So tonight's event is called, We Need to Talk. Biana, I just, now let's talk small now. You know, tonight we have, we're going to be discussing a lot of different topics and from culture to umuwa, umuwa okay, weddings, things like that. So tonight's going to introduce our co-host, our guest for tonight, the gentleman that will help facilitate this discussion. So many of you are familiar with the, what is a good word to use to describe this gentleman? The controversial as coined as the godfather, Mr. Kevin Samuel that had just recently passed, regardless of if you have positive and loving feelings about him or you have some not so Christian like views of Mr. Kevin Samuel's. So he, Mr. Kevin Samuel is basically like brought to light what is known as the manosphere. It's been happening for a while, but when he came onto the scene at home, he shook things up. And from there, we have seen different podcasts on YouTube and different social media platforms where people are having their own podcasts. And ironically, I came across another podcast where the gentleman wasn't shown his face, he was just showing the people he was interviewing and asking them certain questions and really getting the conversation going and had them thinking. And the podcast called, We Need to Talk. And I was fortunate enough to be introduced by this gentleman and he is our brother. He's the host, the founder of We Need to Talk. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce to you Mr. Obie. They wanna, how you guys doing? Doing good. And before you go, everyone, I'm gonna let you know now, this is engagement. So it's not just your hair in your robe, your night's robe, just eating obonosubo gari. We'll be calling people out because this is a conversation that we're doing. So it's not just, you hear our lovely voice and then that's it. So I'll pass it back to our guy. Yes sir, yes sir. Thank you guys. Thank you guys for having me. I'm super excited about this conversation. Shout out to Emeka, Emeka set this up. So yeah, we're gonna have fun tonight. We're gonna talk about relationships. We're gonna talk about Igbo culture, Igbo history. And the goal of this conversation is to try to marry, pun intended, how our culture intersects with our view on relationships, how our culture and our history intersects with our view of men or view of women. So yeah, I'm excited. A little background on me. I found that we needed to talk in 2013 when I was in college. Since then, we grew to about eight schools. It shut down after COVID. So I took it to the online, the internets. Since then, we've been interviewing people. The series that you referenced is called Kevin Samuel started this conversation. And the point of that particular series was to model the correct way for men and women to dialogue, right?  When you hear a female voice behind the camera, there's a man on the chair. The goal is to center the other person or other people during dialogue and listen more than we speak. We also have a series called Christian by Defoe where we explore religion. There's another series called Listen to Black Men where it focuses on the pathology of black males in the United States. We have another series called Black Marriage Masterclass where I interview married couples and try to get some sense of why they work, right? People are different, people's circumstances are different. I'm trying to see if there's some common thread amongst people who are married and have been able to sustain marriage. So yeah, make sure y'all check that out. We just hit, I think we're at 65,000 subscribers right now. So you know where I'm moving, small, small. Hey, that's all we can ask for. So definitely check out his podcast. It definitely challenges your thoughts and your perspective, which I really do appreciate. So yeah, so let's go ahead and get into it. Oh God. Let's do it, let's do it. Lord, now. All right, perfect. So the way that I like to start, I like to do a poll. What's the best way for us to do this or not? Should we do it in the chat or should we do, can they make something pop up on the screen? So I can, we can do the chat or I can do the poll. So. Okay, let's do a poll. Okay. Let's do a poll. Okay. All right, so the question is, why do most people get married? Answer one is love, answer two is status and answer three is culture. I want to see how people vote. Love, status and he said a culture. Culture. That's a tough one. That's the point. All right, so how many people do we have in here? For now, we have eight for now. Eight, okay. So we'll make it, we'll make it intimate. Okay, so only three people. Chidero, you better have responded you and your robe. Some interesting answers. Okay. Wow. People, what do you think is cause of love? This is getting interesting. I like this. And also you guys feel free to turn on your cameras, turn on your microphones. I need engagement. Sorry, keep looking at all of you. Yes, so we need some engagement, y'all.  You don't need full makeup. This is a gist, this is a discussion. I'm going to start on you and people. Chief. God. Arthur asking, are these our only options? And I feel like we can talk about other options after the poll. Yes, yes. I think, I think. This is a jump start. Yeah, if these are the only options, if I just, without going into other dimensions, I'll just say love. Cause I think that's originally why most people do get married historically, but if I start trying to think why my sister's doing this or why I know this other person is getting married because of whatever, then it might get a little more scattered, but I think generally speaking, we all want to get married because we fall in love with somebody, even care about somebody. And, you know, we want to make it exclusive. Arthur, let me see your face. He said why? Let me, let me throw a follow up question at you. How would you define love from an Igbo perspective? See, I don't know if I'm the best person to answer this question only because I'm Igbo, right? If I default, I didn't have a choice, I was born into this, but if I define love as myself, as you know, an Nigerian American Igbo man, I mean, that's the question, right? How do I define love? Yeah. Yeah, I mean love. Well, it's a two-part question. How do you define love? How do you think our culture defines love? I think I define love just, I mean, just those elementary feelings that you have for somebody, you know, constantly thinking about them, they're on your mind, you know, good or bad. So, you know, even when times aren't perfect, you still have a deep affinity towards them, right? And so, you know, it might be doing the things that you have to do, even when you don't feel like it because you love someone, right? And culturally speaking, I don't know, it's hard for me to say. I think that kind of sums it up though, because a lot of our parents, if you look at our parents, look at past generations, a lot of sacrifices were made, you know, for our parents to come here to do what they've done so far to raise us. The sacrifices that we all know about, and one sacrifice you make to one another is marriage.  I think we found, if anybody's worked towards anything worthwhile, you know, it's just life's not easy. Life's not easy, and it's better to do it with people you care about, you know, building something with the people you care about, see the good that you love, you have something in common with. So, I mean, I think that's more related to the culture aspect of love. Absolutely. So, Tara, how would you answer that? Yeah, I was going to say, I wanted to answer that. How would you know, Alan, you're bringing my mind? I'm psychic. I'm psychic. Briefly, I'm just kidding. But I was going to say, like, does it really have to be viewed as sacrifice? Couldn't it just be viewed as a choice?  So, instead of viewing it as a sacrifice, I would say it's more of a choice. Because, yeah, go ahead. You don't have to choose. You could choose to walk away. You could choose, you know, I really just don't think I'm ready or this is gonna work.  I want to experience the ups and the downs because I'm connected to you, I know you, and I would like to continue to go through the next chapters of life with you. Yeah, I think to that, I don't know if I could respond to that as well. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, but I think, I mean, probably it's just a word choice, right? Like, I agree with what Tara's saying. It is a choice that we're making, but I just don't like to sugarcoat anything. And so it might come off tasting bitter, you know? But I think, you know, bitter now, sweet later, but there's probably other synonyms that can be used for sacrifice. So it doesn't sound so daunting, but I mean, truth be told, that's what we do in love, you know? It's not all the time. We make choices. It is, what it is. It is, what it is. So I think if I choose, if I love you and I choose to say, okay, I want pizza tonight and you, something that's simple, something very simple, right?   