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 Dr. Robert Glover. Dr. 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 Dr. 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 passive, resentful, inauthentic, authentic men to empowered, confident, real, authentic guys. And I'm all about that. For more information on Dr. Glover, please visit his website. Dr. Glover Icon that's D-R Globe VR dot com end of plugs. Dr. 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 that I've sent them, I think I need to shorten that. I need to cut it down to just, you know. Dr. Glover lives in Mexico. It's just that, you know, no more than that. But anyways, good to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Connell Barrett: My pleasure. Let's get right to it. The man listening to this podcast is a nice guy and I mean that both in a good way 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 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, well, we'll get to kind of cover two 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. I, you know, if you'd met me 30 years ago, I would have told you I'm a nice guy and 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, be kind, be generous, be easygoing and avoid conflict and please other people. And for me, my story began in my second marriage when my wife just flat out told me, 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, and you embarrass me in public. If you don't go get help, I'm going to leave you. And I thought, wait a minute, 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 went and luckily I quickly landed in some really good places and started to understand why my roadmap, my paradigm that I had had since childhood of thinking if I just do everything right, make everybody happy, avoid all conflict, you know, hide 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, and how to say no. And as I started working on my issues in therapy and then later in 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. Did I say? There are two categories of guys. The first one was in a relationship and since I was, that's why I am most related. 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. I try to make her happy. You never know when you're going to be my turn and 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: I know. I know that all too well.

Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah. They all say someday you're going to make some lucky woman so happy. But how come they don't want to be my girlfriend? You are suddenly.

Connell Barrett: Such a great catch.

Dr. Robert Glover: Not for me, but 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 Mr. 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 who will like me and love me and women, I want to get naked with me. And I just started writing. I don't know what to call them. Chapters, lessons, blogs, just I'd write every Wednesday and give these guys what I was discovering about what I thought the origins of Nice Guy Syndrome were right. How is 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 go on Oprah. This could be a bestseller. Lots of people need this book. And so I kept writing for over six or seven years. Finally, it took about three 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. You know, that book now makes annual six-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 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'd been married twice for a total of 25 years. You know, I got married for the first time two 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 out, 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, well, where do I start? You know, I knew two things after being married for 25 years to two women, neither of whom I should have gone on more than three dates with. But that's how bad a picker and how bad it was, Indra, was the. I got to become a better picker. Yeah, I got to become a better ender. And so being a better pilgrim means I learn how to date. And then I also had to learn how to be a better ender, because I came to realize that being a good ender covers a multitude of sins and bad picks. After all, dating is a series of bad picks. You know, when guys complain, you know, all I've got is he's one and done. You know, there I go, that's normal, that's dating, that's how it's supposed to work. You should go on one date and go now. No more. That's enough, right? Let's try another one. So here I was in my late forties. You know, typically my nice guy seduction of high school and college was I 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 am.

Connell Barrett: Was.

Dr. Robert Glover: Off. Right. Maybe, you know, get to know her a little bit, volunteer to do something for her, you know, be different than all the time.

Connell Barrett: I carry your books.

Dr. Robert Glover: You carry your books, you know. Can I help you move? Can I wash your car? Do you know what you know? You know everything. I'd never say. Can I see you naked? You know where you want to go out, you know? And then. 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 guess you want to go out with me tonight, would you? And so, Megan, how many women were washing their hair that night? You know, when I wanted to take them out, 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 going to be a scientist. I'm going to go out and just start interacting socially with people in general, but just start interacting with women and see what works instead of approaching dating as a how can I get a girlfriend or how can I get laid? I started approaching dating from a point of view of How does this work? How can I be the most effective with this? How can I be that better picker and that better enter? 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, what are you doing? 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. Q Frequently Asked Questions. I'm just in New York about two weeks ago recording that, so get on audio. So it's already out in e-book and print on Amazon, so. So I want him to still consider me a dating guru. I'm more of a, I think, relationship. I can say I'm a relationship expert and brought back because I've been married three times now. I've been married to my third wife for six and our five years and a while when I was single I Gemma I'm a marriage therapist who has 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 just get down to what doesn't work and what does. 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 our mothers or watching porn or unfortunately too much from, you know, the pickup and red pill gurus that say do this, do that. And, you know it's a war against 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 just believe in doing what works. 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 lives most, men or women? Women have all heard that line, you know, without peacocking and, you know, all the other stuff that, you know, guys do this to get a woman or do this to get digits. Most pickups, mostly about getting phone numbers, are not really. Well, I think much more than that.

