In the pantheon of self-development thought leaders for men, no one looms larger than Dr. Robert Glover. A therapist, coach and public speaker for 30 years, Dr. Glover has helped countless men transform from passive and resentful to empowered and confident. His bestselling book, “No More Nice Guy,” is a self-help classic, sharing the same rarified air as David Deida’s “The Way of the Superior Man” and Brene Brown’s “Daring Greatly.”
In this encore episode of the How to Get a Girlfriend Podcast, dating coach Connell Barrett and Dr. Glover—author of “The Dating Essentials for Men”—will discuss:
(5:03) How Connell’s Nerdy Client Ken Got His Very First Kiss Ever
(12:19) A Simple Tip on How to Always Know What to Say to Women
(19:57) Dr. Glover Reveals Why “Nice Guy Syndrome” Is Hurting Your Love Life
(26:20) How Dr. Glover Cracked the Code in His Own Dating Life
(30:33) How Shame Can Hurt Your Self-Esteem
(34:22) Why Indian and Asian Men Struggle with Dating in the U.S.
(42:11) Why a Woman Wants a Little “Caveman” in the Guy She Dates
(43:35) How to Confident and Strong without Being an A-Hole
(50:22) Dr. Glover’s Formula to Be a Man of “Loving Dominance”
(55:11) Why Rejection is Good for You
(1:01:03) How to Stop Feeling Needy with Women
(1:07:01) The Easy Way to Get a Woman’s Phone Number
(1:09:45) Dr. Glover’s Top Tip to Stay out of the Friend Zone
Are you ready to stop being “Mr. Nice Guy” and start being the man women want you to be? Listen now, and take one step closer to getting a great girlfriend!
TO LEARN ABOUT DR. GLOVER’S COACHING, COURSES AND HIS BOOK, “DATING ESSENTIALS FOR MEN”
https://www.drglover.com
FOLLOW DR. GLOVER ON TWITTER/X
https://www.twitter.com/dr_r_glover
FOR A FREE STRATEGY CALL WITH CONNELL TO LEARN HOW TO CONFIDENTLY FLIRT WITH WOMEN BY BEING AUTHENTIC (NO SKETCHY PICKUP MOVES NEEDED):
https://www.datingtransformation.com/contact
TO GET FREE ACCESS TO “THE FLIRTY 30,” 30 CHARMING QUESTIONS TO ASK WOMEN ON DATES, ON THE APPS, AND WHEN YOU APPROACH:
https://www.datingtransformation.com/FLIRTY30
"In dating, success comes from seeking understanding, not just outcomes." - Dr. Robert Glover
"True partnership involves shared decision-making, not leaving the burden to one person." - Dr. Robert Glover
Featured in the episode
Connell Barrett
Founder and Executive Coach of Dating Transformation
Website: https://datingtransformation.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/datingtransformation
Chapters
00:00 - Intro
5:03 - How Connell’s Nerdy Client Ken Got His Very First Kiss Ever
12:19 - A Simple Tip on How to Always Know What to Say to Women
19:57 - Dr. Glover Reveals Why “Nice Guy Syndrome” Is Hurting Your Love Life
26:20 - How Dr. Glover Cracked the Code in His Own Dating Life
30:33 - How Shame Can Hurt Your Self-Esteem
34:22 - Why Indian and Asian Men Struggle with Dating in the U.S.
42:11 - Why a Woman Wants a Little “Caveman” in the Guy She Dates
43:35 - How to Confident and Strong without Being an A-Hole
50:22 - Dr. Glover’s Formula to Be a Man of “Loving Dominance”
55:11 - Why Rejection is Good for You
1:01:03 - How to Stop Feeling Needy with Women
1:07:01 - The Easy Way to Get a Woman’s Phone Number
1:09:45 - Dr. Glover’s Top Tip to Stay out of the Friend Zone
1:19:37 - Outro
Connell Barrett:
Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach Connell Barrett. I help men learn to flirt, gain confidence, and, of course, get a great girlfriend, all by being radically authentic, being your best true self. And thank you so much for being here for the relaunch week. This podcast used to be called dating transformation. And I've changed some things, made some adjustments, and we are now the how to get a girlfriend podcast. And I hope you've been listening to the last 5 episodes because over the last 5 episodes, I've shared 5 puzzle pieces for how you can get a great girlfriend. So the last 5 episodes, if you've listened to them, thank you.
Connell Barrett:
If you haven't, go back and check some of them out. The first episode is all about radical authenticity and why that's what women want, And there's an episode all about flirting. In my last episode, I had my girlfriend on, my amazing girlfriend, Jessamine, and I talked about our first date and how she and I got on the path to becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. And, anyway, the last 5 episodes, all the puzzle pieces are there for what you need to get a great girlfriend. And I wanted to finish relaunch week with a special episode featuring an amazing iconic thought leader. His name is doctor Robert Glover. He wrote a best selling book called No More Mister Nice Guy that sold a bazillion copies and is still selling copies. And he's also the author of a great book called Dating Essentials For Men.
Connell Barrett:
And doctor Robert Glover is all about no more mister nice guy. It's all about understanding why and how many men put on a mask with women and put on a false supplicating, quote, unquote, nice guy persona that is inauthentic, that women don't like. And if you are one of those men who puts on a mask who comes across comes across as overly nice, falsely, supplicatingly nice, then I'll bet you've struggled with some problems like the friend zone or having women say, hey, you're a nice guy, but I'm gonna go hook up with this cool charismatic guy over here. Sorry. So if you struggle with those things, this is a great episode for you. I have had a great conversation with doctor Glover Basically, way way back in the very first days of this podcast, doctor Glover came on, and we had a great conversation. So I'm gonna do a replay of that for you in 2 minutes. So I hope you listen to the whole episode.
Connell Barrett:
It's all about how to not be a fake nice guy and how to be a lot more confident with women and putting that true real best self out there. So I hope you listen to the whole episode. It's definitely worth it. Doctor Glover is a true frankly, he's a genius. He really is a genius in the area of helping men go from struggling with shame and lack of self worth to a lot of confidence and true worth in themselves. All that said, if you don't have time to go through and listen to every word of the episode, here is the TLDR version. I'm gonna suggest you go to a couple spots in particular. There's a great moment at the 19 minute and 57 second mark where doctor Glover talks about what nice guy syndrome is and how it could be hurting your love life.
Connell Barrett:
Also, at the 34 minute mark, there's a part where he talks about why Indian men and Asian men struggle with dating in the US. He's really articulate about why men of those ethnic backgrounds can really struggle with dating in America, and I know this as well. I've coached a lot of men of Indian and Asian backgrounds, and so he's right on the money there. And then I think my favorite part comes at the 50 minute mark, 50 minutes and 22 seconds, where doctor Glover gives his formula for what he calls loving dominance. I love that term, loving dominance. My term for that before I ever heard his term is positive dominance or assertive dominance. Basically, it's about being a kind, loving, good man, but also a man of strength and backbone because women want both. They want muscle, metaphorically speaking, and they also want heart.
Connell Barrett:
Heart and muscle. Steel and heart. And doctor Glover's term for that is loving dominance, and he talks about that formula for creating that because that is absolutely what women want. So enjoy this episode. Enjoy doctor Robert Glover waxing eloquent. It was a great fun lively discussion. And, without further ado, here is doctor Robert Glover. Enjoy.
Connell Barrett:
Don't you just love a woman with a really elegant amazing accent like that? Hey. What's up? Connell Barrett here. Welcome to the dating transformation podcast. This is our very first episode. You are on the maiden voyage of learning how to gain self confidence, flirt and find an amazing girlfriend. And to do this all with authenticity as your real best self. Not some pickup artist, not some guy who's just reciting a bunch of lines from YouTube or Reddit. Yeah.
Connell Barrett:
So who am I? Well, my name's Connell Barrett. I'm a dating coach for men. Basically, I am Hitch. If Will Smith was a skinny ginger with glasses, except I would never slap Chris Rock. I would never do that to Chris. I love Chris. And I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much.
Connell Barrett:
Stick around because by the time you're done listening to this episode, you're gonna get some game changing tips to help you overcome your fear of rejection. To become more confident and authentic. And also, to get on the path of meeting your dream girlfriend. So stick around. You're gonna get 3 game changing tips later in the show. And I'm gonna give you a really good tip actually, right now. But first, let me start by doing a little psychic mind reading. I'm gonna read your mind.
Connell Barrett:
Okay? Here I go. Not literally by the way. But who knows maybe. I'm gonna guess that you want to approach women. You wanna feel more confident. You wanna get more dates. You would love to have a real nice abundance of dating options. And eventually get a great girlfriend who you choose from some wonderful options.
