Latest / From Sad Pick Me Girl to Alchemist / Episode 25 - Finding Real Love in a Broken Dating World
Transcript
- Denise: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of From South Pick Me Girl to Alchemist. Today I am super excited because I have my partner Indy here, and it's very interesting to merge these two worlds, my personal life and what I would consider my professional life. But I center this podcast around purpose, and really the way that we found each other was through both of us sharing ourselves on social media, and it was very unexpected on my end. I will let him talk about his experience from his perspective, but with That, Indy, can you explain how we met it was pretty funny. randomly, this woman came across my feed who was saying that she's on her celibacy and removing vices from her life, such as drinking. And I made a comment. My first words to Denise were, hey bro. But What I saw from the video was here's a human being who is working on themselves. And they're obviously moving towards being better in their own personal life, and that really resonated with me. And we kept doing the back and forth, liking each other's stuff. But most importantly, it just resonated so strongly that you were trying to be a better person in this dating world where like it's so easy for us to be like turned into Shittier people, is that a good way put it? Yeah. It's e yeah, that's easy to Good job, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was interesting too because I kept saying that I wanted to meet somebody in an organic space and some can argue that social media is not that, but the way that we met was not with the intentions of dating, it was purely just as I mentioned, sharing the unfiltered stuff, things that I would have never wanted a previous partner to see because it was so vulnerable and it was me sharing some of the things that I didn't like about myself. So I put it all out there. I always Thought that I would meet somebody in person through the events that I was doing and all the networking that I had done through creating the podcast and wanting to continue to meet people that were also in similar lines of work. So, again, things always happen unexpectedly, but one of the amazing things that I think that you are doing right now that I really want you to share on is delving into the space of helping men with attraction and dating because right now We've discussed a lot about how there's this huge discrepancy between what men and women want when ultimately everyone wants a healthy partnership. So there's something that needs to be done to bridge the gap. And of course, it's hard to do it on a mass level. It all starts with the individual work. And so I love that you touched on that. And I know that you and I connect and have a lot of conversations on that. And I think that For anyone who's listening and wanting to attract love, this can be super helpful because we all hear it, it's rough out there, the dating pool sucks and all those negative things, but it's really important to keep your mindset positive because your reality will continue to mirror to you what you believe at your core. So if you can share your perspective on that, that'd be amazing. Yeah, so real. I'm a attraction coach for men in their thirties. I Had a horrible start to my dating career. Heartbreaks that left me feeling mistrustful of the dating world for a very long time. And I just hit my emotional rock bottom when I realized that I could not get the optionality or the dates or the caliber of human that I was looking for. I felt very overlooked for a very long time. And That level of scarcity really hurts. So I dived into the world of game. I started with learning about what pickup artistry was, and then I learned over time like there's more levels and layers to attraction, dating, long-term relationships, than just pickup artistry. But Hist that's just an older version of the dating world. I think there is a big discrepancy in understanding how to speak to each other in terms and a language that we understand. I think Men and women have wants and needs and sometimes we're giving our best idea of what we think they need, but maybe we're not communicating it in a way that they can understand. We're speaking on different axes of attraction and there's a miscommunication when we can't meet each other. So I had to kind of start looking around and digging around and Finding what the commonalities that players have in common. Players share a very similar set of mindsets and ways to view the world through. Also, players have more optionality and they. how do we even get into the ethics of playerhood? But What I do for men is I put more options and resources in their back pocket so that they can make a better decision about their long-term partnership choices. I think when people are in scarcity, they can choose partners who are not the best for them. And if they have underlying unaddressed trauma patterns, they're just attracting the same partner with a new face. So bringing awareness to What they're thinking, bringing awareness to their thoughts and their actions, we can now start to do habits and identity level change that will create a magnetic human being and therefore more options flow to that person. That's essentially what I do as a mindset and attraction coach. Can you also touch on one of the things that we disagreed on at the beginning? Was I always said just be yourself so you can attract the right person. I think this is terrible dating advice to just be yourself. I think it's great. I think, okay. If you are new in the dating and new, new People who don't have options, if they be themselves, they kind of just show the worst parts of themselves. So somebody who's just beginning, I would just want them to selectively demonstrate qualities and habits that are in a line. To put it another way, a person, if if we're trying to fill their cup up, We're trying fill their cup up and there's holes in the cup. We just want to plug the holes before we start adding more tactics and ways to bring in more things. So, to be yourself, to tell somebody who's new at dating or is inexperienced at dating to just be