The protests on house prices reveal one interesting phenomenon
1. we need people to complain and do demonstrations. it is very useful to pressure politicians.
2. we need to ignore most/all of the ideas of the activists. (on the picture, lisbon activists want cheaper houses and also don't want to build more)
Some people are spotters, others are builders
SECRETARY RUBIO: Our two countries have accomplished many things together in the past and we look forward to deepening and building that relationship in the future.
Men massively misunderstand what it means to provide for a woman.
we were walking down the street late at night after dinner, popping in & out of bustling dive bars, dancing a bit, flirting in the crisp fall air. we were window shopping, ooing & ahhing at mannequins. laughing at funny hats, making fun of random outfits. just in flow. I met her 2 weeks ago, but the connection was palpable. one of those nights where ur so in the moment not really thinking about where ur going next because the whole thing just feels good.
At some point, in the middle of a decisive analysis of baggy-pant fashion eras, she made an offhand comment - basically all the shopping she'd ever done was at thrift stores, that she never had enough money to just go buy the things she wanted and explore her fashion sense in full freedom.
It wasn't some probe. wasn't âomg I wish someone would buy me clothes.â She comes from an amazing family - very autonomy minded in certain senses. she's studying to be a doctor. doesn't seem to care for money in the way a lot of people do.
But I could feel what she meant under the words. She wanted to explore that side of herself more, become more feminine, playful, try clothes she never would've bought, figure out how she actually wants to present herself to the world instead of just working around what she could afford.
And then I said something that surprised even me; I'm usually REALLY careful about leading with money early in dating.
âI want to take you shopping tomorrow and get you everything you wantâ
Hanging off my arm she looked up at me - huge puppy dog eyes, teary, softly scanning my face trying to work out whether I actually meant it. Almost confused, but in this dreamy hopeful way. Wistful even. The type of look that men go to war for
She asked again if I was serious and told me no man had ever offered anything like that to her before.
judging from some of the stories she'd told me about her past relationships, it tracked. She wasn't a casual dater, but still, her partners seemed to dangle care, money, security, whatever in front of her like a carrot. Enough to prove they COULD give it, but not in a way that ever let her fully relax into receiving it.
Something clicked for me right there.
Maybe for the first time ever I understood a piece of masculinity / providing in a way that wasn't theoretical.
Because it actually had very little to do with shopping.
It's not throwing money around. It's not getting a $5k table with sparklers hoping some soulless girl at the next table notices. It's not posting on ur IG a car, watch, hotel, jet, whatever and then complaining 6 months later that every woman around you seems obsessed with money.
bro... look at the bait you put on the hook đ
ppl respond to what you lead with.
If the most interesting thing you give a woman is access to expensive shit, it really shouldn't shock you when expensive shit becomes the thing she associates with you.
That's not providing. that's basically a transaction everyone agreed not to call a transaction.
this moment felt so different from all that
I wanted to do it because the idea of HER enjoying it made me happy. There wasn't some internal scoreboard of âwell now she owes me affectionâ or âlook what I can provide.â I just had the ability to open up this little experience for someone I cared about and it felt completely natural to do it.
Which now i see is the provider instinct stripped of all the bs internet discourse around it. provider without expectations. expectations ruin.
Providing isn't really âman pays.â it's much more nuanced than that.
It's using WHATEVER strength you have to make the life of the person you love more expansive.
Sometimes.. that's money, sure. Sometimes it's planning the entire trip so she can switch her brain off. Sometimes it's taking some annoying problem off her plate before she even asks. Sometimes it's being steady when she's emotional. Sometimes it's listening instead of immediately trying to fix everything. Sometimes it's remembering some tiny thing she said 4 months ago. Sometimes it's literally telling her to go try on 30 tops because this is fun and we have nowhere else we need to be.
The money is probably the least interesting part.
I actually think this is something successful men can fuck up badly because money becomes such an easy lever. ur good at making it, it solves problems quickly, so naturally you start reaching for it everywhere.
Buying her an LV bag is easier than understanding her core.
Money is an incredible amplifier of care. It's a terrible replacement for it.
And the receiving side is just as important, which I never understood properly either.
The way she received the offer made me want to give MORE.
Not because she asked for more, literally the opposite. Because she was grateful. Soft. Almost overwhelmed by the fact that someone wanted to do something nice for her without holding it over her head.
That is insanely activating as a man.
There is something about generosity being met with genuine gratitude instead of entitlement that makes you want to become more generous. Not just financially either. More attention, more thought, more effort, more protection, more of yourself.