Connell Barrett:
But I'm also gonna guess that there's some things that hold you back, right? You may doubt that the kinds of women you're attracted to are in your league. Or maybe you struggle with what to say. Maybe you don't approach. Maybe you have just never had the kind of quality dates, quality women, quality relationships that you've always wanted. And then, if you're anything like I used to be, there might be some occasional really dark moments when you just wonder, do women even like me? Am I ever gonna find one? Am I ever going to find love and find someone who loves me for me? And that's what this podcast is here to help you do. To gain confidence, find love and help you understand that hell yeah. You're enough. The big bad wolf here with dating, a lot of guys think, oh, you know what? I need to just meet girls.
Connell Barrett:
I need to find out where they are. Or I don't know what to say. Or I just need the right lines. And sure, it's good having the right flirtatious lines. But really the main enemy here, the thing that you really wanna overcome is self doubt and lacking confidence in yourself. Because when you go through life, when you go through your dating life, doubting yourself and just lacking that self belief, then you end up in a lot of pain or you can. Right? You can get friend zoned. What are women attracted to more than anything else? Arguably, I would say it's confidence.
Connell Barrett:
So if you have that self doubt and low confidence, it keeps you from approaching. It ends up, causing you a lack of dates. You might struggle on the apps. You get in your head about what to say if you doubt your words. And basically, you ask yourself the question, do women even like me or at least do quality women like you? And I've totally been there. I've totally been there and so have a lot of guys. And I wanna tell you a quick story about this guy named Ken. He was one of my very first clients.
Connell Barrett:
Ken came to me, he was in his late twenties. Ken's a little bit chubby and he had never had a girlfriend. He never even kissed a girl. And when Ken came to me, he had never had a date, never kissed a girl, and just really felt like, well, I guess I'm gonna have to settle for somebody I'm not that into or maybe even end up alone. And what Ken thought he had to do was do a bunch of pickup artist tricks, Was do a bunch of things he read in the book the game or he read on you know, Reddit forums and things like that. So basically, Ken came to me and I said, you know what? I think there's a better way. Let's do something a little bit different than what you read about in the game. I said, let's do something that I call being radically authentic.
Connell Barrett:
And that's the main tip I wanna give you here in the first five minutes of this show is I wanna give you a window into the power of being radically authentic. Which means awakening your best, most confident, most amazing higher self and putting that guy in charge of your dating life. So Ken and I went out for the weekend. This is New York City. This was almost 15 years ago. I'm sorry. Over 10 years ago at this point. And Ken's a short little nerdy guy.
Connell Barrett:
He's a little bit chubby but he's very smart. You know, he quotes Plato. He can read classic philosophy. And, he was under the impression that, you know what? I'm too short. I'm 57. I'm a little bit chunky. Women just don't want me. Women just don't wanna date me.
Connell Barrett:
And I said, you know, let's try something different. Instead of cool amazing lines, why don't we try putting your real self out there? Let's show women the best awesome, most awesome Ken. So we went out for the weekend. I do this in person training with guys. We go out for the weekend and I'm their wingman. And so, I became Ken's wingman for the weekend. And we start approaching women in some bars and some clubs in New York City. And at first, Ken struggles a little bit.
Connell Barrett:
He's in his head. Nothing's clicking at first. But he keeps at it. He keeps taking action. And the thing about Ken is he's so intelligent and witty that you know, some guys can quote Homer Simpson. Ken can quote Homer's Odyssey. He's a college professor, assistant professor. And Ken Ken was walking up to girls and he was having really intelligent fun, cool nerd conversations.
Connell Barrett:
I remember at one point we were standing in the middle of this bar and I said, hey, what is your favorite karaoke song? He said, Purple Rain. I said, great. What girl here do you find most attractive? And he looks around, he points over to this really cute brunette standing a few feet away. And I say, cool. Here's how you approach it. Walk over and start singing the first line to purple rain. And Ken walks over. He's laughing.
Connell Barrett:
He's nervous but he's laughing. And he walks over to this girl and he says hey, I never meant to cause you any sorrow. Kinda points at her. I never meant to cause you any pain. Sort of like the scene in Top Gun where Tom Cruise is serenading Kelly McGillis. And this girl burst out laughing and she started singing with him. And by the end of the conversation, she's taking his phone and punching her number into his phone saying, you better call me. You're awesome.
Connell Barrett:
I love nerds. So Ken started to get a glimpse of what it's like when you put that authentic real true self out there. When you become vulnerable and take courageous action. And the highlight of the night was the 2nd night we went out. We're on a rooftop bar in lower Manhattan. Ken approaches a tall beautiful blonde. She kind of looked like Gwyneth Paltrow. And I'm on my phone standing about 10 feet away.
Connell Barrett:
I'm taking notes. I'm watching my client and they're just talking. They're just talking. They get a drink. And then I look over and I see Ken kissing quote unquote Gwyneth, the Gwyneth look alike and she's kissing him back. She was taller than him. He actually had to get on his tiptoes. And what was so amazing and moving about that was unbeknownst to everyone else on the rooftop, I knew that I was watching Ken have the very first kiss of his life at age 27.
Connell Barrett:
He had never kissed a woman before. But he was making out with this beautiful awesome woman who liked the real authentic Ken. And I was just I almost had to look away. It was almost too personal, but I couldn't look away because it was just amazing seeing Ken just absolutely crushing it. Being courageous, being authentic and letting him feel what it felt like for a cool quality wonderful intelligent attractive woman to be into him. That was his very first kiss. And 1 month later, they were married. I'm just kidding.
Connell Barrett:
I'm just kidding. They were not married. Look, it was just a drunken bar make out. I didn't wanna make too big of it. I wanted to pull your leg there. I don't think they ever even dated. It was just a fun drunken bar make out. But you know what? In those little moments, the drunken bar makes out, the approach where a girl gives you her phone number, getting more matches on a dating app, having that date where you learn, oh, that's how I attract women.
Connell Barrett:
That's how you connect. Those little moments can change your life. And that's what happened to Ken that night. He changed and transformed the way he saw himself. He realized, hey, I am worthy. I'm enough. A lot of really cool girls like introverted, cool, nerdy guys as long as they're meeting that best radically authentic, confident, amazing, cool guy. So, Ken was basically the client who got me addicted to becoming a dating coach and I just wanted to share that story.
Connell Barrett:
Because that's a great example of Excuse me. That's a great example of the power of being radically authentic. And I had a very similar story. I'm sure I'll be talking about this in future podcasts. But basically, I used to be really introverted, shy. I never dated in my twenties and thirties. I finally found a woman in my youth who wanted to be with me and I married her. And then 9 weeks later she dumped me.
Connell Barrett:
She left me for a guy on a motorcycle. A mustache, a mustachey old cool muscly guy on a motorcycle. You know your marriage is in trouble when during your honeymoon period, somebody you work with says, hey Connell, I saw your wife on the back of a guy on a motorcycle. Yeah. Not a good thing. And basically, that sent me off on a 5 year journey where I hired all these different dating coaches, cool dating coaches, brilliant self, what would you call it? Peak performance coaches, cool dating coaches, sketchy pickup artists. I hired hypnotists. I worked with all kinds of coaches.
Connell Barrett:
I worked with a guy who used to coach top tennis players and athletes. And basically, over the course of the 4 or 5 years I spent doing this, I basically came up with a, let's call it a formula. A system about hey, be radically authentic. Show women that best true authentic self. Take some courageous action and let those dating chips fall where they may. And I guess that's my tip for you today. That's what I want you to begin to do and make a shift is to follow this philosophy. Here's a philosophy I want you to follow on your next date or the next time you're texting a girl from a dating app or the next time you're at a party and you're not sure what to say and you get stuck in your head.
Connell Barrett:
Here's the philosophy. What I'm thinking and feeling is what I'm saying and doing. I'll say that again. What I'm thinking and feeling is what I'm saying and doing. When Ken went out that night, he wasn't overthinking. He was walking up to women. He was cracking jokes. He was quoting Plato.
Connell Barrett:
Like who quotes Plato at a bar? Nobody. But because Ken was putting his real true genuine self out there, women who like that kind of type, they're gonna go crazy for that guy. And then really that's what this is about. Think of your higher self. It's sort of like if you use planned lines. If you pretend to be someone you're not. If you wear a mask around women then you're kind of like a watered down well drink. You're like a watery wine spritzer.
Connell Barrett:
Not very satisfying. But if you become radically authentic, if you say what's true, if you take risks that are honest, if you're authentic while always being respectful of women and empathetic of course. But if you're putting that true best self out there, your jokes, your sense of humor, your stories, your version of nerdy Ken. Then what's gonna happen is you instead of a watered down wine spritzer, you become a shot of Jameson. You become a shot of really strong whiskey. Whiskey. Not everybody wants whiskey. Not every woman's gonna want that shot.
