I've been out with about 25 or so women in 2026, and I just had by far the worst first date I've had all year. I'm going to enjoy telling you about it, and I'm going to tell you how I was able to have a guaranteed win from a date even though it went so badly. The guaranteed win is that I'm happy with how I showed up. Having things go poorly is what makes life interesting and fun, because I had a great first date last night, and then I had a coffee date today that was just awful. The contrast between the two of those is sharp, and it helps me really appreciate when something goes well. It's okay in dating, especially if you meet from an app or from a matchmaking service, if you're not vibing with someone. It's okay if it doesn't go well. To me, there should always be a learning opportunity or something that comes out of it.
A glowing review, then a bad attitude from the start
Let me tell you about this date. It was through my matchmaking service. I got a glowing review of a woman, and at least in the paragraph I read about her, it looked like there was a lot of compatibility there, although there were a couple of little things where I thought, this is concerning. She sounded like she might be dysfunctional and superficial based on those specific little things that were written. I don't know if she didn't find me attractive or what happened, but she had a bad attitude as soon as I met her. She was immediately defensive and guarded, and she started talking about how she really wanted to have a FaceTime before actually meeting up in person. She said, "It's a lot of work for me to get ready for a date as a woman. I can't just comb my hair like you do as a man. We should have seen if there's chemistry before meeting up in person."
I said no. I'm on this matchmaking service, and she's not paying anything, while I'm paying $600-plus for one of these dates. I'm not having a fucking Zoom call for $600 with someone. I can't really see how I feel with a woman over a Zoom call. Especially since I talk with and coach people and have lots of calls scheduled through my website, to me, calls are for business. Calls are for talking logic and reason. Calls are not for trying to flirt with a woman and see if we have chemistry. Now, if I was just doing a dating app, I might have a FaceTime. But this woman's attitude immediately started off kind of toxic and defensive, and her body language looked closed off.
I tend to look deeply at people and try to stare into their souls, because then I can see who I'm really dealing with, and she was getting uncomfortable with that. I said, "Look, I'm empathic. I want to know who I'm dealing with. I can feel your feelings as if they're my own. I want to know the real you and see through whatever you're saying." She seemed very uncomfortable with me seeing the real version of her.
The "men have it easy" argument, and the crime data
Then she started arguing and complaining about how easy men have it, and that as a woman, life is just so difficult and she has to be so scared for her safety all the time. I said, as a man, I have to deal with that stuff too. In fact, the degrees I have are a master's and a bachelor's in criminology, and I was a police officer, so I know that men are victims of violent crime more than women, at least in crime that's reported to the police and officially documented. I would imagine that if you look at under-reporting, there's a good chance men under-report a lot of crimes compared to women, and men are probably less likely to produce false reports about certain crimes just to get back at someone. So objectively, according to the data, I told her, you are safer than ever. The objective data right now says you are safer than ever, but your perception of that has been colored by all these media platforms that thrive off disempowering people and keeping people scared and not thinking straight.
I totally destroyed her argument. At minimum, being a man is equally difficult to being a woman. But I would say that being a man is generally more difficult than being a woman if you compare the entire spectrum of life and every different aspect. Look at the statistics. Men don't live as long. In most of the objective statistics, and you can ask your AI program about this, men have harder lives overall: lower life expectancy, more victims of violent crime. I said that men often get wrecked in family court. And she said, "Well, look what they've done to deserve it." Jeez. This is a woman with no kids saying that. I've been through family court. I've been through a divorce. I didn't fight my ex at all, because I figured there was no point in trying to do anything. At the very best, I might as well depend on her being fair rather than trying to fight and hoping the judge is going to be fair to me. The best thing to do is to try not to fight, so that's the attitude I took.
"I'm not dealing with a vegan"
I told her I eat whole-plant vegan, and she said, "Well, I'm not dealing with a vegan. I really care about my protein and I eat meat. I don't think that's going to work for me." At the same time, she appeared to carry a significant amount of extra weight. What I've noticed in the women I've gone out with who are into eating meat is that they tend to be more likely to have extra weight, while the women I see who eat whole-plant like I do tend to look like I do and not carry much extra weight. I personally find being lean more attractive. So it's funny. Maybe you should investigate how I eat.
This woman kept saying, "This is a waste of my time. I had to get ready. I had to do all this." I said, look, you're in your mid-30s and you really want a family. You've been wasting a lot of time already. There's a difference between wasting time on one date and the way you keep acting, because you're going to keep wasting time if you immediately disqualify every single person, have a toxic attitude, and argue with them. It doesn't matter how many more people you meet. Every one of them is going to be a waste of time.
I feel good that I held my position. She came at me with one toxic narrative after another, blatantly. She told me that men deserve to get treated unfairly in family court. That is ridiculous. Everybody deserves equal treatment under the law. Nobody deserves unequal treatment based on any of their characteristics. She got all these ideas from social media, and from people who got them on social media. Twenty years ago, you didn't run into people with attitudes like this. She was celebrating not watching the news, but jeez.
"You've shown no empathy for me"
I also told her that even if dates don't work out, they're valuable for learning. And she said, "Well, you've shown no empathy or compassion for me." I said, I already understand your point of view. Your point of view is something I'm already very familiar with. I know it. What you don't understand is my point of view, and I'm telling you things nobody's ever told you before. Nobody has stood up to you about this, called you out on it, and given you hard data to the contrary. She seemed pretty surprised when I said that according to the objective facts, men are victims of violent crime more than women, so by that logic, I should be more paranoid.
