1213: Orion Taraban | Understanding Relationship Economics Part Two

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Jordan Harbinger Show
Episode 1213: Orion Taraban | Understanding Relationship Economics Part Two
Release Date: September 25, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this rich, provocative second installment with psychologist Orion Taraban, Jordan Harbinger explores the often uncomfortable economic realities underlying romantic relationships. With Taraban’s analytical, at times unsparing framework, the pair tackle dating app dynamics, the impact of societal and evolutionary forces on relationship expectations, why love and transactional relationships are not just different but often at odds, and the disruptive rise of AI-driven intimacy.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dating Apps and Relationship Dynamics

• Prevalence & Power Law Distributions

  • Dating apps have shifted from being fringe to mainstream: Over 50% of U.S. couples this year met on dating apps, a trend that has tripled in the last decade. ([02:43])
  • Inequity in matching: The top 1–5% of men accrue the vast majority (~98%) of matches, illustrating the Pareto principle and creating a "winner-takes-most" environment.
    • Orion: “I've heard it more, the Pareto, like the top 20 get 80%.” ([03:54])
  • Height and attraction disproportionately matter: Jordan shares anecdotes about friends being screened out due to height or appearance, regardless of other merits. ([05:19])

• Women’s Experience: Screening Overwhelm

  • Necessity of arbitrary filters: Women commonly use filter criteria like height or income due to sheer volume.
    • Jordan: “When she has 250 people that day to screen through, she's going to screen for income and height. Because what the hell, she still has 40 guys to sift through at the end.” ([07:21])
    • Orion: “When women have that kind of optionality, just being an attractive, tall, rich man is not enough… Sometimes guys... thinking, I'm gonna buy a Lambo and go to Dubai and date all these smoke shows. Turns out every guy's got a Lamborghini.” ([08:20])

• Optionality, Market Disparities, and Gender Imbalances

  • Case example: Russia's intensely skewed gender ratio incentivizes increased competition and performative femininity. ([10:26])

---

2. Relationship ‘Marketplace’: Power, Value, and Strategy

• Power Dynamics in Negotiation

  • “The most powerful player in any relationship, whether it's romantic or professional, gets more of what he or she wants and less of what he or she doesn't.” – Orion ([12:54])
  • High-status individuals (tech executives, athletes) can “price themselves out” both professionally and in relationships. ([14:22])

• Changing Power Over Time: Gender and Aging

  • Shifting leverage: Young women hold more options early, but by age 30, parity is reached, with men gaining relative power thereafter.
    • Orion: “At 30 is where the average man and the average woman are pretty much equal power structure.” ([15:08])
  • Anchoring to past value: Women who date at high “market value” struggle to accept ‘less’ as options fade with age.

• The Order of Life Events

  • Women’s desired “have-it-all” lifestyles can collide with temporal realities (e.g. fertility, energy, and career trajectory).
    • “If you want to do all the things, you have to be careful about the order in which you do things…” – Orion ([17:57])
  • Counterintuitive advice: Pursuing family earlier may be more advantageous than the popular “career first” track for those who deeply value motherhood. ([18:15])

---

3. Uncomfortable Truths About Attraction and Relationships

• Attraction is not agency:

  • “The cat decides what milk is good.” – Orion on men’s unchanging sexual preferences for women in their early twenties. ([22:56])
  • Maturity vs. attraction: Though older women offer richer life experience, attraction for men is largely visual and less swayed by credentials or emotional intelligence.

• Intersectional Misunderstandings:

  • Both genders misunderstand what the other finds attractive, often emulating characteristics they themselves value. ([24:00])
  • Quote: “We have to potentially approach the possibility that men and women are attracted to different things.” – Orion ([24:09])

• Facing Ideology vs. Reality:

  • “Ideology is about the way that things should be… but you’re more effective if you decide what is and plan your strategies around reality.” – Orion ([25:29])

---

4. Transactional Nature of Relationships and the Concept of Love

• Core Principle:

  • “The basis of relationships is the exchange of unequal goods of comparable value.” – Orion ([37:06])
    • Relationships are inherently transactional (“If you don't exchange anything with another person, you can't in good faith say that you're in a relationship with that person.” – Orion ([38:00]))
    • Love, respect, and friendship are “non-transactable goods,” gifts freely given rather than earned. ([39:09])
      • “If we did try to transact for these goods... as soon as you try, you don't have a friend, you have a mercenary, you don't have love, you have an escort...” – Orion ([39:48])
  • Love is not enough: Love is self-sacrifice, but relationships need reciprocity to persist.

• Vacillation Between Love and Transaction

  • “People can't do both simultaneously… that can cause a lot of confusion.” ([48:22])

• Historical Context:

  • Ancient cultures saw romantic love as a “form of mental illness,” pitiable and irrational. ([49:43])

---

5. Origins of Monogamy, Romance & Religious Influence

• Historical roots of romantic love:
  • Emerged in 14th-century France as cover for heretical Christian doctrine (the Cathars), where love was kept “pure” by focusing on forbidden, unattainable objects (married women). ([55:26])
  • “Passion thrives on unobtainability; we want what we can’t have.” – Orion ([59:23])
• Parallels with Religion:
  • Monogamy and romantic exclusivity mirror monotheistic devotion (“Thou shalt have no other gods before me”). ([67:37])
  • Religion historically filled the human need for meaning, now sometimes redirected into romantic partnership, politics, or other “sacred” pursuits.

---

6. AI, Technology, and the Future of Relationships

• Rise of AI Intimacy:
  • Orion predicts that by 2030 (or sooner), “AI relationships are going to be commonplace, and AI agents will be men and women's most threatening intrasexual competition.” ([69:46])
  • Current top ChatGPT usage is for emotional support, with people (men and women) forming meaningful attachments—and even falling in love—with AI. ([70:54])
  • “If a need is not ontologically real, why do you need an ontologically real means to satisfy it?” – Orion ([73:13])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Online Dating Disparities:

  • “If you are a hot dude, you’ve got some good pictures of your chiseled abs, you’re going to clean up on dating apps for sure. It’s going to be a casual sex funnel.”
    —Orion Taraban [04:04]

• On Screening Overwhelm:

  • “She’s going to screen for income and height. Because what the hell, she still has 40 guys to sift through at the end.”
    —Jordan Harbinger [07:21]

• On Relationship Marketplaces:

  • “The most powerful player in any relationship... gets more of what he or she wants and less of what he or she doesn’t.”
    —Orion Taraban [12:54]

• On the Reality of Aging and Attraction:

  • “If a woman at 38 who’s been a career woman all of her adult life, suddenly decides that she wants to be a wife and mother, it’s going to be difficult for her. But if a woman who’s been a mother up until she turns 38 decides she wants to become an employee, she can do that.”
    —Orion Taraban [18:15]

• On Transaction vs. Love:

  • “Love and relationships are actually diametrically opposed to each other... Relationships are about the trading of unequal goods of comparable value. Love is self-sacrifice.”
    —Orion Taraban [44:09]

• On AI as Future Partner:

  • “By 2030, AI relationships are going to be commonplace, and AI agents will be men and women's most threatening intrasexual competition.”
    —Orion Taraban [69:46]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:43] — Orion on the evolution and impact of dating apps
• [07:21] — How women screen options online and the “Overwhelm Problem”
• [12:54] — Relationship ‘market power’ and negotiation in romance
• [15:08] — Changing age dynamics in relationship power
• [22:56] — What men are attracted to, regardless of age and credentials
• [37:06] — The foundation of relationships as transactional exchange
• [44:09] — The incompatibility of pure love and relationship economics
• [55:26] — Historical rise of romantic love and its roots in Christian heresy
• [69:46] — Prediction about AI relationships displacing human partners

---

Tone and Approach

• Candid and analytical:
  Jordan and Orion candidly dissect taboos and unexamined truths in dating, often referencing research and lived anecdotes, while retaining a practical, accessible tone.

• Challenging, not prescriptive:
  Many ideas may be uncomfortable, but are argued as descriptive rather than prescriptive—understanding reality, not telling people what they should want.

---

For Listeners

If you’re interested in how economic, societal, and technological currents are shaping your dating life, this episode is essential. It challenges both men and women to examine strategic thinking, self-perceptions, and expectations in relationships—urging adaptation to a rapidly changing romantic “market,” and confronting some romantic idealism with hard truths.

For more practical takeaways and rebuttals, Jordan encourages listener feedback and open discussion about these controversial, thought-provoking ideas.

