more present, getting more connected to our desire, our wants, how to communicate, unwinding our sexual shame is a much higher capacity to be direct. And one of the ways, if you're a man who keeps getting this feedback, right, you're a really great guy, but I'm not attracted to you, that you can start to shift. That is to be direct. More direct and sooner. Be more direct and sooner. Right. Our friend Dr. Glover, you know, his frame is like, get to rejection quickly. Like, the more direct you are, the more you're going to know is the reciprocity. And that's not a problem. But it's better than drawing it out for 6 to 12 months reading signals. Maybe we're spending time. Wait, we're spending time. That must mean she likes me. But I. I haven't made a move. And then in some sense, the longer you stay in the context of we're friends, the more jarring it can be as a man. If you then later bring your sexual energy, like, actually, I want to date you. I've wanted to date you this whole time. And that can be pretty unpleasant for both people, frankly.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I've had that experience of, whoa, what? I didn't know that that was part of what was happening here for you. I had no idea because you so effectively tucked away all of your sexuality and acted like a friend. You acted like a friend. Hey, do you want to hang out this weekend? And I want to make this point about, you know, you talked about indirect versus direct. Do you want to hang out this weekend? Hey, my friend is. I'm going to the drum circle on Sunday. You want to come? That doesn't feel like a date to me. What feels like a date is. And I've coached. I remember vividly coaching a guy friend years ago who had met a woman, I think, at a party that we'd had at our house. Something had happened, and he'd met her, and he said, I want to ask her out. And he had drafted a message. And it was one of these messages. It was like, hey, do you want to get coffee on Saturday? We talked about that place in Venice. And I said, that doesn't sound like a date. Just so you know. It just sounds like hanging out. And he said, well, how do I make it sound like a date? And I said, you say, can I take you out on a date this weekend? And he was like, whoa, that feels so aggressive and intense. And it was so funny because it basically, he did it. And she said yes. And then she made some kind of joke that. That it was intense, that somehow it was, like, really, like, it was so formal. I think she said, wow, that's so formal. Something like that. But he got his yes, right? He got his yes. And he knew, to your point, the context of it, which is, we are going on a date. We are not just hanging out. We're going on a date. Another way that you can do this is instead of, do you want to hang out this weekend? You can say, can I take you to drinks this Friday? Can I take you to drinks? Can I take you to brunch? Can I take you to something? A generates polarity and also sends a clear signal. I want to go on a date with you. I want to take you out. That's different than, can we go do this thing? And I think, particularly now in our culture, because there is so much. There is so much friendship, you know, it's normal now for men and women to hang out. It's normal for men and women to be friends, to spend time together, et cetera. That. That's totally normal. That those are ways of signaling. I want this to be a date. Are you interested in going on a Date with me. And to your point, part of the reason that I think a lot of men avoid doing that is because she might say no, right? She might say no. Whereas if you say, do you want to hang out? And let's say you had met a friend of a friend's event and you totally vibed and you were talking about the art and it was really fun, and you had a great time and you talked about all this stuff and you felt like, wow, we really get along. If then you say, you know, there was the research that I was looking up before this. There was this huge study that had 92,000 data points. They pulled 10,000 people. And it was basically, in each case, the people in the survey rated the rendezvous date or not date. So situations like a friend of a friend emails you to ask if you want to get lunch on Friday, date or not date. And what they found in general was that women rated not date a whole lot of the time, and men rated date more of the time. So, you know, that gap you were talking about is, I, I, as a woman, I am going to underestimate your interest. And the research generally shows that you are going to overestimate my interest. So there's a delta between those two. And, you know, they call it. I think they talked about evolutionary biology or something with respect to that. But there's. There's. I think there. I think it does skew, you know, in that. In that way where women will not necessarily think that it's a date. And they will. Yeah, they will friend zone. They will put someone in the category of friend. And then to point if that person later on, months later, years later, weeks later, whatever it is, is like, I want to date you. It feels almost like a betrayal. In my experience. That's my experience in my body is you are hiding your intentions or your desires for this long. That's really confusing to me. Also, I kind of confided in you or I told you things or. It just. It feels weird. It feels really weird. It's like. It kind of reminds me of spies where, like, spies will pick a mark and they'll get to know them and they'll be really close, and then the person will find out they're a spy, and they're like, whoa, did you ever even like me as a person? Or was all of this just to use me for something else? And I think that's part of why it can feel jarring. And I can. I have a lot of empathy because when I imagine being a man, it's like Well, I want to get to know her first before I bring this part of myself because I don't want to scare her off. Can you, can you share a little bit about that? And maybe I can share a little on my side as well. But what would you say to that? And was that part of your experience when you were, when you were younger?