Connell Barrett: It's funny, I. I found your book. Back when I was first learning about all these different 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. By 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. This is in my book, one woman I thought she wanted to be with a rugged, outdoorsy guy, which I'm not. So I had an impression of one. I lied to her and told her that I swam with sharks. And when you want to.

Dr. Robert Glover: Plant a flannel shirt or something with you know.

Connell Barrett: I may as well have been where 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 see me as good enough. And that reminds me. So a quote from your book, your book, no more Mr. Nice Guy that hit me like a lightning bolt was, quote, 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. Yeah. Could you elaborate on that? Why do so many men seek a woman's approval or avoid disapproval?

Dr. Robert Glover: Okay, well, it is even bigger than just women. But when we're talking mainly about dating, to hone in on that, you know that one dynamic. Well, the dynamic of the nice guy syndrome. When I wrote No More Mr. Nice Guy, I focused on the concept of shame that at a very early age, everybody but nice guys, in particular, accurately believed that I'm not good enough, that there's something wrong with me. I'm not lovable, I'm not valuable. And this was, you know, through a child's immature mind, internalizing our life experiences of, you know, parents 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. And then we all developed coping mechanisms to try to not feel that and to try to get the love that we want and desire and get our needs met. Now in time, I came to see that nice guy syndrome. Not only built on that shame of 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. So it's two pillars behind marriage. I said there's this shame and anxiety and they go hand-in-hand. They overlap. So everything we guy with nice guys do is, is about getting external validation, you know, making good enough grades, making a good impression, making enough money, getting a 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 talk about normal Mr. Nice guy. I've found in time there are two types of nice guys, one and I thought they were all like me, what I call the I'm so good nice guy you know I'm so good. I do everything right. You know, I, you know, everybody should be happy with me, but my shame is just it's just buried deeper in a more, you know, lockbox, 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 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, something kind of straightened them out. And now they're trying their best to be a nice guy. But they're shamed right up to the surface. Oh, it's only a matter of time. Two 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 shame buried me that I'm so bad. Nice guy is right next to the surface but both operate in the same way and that is seeking validation now. This kind of let me kind of come back to this comment from kind of a side way. I've been saying to two men for quite some time, I'm again, I'm a relationship expert. I guess I earned a Ph.D. 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. So. Two things I tell guys. Number one. Lifelong pair-bonded relationships of the opposite sex are not natural or normal or in the human DNA. We've only been trying to do those for less than 10,000 years. For about 2,000,002 and a half million 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 they find the right woman for you, fall in love, get married, be happy ever after forever. It's a fucking fairy tale. It doesn't. It's not in human DNA. Now it's. I tell you, it is. If we do this consciously, relationships can be a powerful personal growth machine. They can grow us. The other thing that I say is that dating is not in our human DNA. 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 families still arranged marriages. They don't, they don't date. That's why when Indian men come to America, they are lost. I work with a lot of Asian men. And even for those of us that grew up in Western culture, Europe, 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? So. But, you know, our grandparents.

Connell Barrett: That was a tough breakup. They had Romeo.

Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah, that was.

Connell Barrett: That was a bad breakup.