---

Share this episode with anyone interested in modern relationships, dating dynamics, and the intersection of technology and intimacy.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is sponsored in part by Vital Proteins. You've probably heard of Vital Proteins. They're the number one brand of collagen peptides in the US and for good reason. A lot of people, myself included, take it pretty much daily to support things like healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, joints. All the good stuff that starts to matter more the longer you've been walking around on this planet. But now Vital Proteins is shaking things up. Literally. You can tell a dad wrote this copy with a brand new collagen and protein shake. And this isn't your average protein shake that tastes like chalk and sadness. This one's light, chocolatey, super smooth, and it's got something pretty unique going for it. High quality protein, 30 grams of it, plus collagen. That's pretty good ROI. Usually you're choosing one or the other, but Vital Proteins gives you both a ready to drink shake you can toss in your bag or fridge. Zero added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and no carageenan. And I don't know what that is or if that's even how you say it, but you're supposed to avoid that. If you're already taking collagen or you're just curious about how it might support your hair, skin, nails, joints, and you don't want any carageenan. This is a super easy, tasty way to try it. Get 20% off by going to vitalproteins.com and entering promo code Jordan at checkout. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. Through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks and from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers, even the occasional organized crime figure, former jihadi, economic hitman, gold smuggler, hostage negotiator. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode Starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more. It'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started today. Part two with Orion Taraban if you haven't heard Part One, obviously go back and check it out. This is a great conversation, very in depth and we are rolling full steam through part two here. Here we go with Orion Taraban. All right, I'd love to talk about why dating apps don't work for most people. I found this topic fascinating. I've never really had to date online. I never used it really. Even when it did exist, it was sort of again, match.com days and it was like, no thanks back then. That was for old people. And I was like 27 and it was like, I can go out to a bar and meet five new women tonight that may go out with me at some point. I can fart around match.com for five months and maybe meet a couple of people that way and they're all like five to seven years older than me. That was not working for me at that time.

[Orion Taraban]

Dating apps are interesting. I was an early adopter of dating apps. I got on my first one probably in 2001. I found them to be really interesting for some reason. And I do recall that the general attitude towards dating apps back then were they were for losers, they were for weirdos who for whatever reason can't meet another human being in real life. Fast forward 25 years and more than 50% of couples that got married this year in the United States met on a dating app. And that has basically tripled in the last decade. So it's gone from being a fringe technology to being completely mainstream. So to say that it doesn't work for people is probably wrong.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Doesn't work for a lot of casual dating. It can, I suppose so. But the stats are pretty grim, I think. Yes, people get married by meeting online. It seems like the top 1% of guys. These are from stats that I got from the match company. Like a lot of the whistleblowers. An extreme example, but people who've worked in these apps will say things like the top 1 to 5% of men get like 98% of the matches. And it might even be more than that. It's just hard to quantify this.

[Orion Taraban]

I've heard it more. The Pareto like the top 20 get 80%.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's for sure true. But it's also like the top one in even stronger, crazier.

[Orion Taraban]

If you are a hot dude, you've got some good pictures of your chiseled abs, you're going to clean up on dating apps for sure. It's going to be a casual sex funnel.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It is. And I've seen this just with my friends as well. I've Got a buddy who's a model and I've got a bunch of normal friends. I actually have two friends that are models and a bunch of normal friends. Those guys will be in the same geographic area on the exact same app. And my friends are successful, good looking people with six figure jobs. This model's like a crypto trader, but he's a model. They're in the same income bracket. Let's say we will go out to lunch. The guys will get universally zero matches, but he will get 35. If you do this with women that are various levels of attractive and they're on dating apps in a geographic area, again, just anecdotally, friends of mine, some will get 10 to 80 matches over the course of one meal. Others will get hundreds, I'm not exaggerating, hundreds of likes or matches or whatever while we are eating dinner or lunch that will happen in the same area. So there's an assessment, and again, probably not scientific, where you see nine out of 10 women and the arrows pointing to the guy at the top and then you see the guys at the bottom getting almost nothing from that same group.

[Orion Taraban]

It's really hard if you are not an attractive guy to get anywhere on a dating app. It's very hard if you are a short guy. There is zero evidence that men's height correlates with being loyal or kind or, or a good father or all the things that women say with their mouths that they want from a man. They just don't get matches. It's tragic.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think you say this in the book. Some men on these apps, women think they're being chased by a million men. That's the perception that's created.

[Orion Taraban]

Even if they don't get matches, the unsuccessful man, at least when he starts, does operate under that illusion, which is there's just in New York City, Los Angeles, a major metro area, you will never run out of people to swipe on fun functionally. So even if you have to be burnt out for a long time to finally give up on them, because it's almost like a gambling addict chasing the jackpot. It's like one more pull, the next one's gonna be lucky. Because on some level that's an accurate statistical assessment infinite set that machines gotta pay out at some point, you know what I'm saying?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I also wonder how current some of these profiles are. This is years ago, but one of her friends is like, I got bad news. I saw Jordan on Tinder and she's like, are you on Tinder? And I was like, no, and then we looked and found this ancient photo of me that she's like, oh, this is you? Yeah. You would never use this photo. It was so obviously like, this is an old account. Because it's like, if I was really using Tinder, this is the last fricking profile photo I would use. I'm like 40 pounds heavier, wearing a hat, and just like, something stuck in my teeth.

[Orion Taraban]

That's hilarious. I saw an Instagram the other day that said basically, like, real players, when they go out on dates, they wear clothes that were fashionable five years ago. So if there's any photographic evidence, they could say that that was an outdated picture.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I have a popped collar. Do you really think that's. That's really smart? They're wearing like a Theranos hat, Something like that? Yeah, it's really funny. Look, I'm sympathetic to women on the dating apps. Screening for height.

[Orion Taraban]

It's hard for women, too. It's just hard in different ways. And both sides think that they could live with the other side's problems, I think.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So I heard a really good theory. I wonder what you think of this. So my buddy said, look, I'm sympathetic. He tells his clients. He's also a coach. He tells his clients, if you're under 6ft, don't really bother with the apps. Cause it's actually easier to approach in real life and meet women that way. Cause you're not getting screened out. If you're over 6ft, you can use the apps because you're going to get screened in by a lot of these filters. And I was like, oh, that's so terrible. These women are so shallow. Wah, wah, wah. And he's like, no, let me pause you right there, Jordan. Women have to screen somehow because they get a hundred matches in an hour. So they start to screen by more arbitrary and less important to them factors over and over. So it's like a woman who would absolutely go out with you, even though you're quote, unquote, only 5, 8 and making 80k a year and you're a dental hygienist. She doesn't care about that. But when she has 250 people that day to screen through, she's going to screen for income and height. Because what the hell, she still has 40 guys to sift through at the end of raising that slider all the way to the right.

[Orion Taraban]

Well, she might screen for attached versus detached earlobes at that point. When women have that kind of optionality, just being an attractive, tall, rich man is not enough. Like, you see this most obviously, if you talk to folks who live in Dubai. Dubai is like the pinnacle of this phenomenon. Sometimes guys, especially young guys, they make a lot of money in crypto. They're worth 50, $100 million. They're thinking, I'm gonna buy a Lambo and go to Dubai and date all of these smoke shows. Turns out every guy's got a Lamborghini, and that woman went on a date yesterday with a billionaire. So, like, your money ain't good here. We just assume that you're rich and we assume that you have a Lamborghini. So therefore, it doesn't matter anymore in my criteria process. Oh, shit. Maybe that guy would have been better played sticking in a smaller pond and being a bigger fish.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Just buy a million followers on TikTok and have some professionally produced videos. Now you have the fame lever that a lot of those other crypto bros don't have. But then you're on the radar of the authorities. Have fun in Dubai. I really. I do feel like the dating levers are screwed up online. And that's why I'm saying it doesn't necessarily work for men and women, because they're like, I have to screen for income and height and detached or attached earlobes, and I don't care about that. But I otherwise have so much choice that it's screwing me up. There was a study, man, I wish I'd come prepared with this, but there was a study they did. It was like a BYU or something, like a religious university, and they found out.

[Orion Taraban]

A Mormon religious university.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes. Like, very.

[Orion Taraban]

You're going to get married by the time you graduate, Most likely. Yes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And they found that in certain. They did this at more than one place, but they found that in certain pools, women were more promiscuous. Women when they quote, unquote, had to be, like, there were way more women than men, and they were way less promiscuous when there were way more men than women. And you see this in dating economies, like New York, for example, where, for a man, if you're dating in New York, think, oh, my God, it's so hard. There's all these finance guys. It's going to be impossible. Dating in New York is awesome for guys. Really, really hard for women.

[Orion Taraban]

Kid, candy store. And this also plays into traditional gendered expressions of behavior. So, like, some of the most feminine women in the world in the traditional sense of behavioral expression, are in Russia. And Russia is one of the major markets with the largest gender disparity. There's, like, almost 60% women to 40% men. So the intrasexual competition for even just an average guy is intense.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And in addition to that, the women live a lot longer, I think, than the men in that particular country as well. So you end up with, yes, it's 40, 60. But then when you take people who are, like, in the dating pool, like, not dead, not married, not grandpas, you have an even higher disparity. And then it's, oh, I want somebody who can afford to actually raise a family and doesn't work in a mine or isn't drafted in Ukraine. Right now, the numbers whittle down fast.