Jason Lange: I mean, it wasn't so much for me. It was just I would freeze when it would be time to bring that forward and I was uncomfortable with it. So like, you know, I think oftentimes we know pretty fast if we're interested in someone and then all the cultural conditioning and all of our attachment wounding comes up to maybe buffer that in a sense. But there's a lot of guys, right, that I've met that know they were attracted to a woman they were friends with from the moment right, they met. And it's been unwavering. Like they, whether they got to know her more or not, they were like, I'm attracted to you, right? Like that. I think that's probably pretty common with nice guys. I don't know if it's necessarily the same on the other side, but that there's the shame in the fear of being too direct, right? Either A, because I don't want to seem like a sexual pig, or B, like yeah, I'm uncomfortable with that part of me, or I'm just scared of rejection, right? Because rejection takes, you know, if you haven't built a support system and resiliency and self esteem, it, it wears you down. Like we have worked with men who have been worn down, so they kind of don't want to rip the band aid off sometimes. Part of what we're starting to speak towards here is, you know, in this perception gap, in this nice guy gap, one of the levers we have is to just be more direct, be more direct earlier in that there's again, all these things that kind of contribute to that, you know, just on the attraction side, you know, some more research, we found that men tend to feel more attraction, right. Regardless of the context. So it could be we met as friends, but I still feel attraction for you.

Melanie Curtin: You.

Jason Lange: It could be you're the partner of one of my good friends and I feel attraction for you. Like it's, it's there in a sense, right? In one of the interesting things I, that, that this one research study had, right, Was the reverse wasn't necessarily true for women. A lot of times their attraction tracked relationship status. So if they were in a relationship or they knew the person was In a relationship, it's almost like that system doesn't get ignited the same way. It's like, oh, I contextually put the person here. So oftentimes men are feeling it more. And then there's this gap around how much they're expressing it directly, how much the women are perceiving it as well. And that's where some of. I think this evolutionary, you know, stuff comes in and that, you know, as nice guys. Again, the thing is, we're like, well, I don't want to make her uncomfortable, so I'm going to hold that back. But if I hold that back, the context, she starts to connect to me and is platonic and friendly. Right. And so it doesn't actually give her space to discover that part of her, in a sense. Because you. Like you said, it's like there is a covertness to it, you know, like, it's a covert contract in a sense of I actually have this intent, but because of my fears or shame, I'm not bringing you that intent. And then that doesn't actually give you a chance to really respond to me. You might still reject me. But there's a lot more clarity in relaxation, I think, in both people. It's like, oh, okay, yeah, you're interested me in. You asked me out. And no versus the. You know, sometimes the thing I think that builds up of, well, I don't know, is this person like me. Do they not like me? And then there's kind of a tension there, I think, on both sides. Sometimes that doesn't actually relate. Lead to more connection.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah, it feels like hiding.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, I mean, it's. It's like this. Maybe another way to kind of name this perception gap is there's. Men tend to have more attraction in, period. Like, so we're just running more. I'm attracted to this person. Attracted to this person. And then we tend to, for all kinds of reasons, read signals, even friendly signals, as more sexually charged as the. As often women think they are. And then the research shows that women tend to, you know, like, use the context of, no, we met as friends. So that I'm gonna, like, hold that literally, because that's how we met. And you haven't approached me with anything else. So that's what I'm assuming we're doing here. So then we're gonna. I'm gonna reveal things to you, connect to things with you in a way that's assuming that. And then if you come at me from the other side, that's where I think it can Be really jarring in a sense. But again, what. I'm just going to keep speaking this over and over again. Often what it comes down to is a man as the masculine, the alpha leader. We're withholding something, and what we're withholding is our real intent and desire.