Dr. Robert Glover: But even our grandparents. So if we go back 60, 70, 8000 years, you know, either, you know, married a cousin, married, you know, the girl next door, married. They're their brothers or sisters. Best friend. My wife grew up here in Guadalajara, Mexico, and she's eight out of ten kids. Two of her brothers married two of her best friends, you know, so that's how historically, you know, the last hundred years are what we call the historical. That's how dating works now with what I call pickup culture and hookup culture. You know, we got an upswing swipe, right? You know, we've got dating boot camps. We've got, you know, seems like every woman on the planet is single these days. Excuse me. I'd covered it a couple of weeks ago and still recovered a little bit.

Connell Barrett: I'm glad you're feeling better.

Dr. Robert Glover: For the second time.

Connell Barrett: It's always better the second time around right now.

Dr. Robert Glover: It was worse than the first. Oh, so. So. So. The thing is. So. Lifelong peer bonded relationships aren't normal and natural dating isn't normal or natural. And so. But the way things are laid out nowadays, if we men want companionship, if we want a partner, and if we want to get laid, we've got to 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, it makes sense from a logical point of view that if we want to 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 thing. The golden rule among men is don't piss off women. That doesn't mean she's not your mother, you know, your female boss. We men culturally have just been conditioned. Don't piss off women, you know, they'll go on social media, they'll call you out or hashtag me to you or, you know, they'll be mean to you. So we're all out there trying to please women and trying to get their approval. 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 read build communities about alpha and beta stuff and, you know, they write a lot. And I speak at Red Bull conferences. They have red pill friends. They'll talk about, 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, 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 she goes with or what she does. So seeking a woman's approval always makes you the supplicant. It makes you one down. It makes you decide. And you just accept whether you know, whatever comes along. Hmm. 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 is the absolute worst thing women 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 the lines you would because I think this will resonate with you. I had a client named Trevor who was stuck in that terrible place called the friend zone. Right. He kept going on first dates. He was very approval-seeking. He was very supplicating to women. And he kept hearing it over and over again, just not feeling that. But you're a nice guy. And then he and I worked together and he had a first date with a really attractive brunet named Becca. And I'd given him a lot of tools to try to smash through that nice guy exterior and be just more real raw, what I call radically authentic, but just being 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 is, to be honest. And he interrupted her and said, okay, I've 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 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 said, look, I'm not listening to this. This is not helping the date. I am going to 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. 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 that they can, you know, 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 car door. They buy their car. They don't need a man. They 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 bike. Okay. I didn't know that. So. So they don't 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 seen studies that the highest performing women, though the women that are 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. 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 are warriors, who are fierce hunters who are competent, who are 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 want to be safe. They want to be what they want to feel.

Dr. Robert Glover: Bottom line, hashtag MeToo was all about I don't feel safe. That's what hashtag MeToo 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. But hashtag MeToo 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. No. 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. As I said, now we're the beta. She's the alpha. She's the stronger of the two. She's the decider. That's not going to turn her on. And if we do anything that shows a little bit of strength, a little bit of fierceness, a little bit of wildness, as is my coach. And David Davis said, you know, a little bit of your wild man will be your killer. You know, the woman kind of goes, it gives me chills. You know, this.

Connell Barrett: Is like a caveman cave.

Dr. Robert Glover: Woman. The guy could kill the spider, you know? And even though, you know, they don't want us to pull their hair, drag him into the cave, they do want to know. We've got strength and a fierceness about me. My second wife used to say to me back, I wrote No more Mr. Nice Guy when I was married to this woman and she was hell on wheels. I loved her, but she was crazy. And she used to say to me, How do I know? She'd 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 in bacon and, you know, fancy footwork, trying to make her happy and avoid conflict and not upset her. And she's watching all of this. Women are stupid. They're watching. When were these placating little boys trying to get their approval? And if they're going, this guy's a wuss. You know, if he's just let me get away with everything, who's going to 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 is authentic. And it takes strength and backbone and balls to be authentic. When you were 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, we're walking along a lakefront, nice summer day and she started telling us about a shoe store. And I think she was telling us we're 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. And she just froze, looked at me, and got this steely-eyed or, you know, look on her face. And she said You get it. Do you understand? Yeah. Shoe shopping is porn for us women. And she goes, I like you. Do you get it? So you know anything? It is just about being yourself. Whether you say I'm bored of this story about you going shoe shopping or you say something like, oh, for women, shoe shopping is, you know, it's women's porn, you know, being you. Right. Not hold anything back. I'll tell you another quick story because it involved a date kind of in the same location with another woman. And that was 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 going for a walk along the same lake and she had to go use the restroom. So she went to the restroom, walked back and I said, okay, I'm going to go to the restroom to go walking. And I just said, by the way, I enjoyed watching you walk away from me.