Let's move, gonna have tacos because I love you, I care about you. That wasn't like a life sacrifice. But yeah, compromise is probably a better word. So there's compromise that must be made and I think, yeah, I mean, that's regularly... You know what, Arthur, you're right. I take it back. I think that there are certain things within the marriage that you can sacrifice. You can sacrifice your independence and be more co-interdependent maybe. You can sacrifice your single life. You can sacrifice having more free time to yourself once the kids start coming in and once you guys move in together, you're not gonna be alone as much anymore. So I guess when you think about it in that way, you can say that you are sacrificing some things in order to be joined as one. So maybe in that way, I can say I could agree with that. There are sacrifices you make willingly and hopefully gladly because you feel that it's worth more to be together and join your lives together than to just be alone. Yeah, I think at the root of it, like if on a far extreme side of things, we use the word sacrifice and then moving closer to that soft, sweet space that will be compromised and then even closer further to that warm, fuzzy place, these are like just everyday choices that we make because I think, like I said, if it weren't a major sacrifice, then what would be the point of marriage? Right, you know what I mean? Like we could just be girlfriend boyfriend or we could just be besties all our whole life that just do, you know, share the agreements on things. So I think part of that is a daily act of like selflessness, you know, for this common union.   So it would feel like a sacrifice, but you know, with the right person, you know, you're willing to do it gladly. Yeah, let me throw the question to a lady, either Ijoma, Toya, Lovett and Wendy, what is the Igbo paradigm of love? How do you think our parents, our grandparents would define love and all jump in at once? Oh yeah, Chichi as well, I see you. Ijoma, I can't, she's at work, but you can put in the chat. You can put in the chat. Okay, so she's saying it is transactional. Transactional, okay, that's interesting. I was waiting for the devil's advocate about it. I was waiting for that. Okay, anybody else? It's not about love. If you want to talk to me, talk to me directly, don't go through the corners. Okay, so she also says it's not about love, more gender role fulfilling. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't think about it that way. Well, let's see, who can actually talk? Chichi and Ijoma at work, yeah. If you can actually talk, so I can pick on you a little bit. Lovett can talk. Wow. Yes, I'm choosing violence. Welcome. That's wild. Hello everybody, good evening. So, yes, I feel like I'm going to be saying something similar to what's already been said in the comments because like the first thing, right when you said like, okay, from my parents, like what would they say like love is? I was just like, love, like my parents would be like, love, love what? Like, you know, like. Love or wanting to. Yes, it's, I think that for them, it was more so thinking about, okay, what can my partner provide for me, you know? And if we're going to make this work, okay, we want to have a family. So what can, what do you bring to the table? What do I bring to the table? Okay, what can you do? What can I do? So I do agree that it was, it did feel kind of transactional. It felt, I don't know. I mean, I believe that love was in there somewhere. It just wasn't as pronounced as, you know, more of a focus on, okay, can you financially take care of me or like take care of a family, things like that? You think that's a result of our dowry system or do you think it's a result of kind of the situation of Nigeria? I do think it's, I kind of think it's a little of both because it's like, okay, so our culture calls for that with it, and that's part of the reason why there's the dowry system is to see, okay, what does their family, what can their family provide? Like, can you provide for my daughter or like for my husband, or not husband, sorry, for my son, things like that? And, but I also think that it's because of the way that Nigeria is, or was, still is. There's just, it really is, there was a more, there's a bigger focus on like survival than really about this idea of like, okay, love, because I don't know. Like for my, I know that in our culture, love, yes, it can be there, but it's not gonna put food on the table if that makes sense. Like at least, you know, it's all about the materialistic, like what do you have that will actually help me? Because I mean, love, yeah, we can have a lot of that, we can be rich in love and still be broke at the end of the day and still be like hungry. So it's like, also thinking about, okay, do we even have the resources? And that I think that's, and because of Nigeria's situation and everything like that, that's why there was a more emphasis on that than love. So I wanna throw a question to anybody watching. How do you guys think the way that our parents and the way that our grandparents have established the paradigm of love has affected how we date in 2023? Do you think there's any residue of how we seek out men or seek out women, particularly as ebos? Come on now. If you want to talk to me, talk to me directly, don't go through the corners. I wanna say something to that, that's hilarious. Yeah, I think in my experience, the finger pointing shouldn't be so much as our parents or their generation or their, you know, their parents. So I think we do our own fair share of finger pointing within our own families, but I think it's also important to really put it in perspective if we're comparing things, you know, if we compare our own cultures to other cultures, to other ethnicities and people, you know, you know, there's a reason why we have, we're very proud of what we've done, you know, we've accomplished a lot, you know, looking at, you know, our parents just as one example of people who may sacrifices to really risky challenges to just up, just leave their whole lives and go start something new. You can imagine doing something like that, something as bold and as daring as that. It's extremely scary, you know, and we should give ourselves more credit for that. I know there's, you know, maybe like little internal family issues that we all have our complaints about, the things that we wish weren't as they were, you know, but I think more the challenges that we face on ourselves is when we compare our, as millennials or whatever, comparing our lives to the other, you know, Americans around us or whatever we see in this 2023, you know, like this modern day world. I think if anything, our parents got it right the best way they could from a traditional standpoint, but the moment, you know, like we couldn't, our parents and their parents couldn't afford to share these types of thought provoking, you know, top of Maslow's pyramid conversations. Like we, this is really, it truly is a luxury that we take for granted and, you know, we do have a great sense of entitlement about it, but it's like, if we're constantly comparing ourselves to what's in the media today, I think that's where the problems come up, right? Cause now we're exposed to seeing so many different variations, whatever, you know, and it's like our parents didn't have all those things to look at. And the beautiful part of my marriage is worth being in but say, okay, you had one, they had two, they stuck it together, they made it work, you know? And it was just that and there's beauty in that. So I think- Absolutely, absolutely. Tara, what, I see your handout. What are your thoughts on this? You mute it. Oh my gosh, I keep forgetting. Yeah, I was actually going to read what's in the chat. So Wendy said, we don't know how to date. And Shadara said, a lot of men are emotionally unavailable for which Wendy also replied some females too. So I'm gonna throw this question at you. So author is saying that we should be easier on our parents. We shouldn't be as hard on them or as critical. They did the best they could. How critical should we be of Igbo culture in how we view love and relationship and subsequently marriage? Tara, that's you. I gotta be me. Look what the audience answered. I am ready for this. Come on. You gotta lead by example and then