themselves, they're gonna be themselves and they're gonna get self-selected outs out of the dating pool. But if we can stack enough wins to have them understand. And give their power away in less ways. Just find less ways to give their power away. I think new players in the dating market give their power away in ways that they don't understand that they are giving their power away. And I just want to tell them, hold a little bit more power. You don't have to show all your I mean, in a very healthy way, it's very healthy to show all your cards. With a trusted person. I don't think you can just show your cards with anybody. I think people can get taken advantage if they show their cards to the wrong people. But if you can recognize people who are on board with the lifestyle that you're trying to build and cultivate, I think now we are coming to the table eye to eye. That's a healthier and stronger standpoint to come to the table with, in my opinion. Can you also share your perspective on informed consent? Because that's one of the things that I think attracts not only me, but women in general are craving that and me and men as well. I get that a lot. It's not just a I say men because I obviously have dated men, but I don't know what the other side is unless you or other men to share that. But informed consent seems to me something that a lot of people still struggle with. Yeah, okay. When people try to get their needs met, they can either go through the social positive way or they can Could go through the antisocial way, the underhanded way. In my experience, people will reward you for being straightforward and honest by either self-selecting out or participating in the dynamic that you're looking for specifically. I think informed consent also shows great character and security in yourself. Somebody who is in scarcity will demonstrate lots of sh. Shitty tactics and behaviors because they want the sex, but they don't want to have the hard conversations that might not lead to sex. But if we're gonna have sex, we might as well do it with people we love and care about and whose best interest we have at heart. Yeah, I mean if you're not if you're not playing with another if the players on your team are not all playing the same game, you're gonna have a bad time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that I've appreciated the most about you because even then I don't wanna delve too much into the personal details, but the stuff that you told me at the beginning was uncomfortable, but it was nice to know that up front and I think that that's another one of the things we don't always get to hear what we want to hear, but it's what's necessary to develop trust. So now I feel like I can trust you. And I know that like people going into relationships will hide things because they are afraid that it will be detrimental to the relationship. It really it ends up being detrimental if things last. Because full disclosure, I when I've met you I didn't really think that we'd be where we are at now. It's like okay I haven't been on a date in a while, I'll go. And and then you made it easy by making the plan Yeah. So I also I think it takes a really deep level of security to have co hard conversations in the best interest of the people around you. Yeah. Yeah. I also want to touch on your ability to initiate dates because I think that that's super helpful for men and something that I've also heard from women that's lacking because one of the things that I appreciated is that you sent a calendar invite and then you drove my way. And I know that it's I mean it was far. It's pretty far. Now it was over an hour just to come see me. And so yeah, where did you was that something learned It is something learned. There is a science and an economics towards if you're the man and you're setting up the date. You know, this is interesting. I think we're gonna go into a system right here. So for men that I'm gonna teach how to date, here's how I would teach you how to date. You're gonna need to systematize something. I don't know, depending on your level of resources that you have access to, I think that you should put minimal investment in the first date. The first date is for a person to understand who you are on the inside, is not where you get to just go show off your money. Cause that stuff's it's great, it's cool. But you'd rather people fall in love with you for you and not what you can do for them. When it comes to the dating, I just decided I want to go do this thing. You are invited to go with me. And I wanted to go to this really cool park that I've never been in, to San Diego. And I'm like, what better way to spend time and get to know somebody than a walk? A walk, a coffee, something where you're both able to speak. Speak. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then also one of the things that I think that men can benefit from is the level of confidence So can you touch on how just share your journey from the very beginning of what led you to where you're at now? Because you're the milest it's it's incredible to me. It's something beyond what I've experienced. This is an interesting story, yeah. Yeah. There's a trope that age is just a number and it's very true because maturity comes at all different levels. You can meet 50-year-olds who have the the capacity of a teenager, and you can meet young people with wells of depth. Wells of depth. So to go back to the very beginning, I used to be in the Tantra communities in Austin, Texas, which is very well known for authentic relating, which is very known for the Tantra community. In these little Tantra communities, I essentially used to host orgies and play parties and What they are are social experiments where sex happens. We set containers for adults who are learning what consent is, learning how to speak their boundaries, how to say no to certain things, and how to say yes to other things. A lot of the people who come to these from all walks of life by the way, you have doctors, you have teachers, you have performers. You don't know who you're ever gonna see at one of these. We learned the language of consent inside of these. In 2026, we live in a yes