Connell Barrett: Nice.

Dr. Robert Glover: And as soon as I said it, I thought, oh, you know, fuck, you know, I blew it. You know, she was a smart lady, you know? Alzheimer's research, research, a local university. You know, I just thought, you know, I 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 three or four months and and and then but we stayed friends. And she told me one time, so do you remember like first, on the second date you made that comment about how you enjoyed watching me walk away from me? I said, Yeah. I said, I thought I'd blown it. She goes, Turn me on. I love it. That's what we're teaching guys. Be authentic, be you know, you're trying to please her jitter approval say the right thing. You're boring, you're dull, there's nothing fierce about you. But if you will just be you guys will tell me all the time. Well, being me doesn't seem to turn women on. And I go, When was the last time any woman saw it? You 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, and 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. I was or how are you? Is 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 going to be very a. Attractive to the women who go for that. Right.

Dr. Robert Glover: Well, yeah. And because here's the deal. One of my core principles, I've got several core principles I teach men. 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 need to find out, does a woman like you? So, you know, my sense of humor is saying, I enjoyed watching you walk away from me or turning to a woman to say, oh, shoe shopping is women's porn. You know, I'm as irreverent, you know, with women as I am, like on this call, you know, elsewhere. 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 going to like that or she's not. And you know what? I need to be okay. And I need to be outcome agnostic. You know she likes a great listing and 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. You know, she doesn't get it. I Don'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 had grown up in Europe and I was visiting her, and we went to London and we were out shopping and went to Harrods and stuff like that. And, and she stopped me and she said, Robert, are you going to open my door for me or not? And I said, I don't know, and thought about it. She goes, Because sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. I don't care either way. Just tell me if you can open my door or not. And I go. I'll open your door for you. And since that day, I trained every woman I'm with to wait for me to open their door. Getting out of the car, going into a building or train. My mother, my granddaughter. Every woman I love watching my 16-year-old stepson open his mother's door. And he does it for his girlfriend so women can open their damn doors. They don't need me to open the door. It creates a loving dominance. It lets them kind of be the princess, the queen. And in. But here's the story. I went on a date with a woman and met her on Match.com and she put on her salsa dance. At that time, I was salsa dancing. All right. That's just something, Carmen. So we set up a date and said to give you a place near where you live. She lived 45 minutes from me, and I'll come to meet you there. So we met there, chatted a little bit, and I was hungry and I said, Let's go get some. Do you want to come with me? You know, place in her mind? Yeah. I said, okay, 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 it a few blocks and there was a diner. So we've pulled up. And what I typically do is I tap the woman's top of her leg and I said, Wait for me, I'll come to open your door. They always do right up. And I have to remind them it takes women a little while to get in the habit of a man opening their door. Sure, my mother is, my mother said one time. But I was waiting for your dad. Open my door. I'd still be waiting. He's been dead for 12 years. So I tapped on Lake to wait for me to open your door. And. And she hops out of the car 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 did tell you, I don't like to be controlled. And I go, I don't want to control you. I said, But if you hang out with me, I'll open your door. She was. I don't like men telling me what to do. Now go. Well, I had no desire to tell you what to do. I said, But if you hang out with me, I'll open your door. And we kind of talked about that a little bit. And so then we got a bite to eat and we walked out. She 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, and 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. That's great. No problems. The next day I get an email and she says, You know, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I'd like to see you again. I just don't like to be told what to do or be controlled, blah, blah, blah. I said I don't want to control you. I said, But if you hang out with me, I'll open your door and hold my free, you know. Good, good dance. Right. Hold my frame. So here's what I did. I would try an experiment. I sent her an email. I said, okay. Listen. Meet me at this restaurant 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 there where we're going to meet what I think. So then we go. We go, man. She says again, we're eating. And she says, You know, I don't want to be controlled. And I'm like, Actually, I get that. But what if you hang out with me? I'll open your door. So are we going to 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 open 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 have the vision, right? So I had to go to work early the next day. So I said, you know, I got to take off. I'll walk you back to your car. She was parked somewhere. So again, she waits. So I walked her back to her car and we got to the car. And this is a Seattle city sidewalk street in place. And I go to tell her goodnight. She puts her arms around my neck, wraps one leg around my leg, starts dry, humping my leg, and sticks her tongue down my throat. I go, I think it's about as far as we can go on a city sidewalk but so they were 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 the glove, I was going to open the door. And her biology, her DNA took over feeling safe and secure and trusting. And it opened her to where, you know, she was the 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 while trying to please you I would acquit. Okay. All right. I want to open your door. You know, I won't do that bad thing anymore that you don't like. You know, people do it 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 going to love the you that you are just the way you are. And an even greater percentage of women who had no interest find. That's great. That's how it works.