we'll jump to somebody else. Okay, sorry, repeat the question again. That was not expecting. No, I said it. Yeah, so how did our culture affect how we view love relationships and marriage? And how critical should we be of our culture is the main question? Especially since like most of us are now Igbo-Americans, it's gonna be different. And we're from a different generation and we have a lot more like freedom than our parents I guess in regards to this because a lot of like the females too are where our own bosses were successful. We're not really depending too much on our husband's income. I mean, unless we want to. There's a lot of like entrepreneurs now and ways to just make money easily even from being a content creator to maybe an Instagram model or stocks. Like it's just, the world is just different now in regards to that. And there's just so much more freedom in our choices for that. So as far as like Igbo being critical of it in regards to relationships, it's all about I think success on both sides. Like women are looking for maybe not as much the financial aspect, but we do see Igbo men being successful as my partner that's equal. And that means that if the chips are down and I don't feel like working or want to be a stay at home mom or whatever the case may be, my husband got us. I can't speak for all women in that regard.  So I'll just try to like, throw it out there. But it's just, I think it's just different. And the way that we are viewing marriage and our choices versus our parents it's just gonna be completely different because there's more freedom here too. Now I also know that back home they're starting to kind of adopt the Western mindset and culture as well, but differently. So I think it's just different maybe, but I don't know, that's just me. Okay. Was that author who wanted to jump in? Yeah, yeah. I wanted to kind of go back to what I was saying early like they're really again, like we're not gonna point we shouldn't point fingers at our parents to try to make sense of our own woes or dilemmas. We shouldn't compare ourselves to other people to make sense or try to define what success is, right? Like every successful person is massively successful because they spend a great deal of time whether you saw it or not focusing on themselves and taking care of their own business not comparing themselves and just staying in their own lane.  When you're in your own bit of isolation right in your own bubble, then it's like, okay you really find out between you and God what's the real you know, and that's where the sanctity of marriage comes in because it's like, okay now I have this one person, I have this one partner that I'm sharing this with and we both are now, now it's not so lonely, right? This road I take. So now I have my partner who we can kind of just like tune everything out and just focus on us. And that's the beauty and that's the moment you start like comparing to this person or that person or saying the problem resides because of this individual, that parent or whatever, that's when the problems come. So I think it's important because it's like you know, like evil, it's not going to come out dating like dating in and of itself is funny because we're having a conversation with a friend. The other day it's like, it's kind of a weird experience if you think about it from a social aspect I mean, we know it's a normal thing to date but like if it comes ever more weirder or like uncomfortable, the moment we start like you know, getting outside of ourselves to compare about whatever else is going on. Like if there's enough anxiety and on to meet another stranger just find somebody that I'm kind of interested in and see know what's going on.  Yeah, sure. So I'm a documentary filmmaker. So being critical is kind of my job. I'm working on a film called the bite of Biafra. And I want to kind of touch on the Biafra war. I want to touch on Igbo culture and also kind of build that historical bridge between Igbo's and African Americans. And one of the things that I found is that we haven't been critical enough of ourselves. I think we could stand to be a bit more critical productively critical. But for the vast majority of Igbo's in my case and the case of some of my family, some of my friends we have a lot of skeletons in our closet that we brush up under the rug. A lot of things that we've done in our culture in our families that lead to very, very bad outcomes down the line. And because we're not a culture that celebrates introspection or celebrates therapy, for instance, a lot of these problems just compound, right? So if we leave our culture kind of free of critique for fear of, you know, blemishing it, how do we grow? How do we expand ourselves as individuals and as a culture? That's for you. Yeah, no, I totally get that. I totally understand that. Like, you know, like you said, I think the words you used was progressive. What was the words? There's introspection, right? But we want to be progressive, right? Because progress does require a great deal of introspection and also understanding that, you know, to create something new, right? We have to be that thing, right? It's best to lead by example, right?  So I think, you know, when it comes to, when you're in practice of doing it, just like, you know, as you're working on your documentary, I'm sure you'll be able to understand like the different nuances of creation, of creating something new, what it requires to collaborate, when it requires to like be more extroverted or to be more introverted in order to, right, build something that's significant at last. You know, I don't want to take complete blame off of our parents, for example, for their maybe intentional blindness to their own faults, for example, that have had an effect. I don't want to make it seem like they're just like saintly and perfect and all that. No ball means no. But I know that each generation that comes, whether it's our great grandparents or great-to-grand-to-parents to us, there's going to be a deal, a significant amount, even when we parent our own children where we won't always get things quote unquote, right? We won't always be quote unquote perfect. We'll always be in an ever-growing stage of doing our best. And so like our parents, we can be the joy for our parents, just like they were for their parents by being able to lead by example, right? To be like, to have the freedom to have these conversations is one thing, but there's also another thing from being introspective to being more action-oriented, using that introspection and then applying it, right? So we do, when it comes to mental health, mental awareness and things like that, we're now looking at it, we're now addressing it, we're actually making it a thing that's the topic of conversation, which is important. And I think it's important to understand that, okay, we can have the conversations all day that may or may not be triggering in many ways, right? But we need to know that we still move forward, and all of us still move forward. And we do that by having a sense of autonomy and a sense of like independence of whatever else the world can throw at us. Because we're never gonna be fall short of opportunities to say, hey, you didn't do it just good enough, or you didn't do it just perfectly, right? I don't know if that's an answer.  I agree with you too. And I just wanted to just like cut in to also kind of also just hear from Kalechi. Did you wanna say something? Well, yeah, I wanted to say something and then I also got the request too, you know. So we kind of coincided, so I guess. Yeah, but anyway, when it comes to the, of course, the issue of marriage is always definitely interesting, you know, whatever the generation. What I would like to highlight is when it comes to those of our parents or all the earlier generations than us and compared to the current generation, of course, there's gonna be differences. There's gonna be pros and cons to each side of it. So, and when we consider at the end of the day these pluses and minuses at both sides, it raises the question. I have the question, can we really say that we're better now in marriage, in handling marriages than our fathers where? Because, you know, the thought about, oh, let's critique the older generation. You know, it's almost as if to say, yeah, it's better now. So what did they do wrong? You know, or what can we correct from how our parents handled marriage? Say for example, the way it's, there is more, there's more individuality, more on your own, you know, like now your own, in the current, you know, let's say Western civilization, but back in our parents' times, there was more of a, it's more of a communal thing. You know, talk about therapy, for example.  