Dating Younger Men, Living Differently and The One Filter That Changes Everything | Cindy Gallop

0:00You know, I basically tell everybody that I am someone who has never, ever wanted to be married. I have never wanted children. Very glad I always knew that as opposed to finding out the hard way by actually having them. I adore being single. I'm not a relationship person. I cannot wait to die alone. And I date younger men casually and recreationally for sex. and I am deliberately very public about all of that because we don't have enough role models in our society for women and for men by the way that demonstrate you can live your life very differently to the way that you're expected to and still be amazingly happy and I'm one of the happiest people I know but we need many more people willing to role model what a very different kind of life looks like because another exercise I really encourage people to do is to again take a long hard look into themselves and ask themselves what would really make me happy because it may not be what your parents want you to do it may not be what all your friends around you are doing at the same time it may not be what popular culture tells you you should be doing I mean I couldn't agree this more I think the hardest thing that I find with this and I'd love for you to give me advice and women advice that are listening to this is you do feel this societal pressure to do life in a way that's kind of mapped out in front of you and how maybe your siblings have done it and all of these things and I was on my book tour I'm on my book tour still but I was speaking up in Wales at a festival and I had two minutes in the morning and I went downstairs just to have, I was just staying in a B &B, had some breakfast and the the guy who was looking after the B &B was really really intrigued and by the way I didn't think I was going to say this story live, I said this to my team and they were like you should talk about this and I was like I can't, I can't say this live but I am because you've empowered me and he came in and he was like oh you know so what are you doing and I was like I'm on my and he said oh cool do you have a do you have a partner and i was like um no not right now and i never talk about my relationship so i was just like no no no not right now and he goes oh do you have children and i was like no and he was like oh i really hope that you find someone i really hope that you do find that person jesus h fucking christ And honestly Cindy, I mean, I'm maybe not in the same camp as you as I want to be single forever.

2:35Like I don't know if I fully relate, I really respect it. And I have a couple of friends that know they don't want children. And you know, and I'm, I'm not in that camp, but I'm also not running off. I'm probably in the happiest moment of my life. Just got Sunday Times bestseller. My first ever book. I'm like touring around speaking to people about things. I mean, I was in such a happy moment and it took me from here to here. because it was kind of like I'd failed. And I think, I don't know, if I was a man at my age, because I'm still young, if I was a man at my age saying that, it wouldn't have even flinched.

3:08I kind of didn't know how to respond. I just said, I'm really happy right now. Like at the moment, I don't know if I have time for that. That's not kind of in my fear of things I need to do. You didn't owe him any of those answers, honestly. How do you respond to something like that? If someone said, do you have a partner? I go, no. no and no further explanations required no need to add not right now you know i mean seriously fuck that shit i'm horrified i am gobsmacked how fucking dare he that's pathetic and and by the way you know he's a product of his cultural upbringing as well you know it's been dinned into him that you know women are for marriage and children you know fuck that shit again that's precisely why we need many more of us living lives out loud showing there are so many different ways to operate you know to design your life to be the one that you want to live and and by the way I very much appreciate the fact that you know I've many women fans I've many male fans as well you know I love that um you know I was just um uh there was some personal LinkedIn this morning where various men were reposting, you know, something I'd said going, oh, my God, Sydney Gallagher is amazing.

4:24You know, she's such a role model. You know, I mean, I love the fact that men see me as a role model as well because those are really great right-thinking men who believe they have things to learn from women. And an awful lot of men believe they have nothing to learn from women and they are so wrong. Well, they're so wrong. But I think also the thing that I'm finding interesting, do you think men, and I'd also like the men who listen to the show because I do know we have great male listeners on the show, do you think men are attracted to women's confidence or put off by it because my interpretation is that sometimes they love it but when they're in a relationship with that then they don't so I think we're trying to push them to be more confident but then can men handle the women's confidence um the very important thing here is not to generalize because the wrong kind of man can't handle it you know and by the wrong kind of man I mean the man who has been so inculcated in patriarchal thinking that he has stereotypical gender roles in his head and he cannot deal with anything that threatens his own sense of self and you know it's so ironic because so this is something we can absolutely do something about by the way so you know for the benefit of our listeners my background is 40 years working in brand building marketing and advertising which I always say is very useful experience what I do now because I've spent 40 years working in the business of getting people to do things that originally had no intention of doing very very useful skill and I've been talking to my industry advertising for literally decades about the huge opportunity that we have as an industry to reinvent aspirational culture And the reason I make that point in my industry is because we invented aspiration.