I've used this analogy before but it keeps making more sense to me.
Let me be the mountain, her the river running down it.
The mountain gives the river shape, structure, stability. The river gives the mountain movement, beauty, flavor, life. Neither is more important, they're valuable because they're different.
w/o the mountain the river doesn't have much of a container. w/o the river the mountain is just a giant fucking rock haha
And her softness that night didn't make me feel like I had power OVER her. It made me feel powerful toward LIFE.
Massivvve difference.
A lot of red pill online masculinity shit is basically ânever need anyone, dominate, maintain leverage, don't let her affect you, have options, be the alpha.â
sounds fucking miserable lol.
What I felt that night was much closer to:
âI've got you.â
Not âI own you.â
I've got u if something goes wrong. I've got u if ur scared. I've got u if u want to explore some weird little side of yourself that life never gave you much room to explore. You can soften here, I'll carry this one.
That feels masculine to me.
And obviously I don't want some dependent woman whose entire existence is built around whatever I provide. That sounds horrible too. I want someone who brings me things that I literally cannot purchase.
Warmth. beauty. affection. intuition. emotional depth. playfulness. sexuality. softness. Someone who gets me out of my own fucking head. Someone who gets me dancing when I'd otherwise be working. Someone who notices I'm stressed before I admit it. Someone who makes a space feel like home instead of just a nice apartment.
That's provision too, it just doesn't show up cleanly on a spreadsheet.
Maybe that's one of the biggest things modern dating has fucked up. Everyone is trying to make relationships mathematically equal.
Who paid. Who texted first. Who has more options. Who cares less. Who is âthe prize.â Who has more leverage. Who owes who what.
I don't want 50/50.
I want 100/100.
I want to wildly over-give in the areas where I am strong and be with somebody who naturally does the exact same thing in the areas where she is strong, without either person standing there with a calculator checking if we're even (looking at u dutch bros)
And I think that's really what changed for me that night.
Providing isn't proving you can afford something.
It's having enough abundance in you that it spills outward.
Could be money, attention. Could be strength. Could be patience. love.
And to be clear, I don't think rich men need to become terrified of spending money on women because they're scared of âbeing used.â that's another weird overcorrection.
Don't lead with your wallet. Don't use money to manufacture attraction. Don't try to buy closeness. Make sure she actually likes YOU before she really understands what you can give her.
But once there is genuine care? Give.
Not stupidly, not to impress, def not because Tate said âprovider men do this blah blahâ
Give because you found somebody you genuinely enjoy giving to.
That's a very different energy.
I have no clue where this relationship goes btw. It's been 2 weeks haha. Maybe 6 months from now we're madly in love and devoted to each other, maybe we're friends, maybe we're two people who crossed paths at exactly the right time and taught each other something. all of it is ok. that's love without grasping.
But what i do know - I'll remember her expression after I told her i wanted her to buy anything she wanted. for life.
Because I thought I was offering HER something.
shopping, clothes, whatever.
And somehow the way she received it gave me something way bigger back.
For a second I understood what it feels like when strength is met with softness instead of competition.
I felt like I could conquer the fucking world.
The mountain gives shape. The river gives flavor.
And then the river reminds the mountain why it ever wanted to be strong in the first place.
"what the hell is a growth engineer?"