So if you have that kind of, you know, the traditional wedding, your weddings is your family's business, you know. So when you have those kind of community interactions, you really need therapy. So should we say that they made a mistake in not doing therapy when we don't have, or we don't have the kind of communal togetherness they have back then. So to me it's like, yes, we are not perfect, you know, like the rate at which we're breaking down marriages, are we not beating them? So are we really better than them? So yes, they are not perfect. Neither are we. So it's like, okay, let's pick up and see how we can move forward, especially in the area of marriage and yes, take what are the positives from them, leave what are the negatives, but also understanding that in our present generation we have our negatives. What is, for example, this modern, you talk about what is it that makes a marriage crumble or get challenged? One big thing would be, first of all, how many thousands of destructive options or distracting options do you have, hundreds or thousands you have?   Look at it, you know, you have all these, there's so many more ways to be distracted in our generation, you know, whereas they had more ways to be focused over there. So to me, I'm like, look, you know, pick what you can, what good you can, you know, pick from wherever and move forward. When it comes to the area of marriage, yes, they had their pluses, they had their minuses, we have our pluses, we have our minuses.  I don't want to be the kind of person who be like, yes, it's because my parents, they didn't use the word love, you know, I love you.  They may not have used the word I love you, but we have the word ingunanya, but we don't really use I love you, but that love is, Chidimah, have you checked your car? Is your oil working?  So, at the end of the day, it's to me, it's like, I'll just round up and say, they have their positives, they have their negatives, when it comes to marriage, we have our positive, we have our negatives. And I personally can't even confidently say, we are better in our current times in marriage. So, let's go ahead and critique the, I can't confidently say that. That perfectly leads to my next question. One of the things that I talk about often, even with African-Americans is, I think our generation is looking for different metrics to gain success, right? Our parents' generation, you know, baby boomers, gen X, they looked at a successful marriage as a long marriage. A lot of us grew up with parents who had been together forever, but it wasn't a good marriage. And it set the kind of precedent and in us to say, if it's not good, especially with all the options we have, if it's not good, I don't want it. So, you know, as the youth, what metrics do you guys think we're gonna use to grade a quote unquote, good marriage in the next 10, 20 years? And I want a woman to jump in there. So, Brandy, Toya, Lovett. Anike, Marlene. Oh, no, no, no, you have things to say. Anike, speak next, you know. Talk to you in violence. With my 10,000 names. You got 10,000 names. She actually has 10,000 names. It's hard to keep. I think in relation to what Helen Chee was saying, I think that was his name. I think he mentioned something about how there's so many options these days. And I think, yes, in some ways that is true, but I also think there is a change coming where, especially within like black couples, you see, I feel like you see more black couples staying together longer these days than you did maybe a couple of years ago, where for me, I didn't really see, I don't really observe that many couples that were together. But I think even going back to our parents' age phase, there were less options, there were less things to distract people, like was mentioned earlier. And I think for them, that didn't make them stay together longer. What do I think in terms of what people are going to be looking for long-term? I don't know. I think it depends on the person. I think everyone is different. Everyone will have different views on what will make their relationship last. I think a lot of people these days look at the wrong characteristics. I think people look at things like, how much money do you make? How tall are you? Is that going to help you raise your child? Not really, no. That's just my viewpoint. Brandy, I know Brandy got something to say. Brandy? But, okay. Oh, can you hear me? Go ahead. Yeah. Well, I don't have much to say, but I'm just observing. So, nothing at this time, but I'll let you know. Thank you. Sounds good. Sounds good. I have another question for Nikke. You said we're using the incorrect metrics to date and subsequently kind of evaluate our ability to date. What do you think are the correct metrics? If we're using the wrong ones, what are the right ones? Again, it depends on the person and their values and what they think is important for their future family. But I think too many people these days are looking at changeable characteristics. So, you're looking at things like, what car do you drive? They might lose that car, and the next time, is that going to help you with your family? No, not really. Like, too many people are looking at things that are changeable, instead of looking at things that are stable. If you look at your stable characteristics, how does the person treat you? What are their values? What do they want out of their future family? Are they willing to have kids? Are they willing to help you raise those kids?  Things like that are going to help you to know what kind of man or woman am I going to marry?  I mean, I see people these days, I know a woman that's married, her husband's in the house, he comes back home from work, he goes to his room, she's left with two kids.  Okay, but now you're married and he's kind of, what's he doing now? Like, so for me, you have to look at certain things and think about the future and what's that gonna look like? Yeah, to kind of add to that, recently there was a young lady that was having conversations and one thing she said, I've been hearing a lot of ladies like, I broke up with my ex because he wasn't my person. I'm like, your person, which one is your person? I really don't understand what women mean when they say person, because I only hear that from women. Now, at the same time, I don't date men, so maybe men say, I don't know. But I'm like, what is your person? You know, I hear my person, compatibility. I'm like, if you don't want to date yourself, then you're gonna date somebody who is quote unquote not compatible. And that's, I think to me, that's the point of relationship. You have two strangers who are working to try to become one, quote unquote.  So it's interesting, they didn't do it somehow. So do you guys feel like trying to find a Nigerian, an Ibo man or woman is more or less difficult than trying to find, you know, maybe an African-American or, you know, or Ibo? Big time. I said Ibo, he chose violence. Oh, man. Jump in there. Yeah, everyone's saying yes. Honestly, like our expectations, I don't know what it is, but we just have some high expectations sometimes, I think. Like there's just so much like emphasis. And I don't know. I just feel like, yeah. Oh, Wendy's saying not hard in Atlanta. What do you mean? Wendy, you gotta explain that. What does that mean? Not hard in Atlanta? What you talking about? I'm at the gym. That's why I haven't been talking as much. But I feel like it's not hard to find Africans in Atlanta. So that's the question. She do got a point. There's no sweat. Yeah. I feel like we live in a different state than yeah, be hard to find, especially Ibo people, but we have a good community in Atlanta. So we have a lot to choose from, but in terms of like, obviously it's easier to find an African-American guy, but I feel like most of them are not as serious as Ibo men, but that's why I've been here. Oh, Yajama says the quality. Wait, what do you mean by quality, Yajama? Quality. Yeah, pull me out. That was gonna be my question. Like there's abundance necessarily translate the quality. Cause I hear a lot of people, especially people who live in Atlanta, they say that we're all over the place, but this one is doing Ron's Gale. This one is doing four on nine. This one, you know what I mean? So like, does the fact that a lot more people are available whether we're talking about Atlanta, DC, Houston, translate to easier to find somebody that you're looking for? Yeah. And then the whole moving to like a different state to find your spouse is a thing now. It's all over Instagram. I'm saying move to Texas. If you're in Atlanta, move to Texas, like Houston, Dallas, they got guys or go to tri-state. If you're in Atlanta, you're gonna find a guy there or go to the DMV, you know, you're gonna find a guy in a different state or vice versa. Like everyone's just like moving to different states cause the state they're within they can't find anybody apparently. So that's like a trend on Instagram. And when he's- Is it working? Well, abundance makes it easier is what Wendy said. And then Yajama said no two different things, sent sometimes no day, respect is out the window. Direction of life is untraceable just to name a few. Chisholm has a hand raised.  