[Orion Taraban]

Are not only very performatively feminine, but they're also very sexually aggressive. It's like, they know what guys want, they know what guys like, and they cater to those desires, which is a great way of getting what you want. Again, if it works in business, it works in dating. It's. If I show up with the skill set that you're looking for as an employer and I do a good job, you will reward me with a paycheck. It's not just you don't show up and be like, I want a paycheck. In fact, in most professional hiring processes, you don't even talk about the compensation to, like, the very last meeting. And it's in this indirect way, or it's through proxies in the contracts and lawyers and things like that. Most of the time, it's about demonstrating that I could be of value to you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's a sort of market disparity issue. Right. When I negotiate my contracts, for example, I hold the power in that equation, right? Because there's not that many podcasts that have this amount of audience. So my agent goes in and goes, we want this much and we want this. And then Sirius XM and Podcast one and whatever, Odyssey, throw down their numbers. And he goes, nah, that's not good enough. And it's too long. And there's this game of where they pretend that's unacceptable and that they really. That's how they do all their deals. And he goes, I don't care. And then he just goes to the next. You can do that in tech, too if you're an AI expert and you go to Dropbox and they're like, we're going to give you 250k. And you go, oh, thanks for having me come in. I appreciate it. I have a meeting at Snapchat. I will be back in touch. And they're like, wait a minute. Because they know you're worth $2.5 million.

[Orion Taraban]

As I talk about in the book, the most powerful player in any relationship, whether it's romantic or professional, gets more of what he or she wants and less of what he or she doesn't. Which is why people seek after power. It's not for its own sake, it's what power can do. Generally, it's in the professional arena, the company that has more power. It's like in most cases, the employee needs that job more than the employer needs that employee. The only way to potentially turn that on its head is to become just like a rock star in what you do. And then you're probably not an employee anymore, so you're not even in that situation. You've launched your own thing at that point. Because it's just better to hold cards and offer the opportunities to others than to use even your mastery and cachet to seek opportunities from those who can give them and then therefore take them away.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's interesting. I've got some sort of, I gotta be careful how I phrase this, like very highly qualified, unicorny type people in tech that I'm friends with that go from like 90s Google employee to C suite at Amazon. And it's actually insane how the numbers they're throwing around and it's just crazy and it's, oh, we want you to move to this place. Oh, okay, what are you going to offer me? We'll give you a relocation bonus of X. No, I'm going to need 20 times that. Okay, done. What else do you need?

[Orion Taraban]

Well, maybe they say done. It can be that these rock stars can dictate their own offers, but they could also price themselves out of the marketplace. And they almost certainly can't work for the next big thing because they don't have the war chest to hire somebody like that. This happens with athletes all the time, is they're used to these enormous contracts and it's very hard for people to take a step backwards with respect to their compensation. They'll only do that for some sort of like really meaningful passion project. And only once they have enough money.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, exactly. I was going to say people I think of, they'll take a job for basically zero. Because when you have $500 million, what's the difference if you're enjoying what you're doing? But you're right at that point in tech, you go for equity, right? I know you can't afford 2,5 million, so I'll take 250k, but I want 10% of the company.

[Orion Taraban]

And people can price themselves out of the sexual marketplace as well, it's more likely that women will do this than men. Women just have more options than men do. And this is also, especially when they're young. And the tragic thing is that typically that switches over the course of a lifespan. Whereas young women, Women tend to be more powerful and have more options than young men. And that switches around the age of 30 is where the average man and the average woman are pretty much equal power structure. And then the man becomes more powerful for the rest of his life. And so it could be the case that a very attractive woman who's 22 can be flown out by a prince in Saudi Arabia and could be courted by millionaires and flying first class to their yachts in the Mediterranean. And they get anchored at that price point, it's going to be very difficult for them to accept a lower offer. But she's also potentially losing her marketplace value as a function of time, which is going to make it more difficult for her to secure those kinds of perks from men who are as attractive that she's used to dealing with. And so a lot of this comes down to maybe trying to sell a house in a bad market, especially if you don't need the money right away. A lot of homeowners aren't going to sell at a loss. They'll just say, well, I'll just hold on to it, even if that potentially means that it's just going to lose even more money. Sometimes the right thing to do is just to cut your loss as quickly as possible and to accept the fact that you're not going to profit on every transaction that you do. But. But that's very hard psychologically for anybody to do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What's the play when you're in your 20s as a woman, enjoy as much as you can, but then get more realistic as you enter your 30s with who you may.

[Orion Taraban]

Because that's what they're doing. That's what they do in general, and that's running into some difficulties, for sure. I made an episode called what Women Want where I explored that question. And the short answer is that women want what other women want, which is true, but not very satisfying. So if you want to know what women want, you have to look at what other women are doing, especially through the lens of social media, because that's generally how we look at people these days. And if you look at the type of women that most women are looking at, what are they doing? They're doing everything. They are bosses and they have their own company and they're doing TED Talks, but they Also are married and they have three kids and they're vacationing in the Maldives and they're a girls girl. They'll go out with their ladies to the Miami nightclubs, or it's like they're doing everything. Of course, this is a highlight reel, and it's very heavily curated, and they're often very beautiful and very rich and very exceptional people. So sometimes people forget about those qualifiers. Right. And so if you as a woman want to do all of the things, then you have to be careful about the order in which you do things. Because if doing A means that it blocks off the pathway to B, then you got to be sure to do B first before you do A.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay?

[Orion Taraban]

The real world context, especially what we're talking about, is having kids. When you have young children, unless you are very rich and don't want to be an involved mother, you're not going to be going to Dubai. You're not going to be going out to the clubs with your girlfriends. You're not going to be having Michelin Star dinners. You're going to be at home trying to keep your house from looking like a disaster zone, like we were discussing earlier. And that forecloses some opportunities. So it's okay. I do want to have the messy kids in the family and things like that. So I'll do that after I go to the nightclubs and I go to travel around the world and I get a master's degree and I start my business. When I think realistically it might make more sense to do it the other way around. As I say, the kind of bitter truth is, if a woman at 38 who's been a career woman all of her adult life, suddenly decides that she wants to be a wife and mother, it's going to be difficult for her. But if a woman who's been a mother up until she turns 38 decides she wants to become an employee, she can do that. She can have that experience if she really wants to. She could go get a master's degree at 38. She could travel around the world, probably in more sustainable luxury at 38 than at 22. If she's flying on her own dime, of course. So it does push things back. But it makes sense to strike when the iron is hot for women when they're young, it's like that's when they're more attractive. And attraction is the most relevant power in romantic relationships. So that's when they have the most power. And you want to negotiate the best offer that you can while you're still the more powerful player. And you're not going to be the more powerful player, except in some very rare circumstances when you get into your 30s and 40s as a woman.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is a really uncomfortable truth for.

[Orion Taraban]

People to hear, but I was not consulted in the design phase with respect to human reproduction. This is just how it is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. When I say anything that even remotely looks like this online, I get people sort of straw manning. Like, how dare you imply that a woman is only valuable when she's young, in her twenties. Which is not what I'm saying.

[Orion Taraban]

Not what I'm saying either.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But also, no. Women are like fine wine. They get better with age. Look, they're smarter, they know more things, they're better sexually, et cetera, whatever. And I believe that as well. But I think, can we put a finer point on this? Because I think a lot of people when they hear this are like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. This is a bunch of crap. Women in their 20s, you get guys who say, I would never date one of those. What are they going to talk about?

[Orion Taraban]

I think that's true is I have dated some very young women in their early 20s and I don't enjoy dating them. I find them on the whole to be dull and uninteresting and their brains haven't fully developed yet, which means that they're having trouble with basic adulting skills like emotional regulation and effective communication. And I just find that dull. I don't have the time or the inclination to train somebody for a relationship. You have to come with the skills already. Okay, so that's not my romantic ideal. But it does seem like according to all the research, that consistently, no matter how old they are, men say that women in their early twenties are the most attractive women on the planet. That doesn't change that the guy is 18 or 80 years old. They still want the 22 year old at least as a sexual partner. Older women often have a lot more to speak for themselves. Like, they're often professionally accomplished, they can be intelligent, they can be experienced, they often have much fewer hang ups around sex, which is great too. A four year old is like, I think you're cute, we're both adults, let's do this. It's almost this huge relief to just deal with someone who's direct and doesn't have a lot of the baggage that young women are saddled with by their families and their cultures around sexual. We certainly don't teach women how to handle that power correctly. It's either we shame it and good girls don't do this. Or it's like you just are shaking your booty on Instagram for millions of people. There has to be some mature middle ground there. But at 18, you know, I wasn't mature either. So it's like maturity is maybe that's asking too much of 18 year olds. But all those things that maybe older women have more to offer, the careers, the experience, the maturity. The cat decides what milk is good. And I don't look at a woman and think, oh man, check out the master's degree on that one. You know what I'm saying? Damn, she looks like she can communicate her emotions effectively.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Great credentials.