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah. And I want to be clear, when Jason's using the word alpha, we use alpha and omega in our talks about polarity. And if you're resonating with this conversation and you're a little bit newer to the podcast, I would recommend listening to the Polarity episodes because polarity is the sort of underlying pattern that we're pointing to here. If you're not being direct and you're hiding your intention and you're not bringing any sexual heat at all, then you're not polarizing the moment. There's no polarity. And again, I want to emphasize that polarity can be generated with your gaze, with your body, with, you know, it doesn't have to be the words that you say. I feel like a lot of times men get caught up on that, and it's really not just about that. So I'm thinking of one of our early, earlier clients, had a success story. He was. He was one of these guys. He got friend zoned a lot. He was really frustrated. He was kind of beaten down when he came to us and he started to do the work. And a few months in, he was at a beer garden and he saw a woman. They caught eyes. And he said, I heard your voice in my head, Mel. And I went over there. I just went over there. I just started walking. I went over there and I said hello. That's all. I said hello. And she said hello back. And we started talking and I put my attention on my balls, right? I was like thinking about my balls. I was thinking about bringing some attraction. Not overwhelming, but just keeping the fire alive. Because what he had done before was tuck it away, gotta tuck it away. If I bring that, it's unsafe for her. And he didn't do that in this moment. And they ended up dating. And that's very direct. They caught eyes. He walked over, he said, hello. There's a. There's a phrase that a lot of my women friends and I use, which is, I can't always tell whether I'm attracted to a man until he comes towards me. Yes, that's the phrasing that we use. We say, I need him to come towards me for me to know whether I'm attracted to him. And we don't just mean physically. Coming towards me. Obviously, we don't just mean him walking up to us. We mean, I need to feel you. I need to feel your energy coming towards me. I need to feel you coming towards me. And then I can tell, I can gauge, I can get a sense. And I think that part of the reason for that is that in the dance of alpha and omega, also known as masculine and feminine, there's. There's a way that your desire, your ability to come towards me, your directness, your clarity, your pursuit, your whatever, that, that feeling is part of what makes you attract. So it's a little bit like, you know, people are obsessed saying that men are visually attracted. Whatever. It's like if half of her was shielded by a piece of plywood. You're like, well, I think I'm. I'm not sure. I don't know yet. It's a little bit like that. It's like you're. If you're. If your alpha energy is. Is not there, then I don't know whether I'm attracted to you. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. And again, like, there are certain. There are some men, especially kind of more on the fuckboy player side, where I feel them, you know, they're just, They're. They're turned on. You know, they're on. They're. They're on switches on. Like, I can feel them. But most men aren't like that. Most men, I'm kind of like, maybe. I don't know. And I cannot tell you how many times I am out in the world and I look at a man and I think, yeah, I would like that. Packaging is just fine. But I can't feel you. I can't feel you in your body. I can't feel you in your balls. I can't feel you with your feet on your ground. I can't feel you coming towards me. So it's a no. So it's like the. It's like the consciousness that animates a man is 80% of what makes him attractive. His looks are 20% of the equation. The consciousness that animates his body, the conscious consciousness is the most important thing. And the good news is that's really work with able. You can work with your level of consciousness. You can work with polarity, you can work with getting into your body. You can do this. And we know because we've watched hundreds of men come through our program at this time and probably thousands over the years, through workshops and all the rest of it that have transformed and their dating lives have Transformed. And sometimes their married lives have transformed. Polarity works. It's a. It. It works. But if you don't know about it, you're just in the dark trying the same thing over and over and banging your head against the wall until you're bruised. And you. You know, you mentioned that rejection wears you down. There's actually research that shows that being rejected repeatedly is actually physically painful. The emotional pain translates into physical pain. And I just. I have a lot of compassion for that because it is one of the most frustrating things in the world to keep trying something and not know why it's not working. It's one thing if you know why it's not working. Right. I'm trying to lift this heavy object I've been working out. Obviously, I'm not there yet. I'm gonna go lift more weights. Eventually I'm going to be able to pick up this heavy object. But if I don't know why something still isn't working for me after decades of dating, and that's really hard. And I think that's one of the things that we've seen over and over in the men that have come through our program is a sense of relief. I kind of finally know what to work on and how to work with it. And they start getting different results. They start having different experiences. Do you have any kind of memorable moments of that, either yourself or with one of our clients?