Please. You know, I don't know if it was a Bible verse or just a wise man that said that change starts within not with moving to Atlanta. And that's really speaking to me right now. Cause no, in all honesty, we're talking about, you know abundance and addability and all these things. And, you know, maybe I'm a little biased, but I do feel like, you know, I do feel especially for my Igbo sisters in Atlanta trying to find, you know, a good Nigerian or Igbo man because, you know, there's good Igbo men but especially, you know, before 25 or 30, you know they, many of them, us, them want to, you know or struggle to like settle down and just pick one and be with one and commit to one. But, you know, I don't know if that's like more of a cultural thing, like being over here or, you know, just a decision that has become like inculturated from back home. But what I do know is that at some point, you know there is a shift where men become more serious or thinking about marriages, they get older then, you know, it's almost like, it's almost like as women get older there's a point where it's like they're more and more focused on marriage and after a certain age I don't know what the age that is but they shift more to a mindset of, oh well if it happens, I'd love it to happen but if it's going to happen it has to be with the right person or under the right circumstance because I've dealt with so much nonsense in my younger days that I don't even have the patience for this anymore. And so, you know, it's not really a simple thing and there's, you know, once we start going into generational stuff and, you know I can make a whole number of talk about that. Anyway, long story short, I do not think it's as easy as people, you know, talk about it being just because you meet nice people doesn't mean that you're compatible and compatibility can be a lot of things. So, yeah. Right, let me throw a follow up question. As a Nigerian Igbo man, what are some challenges that you have seen, heard of, you know discuss with your boys with dating Nigerian Igbo women? Okay, so I mean, I'll give one just that, you know if you're dating an Igbo woman, it's like there's almost this pressure of like, okay, this has to work, you know like from the jump, it's like, and not just like, okay, we're gonna, you know get to know each other and date and see if, you know, we're compatible. It's like, yo, I'm Igbo, you're Igbo. Let's go ahead and do the Iqwaka and, you know, you'll bring the wine to my father's house. I mean, it's not like that, but there's okay. Oh, there's clapping. There is like this underlying pressure that's like, you know, we're from the same culture so there's like conversations we don't have to have. So it's almost like, okay, if this doesn't work is there something wrong with you? Is there something wrong with me? Like it's not, there's not that like, I don't want to say natural progression but there's like an added pressure from being from the same culture because we're here. So that's the biggest challenge I've seen. All right, Arthur, jump in there, man. Okay, I think you guys said a whole lot of good stuff, man. I think for me, it's challenging hard enough as it is. I'm 38, so to find, even if I don't say just Igbo women, if I just say it just like black women, right? Or someone who I find compatible, I think it's hard enough, right? But then when I look at Igbo women, and I think that's another subcategory which means the number in population comparison through all black women is smaller, right? So then it'll be doubly more challenging, right? And usually our Igbo women are Nigerian women at their high standard, meaning they, rightfully so they've earned it. Most of them are all, you know, agreed from a corporate standpoint, economically, they're doing well for themselves, intelligent, they were raised well. And so they're top of their class. So that's, and then I forget who just, I think it was Chizon that just spoke, but it was like that kind of pressure to be like, it's almost like a scarcity mindset. It's like, okay, whoa, this is about as close as it's gonna get. So let's jump the boom now, you know, like that is pressure. But my thing is, I think the final form of that emotional intelligence, emotional maturity has been the biggest challenge I've found because these days, I don't know if someone says something similar to it, but it's a lot of transactional interactions happening. And the advantage we have now is that, you know, with technology and everything in this day and age, we can like, you don't even have to have a college degree to come up and become wealthy and to have a plan for your family. And like the logistics of that, like sincerely speaking are way more simpler to construct. And it's just a matter of just putting one step in front of the other. But I think the more complicated thing is having someone who's like developing themselves communicatively, you know, like that's something that you can't, so one of the women said, talked about raising children and how will you interact with each other and all these things like that's so paramount, you know, even if we're racing and, you know, buying houses and making money, like if we did all of that, like how will we keep it and build wealth and like leave legacies and stuff like that? We didn't know how to communicate with each other intimately and things like that without stepping on each other's toes. So like for me, searching in the pool, like I much rather be around our UIU clans because it's just like, okay, that enhances my, the population or odds, but it's still that, you know, discerning of, okay, does this person have like emotional maturity or are they just thinking transactionally?  Yeah, definitely, definitely. So before we move on to the ladies, cause I'll give you guys a chance to complain. What is, or what would any of you guys say to explain some of men's grievances, some of Ebo men's grievances, like the pressure that we're talking about or the transactional energy that some Ebo women approach relationships with? I'm gonna start calling names, Ijama, Christina, somebody, Wendy. Marlene, how are you people? Marlene, there we go, thought to me. I'm driving so far, like lose you all or you can't hear me, just let me know. Sure. But yeah, so a lot of interesting things has been said, but you know, I feel like when men say pressure, it's almost like something that's worth $100, you wanna get it for like 50. Like if you want something great, why would you, even though there's pressure, you know that you're going, you're getting an amazing thing. So I know for me, I'm 35, single, so it's definitely gonna be hard out here, but I had to realize like not to compromise. And from a biblical standpoint, because from a biblical standpoint, I was like, you know, if he's nice and he loves God, then essentially everything else will come into line, but you know, like the person said previously, how they communicate, those things are not necessarily like going to be scripture wise. The other scripture that talks about that, but you're not gonna find a Christian that can communicate well, that's not just gonna go together.  There was things that I was like, no, if I'm worth this much for God, I feel pressure and that for that to deter him, it's kind of like a turn off. Like, you know, you want something special, even though they're like, the ratio would have last time like 20 to one, I don't put myself a month at like, I feel like I'm very much set apart with what I bring to the table. And because, you know, I seek the face of God, I feel like that's a big thing missing from relationships.  