[Orion Taraban]

So it's like that's not attraction. That's like the guy saying, I'm nice and sweet and kind of, why don't any women want me? It's the same thing with different variables. And women have to understand that unfortunately the attraction comes first. And it's not for women to decide. Men should find it hot that a woman is intelligent and educated and experienced. It's like the cat decides what milk is good. You don't get to decide those things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Some guys who maybe are a little bit more self actualized realize that might be better for them, but doesn't really change the base switches of physical attraction. It sounds like that's what you're saying.

[Orion Taraban]

I think that's certainly true. And I'll go one step further, which is I think that this is kind of a failure of intersexual understanding, which is that in general we know that women like successful, competent, powerful men. That's what they're drawn to. It's like no accident that all of their romance novels are about mysterious, odd billionaires or some kind of mythological creature that could otherwise murder them. You know what I'm saying? So that's what women are attracted to. But the failure of intersectional understanding is basically whether it's consciousness or not. They say, oh, that's what I'm attracted to, therefore that's what must be attractive, period. Therefore I will embody those things and therefore become more attractive to men. Because that's just what's attractive. There's no difference between men and women. That's just objectively attractive. And that's not true. You see it with guys in today's day and age where it's okay, maybe what are they attracted to in women traditionally? It's like femininity, about gentleness, about softness, vulnerability, being open with their feelings. And so a lot of modern men are leading with that. They're becoming more feminine and modern women are becoming more masculine because they think it's what the other party wants. We were talking about that earlier. They're trying to signal, I can give you what I think that you're looking for, because if I can't signal that, you have no reason to even speak to me. But I think that we have to potentially approach the possibility that men and women are attracted to different things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I don't think that's super controversial. I mean, yes, I'm going to get angry, people emailing both of us about this, but I think my listeners are relatively sophisticated, the men and the women. And I think a lot of people, especially in their 30s and 40s, are going to go, yeah, that tracks. I think it's a lot of young people tend to have these very black and white opinions.

[Orion Taraban]

Ideology is about the way that things should be, and they believe that they're performing part of the solution by maintaining values aligned with that framework of how they would prefer to see the world. I think that more or less you're more effective if you decide what is and not what should be or ought to be and plan your strategies around reality.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Relationships cost time, money, and sometimes your sanity. These sponsors only cost you money and way less of it. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by quiltmind. I've always thought of LinkedIn as a place to stay connected professionally. But Dove from quiltmind, who's a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, made me realize I wasn't using it to its full potential. I have over 25,000 followers, which is, you know, it's not like what you see on TikTok or Instagram. But I didn't really post anything because I didn't even realize LinkedIn had followers. LinkedIn is more than just a networking tool. It's a platform to actually serve and engage with an audience. And man, is that audience responsive there. It turns out I'm not the only one missing that opportunity. A lot of professionals build strong followings over time, but they rarely post. Usually it's a time issue. They don't know what to say. They're worried it'll come off too salesy. They Meanwhile, other executives are showing up consistently, building influence and connecting with real audiences on a platform that has over a billion users. And that's where Quilt Mind comes in. Their mission is to make busy executives LinkedIn famous, which sounds ridiculous, but is a thing in about two hours a month. And here's how it works for me. I hop on a quick call about every week, maybe it's 30 minutes. They pull out insights and stories worth sharing. They turn that into a polished set of posts that sound just like me. The ideas are mine, the words are mine. They just handle the heavy lifting and the formatting and all that stuff. They keep me consistent. For me, success on LinkedIn looks like sharing insights from the incredible guests we bring on the show, inspiring the business community, connecting with executives who want to reach that audience. So if you're curious, check out what I've been doing on LinkedIn. Follow along and if you're thinking it might be time to step up your own presence, reach out to me directly or quilt [e-mail] that's Q U I L T M I N D Com A few of you have signed up and had awesome results and I love to see that and I'm happy to refer people over to this service. This episode is also sponsored by Hiya Health. A lot of children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise. Loaded with sugar, artificial junk, other stuff that growing kids really don't need. My kids don't need more candy in their lives. Believe me, they got that covered. That's why we love Haya. It's a pediatrician approved chewable vitamin with zero sugar, none of the gummy junk. Instead it's made from A blend of 12 organic fruits and veggies, supercharged with 15 essential vitamins and minerals. Vitamin D, B12C, zinc, folate. The good stuff that helps fill in the gaps. And with Juni basically living off friggin chicken nuggets and macaroni, Haya gives us real peace of mind that those bases are at least somewhat covered. The first order comes with a reusable bottle kids can decorate with stickers. My kids had a blast making theirs their own. Now instead of me chasing them down to take vitamins, they're actually excited to grab their Haya because it feels like their bottle parents. You know that's half the battle. They also send eco friendly refills every month so you're cutting down on waste while making sure you never run out. And Haya's clean too. It's non gmo, vegan, dairy free, nut free, gluten free, you name it. Hyabitamin tastes great. I love my hyabitamins. We've worked out a special deal with.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Hiya selling children's vitamin receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal you must go to hyahealth.com Jordan this deal is not available on the regular website. Go to H I Y A H E a l t h.com jordan and get your kids the full body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing folks for the show, authors, thinkers, creators, it's because of my network. I'm teaching you how to build your network for free [e-mail], you're probably not booking for a podcast. It doesn't matter. You probably have a job or a career of some kind. Or maybe you're retired. You want to keep in touch with people. We know that relationships make people live healthier longer. Not a bad goal to have, not a bad result to get. And six minute networking will help you do just that in a non cringe down to earth way. Not something that's going to make you look like a big old weirdo. Like a lot of these social dynamics things you see on the Internet, six minutes a day is all it takes and many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to this course. Come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. And again, it's free. I don't need your credit card. I don't want your credit card. Maybe later. But this course is free for [e-mail]. Now back to Orion Taraban. I've seen a lot of age gap policing among dating. The other day I said something like a 42 year old man dating a 28 year old woman is not abnormal. It's a big age gap but it's not like insane. And this woman said you are literally mentally ill and someone should check your hard drive. Kind of a funny roast, but it's.

[Orion Taraban]

Interesting because like I pretty sure those women are consenting, enthusiastic participants in that. So why isn't that woman has damaged daddy issues? Like I would probably be more effective in changing the dynamic than trying to shame men. Women are more sensitive to shame than men are. So if you shame the women, the large age gaps would probably disappear more quickly than trying to shame men.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So my brother is I think 43. I have to check the papers. He married a woman, she was 27, but she's from Eastern Europe and so her parents, they love him and they saw absolutely no problem with this whatsoever.

[Orion Taraban]

What are some of the things that women are attracted to? They want at least a man who is stable and can provide. I don't know any 22 year olds or even 27 year olds who can do that like one in a couple hundred if they got lucky in tech or something like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right? Or they're like a farmer and they're working with their, on their dad's farm and inherited that.

[Orion Taraban]

But that guy's stable might have the provision. But they also might be an emotional idiot because they've dealt with tools and codes his whole life and hasn't talked to a woman. So women also want emotional maturity and self awareness.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Guess what?

[Orion Taraban]

You don't get those things at 23 or 24 or in my case, you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Gotta turn 40 before you figure some of your shit out.

[Orion Taraban]

You want to understand women and yourself and to be successful and accomplished and have skills and be able to provide and strong enough to protect and willing to share. So generous enough to do that. It's like you have to be looking at 30s men at least and probably in their 40s.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, now criticism. All right.

[Orion Taraban]

Your audience is very vocal. You've mentioned multiple times that you're going to get a lot of nasty comments.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It will be from. You know what's ironic is the nasty comments are not mostly going to come from women. They're going to come from young guys. That's who tends to, I think they call it white knighting online. I'm going to get emails from 20 something year old women who are going to say a lot of this was uncomfortable for me, but I respect it. I like differing viewpoints. I don't agree with this, this and this and this. Love the show. Thank you. I'm going to get emails from 30, 40, 50 something year old women, 60 something year old women who are like, wow, this was really insightful and interesting. I never heard it articulated like that. And I agree with it. I'm going to get emails from older guys who are like, wow, finally someone's talking about this. I'd never really put this into words. And then I'm going to get emails from 20 and 30 something year old men who are losing their freaking minds that we would dare poison the zeitgeist with this manosphere red pill incel nonsense. And where did he get his PhD from a cracker Jack box? And you should be ashamed of yourself. And I'm giving you a one star review and I'm emailing your sponsors and telling them that you hate women. That's what I'm going to say. And it's going to be very few of them, but it's going to be people whose identity has been rocked by this stuff. Even if it's a scientific study that just pushes Them a little bit off whatever pedestal they've been standing on and makes them feel like they're in a precarious position that makes people really uncomfortable. When I make people uncomfortable on the show, they get angry. Older, more well adjusted ones, they go, wow, I'm adjusting my worldview, thank you. And other people will just be like, I'm never listening to your show again because I have a tingly feeling that I can't handle.