means yes. An era ago it was a no means no type of consent. Now it's a yes means yes. Follow your fuck yes. If it's a maybe, it's a no. It's a no in your body. That's some of the basic rules that we learned in the Tantra scene. After that I left because I was wondering outside of these circles and situationally I'm really popular over here, but who am I outside of these communities? Can I attract and create a dating life outside of these communities that I'm proud of and that is fulfilling to me? After leaving these, I started studying game from different dating coaches. And I'm just imbibing, just trying to squeeze as much juice onto my head. I'm trying out these different tactics and all these different things. A lot of the tactics and the things that psychologically work against other people. they feel grimy to the soul, so how can we start relating to people in a authentic, healthy way where everybody can win? Where people can say no to dynamics that they don't want to be a part of and say fuck yes to things that feel right and good and are a l aligned long term. After a while of studying, I started picking things up and it got less and less confusing and things started to solidify in a way that's like, call a spade a spade, this works. Call a spade a spade, that's kinda bogus. And of course we always have to use our best judgment to cause as minimal harm as possible because emotional harm in the world is still emotional harm done. And that's that's flat out. That's straight up. Yeah. Yeah. And then yeah, now I'm moving into the next phase which is teaching, which is mentoring other men who are struggling, who feel invisible, who feel overlooked, who don't love the way the world is. And I just wanna help them try on some new lenses to look at the world through. I think everything in life is how we look at the world through. Yeah. To play into that, one of the things that I hear often, or some of the things I hear often, are that women are impossible, that we aren't the way that we used to be, which I don't really know what that means. And really just men don't trust women that we all need optionality or we always have one foot in, one foot out. Those are some of the things that I see on the comments from the things that I share on my Instagram. So what are your thoughts for men who have those beliefs and have ingrained them? Because as I've shared with you, I think that they're always going into things with everyone guilty until proven innocent and that's just not a healthy place to come from. So if you could touch on it. You know, when people are so deep in a hole, it's really hard to climb them out of the hole, the mental hole that they're already in. How I would really love to Get them to look at the world as new lens. Yeah, clean up the gunk out of the current lens, clean up the gunk out of the current lens that is skewing the way we can see the opposite sex. And start to establish a little bit more trust and self-confidence inside and to quantify specifically what you are looking for and trying to attract. I think a lot of these men have had a lot of negative experiences. Plus, plus unaddressed trauma and attachment patterns from childhood, which they potentially haven't looked into or haven't done shadow work towards. I think shadow work is so important. It's how we take a look at the things that we want to hide away and pretend aren't there. But inside of the shadow work, we can see the deepest parts of ourselves. That are crying out for see me, look at me, see me, these little things. At the end of the day, we're all looking for love and validation, and when somebody groks really poor negative stimulus early, it can set a poor taste in the mouth for the rest of until somebody else comes along and says, Hey. This way of viewing it is just flat out wrong. Let's establish some stories and some patterns. That are going to help us be more magnetic, help us see with more compassion and nuance and more understanding. I think if we can meet these people with curiosity instead of shaming them, I think we can get men to act better for a lack of a better word. I don't think that we're gonna shame men out of positions that they did not reason themselves into in the first place. And I think sometimes it just takes another man who they can see this person gets it or they will recognize more truth. But also there's a large swath of people whose identity and seeing the world they're inextricably linked and they will not let go of it. But hopefully we can maybe plant some seeds. Plant some seeds. We can plant some seeds. And then going back to shadow work, I don't think that a healthy relationship is possible until you have done shadow work. For me that meant spending time alone and learning to be alone, which was incredibly uncomfortable, and then I got used to it. And again, I think it's necessary, especially for people who have traumatic backgrounds. And so what did shadow work look like for you? man. Shadow work looked like for me crying with groups of strangers who I didn't know and I would never see again about things that my parents did or did not do for me. it took me a lot of psychedelic trips into my psyche to start seeing where I am emotionally stunted or where I was emotionally bruised in a in a way. Also, shadow work comes in a couple different ways. In my opinion, learning learning self is so important. Journaling and learning who you are and what you stand for is important. And if you haven't done shadow work or you haven't met yourself, how can you truly meet another person? How can you truly meet another sovereign soul? Yeah. Yeah. And I know that one of the things that we've both expressed in different words is self-love. What does self-love mean to you? Self-love. Wow. This is what I hear from every single dating coach, and what I've recognized in myself is that All of my seeking behaviors have always stemmed from a place of I am not enough. If you look at the messaging into the red pill community that is broadcast today, a lot of it stems from you are not enough. Self-love looks like habits. We are the sum of our habits that we do. We're the sum total of the habits that we do. So self-love