Because I know that you were set apart and you're worth a lot more than what the pool is, you're set apart. So yeah, that's kind of interesting that guys do say that, but I essentially that shouldn't deter you. You know, one of the things that, you know, I noticed as an Igbo man also, I've attempted to date Igbo women a couple of times. And there was a, and to be fair, I've seen this in my sisters as well. There's almost this arrogance. There's this air of pomposness or pomposity. I don't know which is the correct term. How would you guys explain that to us or help us make sense of it? Because I grew up seeing that in like aunties who would pretend they didn't see you until you started, like you greeted them. So how would you explain it to us who are trying to approach relationships in good faith but are met with some of that resistance of you got to prove yourself to me, but you have to assume that I'm inherently valuable because I'm a woman. Is that question for a woman or in general? Yes, LeVette, LeVette, she's got a hand up. Talk to me. Yes, and I think it was already said in the comments, but I do feel like that's already us just Igbo's across the board, like women and even just Nigerians in general. Like we do walk around with this air of confidence that is just inherent in our people and our culture. I don't know if it's, I don't know, like because you'll hear other people, you'll hear other groups of people say that, like Americans, like they all say, yeah, Nigerians, y'all walk around different, you know, like it's just, and so I do feel like with that, it's coming from both sides. Like it's not just men feeling that from women, but women are also feeling that from men. And I think that with that, maybe there is a little bit of a disconnect because then that means that like, maybe we are kind of like each other's, like we're now like kind of pushing each other away type of thing, so. Absolutely. That's kind of hard. Absolutely. You know, I mean, to be fair, I agree with you. I think, you know, it is in Igbo men and Igbo women and it's one of the things that I'm critical of because I don't think it's doing us any favors. And I actually don't think it's confidence. I think it's like a pseudo confidence and part of it was put into us by our parents, you know, a lot of our parents, especially the ones who weren't necessarily rich, they had to, I don't know if you guys are born in Nigeria, but we call it form and they had to form. They had to look the part, right? And sometimes we prioritize looking the part as opposed to being the part. Like I know some doctors who are miserable, they hate their jobs, but outside they pretend like, yeah, I'm the best things to slice bread because our culture forces us to prioritize optics over actual like, you know, self actualization. So I don't think it's confidence when I see it in the men, when I see it in the women. And to your point, I think it's actually making things harder for us because we're looking past each other instead of looking at each other. And there's no humility in our interactions. Would you guys agree with that or disagree? Heavily agree. The chats are saying. Okay. So can I add to that? Sure. I do think that on that note, I do think a lot of the confidence and bravado in our culture is false, but I also think in general, like when people who aren't truly confident also cannot recognize true confidence and they see it as true. Oh.  I don't think I'm super boastful or braggadocious. I can be at times, but jokingly, but the stuff I'm really confident in, you know, if I am, I just am. And sometimes I'll just talk and it's not necessarily among Nigerian people.  I'm like, no, I'm not. I know what I can do and I know what I can't do. And if I know I can do this and what I can do, I'm gonna talk about like I can do it. But if I can't do it, you know, I won't pretend like I can, but you know, that's almost a separate thing. I mean, that is a separate thing, but it's somewhat related. But also on that note, what you just said about how people like, it stops us from looking at each other and seeing past each other. I do want to kind of loop that back into, you know, what Marlene was saying earlier about how the pressure is like a turnoff because it's not a pressure to, it's not a pressure like, oh man, this girl is too much pressure.  You are someone who I value on a level of like just genuine respect and everything like that. And if I mess up this relationship in a, you know, bad way, then I'm not just messing up this relationship between you and us. I'm potentially messing up like some of the ties in our community. And that pressure is, I think something that's worth, you know, worth noting and worth being aware of. And then maybe as a community, as a generation, we need to find ways to work around that, but it's there and it's, I think it's valid. So that's all I wanted to say. Let me throw this back to Marlene, because I think she brought up an interesting point. You kind of alluded to intrinsic value and understanding your value and not settling for less. What role, or let me put it like this, how heavily do you grade other people's assessment of you? Would you say you more heavily grade your assessment of yourself, other people's assessment of you, or is it a balance or is it an imbalanced paradigm? Honestly, it's my own assessment. I think when I was younger in my early 20s, I definitely looked at, you know, my report card from others, but now in my 30s, it's definitely my self-assessment.  What does that look like? What does my walk look like versus what other people perceive or think they know of me? Okay, okay.  Thoughts? Probably one of the most important parts of conversations to have, I mean, as alpha men and women, you know, because that's what we are. Whether you like the title that's been thrown around or not, like that's just, it's in our DNA. And I just know as someone who's lived amongst alphas my whole life that it's a very unique challenge to coexist among other alphas of different types of different backgrounds and things like that. And so like this, this charge to communication is so, so serious. And I'm not saying I'm the best at it, like, like terra point out my poor use of language earlier when I use sacrifices, she said compromise. Like, I was like, oh, like perfect, you know? So it's this, I don't, I feel like the best solution is to just learn how to be better communicators with one another because if we look at the same energy, right? They say, how do they say? Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It just changes form. Same energy that we might think is one of the, like the most immense amount of love or affection, you know? And it's like, that's overwhelming. Like I think one of the gentlemen said earlier is like, when we, let's say shy away from a woman who has this like strong energy or whatever, it's not as if like we think less of ourselves or we're not capable of like stepping to the plate. But there's actually at least, and I like the way you said it, but in like the way I see that is, I respect you more than other people.  And I want us, I want, you know, I would like for this to coexist, but if I'm not on your frequency right now, you don't have the patience for it, then I get it. Like God bless you. But yeah, it's just a constant charge to be a better communicator. It's something I'm, something that stays daily, you know? And I just hope that whoever I peer with or whatever, it's something that she would understand it, okay? Arthur don't have, he's not as great as communicating in this area as possible. I'm gonna be patient with him as, you know, I can be with her cause it's not, it's not one-sided. It's not like one person's a prize, the other person's not. It's like we're both prizes to one another, you know? And it's just like we're both equally great. We're both equally fallible, you know? And so that's something like my hope would be to work with somebody who, like I talked about, you know, just emotional maturity to be patient. That's something that it requires. Yeah, I definitely think that's a really good point. And it brings up, you know, the concept that, you know, we talk about a lot on social media. Who is the prize? What is the prize?   I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm not going to reason for a question, but go ahead. Yeah, I want you to, first of all, make your point. And then I want you to answer the question, how do you conceptualize the prize, the prize paradigm? Like who is the prize? Who is not the prize? Are we both prizes? How does that work? Okay, so I'll, yeah, I'll answer that. What I wanted to, what I raised my hand for, that's a very good question. What I raised my hand for was a question. If I take together the issues of one standards and then the issues of, you know, pressure, the issue of what kind of response do you, what kind of air do you give out in your response?  