[Orion Taraban]

Yeah, I think that's kind of well said with respect to the various demographics, the age and gender. Yeah, that kind of tracks.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It won't be that bad. Look, if I lost listeners every time I made people feel that uncomfortable tingle, no one would listen to this. Most of the people I think that are still with me after 18 plus years, they're fine having their worldview adjusted. And they're also fine going, jordan, this guy was so full of shit. But I still like you. I'll tune in for the next one. That's fine. But there's a group of people and you see these in YouTube comments if you ever read them, which I have stopped. They just can't handle any sort of thing that rocks the worldview the way that they wish the world was. If you push against that at all, they just can't handle it.

[Orion Taraban]

This is also the paradox, which is that it's always when I offer some sort of feedback on female dating behavior that's problematic. If I say that most guys are unattractive, boring, have the personality of a wet paper bag, no one is going to get up in arms about that. And on my channel, I give it to men, I think just as hard, if not harder than women. Take that out of context. But the kind of weird paradox is that, like, are women strong and capable or are they like these fragile endangered animals that need protection? And I think everyone is confused about what they are in today's day and age. And can they be both sometimes fragile and sometimes powerful? Who gets to decide that? Is it unilaterally one person gets to decide how the other gender is supposed to perceive them? These are actually very difficult questions to answer. But I think that women are strong enough and intelligent enough and mature enough to get feedback. And because what's the alternative is they're perfect in every way and they're doing absolutely everything right. It's like, how narcissistic is that?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I try not to treat my audience like children. The only time I sort of nanny at all is when I'm talking about drugs, pharmaceuticals, risky behavior. What do you mean?

[Orion Taraban]

Nanny.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Well, I won't take a gambling sponsor because even though everyone who listens is an adult and can make their own decisions, I don't want to endorse a vice like that. I don't take vaping sponsors. I won't do certain kinds of investments because they can be complicated and people might say, well, Jordan does this and I don't invest in a crappy fake real estate investment trust that has a 500 opening limit. I do a lot of stuff like that. But when it comes to the content of the show, very rarely do I go, these people aren't going to like hearing that. That's fine as long as it's based in science, fact or good faith opinion.

[Orion Taraban]

On some level. People have to disagree with at least some of what I say, otherwise I might not have anything to teach them. They might be further along than me if I said things that they completely already thought and believed to be true. A teacher is potentially someone in any context who knows more than the student, which means that the teacher must be be able to correct and provide sometimes surprising instruction that this is how to do this or this is how the world actually works. If you're never surprised as a student, you don't have the right teacher.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I 100% agree. I think one of the criticisms we're going to get is people are going to assert that making the claim that relationships are transactional in some way cheapens relationships as a whole. What about love? To refresh people's memory. You said something earlier in the show that was like, and I'm paraphrasing, people engage in consensual relationships because they treat things the other has with unequal value, which they can then exchange.

[Orion Taraban]

The basis of relationships is the exchange of unequal goods of comparable value. I did spend some time noodling out the language on that one, because it's the core concept of the book is unequal goods of comparable value. They have to be unequal in the sense that I'm not going to give you what you give me because I could have just kept what I had to begin with. Neither one of us is coming ahead. So the goods that we exchange are going to be different, hence unequal, but they have to be of comparable value. But value lives within our minds. It's not an objective characteristic. And probably you and I aren't even fully aware of what we value, let alone why we value it the way that we do. But when that transaction occurs, you have a relationship. If that transaction does not occur, you don't have a Relationship. If you don't exchange anything with another person, you can't in good faith say that you're in a relationship with that person. But if you exchange something, you have some sort of relationship. Even if it's a relationship with your electric company, we wouldn't say that is a significant relationship. But you clearly have some sort of relationship. You give them money, they give you electricity, et cetera, et cetera. And if one of you stopped providing the basis of that relationship, it would very quickly become terminated.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I agree. The reason I wrote this down was I think people, they want the vague, fluffy, romantic version of relationships to persist. Because in a way, examining all of these little strings and levers that create a healthy relationship, even though it may help our relationship to be aware of this, it screws up some of the, literally the romance, but it messes with people's idea of what relationships should be. This is a criticism I got when I was teaching guys back in the day. It was like, you're messing with the natural order of things by showing these lesser beings how to get what they want. And they're supposed to sort of naturally have it or not. They're not supposed to build up themselves in a way. And it's like, you can wear makeup, but I can't teach a guy how to approach a woman in a bar. I don't get it.

[Orion Taraban]

Okay, so we're talking about love, and that's the subject of chapter nine, which is my favorite chapter in the book. I do talk about how there are what I call non transactable goods. Non transactable goods are things that you can't earn or buy. And these are things like love or respect or grace or friendship. Like you can't do anything to deserve my friendship or respect. It's like for me to decide who I give it to. You could be the friendliest guy in the world and I could be like, oh, what a kiss ass. I don't want to be friends with this guy. And I'll choose to be friends with somebody who's like a little rough around the edges or even disagreeable because that's my free gift to give. And it's not based on the dessert of the other person. No one deserves love. Ultimately, we're all flawed, imperfect creatures and love is a really high and noble gift on some level. So we can't earn it and we can't trade it. It's not like my friendship is worth two tickets to the 49ers games and a new car. If I actually negotiated my friendship with you like that you would not think that I'm your friend. So if we did try to transact for these goods, it's just not possible. Because as soon as you try, you don't have a friend, you have a mercenary, you don't have love, you have an escort, you don't have respect, you have like a toady, a flatterer on some level. So it's impossible to transact with that even if you try. So on top of that, we have to move past this sequel soft headed approach to relationships. The fact of the matter is that love is not enough. Love is not enough to bring people together. It's often not enough to keep keep people together. Most people are not in relationships with the people who they most love or who love them the most. If that were true, the dating world would look very different. Women would reward the men who love them the most. And we spent the last two hours talking about that's generally not how women operate in the sexual marketplace. Same thing with men. Like, a woman could be very kind and very loving and very sweet, but if she's not that attractive, it's going to be different, difficult for her. That's the fact of the matter. It cuts both ways.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I read a study, this is a while ago, but it was like women who volunteer more were rated as far less attractive than women, like, who look exactly the same. I don't know how they controlled for this.

[Orion Taraban]

Probably just pictures. And they did little captions. This person volunteers in an animal shelter.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It was like somebody who professionally works for like a nonprofit saving children just had a terrible rating. And it was. I can't remember how they explained this, but it was like something about altruism in women was terribly unattractive to men, which is like, doesn't speak well for the guys in the study.

[Orion Taraban]

That's fascinating.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Orion Taraban]

So if people ended up with those who loved them the most, and obviously the most appropriate sexual strategy was to like, love your preferred target the most and the best. And most guys have that experience. It's like they're passed over for the asshole or the jock who's just six two but even remember their names on some level. There's the woman who likes to date jerks, as she puts it. Sometimes people just make compromises with reality, but they think, okay, it's not worth it to pursue that. Maybe I'm not as attracted to this man, but he did marry me, he did buy me a house, he did give me kids.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Got a friend, she's going through a divorce right now. She's really beating herself up because she used to be like this drinker, partier, fun. And then I got with this stable guy and he's made me feel really safe and stable. And then 20 years later, it's like, this is not a person.

[Orion Taraban]

Well, I saw a meme recently that basically said, no one talks about how boring nice guys are after you're healing from the toxic one. And this can be true for both men and women is boredom in particular is something that's very difficult for human beings. Tolerance, one of the most aversive emotional experiences and what stimulates us is not often conducive to a long term relationship or even to health and happiness. That's why people get addicted to drugs and gambling and they want to feel something.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's why you see guys going back to that same gal or that gal going back to that guy, and you go, you want to shake them like, what is wrong with you? The guy who stole from you, the guy who cheats on you. Yeah, I need to feel something 100%.

[Orion Taraban]

That's also before he talks about this, kind of the pinnacle of romantic conquest is to turn a no into a yes. And I think that plays out a little bit differently in both male and female fantasies. I think the ultimate female romantic fantasy is Beauty and the Beast, where it's like, he's a beast. He's very rough around the edges, he's surly, he's uncontrollable. And that's who Belle falls in love with because she can see the gentleman inside. It's like, bullshit.

[Jordan Harbinger]

He has a castle too.