Connell Barrett: It only takes one to change your life. It only takes a small handful to get some real nice new wraps and wins and confidence. And it also takes some rejections to realize, hey, rejections are not 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. Yeah, that's something that you've taught. Can you go into that bit of that work?

Dr. Robert Glover: You know, I think the earliest thing I tried to teach men that I learned early on is because I like everybody else, I don't like being rejected. But I came to the realization pretty quickly, it doesn't hurt, you know, as a woman, I don't even know, you know, not giving me a phone number or not going on a date with me, that that hurts me how? You know, I didn't know where 5 minutes ago. And, you know, she's not going to go on a date with me. Why? Why does that hurt? But. We tend to that ties into our oh, there's something wrong with me. She can see I'm a loser. Every other woman is going to see the same thing. She turned me down. They're all going to turn me down. And we do our emotional spiral around that. So that does hurt that. That spiral is a shame. Spiral hurts rejection, does it? So. A couple of things. I'll tell you a couple of things as I have men do. One is, yeah, go out and you know, I'm not big into the 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. You know you don't know a thing about her just because she's physically attractive. That boosts your ego. Oh, she was my girlfriend. I'll 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. She may have bad breath. She may have, like, a donkey, but she looks hot, you know? So she'd be a great girlfriend. I know. I know it. We're guys. We're sure about that. So what I tell guys to do is, is to, you know, escalate quickly, you know, go out with somebody and just for the fun of it, try to get three, five rejections in a night. Now, you can't be rude to the woman. You can't just piss off to get rejected, but just, you know, walk up to her and say, hey, you know, my name's Robert. Saw you over here. I got a bounce, but I want to 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. So give me your number. I'll take you out. And you know, odds are she's going to say, I don't even know you or you know, but I've gone out. I went out with a buddy one night trying to get five rejections. I couldn't get five in a night. I kept going. I just kept saying I was talking to women that should not have been giving me numbers. 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 who's probably 50 I don't know, you know, and I'm talking to you like jazz because yeah, I said, well, I know the piano player. I said, Listen, jazz sometimes because I'd love to, so give me your number. She gave it off and spelled her name for me. Get three or five rejections in a night. By the time he gets to the second one is usually kind of doing a pulp fest and grabbing his crotch and doing a happy dance. I did it. I did it. It hurt. It didn't kill me.