6:09We made people want things. But originally, advertising made you want material things. It made you want the right car, the right watch, the right house. Today, there is a huge opportunity to reinvent aspirational culture, to make people want things that will actually make their lives way better and build stronger relationships between them and the brands who see that opportunity. and so i'll give you one example that again i've been talking to my my industry about for decades literally um advertising deals in stereotypes and there's a very practical reason for that because stereotypes are useful creative shorthand when you only have 30 seconds to deliver a message you know stereotypes are a shortcut but what that means is that we have perpetuated the stereotype of a relationship or a marriage as heteronormative where the man is the strong confident breadwinner and the woman is the warm caring nurturing homemaker and i've been saying for years i want us to reinvent aspirational culture around the aspiration aspirational relationship role model of today which is a partnership of equals because today whatever their gender by the way both halves of couple work because the economy which requires new forms of negotiation as to who does the housework who does the child care what happens when one half of the couple has a job and the other doesn't what happens when one half the couple earns more than the other and there is a massive opportunity to reinvent aspiration around that to for example represent the men who stay home to look after the children while the woman goes out to work as being enormously aspirational as a fantastic positive masculine role model to make men want to do that as opposed to what happens currently which is both men and women look down on them and and i think there's a very powerful way in which one can do that using humor as well because um there's a wonderful comedian in in the u.s called ali wong i don't know if you watched any of her stand-up comedy specials on Netflix she's amazing and so in I think it's Hard Knock Wife there's a great line where you know she's an Asian American and her Asian mother gets very worried because you know Ali Wong is doing very well and she's now earning more than her husband and the mother says to her that you know if that if she's earning more than her husband her husband's going to leave her and Ali Wong responds the only kind of man who would leave a wife who makes more than he does is a man who does not like free money.

8:49And I just think that's a brilliantly humorous way of reframing as aspirational. Absolutely. You know, absolutely look for a wife that earns more than you. So I just think there's so much opportunity to reframe all of this in a way that honestly will make men much happier. Well, I do, but do you think men are open to that idea? No, absolutely. You do? Yep. I mean, I have a number of couples in my own life where, you know, I've absolutely seen that play out. You know, very old friends where, you know, the wife's career trajectory took her on, you know, a much more breadwinning path, you know. And so the husband absolutely focused on, you know, looking after their home and making life great for her, cooking dinner for her every night when she came home.

9:35Absolutely. They're very happy, by the way. And they've been married for like, God almighty, decades. Well, I mean, I find this interesting because it kind of takes me to one of the questions, I think, which I had which is why do so many women end up in relationships that don't make them happy because I think that's a big I think a lot of people stay in relationships one because they're scared of being alone feeling there's no one else out there that they're gonna find um especially for women at a certain age so you end up staying in relationships that can make you quite unhappy why do we why do women do that I mean I guess I don't have an explanation for myself but um again simply because you know sociocultural dynamics have made women think that you know first of all um and again this happens in the moment we're born we are told that our entire life is a search for the one everything tells us that fairy tales you know our parents yeah yeah exactly and what that means by the way is so in your teens 20s you know every social event you go to I'm going to speak heteronormatively because I'm a straight woman will he be there that translates into bloody hours getting glammed up you know makeup outfits you go to that social event this scenario forces you to compete with other women a dynamic that I deplore and in the night you schlep home going oh he wasn't there tonight never mind maybe the one will be at the next one and honestly one of the best days of my life was the point because I was a subject this is anybody else at some point in my early 30s I went fuck this for a game of soldiers I'm not looking for the one anymore oh my god the relief I could just go to social events and enjoy myself fan bloody tastic and so I really encourage women to get over the idea that true happiness is only to be found in finding the one in love I'm that very rare person who has no desire whatsoever to be in love okay I actively do because because I don't need it and I don't want it I'm really happy the way I am and by the way when you decide you're not interested in being in love it is enormously time and cost efficient and what I mean by that is you know I'm reading a woman's magazine and I enjoy women's magazines and I will come to an article on, you know, how to find the one or how to improve a relationship.

12:03I go, oh, not interested. I don't waste time reading it. I don't buy books about how to work on your relationship or how to whatever. I don't spend money on dating apps. It's incredibly time and cost efficient to not want to be in love. Wow. Do you ever have that need for like an oxytocin bond with someone? You know, you don't. No, absolutely not. i'm enormously i'm enormously fond of my own company if you can't see it's like on the floor i need to learn this but but but here's something very important to understand sarah okay so earlier i said i cannot wait to die alone okay and and i absolutely mean that in the sense of i do not want anyone to grow old with but the fact of the matter is i am never going to die alone because i'm surrounded by i have an amazing family that i'm lucky enough to be very close I'm surrounded by, you know, the love of my sisters and their spouses and my amazing nieces and nephews and goddaughters and god sons.

13:01You know, I have amazing friends. You know, I'm surrounded by love through very, very special friends. And I have quite a few very close friends, not just, you know, one or two. I will never die alone. And I think, again, a big mistake people make in thinking about love only as romantic love. you know every one of us is surrounded by love and has the opportunity to be surrounded by love that is not romantic love and that love is honestly just as wonderful just as reassuring just as warm just as giving just as fulfilling no you do not need to be in love to be fulfilled