Jason Lange: Yeah. Right. So, I mean, one of the questions guys often have is, well, if I'm in the friend zone with a woman, can I change it? And. And so, yes, it's possible. And it's hard because there is a lot of context. And the longer you're in the context of a friendly relationship, it compounds. So in a sense, the stronger the signal has to be to potentially change that. And it's not always possible. We've definitely had a client or two who really did change it. I changed something that wasn't quite friend zone. But, you know, one example I was talking about was there was a time where I met a girl on eharmony back in my mid-20s, and we went on a date, and it was like, fine. You know, there was like, we. We shared some philosophical interest. I was definitely attracted to her. I didn't make it super clear I was attracted to her. And it essentially just fizzled out. Like, it just didn't go anywhere, but I was still attracted to her. And, you know, in some sense, I. I stayed in touch with her for a kind of lightly, for like a year. I had gone out I was doing a lot more work. And by the time I reached out to, you know, now, this might sound, you know, a little direct, but I was pretty clear, like, I want to have sex with this woman. This is actually why I'm interested in her. I'm really attracted to her. I like her energy. I like her body. This is why I'm wanting to connect with her. And so then we went out again. I asked her out for something, and it was. And I was way more direct. And then I was like, I want you, you know, come back to my place. And we ended up changing it to a sexual relationship. Right. And so what that was an example of is it's not like I became physically different or more attractive in between the two. The year I didn't, I was the exact same guy in the exact same body. How I was in my body, in my capacity to be direct with what I wanted, was very different. And that's what changed there. And so, again, I was able to be more direct. I was much more comfortable with my sexual desire at that point. And I led. I, frankly, I. I just. I led. And that's something that is very possible for men now, where men, because of the cost of rejection, I think where nice guys sometimes start to go awry, is they want to protect themselves from that. So they don't want to put themselves out there directly to not get the direct rejection. But then you get more into the kind of, in a sense, you know, friend zone. If you're attracted to her and what you want is a sexual connection, but she wants a friendship. That's like a chronic rejection. Every time you're hanging out, you're feeling the pain of, I want this. I don't even know if she wants this. I'm having to hold that back. And that's, you know, really hard in a sense. So as men, you know, communicating your intention sooner is better and being direct. Right. Naming what you want, getting the no, or getting the yes. Like, that's the shift you can make here. More into that alpha position. And to be. We have another episode, I think, on this back in the archives. But to also acknowledge it doesn't make you a shallow man pig, if that's what you want. And what you don't want is friendship, meaning if what you want is to actually date her and she doesn't want to date you, you don't have to remain friends with her. You can say, hey, yeah, I'm just really interested in this type of relationship with you. I think you're a great person. If that ever shifts, let me know. But that's what I'm available for. And you don't have to get into that place. Men we do know get stuck into. Well, I don't want to seem like an asshole, so I'm going to keep seeing her. In a sense, it's like poking yourself, then every time with the pain of, I want this and, you know, she wants that. And it doesn't make you a bad man to be direct around. Well, that's what I want in this relationship and doesn't mean that's all she's worth and that she's only a sexual object. But it's okay for you to know what kind of relationship you want with someone and to own that and again, to move to being direct.

Jason Lange: Yeah. I'll just wrap with kind of more the framework for this. Right. When we teach polarity and talk about these different concepts, the alpha, the, the. The masculine part, whatever you want to talk there. One of its, One of the gifts of this part, of all of us, is to create clarity and illuminate the context and the structure. So by being direct, what you're doing is you're leading. You are creating clarity about what the intention and desire of this whole situation is. And if you're not bringing that, you will not polarize her. Right. That's. That's the whole kind of jam of it. So the more direct you are, the more clear you are with the context, the more you understand the different things you're communicating. Yes. There's a difference between saying, hey, do you want to go out for brunch on Sunday? Versus I would like to take you out Friday night for drinks. Right. Has a very different directness to it. And in some sense, you can't be too direct in terms of if you're not clear, if you are not clear, it's a date. So this, we hear this a lot from guys. I, I think she knows if. That she doesn't know if you're not clear what it is she doesn't know. And that is a gap you need to close that may be vulnerable and may involve rejection. But it's going to make it much easier to. For you to find the match for someone who is a hell yes to being your romantic partner.

Melanie Curtin: And I deeply encourage you to pair being direct with doing the personal growth, doing the men's work, doing the embodiment work. If you only are direct without doing that work and women still can't feel you in your power, you will not polarize either. You need both. You need to be direct and you need to be in your body. You need to be in your attraction. And sometimes that takes. Takes something. There's usually some stuff that needs to get composted in order for you to really feel. Feel your fucking balls. Right. It's okay to feel your cock. Your cock is sacred. Your sexuality is sacred. And for a lot of the guys we work with, they need a little help to get there, to really own that and to really feel and be in their power. So if you are interested in our work, you can always go to Evolutionary Men. Apply. Tap, tap, tap, Tap, tap. D.