starts to look like pouring back into yourself and doing habits and actions that benefit you tomorrow. Not just benefit you right now. Self-love is enforcing is keeping promises to yourself. Self-love is creating boundaries for yourself that are there to build a stronger human being. Things that take away from you and your energy and your happiness, those are the opposite of self-love. So it looks different for everybody and I don't know how to I'm not gonna sit here and preach what self-love is because it looks so different for everybody, but essentially it is pouring back into yourself and doing habits and actions that benefit your long-term health and wellness and that bolster your spirit. If anything's taking away from your spirit, that is an indicator that that is not self-love. Yeah, self love is keeping boundaries and promises to yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I also love that you always say choose people who choose you because I think that that is one of the biggest issues with modern dating. Maybe even before I went I just thought it was fun to get somebody who challenged challenged in an unhealthy way, right? There's challenging in a healthy way and I think that you challenge me in a healthy way now. But Choosing people who choose you. I think one of the best things that you can do for yourself in the dating world is choose people who choose you. Mm-hmm. Choosing people who don't choose you is like you're both driving a car and they are stomping on the br like they are stomping on the brakes while you guys are trying to move forward. Choosing someone who chooses you, it allows the best parts of you to come out rather than having to overextend yourself in order to receive love from that person. Because if you have to overextend yourself, they're not into you that into you in the first place. Right. Yeah. Choose people who choose you. It's such a beautiful concept. And cutthroat filter out people who are not choosing you. If you don't have optionality, that's pretty hard. And by cultivating a rich internal world, doing shadow work, learning who you are, you can start finding other people who are along that same wavelength, who have put in work to themselves. I think the more you do shadow work, honestly, the thinner your dating pool becomes. The things that used to attract you and the signals that you were able to see before are now benign. They're now no longer interesting in the same ways. So yeah. so one of the things that we discussed earlier in our relationship is the we'll call it the art of playing games to increase someone's interest. And you mentioned specifically pulling back to see how that person would react. And I mentioned to you that that would not work for me because that would just increase my I don't know if I said this verbatim, but it would just increase my anxiety and make me trust you less. And then I would ask you, like, what's wrong? Are you play I'm I'm not in the art of playing games. Like I just don't have it in me. I just I'm very open about what I want and I expect the same from the person who I am giving my time and energy to. No games, just we are who we are. So if you could touch on that and what your viewpoint is on that now versus what it was before. I think it is necessary to understand how to play these shitty games. And I think it is also really great to understand that you do not have to participate in these games. What we will learn is that a lot of humans, because of attachment patterns, if you do those pull-away games, it forces them to overextend. Unfortunately, we are humans, and Power games are part of the system that is ingrained into our biology. doesn't sound great to say, but power games are happening at all times. Humans enact subtle cruelties on each other to keep things a little bit more spicy. Sometimes the cruelties are less subtle. In the red pill dating community, you will hear. Do less so that she does more. These power games work, but they don't feel good on the soul. They work, but they also show another person's level of being online. Online people don't want to play these games. People who are less online unconsciously fall into these games. chase and flee. It's like that. Yeah. Yeah. What do you mean by online? When somebody's more conscious of their own nervous system and what they will and will not tolerate their boundaries, they have less room to put up with this shit. Mm-hmm. But people who have not experienced that can fall victim to it because these These games work, essentially. They f they work. That's the thing. They work. Yeah. It doesn't feel good, but they work. Okay. But beyond a certain level of like knowing self, I think people will put up less and less with bullshit. So they work, they're just not conducive to a healthy long-term relationship. Essentially. Essentially. Essentially. That makes sense. Okay. to wrap this up, what would be your final closing thoughts on somebody who is demoralized by the dating pool? Because I venture to say that's the vast majority that are in it. What would be the thoughts that you'd want to leave them with? Work on yourself. The world is as you are. What you're looking for is searching for you at the same pace that you were searching for them. And by working on yourself, it thins out the dating pool in a really healthy and good way. Lenses that you view the world through are self-fulfilling prophecies. So, by pouring back into yourself, you will start to recognize and get signals from other people who are also working on themselves and are looking for what you are looking for. Build yourself up. Be a strong, awesome human being. There's good in the world. There's good in the world. And learn how to say no to things that might be appealing but are not good for your long term health and well being. Yeah. Well, thank you for that and thank you for agreeing to be on this. It's super exciting. And I will link Andy's Instagram in the show notes, but we do a lot of clabbing lately and it's new for us, but we're gonna keep doing it. We have a lot of fun adventures planned. So so stay tuned. Thank you all so much for listening and I will see you guys next week. See you guys.