Connell Barrett:
But the women who want to love a good Jameson, they're gonna become intoxicated on you. And the great thing about being radically authentic is you attract the kinds of women who like your type. You don't attract the other women and that's okay. We're not trying to attract every girl. We're just trying to attract the right wonderful woman for a relationship with you. And the other great thing about being radically authentic is you don't have to be somebody you're not. You get to lean into who you are. You get to if you're a nice guy, you can be a nice guy as long as you're not being supplicating and fake as our guest will tell you about later.
Connell Barrett:
If you're a jock, you can be a jock. If you're a computer nerd, if you're an engineer, if you're, like me, if you're a kind of a hipster slash theater nerd slash star wars nerd, Put that self out there. And then, when women can take a drink of that shot of Jameson that is the real authentic you, they're gonna catch a buzz off the good stuff. So give women the good stuff. Give them that true real best you. What you're thinking and feeling is what you're saying and doing on dates, when approaching, when texting. Lead with honesty, authenticity and vulnerability and you can't go wrong. If I had to break my entire philosophy down into one sentence, it would be to take courageous and authentic action.
Connell Barrett:
That's what Ken did. That's what I want you to do. And it's what I'll be talking about every single episode here on the dating transformation podcast. Okay. Let's take a break. And when we come back, you're gonna have an amazing treat. Doctor Robert Glover, a best selling author of the incredible book No More Mister Nice Guy is gonna be here. He is gonna give you some game changing tips about how to get over your fear of rejection.
Connell Barrett:
How to be a lot more confident. How to approach with directness and realness. And I think you're gonna love our conversation with doctor Glover. So, standby. We'll be right back.
Connell Barrett:
I'm gonna read your mind. Ready? I'll bet that you would love to confidently approach women. Get great matches on the dating apps, flirt with charm, and attract your dream girlfriend. Right? But fear keeps you from approaching. You're not sure how to flirt. You struggle on the apps. And desirable women just don't seem into you. Well, I have great news.
Connell Barrett:
Dating coach, Connell Barrett, can help. He's guided thousands of men like you to more confidence and help them attract their dream girlfriends. So book a free strategy call today to see if Connell's coaching is right for you. On your call, Connell or a team member will give you personalized advice to help you have more confidence, more dates, and more fun. Oh, and you'll be dating women as your best self, a charming gentleman. That's because Connell does not teach creepy pickup artist tricks. He unlocks your most confident self so you can make authentic romantic connections. Your next steps? Book your free call today at datingtransformation.comforward/contact and grab a time that works for you.
Connell Barrett:
Then you'll be on your way to more confidence, better results, and attracting bright, beautiful women. Oh, so you know, soon Connell will stop taking on new clients. So book a call today while you still can. Go to dating transformation.comforward/contact and transform your love life. Bye.
Connell Barrett:
And we are back. It's launch week here at the Dating Transformation Podcast and it's a special week so we've got a very special guest. Today I'm talking to doctor Robert Glover. Doctor Glover is the author of the mega bestseller No More Mr. Nice Guy. I know it's a bestseller because I've seen his sales figures and I've salivated over them. He's also the author of the book Dating Essentials For Men, which has recently become an Amazon bestseller. And Doctor.
Connell Barrett:
Glover has over 30 years of experience as a therapist, a coach, an educator, and a public speaker. Through his books, his online classes, and his workshops, he has helped countless men change their lives, helping them transform from being more past the resentful, inauthentic men to empowered, confident, real, authentic guys and I'm all about that. For more information on Doctor. Glover, please visit his website, doctorglover.com. That's dr.glover dotcom. End of plugs. Doctor Glover, thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Every time I hear somebody read the bio, you know, that I've sent them, I think, I need to shorten that. I need to cut it down to just, you know, doctor Glover lives in Mexico. It's just that. You know? No not no more no more than that. But, anyways, good to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
Connell Barrett:
My pleasure. My pleasure. Let's get right to it. The man listening to this podcast is a nice guy. And I mean that both in the good ways and maybe some of the ways that aren't so healthy and good. He's maybe a little introverted, he's a white collar guy, he wants love, he likes and respects women, but he struggles with confidence and he struggles with dating. For this guy, please tell them a little bit about what it means to be a nice guy and specifically what it means to have nice guy syndrome.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Okay. So, yeah, we'll get to kinda cover 2 topics here, the whole nice guy dynamic and dating. And, you know, they often overlap, not always, but, yeah, I'm a recovering nice guy. If you know, if you'd met me 30 years ago, I would have told you I'm a nice guy. I'm one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. I would have thought that was a good thing. I couldn't understand why everybody didn't have that philosophy. You know, it'd be kind, be generous, be easy going, and, you know, avoid conflict and pleasing other people.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And, for me, my story began in my second marriage when my wife just flat out told me she says, you need help. Everybody thinks you're such a nice guy, but you're not. You treat me badly. You're passive aggressive. You blow up. You embarrass me in public. You know, if you don't go get help, I'm gonna leave you. And I thought, wait a minute.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You're the one who's angry all the time, never wants to have sex anymore, is moody. You know? And I'm the one that has to go get help. Okay. I win. And luckily, I quickly landed in some really good places and started to really understand why my road map, my paradigm that I'd I'd had since childhood. I'm thinking if I just do everything right, make everybody happy, avoid all conflict, you know, hide all my mistakes, then I'll be liked and loved to get my needs met. And, I started finding out why that didn't work. And, I started learning about how to be more honest, more transparent, how to ask for what I want, how to have boundaries, how to say no.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And as I started working on my issues in therapy and and then later a men's group, I was a therapist at the time, and I started noticing a lot of the men coming to me were saying a lot of the same things I said. Really, there's 2 categories of guys. The first one, we're in a relationship, and since I was, that's what I'm most related to. But they'd come with their wives or girlfriends, and they'd say the same thing as me. I'm a nice guy. I treat her better than her ex. I'm raising her kids. I do everything for her.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I try to make her happy. It's never enough. When's it gonna be my turn? And out of that, man, they're just like me. The second kind of guy was a single guy, and they'd come in. They say, you know, I'm a nice guy. All the women I know tell me that. I have lots of female friends, except none of them want to date me or get naked with me.
Connell Barrett:
And I know I know that all too well.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yeah. They all say, someday you're gonna make some lucky woman so happy, but how come they don't wanna be my girlfriend?
Connell Barrett:
You are such a great catch.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Not a great catch. Somebody somebody else. So, you know, these guys, I thought, okay. I'm not the only one. So I started almost 30 years ago, my first no more mister nice guy men's group. We just started working on these nice guy issues, that paradigm that says, if I'm just a good guy, everybody will like me and love me, and women will wanna get naked with me. And, I just started writing, I don't know what to call them, chapters, lessons, blogs. I'd write every Wednesday and give these guys what I was discovering about, what I thought the origins of nice guy syndrome was.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Right. Well, how it manifested, what to do differently. And I just kept writing, and the guys, and often their wives and girlfriends said, Robert, you need to write a book. You need to write Oprah. This could be a best seller. Lots of people need this book. And so I kept writing over a period of 6 or 7 years. Finally, it took about 3 years to get it published. A lot of publishing companies said, Robert, we like your book, but our marketing department says men won't buy a self help book.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You know, that book now makes annual 6 figure royalty checks, so apparently, men do buy self help books. And so I've been working with nice guys for about 30 years. And then when that second marriage that I was in came to an end, after about 14 years of marriage, and I was out in the dating world in my late forties for the first time, really. I've been married twice for a total of 25 years. You know, I got married the first time 2 days after I graduated from college. So, you know, I'd never just been, you know, like, a single guy out there knowing how to meet women, how to date, how to have lots of experiences. So my first two wives were my first two sexual partners, and, you know, I got out there in the dating world. I thought, okay.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Well, where do I start? You know, I I I I knew 2 things. After being married for 25 years to 2 women, neither of whom I should have gone on more than 3 dates with, But that's how bad of a picker and how bad of an ender I was. I gotta become a better picker. Yeah. I gotta become a better ender. And so being a better picker means I gotta learn how to date. And then I also have to learn how to be a better ender because I come to realize that being a good ender covers a multitude of sins of bad picks because dating is actually a series of bad picks. You know, when guys complain, you know, all I've got is this one and done.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You know, they I go, that's normal. That's dating. That's how it's supposed to work. You should go on one date and go, no. No more. That's enough. You know? Right. Let's try another one.