Connell Barrett: Exactly. It's the anticipation of what that pain is going to feel like. Therefore I'm unworthy. 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.

Dr. Robert Glover: I think we all do. I think that's pretty normal. I think women feel it, too, but it is universal. And that's why women don't typically approach because they're 30 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.

Dr. Robert Glover: Before you even talk to a woman, right?

Connell Barrett: Yeah. And I walked up to the first woman of my life. I approached her. She was wearing a cowboy hat, blond hair, white hat. She was half buzzed, half drunk. It didn't go anywhere, but. And 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. And I remember thinking, That's what I've been afraid of for 38 years. It was nothing. It was fine. Yeah, I love them.

Dr. Robert Glover: And I found the one guy who would go do that. If you go get that three or five rejection in a night, it pretty much just kills your fear of rejection. Do you realize that's it? Yeah. That's all I was afraid of. I just got it. No, they're not going to give me a phone number. But the thing is going and trying to get rejected. You look competent as hell. I mean, you walk right up, you say, hey, I'm Robert. You know, I want to take you out. Give me your phone number. It looks confident as hell. And women I tell 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 the woman confidently, she will have the same brain chemicals releasing in her brain that you would have if she lifted her shirt and showed you her tits. And you know, you don't have to think about it, do I? Do I like that? No. You get aroused because it's wired into you again. It's because evolution is wired into you. If wired into them that when a guy interacts competently with them, they get that same tingle, that same arousal, that same buzz that we get when we see tits. So trying to get rejected is a powerful tool because as I said, I've gone out and could get five rejections because I just came across as so confident. The women wanted to give me their numbers.

Connell Barrett: And it's 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 to like yours. To your drill, you want to get rejected. So that would be yeah, you said outcome agnostic, you becoming free from that outcome, and then it's hard. I call it the rejection of on and on the rule as you got to go out. Five was my number as well and you have to give five rejections in a row. If you don't only have to go back to zero and start over again and guys just give up because they're like, Sorry, I can't get there. Too many women are going, me.

Dr. Robert Glover: I'm having a good time and so are they. And that's all women want is to have a good time with us and we're having a great time. And, you know, Buddha said that that attachment 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. Well, 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 going to want to give us a number or go home, but those are data, that's all. Okay. So just quickly, the other thing that I do in my workshops with guys and I don't tell them ahead of time, the reason why we're doing it and this all 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 is for 2 minutes has to say to a person be I want to be happy, I want to make $1,000,000. I want a bigger dick. I want world peace. You know, I want whatever. And Person B has to say no to everything they say, I want to be happy. No, I want to make $1,000,000 now, you know, and so for 2 minutes and then they switch and do it the other way. Now, just for 2 minutes of that, you know, the guys were always laughing, having a good time. I have to holler over the entire time, switch, you know, we're done and they're laughing and having a good time. And then 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 were 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. This guy standing across from us telling us no for 2 minutes. We don't create a story about it. It's just no, it's just words. It's just a game. It's just playing. But when we're with a woman because we're attached to the outcome and we want her to like us to validate our, our, our most sense of self, we get attached to that. And then when she doesn't want to give us a number or go out with us, it hurts because of the story we put on it. 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 not going for you. Go for rejection. And then, you know, and just laugh and have fun and have a good time and you get a lot more yeses that way.

Connell Barrett: Beautifully said. I could not have said it better. I like that idea. Plus, I like saying he 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. Hey, let's go on a date. I want to 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. No. Wait for me to open your door or not. Can I 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, women hate that shit, whatever they want to ask.

Connell Barrett: Either do it or at the very least say, I want to kiss you. Yeah, maybe read her signals. That's okay. That's it. That's more me being too friendly, but I'm cool with that. Yeah.