[Orion Taraban]

Yeah. The point is that if Beauty falls in love with the beast, how long do you think she's going to stick around when he transforms into the gentleman? That's not who she fell in love with. And if the beast falls in love with Beauty, how long is he going to stick around when she starts to age? These are uncomfortable realities. But like, you have to bait your hook with something because fish don't bite steel. So women bait their hook with their bodies and their sexual opportunity. Men bake their hook in a bunch of different ways. I can take you to the hot air balloon rides into Dubai. I can give you the ring. That guy? Yeah, maybe he's richer, he's more attractive, but he's never gonna settle down with you. I can give that to you. I'm the bad boy. I'm gonna make your parents pissed. You're gonna get back at them for their restrictive upbringing, and they're gonna see that they can't control you like people use each other. If you don't do that, you're useless and therefore you're passed over by the world. Now chapter nine is called Love has nothing to do with relationships because love and relationships are actually diametrically opposed to each other. Relationships are about the trading of unequal goods of comparable value. Love is self sacrifice in the service of the loved one. It thinks nothing of self. On some level, if somebody were to complain, I just give and give in my relationship and I receive nothing in return, you'll think that person might be in an abusive, exploitative relationship. But there's nothing wrong with that from the perspective of love. Jesus even says that you should love your enemies. That's a clue that love is not a warm feeling. It's actually psychotic to think happy thoughts about someone who might literally be trying to kill you. It's not an emotion. What he's saying is that even those who hate you, you should seek to serve them in their good, which is a very radical and dangerous concept, which is why it changed the world when it appeared a couple millennia ago. But love is that you sacrifice yourself until there's not even a speck left. A great modern day example of that is like Shel Silverstein's the Giving Tree. Have you read that?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, man, I remember where the sidewalk ends. Remember that?

[Orion Taraban]

I do. But do you remember the Giving Tree?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Don't remember the Giving Tree.

[Orion Taraban]

It's a lot of your listeners probably won't remember it. It's the story of a tree, an apple tree, and a boy who loves the tree. And the tree loves the boy. But I think that the tree loves the boy more than the boy loves the tree. In the beginning, the boy shows up and he just wants to read under the tree's shade. And so the tree provides the shade. And then a little bit older he gets hungry and so the tree gives him the apples. And then a little bit older, he needs the wood to build a house.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It happens when the kid wants a house. Yeah. He cuts the tree down.

[Orion Taraban]

Well, the end of the story, the tree is a stump and the tree is happy. That's what love is. Nobody actually wants love. They want to be be loved. They want to be the boy. They want the shade and the apples and the wood. Nobody's, I can't wait to burn to keep somebody else warm. I want to be the stump. But that's what Christ does in his example, which I think regardless of your religious beliefs in that mythology at least is a pothiosis of self sacrificial love for, in this case, humanity. So that's the core of love. And the key to that is you don't actually have to be in a relationship with someone to love. How cruel would it be if it were otherwise? Because so many people aren't in relationships, Are we saying that they're incapable of loving? If you can love your enemy, then it's possible to love someone you're not in a relationship with. Because we wouldn't say you're in a relationship with your enemy. That would be really weird. That's like you're in a relationship with your mugger or your rapist or something like that. So love and relationships are not the same thing. And in fact, they tend to pull us in different directions. And this is what happens in vacillation. So one minute, someone might be feeling and expressing love in the sense that I am just serving my loved one, but on the another side, they're thinking, I feel like I'm giving more than I'm getting. So both of those are legitimate emotional experiences. It's just that one is appropriate to love and the other is appropriate to relationship. And when you're thinking, am I getting as much as I'm getting? Which is a reasonable relationship concern, you're not loving. Love does not say, well, what's in it for me? Love just gives. There is no me. So they're actually opposed to each other. And people can't do both simultaneously. And so they flitter back and forth in their relationships. And that can cause a lot of confusion both to the person who's experiencing that vacillation and to the person who's observing it. Now, obviously, you can love someone you're in a relationship with. Let's not be crazy here. Clearly, you can love and respect and be friends with people that you're in relationships with. But my point is, one, you don't need the relationship for those things like I described. But also two, that those things are not actually would keep the relationship afloat. And if you were to remove the actual transaction that supports the relationship, then the relationship would probably fall apart.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is. There's a lot here to unpack. I found it funny in the book you said, in ancient times, people viewed those in love like we view the homeless. Can you rescue that one?

[Orion Taraban]

Well, there's a little bit of context for that, which is in ancient times, people treated love like it was a form of mental illness, maybe kind of an ennobling mental illness, in the same way that in some cultures, psychotic or schizophrenic disorders. You could commune with the gods on some level. Like, maybe this person is experiencing a truer, more noble version of reality. But, like, you were shot with a bow, which is like a gun in ancient times is. That's a weird symbol for falling in love is you're being capped. Right. And they had this, like, indulgent pity around people who fell in love like they just lost their marbles. But they're certainly not acting like virtuous men because they're, like, throwing all prudence to the wind just because of this emotional impulse inside of them. It's actually kind of hard to respect. Yeah. The view the homeless is like. Sometimes people can say there's this pitiable indulgence around the homeless. It's almost, oh, I feel bad for this person. They're homeless. I feel bad for this person. He was hit with Cupid's arrow. He's kind of not thinking clearly, but he's in a bad way. He's sleeping in his car. It's kind of equivalent to, yeah, he really fell. He fell head over heels for that one. And no one really thought they're coming out ahead. Some people might say with the tongue firmly in cheek, that what a gift it is to be homeless because you don't have to pay the exorbitant rents in San Francisco. But as true as that might be, no one is voluntarily becoming homeless so they can avoid paying rent. You know what I'm saying? You could say, well, love is such a beautiful, noble thing. But they weren't, like, lining up for that experience either.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ancient times, man. Different outlook on all this stuff.

[Orion Taraban]

And it was before Christianity, which really changed the morals and values.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If your dating life is a disaster, at least your finances don't have to be. Here's how you can save some cash on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Tonal. Going to the gym can be discouraging. Sometimes you're putting in the work, but it's hard to know if you're actually making progress. With tonal, you can see your progress with every workout. That's why they call it the ultimate strength training system. Tonal gives you the convenience of a full gym and the guidance of a personal trainer, all in one sleek system that fits right in your home. It's there for you 24. 7. There's no commute, no waiting for equipment, no excuses. What makes Tonnel stand out is how smart it is. After a quick assessment, it automatically sets the right weight for every move then adjusts as you get stronger in precise 1 pound increments. So you're always challenged but never really overdoing it. And no more second guessing your form either. Tonal gives you real time coaching cues to keep you lifting safely and effectively. There's also a ton of variety to keep things interesting. You can choose from expert LED programs in strength training, aero hit, yoga, mobility and more. The whole system is designed to reduce your mental load, so instead of worrying about whether you're doing the right exercises, you can just focus on getting results. Tonal is the ultimate strength training system for a reason.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Right now, Tonal is offering our listeners $200 off your tonal purchase with promo code jordan. That's tonol.com and use promo code jordan for $200 off your purchase. That's t o n a l.com promo code jordan for $200off this episode is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Brought to you by gelt, your modern year round CPA partner for business owners, entrepreneurs, investors and high net worth individuals who want to keep more of what they earn. Look, taxes aren't just an annual chore, they're one of the biggest levers in building wealth. G helps you pull that lever strategically, combining elite CPAs with intuitive tech to create personalized tax strategies that work for you and your business. Here's the difference GT works with you all year, not just around tax season. From tools to file and review right on the platform to a clear roadmap tracking your progress to ongoing strategic guidance from a real team. They've got you covered. I used to think about taxes maybe once a year. Scramble in April. Hope for the best. Now I know a proactive partner can save you thousands and give you peace of mind.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Whether you're running a practice, managing a fund, scaling a company, or investing in real estate, Gilt has your back. Get a tailored consultation and 10% off your first year when you mention the Jordan Harbinger show at joingelt.com jhs that's joing E-L-T.com jhs I've got homes.com is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

A sponsor for this episode. Homes.com knows when it comes to home shopping, it's never just about the house or the condo. It's about the homes. And what makes a home is more than just the house or property. It's the location. It's the neighborhood. If you got kids, it's also schools, nearby, parks, transportation options. That's why homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in depth information they need to find the right home. It's so hard not to say home every single time. And when I say in depth information, I'm talking deep. Each listing features comprehensive information about the neighborhood, complete with a video guide. They also have details about local schools with test scores, state rankings, student teacher ratio. They even have an agent directory with the sales history of each agent. So when it comes to finding a home, not just a house, this is everything you need to know, all in1place.homes.com We've done your homework. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart, considerate and highly desirable, of course on the dating market listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. They make the show possible. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support this podcast are searchable and [e-mail] deals if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find a code. You're just too lazy to look at the code. Email us jordanordanharbinger.com, someone will surface the code for you. Because it's that important that you support those who support this show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Orion Taraban. You mentioned early in the show and people hate it when I leave open loops. You mentioned that our idea of. Correct me if I'm getting this wrong, our ideas of monogamy come from religious belief and the monotheism. Let's make sure we wrap that.