Dr. Robert Glover:
So here I was in my late forties. You know, typically, my nice guy seduction of high school and college was, I'd never just walk up to a woman and talk to her and ask her out. You know, I'd maybe sit next to her in class, you know, try to answer as many questions as I could to show off how smart I was. Show off. Right. You know, maybe, maybe, you know, get to know her a little bit, volunteer to do something for her, you know, be different from all the other guys. Take care of your books. Take care of your books.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You know, can I help you move? Can I wash your car? You know, what you know, you know, anything. I'd never say, could I see you naked? You know, or you wanna go out with me? You know? And then maybe in college, I'd wait till Friday afternoon, walk up to the woman on campus that I've been wanting to ask out and tap her on the shoulder and say, hey. I don't think you wanna go out with me tonight, would you? And it's amazing how many women were washing their hair that night, you know, when I wanted to take them out. So I had to learn to do better. So, I had a lot of clients start giving me books and CDs and DVDs and, you know, I read the game and started listening to podcasts. And, I said, I'm just gonna get out and be a scientist. I'm gonna go out and just start interacting socially with just people in general, but just start interacting with women and just see what works. Instead of approaching dating as to how can I get a girlfriend or how can I get laid, I started approaching dating from a point of view of how this works. How can I be the most effective at this? How can I be that better picker and that better ender? And I quickly got good enough that I was getting a lot of dates, having a lot of sex, and my clients started saying, Robert, teach us.
Dr. Robert Glover:
What are you doing? I go, I'm not a dating guru. I don't know anything about dating. So I'm naturally inquisitive. I'm naturally a teacher. So I just started teaching the guys what I was doing, and that just kept growing. It turned into a class, turned into a 16 lesson course that I taught online for several years. It turned into the book, Dating Essentials For Men. More recently, Dating Essentials For Men FAQ, frequently asked questions.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I'm just in New York about 2 weeks ago recording that, so get on audio soon. It's already out in ebooks and printed on Amazon. Still, I really don't even still consider myself a dating guru. I'm more of a, I think, a relationship. I can say I'm a relationship expert, and back to where I got I'm I've been married 3 times now. I've been married to my 3rd wife, 6 and a half years. And for a while when I was single, I'd say I'm a marriage therapist who's been divorced twice and a dating guru that doesn't have a girlfriend, and people still keep lining up to pay me money to tell them, you know, how to do stuff. But I'm very practical, and I really get real with guys and and just get down to what doesn't work and what does.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And most of what most guys do when it comes to women doesn't work. And just because we don't know better. You know, no one's taught us. We learned everything. We learned about women from listening to women complain about other men, beginning with mothers, or watching porn, or or unfortunately too much from, you know, the pickup and red pill, you know, gurus that say, do this, do that. And, you know, basically, it's a war. Us against the women, they're out to get us, so we gotta get them first. And, you know, so I'm very practical and very respectful, and I and I just believe in doing what works.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And, and a lot of guys like the way I approach it because it's a breath of fresh air from spinning plates and, you know, running corny pickup lines. Who lies most, men or women? You know, the women have all heard that line. You know? You know, without peacocking and, you know, all the other stuff that, you know, guys do this to get a woman. Right. Or do this to get digits, basically. Most pickups, mostly by getting phone numbers. It's not really about getting much more than that.
Connell Barrett:
It's funny. I found your book back when I was first learning about all these different dating from dating gurus. I was beginning my journey of figuring out what works with women. And at the time, I didn't have a term for it, but at the time I would go on a date and I would lean in and I would say whatever I thought she wanted to hear, I would essentially become the guy I felt like she wanted to have a date with. I remember one woman in my book. One woman I thought she wanted to be with was a rugged outdoorsy guy, which I'm not, so I made an impression of 1. I lied to her and told her that I swam with sharks.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Did you wear a flannel shirt or something with, you know
Connell Barrett:
I may as well have it. I was wearing a suit of sorts with her, and I was listening to myself lie to her, like literally lying, because I just wanted her validation, I wanted her to basically see me as good enough. And that reminds me of so a quote from your book your book No More Mr. Nice Guy that really hit me like a lightning bolt was, Nice guys seek approval and validation from others. Everything a nice guy does or says is at some level calculated to gain someone's approval or avoid their disapproval, and this is especially true in their relationships with women.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yep. Could you elaborate
Connell Barrett:
on that? Why do so many men seek a woman's approval or avoid disapproval?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Okay. Well, it it it's even bigger than just women, but you know, we're talking mainly about dating, so we'll hone in on that. You know, the one dynamic, well, the dynamic of the nice guy syndrome. When I wrote no more mister nice guy, I really focused on the concept of shame that at a very early age, we everybody, but nice guys in particular, inaccurately internalize a belief. I'm not good enough. There's something wrong with me. I'm not lovable. I'm not valuable.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And this was, you know, through a child's immature mind, internalizing our life experiences of, you know, a parent's angry at us or, you know, we're hungry and they don't feed us or, you know, our parents are fighting. And children internalize, I'm the cause of that. There must be something wrong with me. That's called toxic shame. Right. And then we all develop coping mechanisms to try to not feel that and to try to get the love and that we want and desire and get our needs met. Now in time, I came to see that nice guy syndrome not only is built on the shame that everything we do is either trying to get external validation and approval or hide anything about us that might get a negative response, but it's also built on anxiety. The anxiety that I won't be good enough, that I'll get abandoned, that I won't be loved, that I won't get my needs met.
Dr. Robert Glover:
So it's really 2 pillars behind Ni Chi Syndrome, this shame and anxiety, and they really go hand in hand. They overlap. So everything we guys do really is about getting external validation. You know? Making good enough grades, making a good impression, making enough money, getting the promotion, driving the right car, being impressive, whatever, trying to get people to think we're okay. Because internally, we don't believe we're okay. Now we may not go right now. I talked about no more mister nice guys. I found in time there's 2 types of nice guys.
Dr. Robert Glover:
1, and I thought they were all like me, or it's so called that I'm such a good , nice guy. You know, I'm so good. I do everything right. You know, If you know, everybody should be happy with me. But my shame is just it's just buried deeper in a more, you know, locked box dark container inside. The second kind of nice guy is what I call the I'm so bad nice guy. This is the guy that probably, you know, struggled in school, started doing drugs at an early age, you know, got kicked out of school, kicked out of the house, you know, was, you know, always in trouble for something. And then at some point in their life, you know, found religion, you know, got married or had a baby or got in the military.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Something kinda straightened them out, and now they're trying their best to be a nice guy. But there's their shades right up next to the surface. Oh, it's only a matter of time do people find out I'm a fuck up. I'm not good enough. There's something wrong with me. So I'm so good, nice guys. The shames are buried. I'm such a bad, nice guy.
Dr. Robert Glover:
He's right next to the surface. But both operate in the same way, and that is in seeking validation. Now this kinda let me kinda come back to this, but come back from kind of a side way. Okay. I've been saying to men for quite some time. I'm I'm again, I'm a I'm a I'm a relationship expert, I guess. I earned a PhD in marriage and family therapy at 29 years old. So I've been a marriage and family therapist for over 30 years and teaching guys about dating for almost 20.
Dr. Robert Glover:
So two things I tell you guys. Number 1, lifelong pair bonded relationships with the opposite sex are not natural or normal or in the human DNA. We've only been trying to do those for less than 10000 years. For about 2,000,000, a half 1000000 years, we were tribal. Everything was shared, including sexual access. People did not bond. And so trying to do this thing that culture says do: find the right woman for you, fall in love, get married, be happy every after. It is.
Dr. Robert Glover:
It's a fucking fairy tale. It it it doesn't it's not in human DNA. Now it's I who say it is as if we do this consciously, relationships can be a powerful personal growth machine. They can really grow us. The other thing that I say is that dating is not in our human DNA. In fact, dating has probably only existed in western culture for at most 100, 150 years. Eastern culture, I still talk to men from India today that, you know, their family still arrange their marriages. They don't, they don't date.
Dr. Robert Glover:
That's why when Indian men come to America, they really are lost. And I worked with a lot of Asian men, and they're lost. And even those of us that, like, grew up in western culture, Europe, US, Dating is not in our DNA. I read somewhere a while back that Shakespeare, 200 years ago, wrote Romeo and Juliet to point out the stupidity of romantic love. Okay. We love each other so much. Let's kill ourselves. You know? Right.
Dr. Robert Glover:
So, but the, you know, our grandparents That was a tough breakup.
Connell Barrett:
They had Romeo and Juliet. That was a bad breakup.
Dr. Robert Glover:
But even our grandparents. So if we go back 60, 70, 80, 100 years, you know, either, you know, married a cousin, married, you know, the girl next door, married their brother or sister's best friend. My wife grew up here in Guadalajara, Mexico, and she's 8 out of 10 kids. 2 of her brothers married 2 of her best friends. You know? So and that's how, historically, you know, the last 100 years that we call that historical, that's how dating works. Now with what I call pickup culture and hookup culture, You know, we got apps. We can swipe right. You know, we've got dating boot camps.
Dr. Robert Glover:
We've got, you know, seems like every woman on the planet is single these days. Excuse me. I'd COVID a couple weeks ago and am still recovering a little bit of aspects of it.
Connell Barrett:
I'm glad you're feeling better.
Dr. Robert Glover:
For the second time.
Connell Barrett:
And it's always better the second time around. Right?