Dr. Robert Glover: It's not like I'm going to. I'm going to kiss you, you know? Right. You know, I, I one night I taught a, just an evening dating class at a local community college. And afterward, I said, I'm hungry, you guys. I'll go get a bite to eat for about six or eight of us who went to one of my favorite restaurants or Ruth's Chris Restaurant near where I lived. And I knew all the waitstaff in there and the bartenders and this one woman, Jessica, you know, kind of a snarky woman. But I liked her. She's a good waitress. She's a good waitress. Comes by a table to Jessica. I have a question. I'm 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 want to do tonight? What do you want? Where do you want to go? What? And she just looked at me, says, I hate it there, like, what's your order? Do you know? So I looked at that. Well, after she left, I looked at the guys and said, they 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 want to be alpha in their relationship now. Well, they can, but they prefer that they have a man that will set the tone and lead and not be controlling, not be an asshole, but say, hey, let's go do this. And they go, yeah, let's go do it. They are up to making all the decisions. So with the whole thing getting numbers. When I first started dating that was like, you know, like my biggest lie I don't know, I don't know how to do these numbers and so like being the good scientist that I was, I just pray it's 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 razors were cool. A little flip phone. You're looking like. I've never heard of that.

Connell Barrett: I have heard of that. I'm old enough.

Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah. So, I'd have it out on the, you know, on the bar next to me or whatever. And I used to eat my meals during happy hours. I just talk to the people around me and the young ones. It's outrageous. Oh, yeah. And I said, Hey, you know, give me your number. I'm on a messenger message. I'll call you later. I'll take you out later this week. And so, you know, I'd already had my phone has always had 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 had my phone out and I say, I'm going to call you later this week. Give me your number. I got a plan and I have my phone out, you know, like and usually assumptive close that salesman use instead of saying you want to buy some, they say, How many can I put you down for? Do you know? Right. So is it Assumptive? Cause my phone's out. It's like you're going to give me a number. And I said, Give me your number. And in my experience, eight or nine times out of ten, they give me a number. But I just said, Give me your number now. I'd already be interacting with them and have already gotten them to. Yes. You know, on several other things like in sales and, you know, maybe one or two out of ten would say, 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 go, Now, you're not going to call me. I said, Just, just tell me you're not going to go out with me. I don't get it. Don't give me that. And so they'd give a number. And when they give me a number, I key it into my phone right then and hit dial, you know, hit the call button so that their phone rings in their purse or office nearby them. And I've never gotten a bogus number ever. No one has ever given me a fake number. And by calling it, you know, if is real, because it's going to ring, her purse will start vibrating. Right. Right. So and then I leave a voicemail and I say, you know, you know, hey, hey, hey, sweetie pie or whatever. You know, I told my wife this. I started calling every woman I dated sweetie, really early on. I was dating so many women, I didn't want to fuck their names up, especially in bed. So I just started. Called them all, sweetie.

Connell Barrett: Oh, you know. Oh, sweet.

Dr. Robert Glover: So my wife thought that was pretty smart. Pretty clever. So. So anyway, I'd say, Hey, sweetie, this is Robert. I'm standing right in front of you. I'm going to call you later this week. I just want you to know who this number was and, you know, on your keypad. So I left a message right there. Tom is going to call him. And then, you know, I want to 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 just clicks. You know, I can't, again, tell you, 80 to 90% of the women always gave me numbers.

Connell Barrett: Sounds like a pretty good batting average. I'll take that. I'll take that batting average.

Dr. Robert Glover: Only about 20% of them call you back if you call them. But that's okay. That's okay.

Connell Barrett: The abundance mindset of there's lots of women out there.

Dr. Robert Glover: It’s a numbers game.

Connell Barrett: It is a numbers game. And. But that's my whole feeling of that, what I call radical authenticity. Showing women that the real rob is best. You're not looking to attract them all, you're looking to attract ten or 20% and you're going to have more dates and you know what to do with it 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, and 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 parts of the book. So I'm going to throw a couple of problems at you if you would give me the first How-To that comes to mind. I will just run through two or three real quick ones. Sounds good.