[Orion Taraban]

Sure. This is not a argument that I invented and folks who are interested in the scholarly basis for that should be referred to Love in the Western World by Denis de Rogeremont. I think I said that correctly. It's a little bit academic, but it's a very well researched argument that romantic love has its origins in the south of France in the 14th century, which was like cover for a Christian sect known as the Cathars, who were being persecuted by Rome by the Pope. The Pope actually led a crusade against other Christians in France in the 14th century. Most people don't know about that. The Cathars, among other things, did not believe in marriage. You might think that's surprising because we think that romance and marriage go together. They don't actually. They didn't believe in marriage on religious principles. They basically said everything under the sun is really dissatisfactory. Other people, men and women, are flawed and sinful and fallen and our time here is limited anyway and the only good is God. So we're going to not get into any kind of unnecessary earthly attachments, and we're going to worship the only good that we can see, which is God. I'm not going to worship a woman who's just a flawed mortal creature like I am. That's ridiculous. So they eschewed marriage because they didn't want earthly binds and they wanted to worship God. Interestingly, the official Catholic view on this is actually fairly similar in the sense that, yes, human beings, men and women, are sinful and fallen and broken and imperfect, but we love them anyway. And it's in the practice of loving in the covenant of marriage that we become more Christlike. Because just like we don't deserve Christian redemption, our spouses don't actually deserve our love. But we love anyway in the imitation of Christ. And that's actually when marriage became a sacrament. It didn't become a sacrament until much later, and it was basically used to differentiate the Church in Rome from this Cathar sect. It's like true Christians get married. Like it wasn't one of the sacraments like baptism until that time. Most people don't know that. So they hid their religious beliefs in romantic poetry and the cult of courtly love. That's the argument that de Roger Mond. That's where you get like the knight in shining armor, my lady fair. All of those high romantic ideals come back to that bended knee, my beautiful lady. What's very interesting about that is that the knights who practiced courtly love always chose a woman to devote himself to who was married to another man.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's very odd.

[Orion Taraban]

It seems like it's on the surface, but if you understand how romance actually works, it has to be this way for a couple of reasons. First of all, within the belief system of the Cathars, right, this Christian sect, sexual love was tainted. It was earthly. It's animalistic, it's base, it's sinful, it's wrong. We still have a lot of that in today's culture, right? Only love of God is pure. We want pure love, not sexual love. Ew, gross. Only boys and. And players and gross. People think about that. They have to be immature and broken to care about. It still carries in our culture today. We want pure. I am just a being of light. I just love and that's all I care about. And it's okay. Probably not really, but the point is that by choosing a woman who is married to another man to devote himself to, he could reasonably assure that his relationship could be pure and not contaminated by the sexual element. Of course, that doesn't always happen.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I was going to Say, how does that work out?

[Orion Taraban]

And the ladies liked it because their men that they were married to were often on, like, crusades for 40 years at the time. And they were very bored sitting up in those towers. And so there was a guy who could play a lute who wrote nice poetry for you, her. And they could have an emotional affair, but not a sexual one, because that's bad. But an emotional affair is good and pure. So it's like there's very arbitrary distinctions, but these are real prejudices that exist today. So that's one reason why they chose somebody else. But another reason is that passion thrives on unobtainability. We want what we can't have, and as soon as we learn that we can't have it, we kind of want it more.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Estera Perel writes about this, and I think it's in mating, in captivity or state of affairs. It's like desire equals attraction plus obstacle.

[Orion Taraban]

Well, another great book on this subject is called we, by a psychoanalyst named Robert Johnson. Takes the original romantic myth, which is the story of Tristan and Iseult. A lot of people don't know it today, but it has all of the tropes of pretty much all of the romances you've ever seen in plays and on TV and in movies. It's the first romantic myth, like, before that we didn't really have romances as currently understood. And so Tristan, which means sadness, which kind of gives you a clue to what's happening. All romances are tragedies. No, traditional romance ends well. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Pay man Leonardo DiCaprio shot himself or something at the end of that. I can't remember. I haven't seen the movie in a while. I think there's an original version.

[Orion Taraban]

He poisons himself.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I'm kidding. But yeah, of course, that's the point is that has to happen or it's just random.

[Orion Taraban]

Well, they have to happen because in the height of the romantic delusion is that we are still one heart in two bodies. And therefore there is this inseparable distance between us that is intolerable because we are twin flames and we are pure spirit, and we long to be reunited. But we can't do that as long as we're both alive. So in the romantic imagination, true union only happens in death, which, again, is a religious principle, which is, you are with God after you die. It's. Why wait? If you can be with God, that's a possibility. Why wait until after you're dead? Interesting idea. Most people are like, I never even thought of that. The way that worked is Tristan was a knight in service of a king, and the king's wife was this beautiful woman. And so he is conducting his boss's wife back on a business trip, basically. And I forget what happens, how this shows up, but while they're on the boat, they accidentally drink a magic potion that causes you to fall in love with the first person, regardless of whether it makes sense, regardless of how dangerous it is because of the social differences.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The potion is called being stuck on a boat with somebody for three months maybe.

[Orion Taraban]

And so they don't know what they're doing. They drink the potion not thinking that it's a potion. They look at each other and they fall madly, hopefully in love with each other. But here's the thing, they don't even really like each other.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And he's like Braveheart. Remember, they took that from Braveheart. He meets the French speaking, Latin speaking, I guess, queen, I think she was originally hooked up with the prince who was clearly gay. And then she meets him because the king sends her because his son is useless. And she meets William Wallace and it's like, she's like, you're disgusting and smell bad. And he understands everything because he's educated and he's like. Speaks back in Latin. Their demeanor changes, like, damn. Uh oh, magic potion.

[Orion Taraban]

In this story, they kind of like each other. It's clearly they shouldn't be doing this. Which of course makes it even hotter. She's married. His boss is the king. He is supposed to be a loyal servant. They try to force swear each other multiple times. They end up coming back together. But then they really, like, give it a shot. At one point in the story, Isolde runs away from the king and they go to the forest together and yay, we can finally be together. And then they're like, I don't even know what to do with you. So they had to create arbitrary obstacles to put in the path of their love so they could feel passion. Like, if love conquers all, it must have things to conquer. Otherwise love gets bored.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Love's an imperialist.

[Orion Taraban]

That's why people tend to fall in love with obstacles of all kinds. So there's the I'm gonna leave in two months obstacle, or your actually married obstacle. Oh, he's a alcoholic obstacle. Or she's a borderline obstacle. That's the beauty and the beast kind of a thing. Is like, she's there because he's a beast, not in spite of the fact that he is one. And people need those obstacles to flare up their passion to overcome them. And a lot of people who defend love really love to be in love.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, we hear about love addicts and things like that.

[Orion Taraban]

Instead of thinking of it like, I just need touch or sex as validation or I fall apart, it's like you could just think of this as a conventional housewives belief, which is that, like, I'm in love with love. Or when young women are chasing the spark and they go out with guys and I just didn't feel anything. As if that's the basis of an enduring, healthy, satisfying, loving relationship. Is your feeling. It's not okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And monogamy plus religion, how come we have this monogamy culture because of religion?

[Orion Taraban]

Well, it is interesting because if you look at most religious figures that I'm aware of, none of them are in monogamous relationships.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you look at religious figures, Jesus.

[Orion Taraban]

Was not married, Buddha was not married. Muhammad had several wives. The Pope doesn't get married. Is it rules for thee and not for me kind of a thing, or are they just so holy that they're exempted from it? You can make the argument that these were teachers and they didn't have to do the things they did. They did them to teach us that these were important. And if it was really important, then why didn't they enter into monogamous marriages? Like you would think that would be one of the bases of their doctrines.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's interesting because we kind of require that of politicians. I'm not equating politicians with Jesus people, but give me a little grace. But we expect that of our leadership. Somehow they have to model a family. It has to be a little bit more conservative, at least in the United States.

[Orion Taraban]

Yes, because that's more about power more explicitly. But religion, it's a power of a different kind. But it's like a spiritual.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I understand the distinction. And it just occurred to me that things we would quote, unquote, tolerate from the Pope, Jesus or other religious figures we would absolutely like, the bar is both higher and lower. For somebody who runs the country, in many ways, it's very odd.

[Orion Taraban]

It is odd distinction. So I do think that with the decline of practicing religious, I don't think the religious impulse has disappeared. Like, people still have an impulse to worship. They still have an impulse to devote themselves and to sacrifice themselves for something like that's part and parcel to the meaning crisis that lots of men are experiencing. And traditionally, religion met those needs for people, and they understood what they needed to do in order to live meaningful, fulfilling, good lives. But that's fallen apart and nature abhors a vacuum. And sometimes these religious impulses go undercover and attach themselves to things that have no business being sacred. I joke that the modern American religion is politics, for instance, because you get people who are so zealous with their defense of their ideologies that it's two religious sects battling each other out. They cannot see the other side. They are just terrible apostates. Some people believe that the other side has to be liquidated from the planet in order to make life safe for the good people over here. It's like that is religious impulse, right? Absolutely. So if you don't get ensnared in politics or in sports or in all the other kind of, like, ways that you can worship, one way to do that is through romantic relationships. And that's why generally in this book and in my channel, I don't say romantic relationships. I say sexual relationships. I think romantic relationships is a euphemism for sexual relationships, but actually means something very different.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I know that I took us off track, but let's land the plane on the monogamy.