Dr. Robert Glover:
No. It was actually worse than the first time.
Connell Barrett:
Oh, sorry. So
Dr. Robert Glover:
so the thing is so lifelong pair bonded relationships aren't normal and natural. Dating isn't normal and natural. And so but the way things are laid out nowadays, if we men want companionship, if we wanna partner, and if we wanna get laid, we gotta do something that's not a natural thing to do. And that is we have to learn how to interact with women, which, you know, if you know it makes sense from a logical point of view that if we wanna get a girlfriend or get a woman naked with us, we have to get her to approve of us. So that's typically why we go seeking their approval. Right. But it's even bigger than that. Kind of the golden rule among men is don't piss off the woman.
Dr. Robert Glover:
That doesn't mean that that means that not your mother, you know, your female boss. We met we men culturally and have just been conditioned. Don't piss off women. You know, they'll they'll they'll they'll go on social media. They'll call you out. They'll hashtag me to you. They'll, you know, they'll they'll they'll be mean to you. So we're all out there trying to please women and trying to get their approval.
Dr. Robert Glover:
But, unfortunately, that is the worst possible way to date that I can think of. Because all of a sudden, you know, you hear in a lot of the pickup and red pill communities about alpha and beta stuff. And, you know, there are a lot. And I speak at red pill conferences. I got red pill friends, but they'll talk about you, you know, being alpha. But the problem is, if you go seeking a woman's approval in any way whatsoever, you are automatically the beta. She's the alpha. She has all the power.
Dr. Robert Glover:
She's the decider, and she knows it because every other guy is seeking her approval as well. So she gets to decide who or what, you know, she goes with or what she does. So seeking a woman's approval always makes you the supplicant. It makes you one down. It is you who makes her the decider and you just accept whether, you know, whatever comes along. So this approach of trying to get women's approval, whether it be in a dating situation or for guys that are in a relationship or married, seeking a woman's approval is the absolute worst thing we men can do in terms of healthy relationship dynamics.
Connell Barrett:
Makes total sense. Let me tell you a quick story from a client of mine, and I'd love to hear your take on it through your lens, if you would, because I think this will resonate with you. I had a client named Trevor who's stuck in that terrible place called the friend zone. Right?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yep.
Connell Barrett:
He kept going on first dates, he was very approval seeking, he was very supplicating to women, and he kept hearing over and over again just not feeling it, but you're a nice guy. And then he and I worked together and he had a, first date with a really attractive brunette named Becca, And I'd given him a lot of tools to try to smash through that that nice guy exterior and be just more real, raw, what I call radically authentic, but just be more honest and real. And about 20 minutes into their first date, she was telling a story about shoe shopping and buying makeup, and he was getting very bored with it. And he did something I told him to, which was be really honest, and he interrupted her and said, Okay, I've totally lost interest in your story, but listen to what happened to me today. And he essentially took control of the conversation. Now I'm not saying it's every time, oh, you should cut a woman off or tell her to be quiet. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is he basically said, Look, I'm not listening to this.
Connell Barrett:
This is not helping the date. I'm gonna take responsibility and make this fun. And she looked at him with this look of surprise and excitement. 20 minutes later, she was sitting on his lap, they were kissing, and they dated for a while. Yeah. What's your take on that?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Okay. Going back to our tribal ancestors, women by nature are security seeking creatures. Now they can, you know, they outperform, they get more degrees than men. You know, they get higher paying jobs than men nowadays. I mean, they can take care of themselves. They can open their own car door. They can buy their own car. They don't need a man.
Dr. Robert Glover:
They really don't. You know, the whole Gloria Steinem woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. She went on and married a very wealthy man after she just had that, by the way. Okay. I didn't know that. So they don't really need us, but they are wired to see us as their protector and provider, even if they don't need us to protect and provide. Now even with that said, I've I've I've seen studies that the highest performing women, the women that out there of high paying jobs, making the most money can't get boyfriends because they all want a guy that is performing as high as they are. And nowadays, a lot of guys aren't.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And so even the high performing women still want a high performing guy. Right? They still want that security system. So if our female ancestors look at the tribal men who were warriors, who were hunters, who were fierce, who were competent, who were masterful. Right? If they look to them for a sense of security, and that's wired into DNA, that's wired into who we are from a gender perspective.
Connell Barrett:
They wanna be safe. They wanna be safe.
Dr. Robert Glover:
They wanna feel safe. Bottom line. Hashtag me too was all about, I don't feel safe. That's what hashtag me too was. And then but, you know, if we say nowadays, well, women don't feel safe. It's in their DNA. They'll go, oh, you're being dismissive. You know? You're being gender stereotyped.
Dr. Robert Glover:
But hashtag me too wouldn't exist if women felt safe. Okay? And, yeah, that's partly our fault. That's partly just wired into the feminine gender. They don't feel safe. Now, again, they can do everything under the sun to have, you know, a good life and make a lot of money. But when we approach a woman trying to get her approval, like I said, now we're the beta. She's the alpha. She's the stronger of the 2.
Dr. Robert Glover:
She's the decider. That's not going to turn her on. And if we do anything that this shows a little bit of strength, a little bit of fierceness, a little bit of wildness is is is my coach and David Davis said, you know, a little bit of your wild man, a little bit of your killer, you know, that that the the woman kinda goes, oh, that gives me chills. You know, this is what this is.
Connell Barrett:
That caveman, cave woman
Dr. Robert Glover:
That guy would kill the spider. You know? And and and even though, you know, they don't want us to pull their hair, drag them into the cave, they do want to know we've got a strength and a fierceness about it. My second wife used to say to me back that I wrote no more mister nice guy when I was married to this woman, and and and she was hell on wheels. I loved her, but she was crazy. Mhmm. And she used to say to me, how do I know what I should say, if you can't stand up to me, how will I ever know you could stand up for me?
Connell Barrett:
Right.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And that's profound, and she was right. And that was such a great message. If I'm quaking and baking and, you know, fancy footwork trying to make her happy and avoid conflict and not upset her, and she's watching, all these women aren't stupid. They're watching when we're these placating little boys trying to get their approval. And if they're going, if she 's going, this guy's a wuss. You know? If he's just letting me get away with everything, who's gonna actually protect me when there's something that's a real threat here? So anything we do shows any kind of strength. Now, again, I don't teach guys to be asses, and I don't think you do either. But telling a woman, I'm bored of this conversation, it is authentic.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And it takes strength and backbone and balls to be authentic. When you're telling that shoe story, I was smiling because I took a woman out, and we dated for a while. For, I think, his first date first, second date. Remember walking along a lakefront. It was a nice summer day. And she started telling a shoe story. And I think she was telling me where, like, her and her sister went to these shoe parties where, you know, they bring shoes, and women all drink martinis and try on shoes. And I go, oh, shoe shopping is women's porn.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And she just stopped. She just froze, looked at me, and got this steely eye or, you know, look on her face and she said, you get it. You get you understand. Yeah. Shoe shopping is porn for us women. And she goes, I like you. You get it. So, you know, anything just about being yourself, whether you say I'm bored with this story about you going shoe shopping, or you say something like, oh, for women shoe shopping it is, you know, it's women's porn.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You know, being you and just not holding anything back. I'll tell you another quick story because it involved a date kind of in the same location with another woman, and then who I also dated for a while. And I remember we went and got a little bite to eat at a happy hour, and then, we were gonna go walk along the same lake, and, and she had to go use the restroom. So she went to the restroom and walked back, and, I said, okay. I'm gonna go hit the restroom too, and then we'll go walking. And I just said, by the way, I really enjoyed watching you walk away from me.
Connell Barrett:
Nice.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And and as soon as I said it, I thought, oh, you know, fuck. I'm you know, I've blown it. You know, she was a smart lady, you know, Alzheimer research, research, a local university. You know? I just thought, you know, I probably blew it, but I'm just being me. I enjoyed watching her walk away. You know, I was looking at her ass. I mean, that's obviously what I said. So, anyway, you know, we broke up after about 3 or 4 months, and and, and then but we stayed friends.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And she told me one time, she said, do you remember, like, first, second date, you made that comment, how you enjoyed watching me walk away from you? I said, yeah. I said, I thought I'd blown it. She goes, turned me on. I love to
Connell Barrett:
tell you.
Connell Barrett:
Rejection, ghosting, loneliness, lack of dates, and lack of confidence. For many men, dating just sucks, but it doesn't have to. There's a simple yet powerful way to gain instant confidence and attract a great girlfriend. Be radically authentic. It's all laid out in the number one Amazon bestselling book. Dating sucks, but you don't. Your step by step guide to attracting wonderful women and doing it with total authenticity. Author and dating coach, Connell Barrett, has had and fixed all the dating problems that you struggle with.