Dr. Robert Glover: Good.

Connell Barrett: So how about how to stay out of the friend zone?

Dr. Robert Glover: Don't. Don't try to win her approval. Don't be overly nice. Be willing to get rejected. And bring your sexual agenda. Don't hide it from her. Do you want to see her naked? That's why you're talking to her. She knows.

Connell Barrett: Love it. The next one is How to get over approaching anxiety.

Dr. Robert Glover: Approach. Now, let me add that again. I'm not a big fan of just approaching and 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 eyes, 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 have sent you signals of interest. They're already interested. Okay, well, you know, you almost got nothing to lose, and you don't have to impress them. They already noticed you. So approach the women. As David Data says, choose a woman who chooses you. Go, go the other way I put it. Go out there, open doors. Don't go pound on closed doors.

Connell Barrett: I like that. I like that too. How do you know when a woman is interested in you and when she's not?

Dr. Robert Glover: Usually show like talking to you show their actual touch, you show lap at your dumb jokes. She'll move her body in and out. You'll know. You'll know. Your guys will say what you mentioned earlier. But I want to talk about guys. I'll say, what do I do when the conversation just kind of comes to an end and I go say, nice to meet you, 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. The shit test goes back to women being security-seeking creatures. A shit test 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 between men. Shit tests are not mean. If a woman's me. If she says hurtful things to you. If she's a bitch to you. Walk away. She's me. A shit test is like they show up a little bit late. You know, they ask you to hold their purse. Quick story. I was dating a woman for about three years. She was my home decorator. And. So we'd go out and she'd want to, like, plug a lamp in to see how it looked. And she had me, her Louis B dog, first 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 balls. I'm not going to hold your purse. That was just a joke cause I don't have a bowling ball. And she, like, looked at me and so on. And she was always, you know, that always kind of 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 staying in your old one for you? Well, I'd set it down and plug the lamp in. I go, All right, you've got it figured out. You don't need me to hold it. And then we'd been dating each other for a couple of years. We were in a Starbucks coffee shop. There's a couple in front of us. And the woman was the boss, the heifer. She was doing the ordering, and she and the guy just kind of passed. So she just hands him her purse like she just knows he's going to hold it and he's just standing there while she orders what her person is saying and my girlfriend looks at me, she goes, I get it now. So I don't remember what the question was, but it had to do with holding back.

Connell Barrett: Answer. Past tense.

Dr. Robert Glover: Yes. They are just not trying to be mean. They're looking to.

Connell Barrett: See that you strength that you're not going to wilt like a flower.

Dr. Robert Glover: Right. Yeah. Because I always say, you know, if where their security system is like we're their castle and the marauding hordes are outside coming to rape and pillage and they're inside the castle. They got to go around with a broomstick poking the window, jamming the door, jamming the window casings, the, you know, scene. Where are the most vulnerable words? The castle is most vulnerable. That's what they do with us. They got to see where we're most vulnerable. So they're pretty good at poking us in our most vulnerable places. We go out there, you're being me now. They're not. They're just saying, though, do we have enough? Like my ex said, are you mad 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. Dr. Robert Glover. The books are no more Mr. Nice Guy and Dating Essentials for Men. His website is D.R. Glover dot com. And is there anything else you'd like to promote? Mentioned courses, and workshops. What would you like people out there? Where were they? Where would you like them to come and find you?

Dr. Robert Glover: Well, Dr. Glover, dot 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 petty, positive emotional tension video course, I think your guys are going to love it.

Connell Barrett: Yes. As I understand it, you have four very popular online courses. That's one of them. And we can find more about this on your website. Is that?

Dr. Robert Glover: Right, DrGlover.com has it all.

Connell Barrett: Excellent. Well, thank you for all the positive emotional value and tests, and insight I've offered today. Thank you for all you've done 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.

Connell Barrett: Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Glover.