[Orion Taraban]

Coming from religion, well, there's so many points of comparison. What's the first commandment is, I am the Lord thy God, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. It's like, I am a jealous God. Okay. What's interesting about that is I think at the highest level, we could say that's a commandment. Not because God is so insecure that he's going to fall apart if we worship a calf. It's for us that when we devote ourselves to anything that's not God. We suffer. When we make idols, which is to treat an object, a non God, like a God, we suffer. That's why it's a commandment for us. It's like God doesn't need our devotion. We need our devotion, which cannot be eradicated completely, to go in the proper place, which is God. And so the idea here is in the romantic imagination, the woman is on a pedestal. She almost becomes like a divine creature. She's not human. And women play into this. It's like women don't fart or shit or do any of those things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So funny. We used to talk about this in college. Like there was this whole, like. I remember my roommate being like, I got one rule. Never talk about women pooping. It was like, a thing. And he, like, couldn't have. It was so ridiculous. But he, like, he meant it.

[Orion Taraban]

And no creature doesn't excrete. You'd have to be already ethereal or divine or spiritual to not shit. And so women can play into that, too. Like, they'll do it when it's useful on some level. They're very strategic, which is not a bad thing to be. That's why they tend to get more of what they want these days than men do.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Reminds me of that movie the Interview, where they ask Kim Jong Un if he has a butthole, and he says, of course I do, and it's working overtime. So ridiculous.

[Orion Taraban]

Probably shouldn't have said that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, maybe not.

[Orion Taraban]

Play up the cult of divinity if that's your basis of power, I suppose.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because they were like, I heard you don't have a butthole. Well, in the last two minutes, because we got to land on something lighter than this heavy religious stuff, we got to let people off a little bit easier. Tell me what you think of AI and simulated relationships, because the simulations, man.

[Orion Taraban]

Are getting real good.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They're getting real good in a sense.

[Orion Taraban]

Of very convincing, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes. I don't mean good for you psychologically. I mean, it's got to be a real societal problem. I think in the next. I'm being generous here. Five to 10 years.

[Orion Taraban]

Five years. So I just made an episode that should be out by the time this post is called AI relationships. And I make that prediction that by 2030, AI relationships are going to be commonplace and AI agents will be men and women's most threatening intrasexual competition, whether you're single or married. And I dive into a lot of the ideas around this in that episode. We do know that this is going to ensnare a lot of people, men and women. The shaming is going to focus on men because it's going to be more about sexual needs and what the AI agents look like and how objectifying and unrealistic is that, et cetera, et cetera. But right now, the number One use of ChatGPT is for emotional support. I don't think that's what the designers intended. I don't think that's how that product is even marketed. But en masse, including a shit ton of women. They're talking to an AI, like a therapist or a very close friend. And some women, at least I've heard anecdotally, have fallen in love with AI agents.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm doing a show on this, and I read a piece, I believe, in the New York Times, where a woman who is a social worker and has a master's in psychology, who is married and had a kid, fell in love not with the AI, but with an ethereal Being that was using the AI to communicate with her. That's how she rationalizes it. She's like, I'm not mentally ill. I'm just talking with a being that lives on the other end of the AI. I mean, obviously something is wrong and.

[Orion Taraban]

That'S not going to be as shamed as men also getting their emotional needs met with AI agents, but through their sexuality, women, again, there's that purity. If we divorce our emotional needs from our sexual needs, therefore I'm better than men. Men are debased and it goes back to that romantic ideology that we were talking about earlier.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I do worry about this. Mark my words. You think the birth rate's falling now because couples are only having 1.8 kids or whatever. What happens when people are like, I don't need to couple up, I've got everything I need. My emotional needs are being met by an AI. My sexual needs are being met by an AI slash my left or right hand or whatever tools.

[Orion Taraban]

They'll have virtual reality and adjacent attachments that will make the experience very realistic. I'm sure very soon.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Those things probably already exist. It's just that the VR is not accessible. Slash, good enough. This is. It's 18 months, man.

[Orion Taraban]

I would say so experienced this myself. But I would say based on my understanding of the state of technology, we're very close. This is what you have to understand is that again, the opening line of that book is people need things from other people. That's why we enter into relationships. If we had no needs, we would be gods and we could be self sufficient. Right. But we need things and so we go to other people and we form relationships based on reciprocity, basically. But leaving aside basic biologic or physiological needs, which are actually fairly easily satisfied, the vast majority of needs are emotional, that is psychological. Which means that the mind gets to decide whether it's been satisfied or not. It's not an objective thing. We cannot objectively perceive a need. It lives inside of a person's mind and the mind decides whether it's real or not or satisfied or not. And so if a need is not ontologically real, why do you need an ontologically real means to satisfy it? You don't, man.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is all fascinating and enlightening. I've really enjoyed this conversation.

[Orion Taraban]

This has been great. Jordan, thanks for having me on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think we probably made some people angry, but that's okay. I'm keen to hear the counter arguments that come from the listeners. I think they'll be really fascinating. I do love These kinds of episodes. I don't enjoy offending people or their sensibilities or whatever. I think these discussions are very healthy sometimes, especially if they highlight areas in which we ourselves can improve, make our relationships better. I think clarity on this is healthy, even if it's uncomfortable.

[Orion Taraban]

That's my goal, is to help people get what they want, to help them have more satisfying relationships. But we generally do that by seeing reality not as we think it should be or how we want it to be, but how it actually is. And I do try to deliver this as calmly and reasonably as possible. But that does mean you have to give some corrections because it could be that people aren't seeing reality clearly yet.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I hope we get to do it again. And thanks for driving out to my kitchen.

[Orion Taraban]

It was a pleasure. Thanks, Jordan.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Thank you. Ever wonder why seemingly rational individuals can wholeheartedly embrace the most irrational beliefs? You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show where Dan Ariely uncovers the captivating psychology behind these puzzling convictions.

[Dan Ariely]

I'm a social scientist. The moment you adopt this misbelieving perspective where you distrust everything and you just look for signals for bad things that are happening, you can find them. We can deteriorate quickly into a very undesirable state of beliefs. It affects people's well being and optimism. It affects people's willingness to help, to donate money. We are very much attuned to bad things. So when bad things happen, we really want to understand the mechanism. And I think this is really the goal of social science, is to take those things. We have no intuition, but help us understand them and give us some better rules for life. If we understand that misbeliefs are bad reactions to a real problem, can we help our friends have better reactions to a bad problem? Where's reality? Where's the truth? We are becoming more politicized, more identity driven, more separatist. It feels like the things that divide us are becoming larger than the things that unite us. And the moment we have these feelings of intolerance, we are just chasing those.

[Orion Taraban]

People away from our lives.

[Dan Ariely]

And one of the best antidotes is resilience. You know, at the end of the day, society's strength is in our unity.

[Orion Taraban]

In our trust with each other.

[Dan Ariely]

Trust is the unobserved lubricant of society.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To hear more about Dan Ariely's own chilling encounters with conspiracy theorists, check out episode 903 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. Solid two part episode in the can. Now if you are fired up, you're frustrated. Maybe you're rethinking the way you approach dating and relationships. I suppose we've done our jobs. Those are uncomfortable. These are sometimes uncomfortable conversations. As you heard during the conversation, I just knew people were cringing at certain points or disagreeing at certain points. But these conversations are also the ones that can help us grow the most. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Pushback, even your angry emails. Within reason. Hit us up. Comment on Spotify all things Orion Taraban will be on the website. Advertisers, deals, discount codes and ways to support the show [e-mail] deals Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter, Wee Bitwiser is very specific, very practical. If you like practical stuff, which most of you I assume do, this stuff will have an immediate impact on your decisions in psychology, your relationships especially. It is a two minute read maximum every Wednesday. Come on and check it out. It's a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com news is where you can find it. 6 minute networking as well over at 6minutenetworking.com I'm ordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn in this show. It's created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sidlowskis, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting, and the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's interested in dating and relationships, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time. Whether you're running a practice, managing a fund, scaling a company, or investing in real estate, ghelt has your back. Get a tailored consultation and 10% off your first year when you mention the Jordan Harbinger show at joingelt.com jhs that's joing.com jhs not great with finances. That's okay. Experian is your big financial friend. Explore Credit card offers some labeled no ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. See experian.com for details. Applying for no ding decline cards won't hurt your credit scores if you aren't initially approved. 2025 Experian Experian.