Connell Barrett:
He's also helped thousands of men gain confidence and find love. He's put his best tips and strategies into dating sucks, but you don't so that you can confidently approach women and get dates. Become magnetic and attractive even if you're not tall or great looking. Always know what to say to make sparks fly. Get lots of great matches and dates on the dating apps and attract your dream woman. You can find dating sucks, but you don't on Amazon or wherever books are sold in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook. Getting dating sucks, but you don't today. To transform your confidence and find your dream girl.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Be authentic. Be you. If you're trying to please her, get her approval, say the right thing. You're boring. You're dull. There's nothing fierce about you. But if you will just be you, and guys will tell me all the time, well, being me doesn't seem to really turn women on. And I go, when was the last time any woman really saw you?
Connell Barrett:
The real you.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Really saw the you that you are that maybe you don't even let yourself see because you're trying so hard to, you know, be good and get it right and, you know yeah. Let them see the real you.
Connell Barrett:
Hell, yeah. You said something on the Art of Charm podcast recently that I liked. You said and you're talking about a different context. You're talking about work and career, but I think it can also apply to dating. You said, Nice guys are good at being good, but they're not great at being great. You gotta take risks, rock the boat, follow your passions. And that, as a dating coach, that resonated with me because you have to be willing to take a risk on a date. To say, damn, I loved watching you walk away.
Connell Barrett:
I was or however you phrase that. Yeah. That's a risk. And she might not have liked it, but the women who like that kind of risk taking, you're gonna be very attractive to the women who go for that. Right?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Well yeah. And because here's the deal. One of the one of my core principles I've got I've got several core principles I teach men. You know, one is to be authentic, be yourself. Another one is being willing to get rejected quickly. And that is to find out quickly, is this woman a good match for you? So if you have a certain sense of humor, if you have a certain lifestyle, you know, you need to find out, does a woman like you are? So, you know, my sense of humor is saying, I enjoyed watching you walk away from me or turning to a woman and say, oh, shoe shopping is women's porn. You know, I'm, I'm as irreverent, you know, with women's, I am like on this call, you know, I I'll swear and, you know, just say, I say whatever comes to the tip of my brain without much of a filter. And, you know, either a woman's gonna read it like that or she's not.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And you know what? I need to be okay. I need to be outcome agnostic. You know, she likes it. Great. Let's see where it goes from there. If she doesn't like it, great. I found out quickly. I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince a woman that my humor is funny.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You know, if she doesn't get it, doesn't like it, you know, I'll give you another example. A woman taught me many years ago to always open a woman's door. I was dating this one woman. She'd grown up in Europe, and, and I actually was visiting her, and we went to London. And I remember shopping and, like, going to Harrods and stuff like that, and she stopped me. And she said, Robert, are you gonna open my door for me or not? And I said, I don't know. Haven't thought about it. She goes, because sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I don't care. Either way, just tell me. You can open my door or not. And I go, I'll open your door for you. And since that day, I train every woman I'm with to wait for me to open their door. Getting out of the car, going into a building, and training my mother, my granddaughter, every woman. I love watching my 16 year old stepson open his mother's door for her. So he does it for his girlfriend.
Dr. Robert Glover:
So women can open their own damn door. They won't need me to open the door, but it just creates a loving dominance. It gives them kinda the princess, the queen, but here's the story. I went on a date with a woman, and I met her on mash.com, and she said that she salsa danced. And at that time, I was salsa dancing. So, alright. That's something common. So, we set up a date, and I said, give me a place near where you live.
Dr. Robert Glover:
She lived 45 minutes from me, and I'll come to meet you there. So we met there and chatted a little bit, and I was hungry. And I said, let's go get some tea. You wanna you wanna come with me? You know a place nearby? And she said, yeah. I said, okay. Come come with me. So, I was driving a Mercedes E Class at that time. So I opened the door and put her in, and we drove just a few blocks, and there's a diner.
Dr. Robert Glover:
So we pulled up, and then what I typically do is I just tap the woman top of her leg, and I said, wait for me. I'll come open your door. They always do. Right? Often, I have to remind them. It takes women a little while to get in the habit of a man opening their door. And my mother is my mother said one time, if I was waiting for your dad to open my door, I'd still be waiting. He's been dead for 12 years. So I tapped her on the ledge and waited for me to open your door.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And, and she hops out of the car and and and sprints to the front door of the diner and gets in the door of the diner even before I can get there. And we sit down and she goes, I just need to tell you, I don't like to be controlled. And I go, I don't wanna control you. I said, but if you hang out with me, I'll open your door. She goes, I don't like men telling me what to do. And I go, well, I have no desire to tell you what to do. I said, but if you hang out with me, I'll open your door. And we kinda had talked about that a little bit.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And so then we gotta bite deep, and we're walking out. She, again, bolts out the diner door before I can get to it and open it. But she has to wait in my car. I've got the key fob. Right? So she waits. I open the door, put her in, drive her back to her car, and, you know, again, before I can even say a word, she jumps out. So I'm driving home thinking about another one and done. Got rejected quickly.
Dr. Robert Glover:
That's great. No problems. Next day, I get an email, and she says, you know, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I'd really like to see you again. I just don't like to be told what to do or be controlled, blah blah blah. And I said, I don't wanna control you. I said, but if you hang out with me, I'll open your door. Hey.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I just held my frame. You know? Good good dance. Right? Hold my frame. So here's what I did. I'm trying an experiment. I sent her an email. I said, okay. Listen, meet me at this restaurant.
Dr. Robert Glover:
On this day, at this time, we'll go get tapas, and then we'll go dancing just up the street at the local ballroom. She wrote back and said, great. So I'm already taking control of the whole thing. Right? Tell her what we're gonna be, what time. So I'm so then we go meet, and she says again, and we're eating. And she says, you know, I don't wanna be controlled. I don't like men, I said, I get that. But if you hang out with me, I'll open your door.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And so when we leave the restaurant, she waits, and I open her door. And we walk up the street, we get to the ballroom, and she waits. I opened her door. And then I lead her around the dance floor for an hour or so. So I'm still, you know, leading and controlling, so to speak, and as I'm
Connell Barrett:
in position.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Right? So I had to go to work. I had something early the next day. I said, you know, I had to take off, so I'll walk you back to your car. She was parked somewhere. So I again, she waits, so I walk her back to her car. And we get to her car, and this is a busy place on a sidewalk street in Seattle. And I go to tell her good night. She puts her arms around my neck, wraps one leg around my leg, starts dry humping my leg, and sits her tongue down my throat.
Dr. Robert Glover:
If I go, I think it's about as far as we go on the city sidewalk. But so the, being willing to get rejected quickly, I didn't care if she wanted to keep seeing me or not, but I was going to be me. I was going to set up a club. I was going to open the door and her biology, her DNA took over of feeling safe and secure and trusting, and it opened her to where, you know, she was a sexual aggressor in this situation. So that's why I said, be you, you know, be authentic, be willing to get the rejection. And if you're trying to please a woman, if I was trying to please her, I would have quit. I go, okay. Alright.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I won't open your door. You know, I won't. I won't do that bad thing anymore that you don't like, you know, people doing for you. And so it's just the power of being you and, you know, there's a certain percentage of women out there. They're gonna love you just the way you are, and an even greater percentage of women who had no interest. Fine. That's great. That's how it works.
Connell Barrett:
It only takes one to change your life.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yeah. Yeah.
Connell Barrett:
It only takes a small handful to get it some real nice new reps and wins and confidence. And it also takes some rejections to realize, hey, rejection's not really that bad. And that's my next question for you. As I understand it, you do or have done drills with men who are single, where they go out and they try to get rejected. Is that something you've taught? Can you go into that a little bit?
Dr. Robert Glover:
How does that work? I think the earliest thing I tried to teach men that I learned really early on was because I like everybody else, I don't like getting rejected, but I came to the realization pretty quickly, it doesn't hurt. You know? A woman I don't even know, you know, not giving me a phone number or not going on a date with me, that hurts me. How? You know? I didn't know her 5 minutes ago, and, you know, she's not gonna go on a date with me. Why does that hurt? But we tend to that ties into our shame. Oh, there's something wrong with me. She can see I'm a loser. Every other woman's gonna see the same thing. She turned me down.