She tried to debate it. She said, "Well, when you get in an elevator, you don't have to worry about your safety." I said, not according to the data. According to the data, I'm more likely to be a victim of a violent crime than you are. This isn't somebody's opinion. This is the actual crime data reported to the police. If you want to debate whether the data is valid or not, that's a whole different argument. I told her, you've never heard of these things, you don't know about any of this stuff, and your point of view should be challenged.
What I learned: attitude is everything in dating
What I took away from her is that I'm very grateful there are women who don't think like that, women who are not in that toxic space. It's such a breath of fresh air to meet a woman who has a supportive, loving, positive attitude about men. It feels amazing. I feel empathy for this woman. It must be difficult to try to date men when you have that kind of attitude. I don't take her attitude personally. In fact, I celebrate that I honestly brought it out of her immediately.
The woman I went out with last night has certainly had very similar kinds of experiences to the woman I went out with today, based on what I could see. But the woman from last night has a son and a beautiful attitude about men. She's still respectful about her ex, her son's father. She still has a good attitude about him. Even though those two women probably have a lot of experiences in common, the woman last night has a beautiful attitude, and the woman today showed me a very ugly attitude. It's a big reminder of how important your attitude is in dating, and a reminder to say thank you when you don't have to waste any more time, or take too much time, with somebody who's clearly not compatible.
I'm grateful. I was sitting there on the date thinking, this is going to make a great video. The message is: I love women. That's why I date women, because I love women. I still love my ex and the life we had together. I love going out with women, even when I encounter a date like the one I had today, because it's a test of strength for me. Can I hold my reality and hold firm on what's true for me? I didn't budge at all, and that felt good, because this was the hardest I've been challenged on a date.
She walked out, and I stayed
It's funny. This woman thinks she had such a bad date. She said, "Well, I'm not feeling this, so I'm just going to get up and head out." I said, that's perfectly acceptable to me. She said, "Are you not feeling this?" I said, this is fun to me. She said, "This is not fun to me. This is a waste of my time." Damn, life must be hard. She asked, "Are you going to walk out now?" I said, no, I'm going to sit here for a while longer. I made sure to let her walk out by herself, and I sat there thinking, my God, that poor woman is so selfish. I empathize with and understand her point of view, and I made sure to tell her so.
She said, "You just don't understand what it's like to be a woman." I said, first off, I've had past lives as a woman, and I'm able to remember and empathize with that enough to appreciate your situation from a personal point of view. Second, I have a daughter, an ex-wife, a mother, and sisters. We need to be in this together. Going around thinking that nobody understands you is delusional. I don't have to be a woman to understand a woman's life, at least 90 percent of it. Maybe 10 percent I miss. But first off, we're human beings, and we have more in common than we have different. All these media platforms, this is their job: they try to get us to think that nobody understands us. If you're one gender, or the other gender, or however many genders y'all are doing, and you think nobody else understands you, that's ridiculous.
I made sure to bring up childhood traumas, and she acknowledged it. She said, "Well, you're right. Men certainly have their traumas, and men are often not as well supported as women." It was cool to watch her acknowledge some of the things I said. I held firm on my position. She said, "Well, I don't want to argue." I said, you have points of view that need to be argued with. Your points of view are not well thought out. I don't think people question points of view like this very often, and you haven't researched further to see if your point of view matches reality.
"I have to think about my safety all the time"
She said, "I have to think about my safety all the time. I can't stop thinking about that." I said, no, you don't. As a man, I need to think about my safety too. There are dangerous places I can go that will put me at risk of being a victim of crime. On a normal basis, I just trust my intuition and I feel safe. If I see some danger flags, then I pay attention and I'll get out of there. I go walk in the park alone at night. Especially as a content creator, there's plenty of danger to be had.
When I said men are victims of violent crime more than women, she said, "Well, men are doing all the crimes. It's always a man." I said, no, it's not. That's ridiculous. Look the data up on that. It may be more often, but it's not always. Believe me, I've met women who have killed people and are just getting out of prison because they killed people. It is not just men. Yes, men perpetrate violent crimes more often, but women are guilty of all kinds of hurtful things and violent crimes also. There's some crazy court case right now where it looks like a woman may get away with murder just because the women on the jury empathize with her. Last I checked, the justice system wasn't set up around somebody empathizing with you. It's about whether this is a crime or not.
Why the bad date makes me want to date more
Wow, that date was so bad, but it also helps me see how great the other one was by comparison. It makes me want to go out with more women, because I know that not all women are the same. Some women are so beautiful and sweet and cooperative and love men. Some women aren't. Some women are the opposite, and that's temporary. Maybe I just caught this woman on a bad day. Or maybe, because I was all fired up about my ICP content beforehand, I brought some confrontational energy. But I love that I didn't back down. At least I walk away from a date feeling good about myself. I sat there and I argued.
This was a woman who was attractive. And it's funny, because based on her job and the things she used to do related to her job, she's in the fitness business, and it sounds like she used to be very physically fit. According to what she said herself, she's let herself go over the last decade, and what I saw matched that. So she shows up on a date resenting men and not feeling good about herself, then she attacks me and says she's not feeling this. You're wasting your time if you're approaching life with an attitude like this. And this is a woman who's on the dating apps too. I might have even seen her on there.
I'm going to wrap up now, and you can find the rest of my dating stories in my Dating playlist. Thanks for watching. I hope this was useful for you.