>writes cold email sequences AND builds the automation that sends them
>sets up enrichment pipelines so ur list isnt 40% dead emails
>figures out why ur product doesnt show up in chatgpt and fixes it
>scrapes intent signals from reddit twitter and linkedin to find warm leads
>builds landing pages AND runs the A/B tests on conversion
>sets up attribution so u actually know which channel ur customers came from
>automates follow-up sequences (where 50%+ of replies actually come from)
>optimizes ur site so AI search engines cite u not ur competitor
>writes content that ranks AND builds the infra that distributes it
>monitors competitor mentions and turns them into displacement campaigns
>builds lead scoring models so sales talks to the right ppl first
>sets up separate outbound domains so ur main domain doesnt get torched
>waterfalls multiple data providers because no single one has clean data
>tracks headcount changes by department to spot buying signals
>reads job posts to find companies actively looking for what u sell
>pulls competitor customer pages and enriches every logo into a target list
>builds dashboards that connect content performance to actual signups
>creates drip campaigns that adapt based on how the lead interacts
>turns churned power users into warm leads at their new companies
>filters lists by mx record before writing a single line of copy
>finds the 3 attributes every closed-won account shares that ur ICP doc never mentions
If youâre in your 20s (and ambitious) do everything to move to those 4 cities
Yes people will mog you for paying extortionate rents for such little comfort but who cares, youâre not everyone, youâre on a mission, youâre here for greatness
London/NYC/Paris/SF are basically the golden 4. Theyâre not just big cities, theyâre global sorting machines. People move there from all over the world because they want sth badly enough to accept all the downsides. The guy born in London can be lazy. But the 26yo Frenchman, Indian, American, Italian, Nigerian, Lebanese etc who voluntarily accepts the tiny flat, shit commute and absurd rent to be there has already self-selected pretty hard
And that selection compounds. I felt it instantly moving from my hometown in France to London. Growing up I was always âthe ambitious oneâ in my friend group. Then you arrive in London and suddenly you feel extremely average. Everyone is trying to do sth. Completely changes your reference point for what a normal person can achieve
The other thing is just how many serious games are happening at once. If you know at 22 that youâre going to be a semiconductor engineer forever, maybe there are better specialised places. But most ambitious 24yos have absolutely no clue what game theyâll eventually want to play. In London/NYC/Paris you can accidentally become friends with people in PE, startups, politics, law, media, fashion, pharma, academia etc. Your finance friend dates someone in fashion, their roommate is building a startup, you meet someone in politics at dinner. Suddenly 5 completely different lives feel plausible
Thatâs insanely valuable when youâre young precisely because you donât yet know which people / industries / opportunities will matter to your 34yo self
SF is the weird exception because itâs basically one giant concentrated bet on tech/AI. Much narrower than the other 3, but that game is so asymmetric rn that it deserves its spot. If you want to build at the frontier thereâs probably no other place where your reference class changes that aggressively
And yh everyone keeps saying the internet made geography irrelevant. Maybe for information. Definitely not for trust/friendship. Anyone can learn from the same people online now, send the same cold DM, follow the same accounts. Much harder to replicate being the guy someone has had 20 dinners with, worked with, travelled with, introduced to friends and randomly bumped into for 5 years
When youâre 24 and nobody knows who tf you are, geography can do a lot of the work for you. You get invited because your colleague knows someone. You end up at a dinner because your friend needs a +1. Someone you met 3 years ago leaves and starts a company. Another moves to NYC. Another becomes a partner somewhere. Most of the ROI is completely impossible to predict upfront
Basically before you have your own gravity, borrow the cityâs
At 45, if youâve built the company / reputation / money / audience / network, you can go live in Tuscany, Mallorca, South of France or wherever and people will come to you. At 24 no one is coming lol. You should probably be where everything is happening
And tbh if you have the ability to move I wouldnât spend 3 years waiting for the perfect job / apartment / timing. Get the shitty room, accept being poorer for a while, figure it out once youâre there. Your 20s are probably the cheapest years of your life to tolerate inconvenience anyway
You can optimise sqm, weather and comfort later
At 24 Iâd rather maximise how many possible lives are available to me
Schau dir diese Grafik genau an. Sie erklÀrt, warum sich in Deutschland Leistung nicht mehr lohnt.
Ein Paar, zwei Kinder, beide arbeiten.
Bei 4.000 Euro brutto bleiben rund 2.700 Euro.
Bei 5.000 Euro brutto bleiben rund 2.650 Euro.
Du liest richtig. Tausend Euro mehr verdient. Weniger im Portemonnaie.
Und jetzt der Teil, der wirklich weh tut: Bei 2.000 Euro brutto stehen dieser Familie etwa 2.350 Euro zur VerfĂŒgung.
Bei 5.000 Euro brutto sind es 2.650 Euro.
3.000 Euro mehr erarbeiten. 300 Euro mehr haben.
Das ist kein Rechenfehler. Jeder zusÀtzlich verdiente Euro zieht Wohngeld, Kinderzuschlag und FreibetrÀge mit sich in den Abgrund, wÀhrend Steuern und Sozialabgaben gleichzeitig steigen.
Man nennt es Transferentzugsrate. Ăkonomen kennen das Problem seit Jahren. Die Bundesregierung hat Gutachten dazu bestellt.
Passiert ist nichts.
Und dann wundert sich die Politik, warum niemand mehr die Stunden aufstockt. Warum die Zweitverdienerin in Teilzeit bleibt. Warum der Facharbeiter die Beförderung ablehnt.
Die Leute sind nicht faul. Sie rechnen.
Ein System, das Anstrengung und FleiĂ nicht belohnt, bekommt am Ende genau das: keine Anstrengung.