Dr. Robert Glover:
They're all gonna turn me down, and we do our emotional spiral around that. So that does hurt. That spiral, that shame spiral hurts. Rejection doesn't. So a couple of things. I'll tell you a couple of things that I have men do. 1 is, yeah, go out and, you know, I'm not big into approach. I tell men, walking across a room and starting a conversation with a woman just because you find her physically attractive is probably probably the worst reason to talk to a woman.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You know, you don't know a thing about her. Just because she's physically attractive, that boosts her ego. Oh, if she was my girlfriend, I'd be so happy. You don't know her. She might be a total fucking bitch. She may be terrible in bed. She, you know, she may have bad breath. She may laugh like a donkey, but she looks hot, you know, so she'd be a great girlfriend.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I know. I know it. We're we're guys we're sure about that. So what I tell guys to do is to, you know, escalate quickly. You know, go out with somebody, and just for the fun of it, try to get 3, 5 rejections in a night. Now you can't be rude to the woman. You can't just piss her off to get rejected. But just, you know, walk up to her and say, hey.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You know, my name's Robert. Saw you over here. I gotta bounce, but I wanna take you out. Give me your number. You know, just real direct. Tell her what to do. I always tell guys, never ask, tell. Have your phone out.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Say, give me your number. I wanna take you out. And, you know, odds are she's gonna say, I don't even know you. You know? Or, you know, but I've gone out. I went out with a buddy one night trying to get 5 rejections. I couldn't get 5 in a night. I kept getting, I just kept going. I was talking to women that should not have been giving me numbers.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I went to a college music fest with a client of mine who's a jazz musician. And I'm sitting next to this, you know, college age girl. I was probably 50. I don't know. You know? And I'm talking to her and I said, you like jazz? She goes, yeah. I said, well, I actually know the piano player. I said, let's go listen to jazz sometimes. She goes, I'd love to.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I said, give me your number. She gave it off and spelled her name for me. Get 3 or 5 rejections in a night. By the time he gets to the second one, he's usually kinda doing a pump fist and grabbing his crotch and doing a happy dance. I did it. I did it. It didn't hurt. It didn't kill me.
Connell Barrett:
Exactly. It's the anticipation of what that pain is gonna feel like. Therefore, I'm unworthy, therefore, I'll be alone, therefore or I'll have to settle, or I'm not good enough. And that's what I thought I felt that way for many, many years. I wish we all do.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I think that's a pretty normal way to think of it. Feel it too, by the way. Universal. That's that's why women don't typically approach because they're they're even
Connell Barrett:
I was 38 years old the first night I ever went out to approach a woman. And I was so nervous that night that I had a panic attack in the men's room stall of this club before I went out. I I
Dr. Robert Glover:
Before you even talk to a woman, right?
Connell Barrett:
Yeah. And I walked up to the first woman in my life. I approached her. She was wearing a cowboy hat, blonde hair, white hat. She was half buzzed, half drunk. It didn't go anywhere, but she wasn't interested, but she was fine. She was a little drunk and more or less polite. We talked for 2 minutes and she walked away.
Connell Barrett:
And I remember thinking, that's what I've been afraid of for 38 years? Yeah. That was nothing. It was fine. Yeah. And that's why I love the And I found
Dr. Robert Glover:
that when guys will go do that, if you go get that 3 or 5 rejections in a night, it pretty much just kills your fear of rejection. You realize that's it. Yeah. That's all I was afraid of. I just thought, no. They're not gonna give me a phone number. But the thing is, going and trying to get rejected Right. You look confident as hell.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I mean, you walk right up. You say, hey. I'm Robert. You know? I wanna take you out. Give me your phone number. That looks confident as hell. And women, I say I've been telling guys for years that because women are security seeking creatures, confidence is just a major turn on. And I tell guys, you know, if you interact with a woman confidently, she will have the exact same brain chemicals, you know, releasing in her brain that you would have if she lifted her shirt and showed you her tits.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And, you know, you don't have to think about it. Do I like that? No. You get aroused because it's wired into you. Again, this evolution is wired into you. It's wired into them that when a guy interacts confidently with them, they get that same tingle, that same arousal, that same buzz that we get when we, you know, see tits. So trying to get rejected is actually a powerful tool because as I said, I've gone out and and couldn't get 5 rejections because I just came across as so confident the women wanted to give me their numbers.
Connell Barrett:
And it's really a Jedi mind trick you're doing on yourself because what can often create that low confidence or rejection, you want it to work. You want her to, like, you Yeah.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Attachment to that.
Connell Barrett:
Drill. You want to get rejected, so that would yeah, yeah, you said, outcome agnostic. You're becoming free from that outcome, and then it's hard. I call it the rejectathon. And the rule is the rule is you gotta go out, 5 was my number as well, And you have to get 5 rejections in a row. If you don't, you have to go back to 0 and start over again. And guys just give up because they're like, sorry. I can't get there.
Connell Barrett:
Too many women are enjoying me. Yeah.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I'm having a good time and so are they. And that's really all women want is to have a good time with us, and we're having a good time. And, you know, Buddha said that attachment to outcome is the cause of all suffering. So that's why I want that woman to like me. I want that woman to give me a phone number. I want that woman to be my girlfriend. That's just a recipe for suffering. So if you are outcome agnostic, where you just go interact with people, have fun, be you, good things happen, and then, you know, again, not everybody's gonna want to give us a number or go home with us or date us.
Dr. Robert Glover:
That's okay. So just quickly, the other thing that I do with my workshops with guys, and I don't tell them ahead of time the reason why we're doing it. And I and this little drill have many different applications that I use with Nice Guys. But I just pair everybody up to, you know, everybody's paired up with another guy. And person a will decide who person a is for 2 minutes, and has to say to person b, I want. I wanna be happy. I want to make $1,000,000. I want a bigger dick.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I want world peace. You know, I want whatever. And person b has to say no to everything they say. And I wanna be happy. No. I wanna make $1,000,000. No. You know? And so for 2 minutes, and then they switch and do it the other way.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Now just for 2 minutes of that, you know, the guys are always laughing, having a good time. I have to holler over them, time, time, switch, you know, we're done. And and and and, you know, they're just laughing and having a good time. And so we sit and make some applications. And I'll say, you guys everybody says, oh, rejection hurts. I said, you just got rejected over and over again for 2 minutes, and you were having fun. And you were laughing, and you're having a good time, and I couldn't make you stop. What's the difference? And, really, the difference only is the context and the story we put on it.
Dr. Robert Glover:
This guy standing across from us telling us no for 2 minutes. We don't create a story about it. It's just it's just no. It's just words. It's just a game. It's just play. But when we're with a woman, because we're attached to the outcome and we want her to like us to validate our low sense of self, we get attached to that. And then when she doesn't wanna give us a number, go out with us, it hurts because of the story we put on it.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yeah. But what if we treated all of our interactions with women like that game we were doing with a buddy at a workshop I'm just anticipating no, going for you know, go for no, go for rejection, and then, you know, and just laugh and have fun and have a good time, and and you get a lot more yeses that way.
Connell Barrett:
Beautifully said. I could not have said it better. I like that. I want more, I like saying you said something great. I love a tip you gave about 5 minutes ago. You said, don't ask. Say what you want. Tell her what you want.
Connell Barrett:
Hey. Let's go on a date. I wanna take you out, let's go over here for a drink. I love that.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Wait for me to open your door.
Connell Barrett:
Yeah. Wait for me to open your door, can I not open your door? Sometimes my clients come to me and they say, oh, I asked her if I could kiss her And I said,
Dr. Robert Glover:
no. Wait a minute. Hang on. Don't ask. Don't
Connell Barrett:
ask. Either do it or at the very least say, I wanna kiss you Yeah. And maybe read her signals. That's okay. That's because I'm too friendly, but I'm cool with that.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yeah. I'm not like I'm going to kiss you, you know. Right. You know, I, I one night, I taught just an evening dating class at a local community college, and afterwards, I said, I'm hungry. You guys want me to get a bite to eat? So about 6 or 8 of us went to one of my favorite restaurants, a Ruth's Chris restaurant, near where I lived. And, I knew all the wait staff there and the bartenders, and and, there's one woman, Jessica, you know, kind of a snarky woman, but I like her. She's a good waitress. Comes by our table, Jessica said, Jessica, I have a question.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You know, I was asking this for the benefit of all the guys. And I said, Jessica, how do you like it when your boyfriend leaves all the decisions up to you? Say, what do you wanna do tonight? What do you wanna eat? Where do you wanna go? She just looked at me and said, I hate it. And they're like, what's your order? You know? So I looked at it. Well, after she left, I looked at the guys and said, they really do hate it when we leave those decisions up to them. We're making them the alpha again. And most women nowadays are alpha in so many parts of their life. They don't wanna be alpha in their relationship. Now they will, they can, but they really prefer that they have a man that will set the tone and lead and not be controlling, not be an asshole, but say, hey.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Let's go do this. And they go, yeah. Let's go do it. They don't have to make all the decisions. So with the whole thing, getting numbers, when I first started dating, that was, like, you know, my biggest, like, I don't know I don't know how to do this. I don't know how you get numbers. And and so, like, being the good scientist that I was, I just practiced getting numbers. And what I quickly found out is if you have your phone out I remember back then, I had a Razer phone back when Razer were really cool, a little flip phone.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You're looking like, I've never heard of that. Yeah. I've heard of that.