So my question would be, when it comes to standards, how do we know that our standards are when it comes to a woman that I'm gonna be with or a man I'm gonna be with for the rest of my life? How do we know that my standards are not unrealistic and not unrealistic? Yeah, well, it's all right. You know, so that because we're human beings, we're human beings, we're gonna have choice. That's okay. Well, how do we know that it's not too unrealistic or too low, that's one. Then the issue of pressure and standard and coming up as arrogant, how do we refuse gracefully? Or is it hard for us to refuse gracefully?  Then to answer your own question about price, I'll just state out rightly, I don't subscribe to any one person being the price. Because it's a partnership. I'm not doing the woman a favor by marrying her. I wanted a wife. She's not doing me a favor by marrying me. She wanted a husband.  There's this thing about, okay, ladies, you are the price. Yes, you are the price in the sense of if you look at the traditional thing whereby the man goes out seeking. So yes, he's finding a price. But understand that you as well are seeking, you want to be found. So ultimately you are seeking. So it's a partnership, you know, I wouldn't say happy wife, happy life, but happy spouse, happy house. You know, it's like we are both the price. I'm giving you something, you're giving me something. That doesn't take away the fact that yes, the man should be responsible, be the head of the home and so on. Yes, but everybody's, we're both the price. So let me learn about you and you learn about me. And then it's a, you know, I did physics way back.  So it's two forces. They are equal, they're opposite. You know, like the kind of force you need to turn a circular knob. So one force is going left, the other force is going right. That way you can turn the knob and open the door. So I think both are the price. Absolutely, absolutely. So I want to throw this question to the ladies. Now that we've talked about our grievances with Igbo women, what are you guys' grievances with Igbo men, Igbo angels? Tara, I'm gonna start with you. What does that mean? I'm teaching talk max. All right, that's all. That's all. So there's no problem. They don't know us, they don't know where we got them. Okay, what was the question again? What are the grievances? What are the challenges that you've had with Igbo men or trying to date or, you know, pursue Igbo men? I would say one, maybe not being able to prioritize between their career or what they're doing for a living and putting in the time and the energy toward building something more that would lead to marriage. And two, I would also say in line with that, maybe thinking that they're ready for that next step, but not actually being ready once they meet that woman that is serious, has the qualities, maybe has what they're looking for. Maybe when they meet that woman, they're like, oh, maybe I'm not as prepared or ready as I thought I was. Maybe just the idea of it, I thought I was ready, but then when reality hits and you actually meet that woman that you're looking for or checks off all those qualities, you're just like, oh, wow, like it hits you and it's like, oh, this is, maybe there's a few things I need to work on before I'm ready to take that next step kind of deal. You feel like maybe, just maybe, what the fellas are saying about the pressure, you think that maybe plays into their unwillingness to allocate more time to spend with you? I would say the pressure just in general on men, they're expected to do the leading, to pursue, to think of like date options or even to even just make the conversation started, initiated. To perform. Perform, I mean, it is a lot, especially if the lady is being neutral or not really giving a response back yet because they're trying to fill you out or they're wanting you to do more of the work. So I think that that can be kind of daunting. So how would you, let me backtrack. So I've heard that a lot, right? Like even now there's a conversation about coffee dates. Some women think coffee dates are lazy. Men think coffee dates are fiscally responsible. I've been encouraging men to deprioritize our first instinct because we lead with our sexual desire for a woman and sometimes it clouds our judgment and we end up spending more than she's actually worth to us. So basically I say all that to say like, how do you think the ways that our women in particular are presenting themselves, whether you talk about Shakara to our men is helping facilitate the relationship getting to the next level or disincentivize the relationship getting to the next level. So on therapy we learn about, well, we teach about communication being number one. If you are not communicating your intentions, you're not communicating honestly like how you're feeling about certain things, then it doesn't allow the other person the chance to kind of reciprocate support, maybe give you instead of like throwing hints or doing that back and forth game thing where the guy has to try and guess and the girl can't like express too much of interest or whatever. I think just being honest and just communicating clearly like your intentions and you both being on the same page by that communication would help a lot with the cloudiness with the gray area. Maybe even take off the pressure off of both of y'all. You're both able to just kind of let your hair down a little bit and really just get to know each other. Your likes, the personalities, just being able to kind of just bounce off of that and being honest with, for the guy, like saying, in order to kind of like figure out the date thing, right? Kind of just being like, if I were to take you on a date what would be the top three ideal places to go or things to do that you would be open to? And it can range from just a simple movie to a picnic to whatever. And in that response, usually the female will be like, oh, this place or doing this or that. And you can kind of get a feel off of that, right? And you could also as a male communicate, I wanna try something different. In the past I've always just did simple movie and dinner but I kind of just wanna get a feel of like who you are and what you like.  You wanna kind of do something to be able to hear each other, be able to face each other, maybe be able to do an activity together to see if like you guys can work together as a team and maybe like think things through strategize or compete a little bit, you know, friendly competition or, you know, just something where you can interact and talk, you know. All right, so ladies, any of you want to jump in there and talk about some of your grievances with people I met? Marlene, I see you. I want to speak after Marlene. Okay. Who? Chiderra wanted to speak after Marlene, but. Gotcha. Yeah. I wanna say grievances, but I definitely agree with, you know, if they're very career focused for them to be able to prioritize time to give to our relationship, that is kind of like my grievances, but I think the biggest thing is essentially I can find that do men actually like, not always say do men, but if you're pursuing someone, are you really interested?  Oftentimes I have, you know, I have either male friends or even guys that have pursued me are so quick to like, oh, let's go do this, let's go hang out. And I understand like the momentum and trying to get to know me, but those conversations are crucial. If you wanna say, oh, you know, she used me just to go to Ruth Chris, I asked like, well, how many conversations do y'all have? What did y'all talk about? And it was probably just text message, one or two conversations. It wasn't really engaging. You didn't really learn about her, but you're already like, let me take her out to somewhere. And you're asking her versus like you, that's a good, like give me the top three options. Or even just saying, hey, would you like to go on a, I agree with a coffee date. I don't even want you, if I just met you, and I'm not really, first of all, if I'm not really interested, I'm not going anywhere. And if I just met you, I want something very light and easy.  