Why successful men use escorts what the rich and the beautiful have in common

I'm Dr. Orion Teraban, and this is Psych Hacks, Better Living Through Psychology, and the topic of today's short talk is, Why Successful Men Use Escorts. This is the first part in a three-part series on this subject, so you'll need to be patient to hear the whole story. I'm going to begin this talk by explicitly stating this is not an endorsement for prostitution. Personally, I have never hired an escort or a prostitute in my life. And to be honest, when I was younger, I used to be very judgmental with respect to the men who did. In so many words, I thought such men must be losers who, for whatever reason, couldn't otherwise get access to women unless they paid for it. And while I'm sure there are some unattractive or even some revolting men who use prostitutes for this reason, I actually don't believe they constitute the majority of an escort's clients. In fact, I've since radically changed my opinion of these men, in part due to numerous conversations I've had with men who have used escorts, and in part due to my own experiences in the sexual marketplace as I've become more successful. Though I can't say that I endorse the use of escorts, I can certainly understand it. And this talk is specifically addressed to women to help them comprehend the types of problems unique to highly successful men, who are presumably the kind of men they would most like to target for a long-term relationship. By understanding how the economics of dating change as a function of success, women can better position themselves to secure the type of men with whom they most want to meet and date, provided they, like me, can move past the reflexive judgment they may carry with respect to the topic under consideration. Let's get to it. The fact of the matter is, regardless of whether you're a man or a woman, the higher your normalized sexual marketplace value, the more traditional dating becomes increasingly expensive. In fact, the most attractive women and the most successful men often end up pricing themselves out of the dating market. This is why, for example, it's probably best for a woman to be like an 8.5. If you're an 8.5, you're definitely attractive enough to get plenty of attention and preferential treatment. However, because you're not like a world-class beauty, you actually avoid a lot of the downsides and liabilities associated with being fabulously attractive. These are problems that less attractive women don't even know exist and never have to deal with. They might roll their eyes at this suite of problems and say, oh, poor baby can't handle being beautiful. I wish I had her problems. But frankly, that's really an envy reaction. The problems of really beautiful women are real problems. They're not problems of survival. But if we're honest, neither are the problems that their haters are contending with. Beautiful women receive little to no sympathy for their difficulties, not because their difficulties aren't real, but because there are so few other people who have experienced them. The same thing holds true for men. The sweet spot for being a man is probably earning high six, low seven figures a year. That is more than enough to provide a comfortable and enjoyable lifestyle for yourself and your family. Anything more than that, and men start to deal with a suite of problems that less successful men don't even know exist and never have to deal with. And if anyone garners more unearned hatred than the beautiful, it's the wealthy. People scoff at the champagne problems of the rich, but the problems of really successful men are real problems. And these men experience even less sympathy for their difficulties than beautiful women do, not because their difficulties aren't real, but because there are so few other people who have experienced them. Now, you might think that being a highly successful man would be a wonderful liability in the sexual marketplace. And you would be correct. After all, if a man has wealth and status and fame, he typically enjoys very good optionality with women. So why would a man like this use escorts? It isn't as though there is a dearth of women who would be interested in dating him. Is it really true that all these men are just immature narcissists who delight in the objectification of women? Or might there be another explanation for this not uncommon behavior among this particular demographic? But before I answer these questions, if you're liking what you're hearing, please consider sending this episode to someone who might benefit from its message, because it's word of mouth referrals like this that really help to make the channel grow. You can also hit the thanks button and tip me in proportion to the value you feel you've derived from this episode. I'm proud to announce that my book, The Value of Others, is now available for pre-sale on Amazon. It'll be released in just a few days, so take action now to get your hands on it. I'm also writing original content for my free weekly newsletter. If you'd like to sign up, you can do so on my website. Finally, please fill out an inquiry form on my website if you're interested in booking a paid consultation. The links to everything I just talked about are in the description below, so check them out. All right, let's get back to it. The reason why so many of these top-tier men use prostitutes is because it becomes prohibitively expensive to date traditionally once you cross a certain point. Let's examine why this might be the case. One of my good friends is a corporate lawyer, and he bills his time at $1,300 an hour. That may sound like a lot, but it's kind of the going rate for a partner at a top-tier law firm. By the same token, there are folks in MySpace Online who charge $2,000 to $3,000 an hour for a consultation. And then you get into the rarefied realm of bank presidents, celebrities, tycoons, and professional athletes who can easily command tens of thousands of dollars or more for an hour of their time. However, to make this talk more accessible, let's just use the lawyer's rate as the standard of measurement. So let's assume a man is making $1,300 an hour like my friend. In the traditional dating pipeline, what would be expected of him? Well, first, he'd have to spend some time making something happen. Maybe he has to go out to a bar on a Saturday night and rizz up a girl. And this is hardly a sure thing, even at the local meat market. So he'll have to have the energy and the emotional resilience to deal with the rejection that inevitably stands between him and an actual prospect. Or he'll have to spend time creating a dating profile on an app that won't land him in the invisible 90% functionally ignored by all women and swiping on hundreds of accounts in order to get some matches. Either way, once he succeeds in getting a number, he'll need to spend more time playing the text game in order to help the woman feel sufficiently safe and sufficiently attracted, which is not an easy balance to strike, to meet up for an actual date. Of course, he'll be expected to plan the date, which will almost certainly occur at some neutral location as opposed to his house, several days or even weeks out. On the date, he'll be expected to cover all the expenses. But as we'll see, this is the most inexpensive part of dating for him. The meeting itself will probably last two, maybe three hours, with potentially an hour of commuting to and from the location. So he likely has to block off an entire evening. And busy, successful men may only get one evening off a week, if that. And given all this time and effort and expense, there is, of course, absolutely no guarantee that the man will even be attracted to the woman in question, let alone succeed in securing a sexual encounter. And irrespective of the moral or ethics involved, this is frustrating because since men attempt to exchange resources for sexual opportunity in the sexual marketplace, this is why he's there. So even if we ignore all the monetary expenses associated with the date itself, which are potentially not insignificant, a three-hour date bookended by an hour of travel at $1,300 an hour is $5,200. This means this guy is paying five grand in terms of the cost to his time to go on a date with you. And this does not include any of the time and effort that went into securing the date. This may come as a shock, but most women do not just show up into a man's life with an intention to make his life easier. For most men, it's a lot of ******* work to get sex and relationships from women. You hear a lot about the emotional labor that women perform for men. But it's absolutely true that men perform a great deal of emotional labor for women. It's just that the man's labor typically has to do with getting laid and securing and maintaining the relationship. To do this, men often have to be charming or funny or cool. They have to stimulate your emotions and arouse your attraction. They have to listen to you talk about your day and care about the woman inside your body. And they have to do all this without giving the slightest impression that this is in any way work for them or that they could possibly want to do literally anything else with their time and attention. Because if you get the impression that they're just doing this because it works and not because they authentically want to do it, you won't **** them. This is not easy to do. Even the most successful Casanovas strike out more often than they get on base. Women are extremely complex, and most men do not even begin to approach an understanding of how you operate. In any case, dating you requires a lot of time, energy, money, and emotional resilience. And if you're working 80 hours a week, you just might not have the bandwidth for that. Dating just feels like another job, but a job that you pay to work. I understand that women have their own frustrations with dating, but that's not why we're here today. We're looking at dating from the perspective of successful men in these episodes. We'll get back to you later. So that's the end of part one. What do you think? Does this fit with your own experience? Let me know in the comments below. As always, I appreciate your support, and thank you for listening.