Connell Barrett:
I'm old enough.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yeah. So I'd have it out on, you know, on the bar next to me or whatever, and I usually eat my meals at happy hours. I just talk to the people around me, and, you know, people one says, is that a Razr? And, oh, yeah. Yeah. And I said, hey. You know, give me your number. I I I want I'm gonna I'm gonna send you a message. I'll call you later.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I'm gonna take you out later on this week. And so, you know, I'd already have my phone out. So I'll always have your phone out. And so whenever I go for a number, I have the phone out. Now, you know, for several years, I had an iPhone. I have my phone out, and I say, alright. I'm gonna call you later this week. Give me your number.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I got a plan. And I have my phone out. You know, it's like and and it usually is something close that salesmen use. Instead of saying, do you wanna buy some? They say, how many can I put you down for? You know? Right. So it's an assumptive clause. I get my phones out. It's like, you're gonna give me a number. And I said, give me your number.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And in my experience, 8 or 9 times out of 10, they'd give me a number if I just said give me your number. Now I'd already been interacting with them and already gotten them to yes, you know, on several other things like in sales. And, you know, maybe 1 or 2 out of 10 would say, oh, I don't give my number out, or I don't do this. And they'll go, give me your number. I'll call you. And I'll go, nah. You're not gonna call me. I said, just just tell me you're not gonna go out with me.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I love that. Don't give, don't give me that. And so they give a number, and when they give me their number, I key it into my phone right then and and hit the dial. You know? Hit hit hit the call button so that their phone rings in their purse or if it's nearby them. And I've never gotten a bogus number, ever. No woman's ever given me a fake number. And by calling it, you know if it's real because it's gonna ring. Her purse will start vibrating.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Right? Right. So and then I leave a voice mail, and I'll say, you know, you know, hey hey hey, sweetie pie or whatever. You know? I I I I told my wife this. I started calling every woman I dated sweetie really early on because I was dating so many women. I didn't wanna fuck their names up, especially in bed. So I just started calling them all sweetie.
Connell Barrett:
Oh, you. Oh, sweetie.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Oh, sweetie. So my wife actually thought that was pretty smart. Pretty clever. So, so, anyway, I'd say, hey, sweetie. You know, this is Robert. I'm standing right in front of you. I'm gonna call you later this week. I just wanted you to know who this number was, you know, on your keypad.
Dr. Robert Glover:
So I left him a message right then, telling him I was gonna call him. And then, you know, if I wanted to, I'd call him and follow-up on it. But by being just that directive that, you know, give me your number your phone's out. It's in your hand. Give it and then call it. It is just, it just clicks. You know, I can't, again, I can't tell you 80 to 90% of the women always gave me numbers.
Connell Barrett:
Sounds like it's a pretty good batting average. I'll take that. I'll take that batting.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yeah. Only about 20% of them actually call you back if you call them, But,
Connell Barrett:
That's okay.
Dr. Robert Glover:
That's okay.
Connell Barrett:
The abundance mindset of it. There's lots of women out there.
Dr. Robert Glover:
It's a numbers game.
Connell Barrett:
It is a numbers game but this whole my whole feeling of that, what I call radical authenticity, showing women that real, raw, best you, you're not looking to attract them all. You're looking to attract 10 or 20% and you're gonna have more dates than you know what to do with if you're taking enough action with the right kind of confident mindset. Let's finish. We have about 2 minutes left and I want to give you some rapid fire tip questions, some good practical advice to close on because you have a dating book out, and I was reading it today and I saw a bunch of cool how to parts of the book. So I'm gonna throw a couple of problems at you. If you would, give me the first way that comes to mind, and we'll just run through 2 or 3 real quick ones. Sounds good? Good. So how about staying out of the friend zone?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Don't try to win her approval. Don't be overly nice. Be willing to get rejected. Beautiful. And bring your sexual agenda. Don't hide it from her. You wanna see her naked. That's why you're talking to her.
Dr. Robert Glover:
She knows it.
Connell Barrett:
I love it. Next one, how to overcome anxiety?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Approach, now again, let me add that. If I again, I'm not a big fan of just approaching, you're walking across a room because you think a woman's hot, but if you are out being a social animal, you'll notice women sending you IOIs, indicators of interest. They'll smile. They'll look your way. They'll turn your body towards you. Approach those women. So the best way I know to overcome anxiety is to approach the women who've sent you signals of interest. They're already interested.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Okay? You know, you almost have nothing to lose, and you don't have to impress them. They already noticed you. So approach the women. As David Davis says, choose a woman who chooses you. Go the other way, I'd put it to walk through open doors. Don't go pound on closed doors.
Connell Barrett:
I like that. I like that. 2 more. How do you know when a woman is interested in you and when she's not?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Usually, she'll like talking to you. She'll interact. She'll touch you. She'll laugh at your dumb jokes. She'll move her body in and out. You'll know. You'll know. You know, guys will say, like, you mentioned earlier about what to talk about.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Guys will say, what do I do when the conversation just kinda comes to an end? And I go, say nice to meet you and walk away because you just reached low interest. If a woman is interested in you, the conversation will stay interesting.
Connell Barrett:
Excellent. Last one. What is a shit test from women, and how do you pass it?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Okay. Shit test goes back to women being security seeking creatures. They're shit tests doesn't mean they're being shitty to us. They're trying to test. Do we have our shit together? Right? Now I do have to distinguish myself from men. Shit tests are not mean. If a woman's mean, if she says hurtful things to you, if she's a bitch to you, walk away. She's mean. Okay? Shit test is like, they show up a little bit late.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You know, they ask you to hold their purse. Quick story. I was dating a woman, and dated her for about 3 years. You know, we'd she was my home decorator, and she was so we'd go out and she wanna, like, plug a lamp in to see how it looked, and she'd hand me her Louis Vuitton purse. You know, hold my purse. And I go, I don't hold purses. She goes, what? I go, I don't ask you to hold my bowling ball, so I'm not gonna hold your purse. That was just a joke because I don't have a bowling ball.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And she, like, looked at me. And so, and and and and she was always you know, that that always kinda pissed her off a little bit. I said, what would you do if I wasn't here? What would you do with your purse if I wasn't standing here to hold it for you? Well, I'd set it down and plug the lamp in. I go, alright. You got it figured out. You don't need me to hold it. And then we've been dating. Been together for a couple years.
Dr. Robert Glover:
We were in a, a, like, a Starbucks coffee shop. There's a couple in front of us, and the woman was obviously the boss, the hefa. She was doing the ordering, and she and the guy just kinda passed him. She just hands him her purse, like, she just knows he's gonna hold it. And he's just standing there while she orders with his purse in his hand. And my girlfriend looks at me and she goes, I get it now. So I don't remember what the question was, but it had to do with holy places to answer.
Connell Barrett:
Basically, passing protests. Yes. Yes.
Dr. Robert Glover:
They just think they're not trying to be mean.
Connell Barrett:
They're looking to see that you have strength, that you're not gonna wilt like a flower.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Right? Yeah. Because I always say, you know, if we are their security system, it's like we're their castle. And the the the marauding hordes are outside coming to rape and pillage, and they're inside the castle. They gotta go around with a broomstick poking the window jams, the door jams, the window casings, the, you know, scene. Where are they most vulnerable? Where is the castle most vulnerable? That's what they do with us. They gotta see where we're most vulnerable. So they're actually pretty good at poking us in our most vulnerable places. We go, ouch, that hurts.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You're being mean. Now they're really not. They're just seeing, do we have enough of like my ex said, are you man enough to stand up to me and then I know you'll stand up for me?
Connell Barrett:
Wow. Beautiful one to end on. You've said it all. Doctor Robert Glover, the books are No More Mr. Nice Guy and Dating Essentials For Men. His website is drglover.com. And is there anything else you'd like to promote, mention, courses, workshops? What would you like people out there where would they where would you like them to come and find you?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Well, doctorglover.com is great, and I'll just say I've been converting. I have half a dozen online courses that I've been teaching for years and written courses, but I'm converting them all to video. And I think your guys would love my video class on positive emotional tension. And the basic premise is women have to experience emotional tension to be attracted to a man and have sexual arousal, but unfortunately, we men tend to hate emotional tension in relationships. So the PET, positive emotional tension video course, I think you guys are gonna love it.
Connell Barrett:
Yes. As I understand it, you have 4 very popular online courses, that's one of them, and we can find more about this at your website. Is that right?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yep. Doctorglover.com handles it all.
Connell Barrett:
Excellent. Well, thank you for all the positive emotional value and tips and insight you've offered today. Thank you for all you've done for men, for me back in the day, for so many guys. It means a lot to us and, can't wait to talk to you again some other time.
Dr. Robert Glover:
You're welcome. This is fun. Let's do it again.
Welcome to the Dating Transformation podcast. I'm coach Connell Barrett, and I help men build confidence + connect with women by being their own authentic selves.
NYC Dating Coach Connell Barrett
106 W 32nd St, New York, NY 10001