But, you know, but I didn't really learn that until like my late twenties that I was like, okay, when you obliged to these expensive dates or gifts or anything that's kind of out the realm of this first stage of getting to know someone, you're signing up for this. So then like, when I came into like, okay, I'm purposely dating for marriage, it's like, I'm filling you out. Like we'll have plenty of conversations before we're even going anywhere and being seen together. And if we are, it's something like, so we both are on the same page, if we really have interests versus you thinking I should either give you something or I should oblige your interests because you spent a substantial amount of money. But a lot of times I'm trying to hear like what's that relationship with God? Because it's like, I think a lot of times we put so much emphasis in that person providing something from us, either we're spirited, depleted or we physically want something, but essentially like people are disappointing. So like if your relationship is based on biblical principles, I know you're more sound than just like, oh, I don't like you because you had a bad day and you wasn't really as nice to me. And we had a bad communication. So like you're blocked versus like seeing good character and someone versus just like they've actually had like a few good days or you've met the best part of them. All right, Chilera. Okay, so I do appreciate like a good man. One of the things I can say I've dealt with with Ebo boys is either they're giving too much or not enough. And I don't know if we talk about this enough, but a lot of Ebo boys, if they don't give enough, they love bomb. They almost love bomb to a point where it's like, okay, like give me some space to just take this all in. Or it's like, like I said previously, like they're emotionally unavailable. Or I think a lot of Ebo boys too, definitely the ones who are not ready for marriage yet, but would like to date and just, you know, start exploring.  I feel like they put a lot of Ebo girls to the side. Like they put us to the side because they think that they'll just come back to us when it's time to marry. But for now they wanna have fun and go talk to every other babe, the foreign girls, whatever. And yeah, I peep that because I don't appreciate that really. But then again, I guess I see what they're doing because remember it's a marriage thing. You know, we are gonna date within our culture, for most of our rock and the merry within our culture. But it's like you're passing a good girl to the side for the next person and we're right here. So that's another thing I've dealt with. I don't like it. So yeah. What do you think would be the answer to that? Because like a gentleman mentioned earlier, it seems to be the case that most men in general that maybe Ebo men in particular need that time to sew our royal oats, right? To flex a little bit, to see what we can do in the streets. So like what's the balance between not hurting a woman that you ultimately might end up marrying and also not prematurely jumping into something you're not ready for? I just think like a good foundation and good friendship in the beginning, kind of like what was said before, like yes, you can take us out, all that. But I really value like communication. I value a good friendship, a good like base before we try to move forward. Like I wanna get to know y'all and know your passions. I want you to be, I want you to get to know me, not like for what you see physically or just like me inside. And I feel like there's a good way to do that where it's not too much, where it's not like too much in the beginning and it's not like, okay, I don't get a text back from him until 5 p.m. And we'd last texted in the morning. Like you know what I'm saying, like there's a good balance. I just feel like y'all have to find balance, like... So one of the things I ask a lot of women that I talk to, there seems to be the sense of if I was a man, if I were a boy, I would do a better job, right? So if you were us, if you're an Igbo man and you had all the swag, you were all the sixes and the whole nine, how would you negotiate what you're talking about? How would you move? Yeah, yeah. You need to tell him to say his name. I didn't ask for any extra ad-libs in the background, but anyways. So I personally feel like I would just move kind of smartly. I guess I'm very observant. I can read people. So I get to know somebody. I can kind of tell already like how it is, you know? You can kind of see if it's fake or if it's like, okay, I'm a little uncomfortable. So I would, you know, actually, instead of just thinking that I'm just looking at how beautiful she is, I would like get to know her see like generally, like if she's open and just build a... Wait, yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I think you're misunderstanding the question. The question is, if you were that guy, let me put it like this. When do you think you would be ready to settle down? And how would you prevent yourself from hurting or disappointing all the quote unquote good girls on your path to whether it's working and building your career or whether it's getting everything you need to get out of your system before you're ready to settle down? So first question, when do you think that type of guy would be or should be ready to settle down? And how should he navigate his way through everything he needs to do to get to that point? I think they should be ready to settle down when they feel like it's been like enough. I don't know, but that's like their version of enough. Give me a range. Give me like an age where you feel like, okay, my guy, calm down. Don't do like, give me a range.   By that point, you have nothing else to do, but to go to your nine to five and go home. Or if you do your entrepreneur or if you have your own business, whatever, focus on that and like, there's not actually no in between, but then like spending time with your friends, of course. So I feel like around that time, it's not by force you have to go and find someone to marry.  But why are you so working like that? No, I'm curious, no, are you there? Hold on, hold on, I wanna speak second, I'm gonna do it. Okay, no, I wanna ask you like, do you feel like the ladies are missing something? Because I hear you saying, okay, in the early 20s, you know, that's your time to play or whatever, your mid 20s, you're trying to build your career and then late 20s you're supposed to be trying to take things a little bit more seriously. I think most guys, like the thing that jumped in my head immediately was like, I just got money. I just got a little bit of money. I finally got confidence. I finally got my body together. I finally understand women. Like, why would I leave the game in the first quarter? Like I'm just starting to play. So please jump in there and explain to the women, like what is the natural progression of Playboy to Pasta? Us to the Pasta, okay. Pasta. So I always had this conversation and I, so for whatever reason, what is right or wrong, men, we mature differently than women. You know, if you look at from childhood to adult, a lot of girls, when they're young, they're told not to play whatever, the read books, dolls, whatever. Boys, we just exert all this energy, you know, and it continues to whenever.  So to your point, so I believe a good range for men is like mid-30s. So like 35-ish, because like Alan, you were saying, you know, if we're getting our first career a big board job at 27, 28, so immediately now be responsible for somebody else's daughter, another human being. Myself, I haven't even had an opportunity to be responsible for myself. That is not the recipe for success. Now our parents made it happen. However, as we all see, our parents' error and our error are black and white, they're different. The structure was different. They didn't have social media. They didn't have all of this outwardly pressure that we may deal with. I mean, we can say, oh, nothing affects me, but Instagram or DeQua somehow, Facebook DeQua somehow, you know what I'm saying, all of this stuff.  So which kind of leads women to like, okay, well, I'm 25 and I'm ready. And so you're saying don't date the end of 25, I personally think women should date older men. I'm not going to put a number, be like, oh, 15, 20 years. However, if you're 25 and you believe a man that's in his 30s is more mature than you entertain that, and I do think the whole notion that what, you know, what may we have in common or not in common is overplayed.  If your father even approves that, you know, keep quiet because that's not me, but I really think, yeah, so in short to wrap it up, mid-30s is a good range, because by that time we've tasted our money and probably other babes have tasted our money too. By the time we hit mid-30s, we're like, okay, no more. It's nonsense. I need the 401k life insurance, health insurance. I mean, I should pay attention to like, what's my BMI, my blood pressure, my waist, that why today it's all tomorrow it's down. That's not good. What is my sperm count? You know what I'm saying? Like different things, like even me, I pay attention to all that stuff. I'm to the doctor, listen. My vitamin D I think is low. Dico, Nyem, what's up? Talk to me, help me out. Let me know what's good because I have, I'm thinking about my future. That's facts, that's facts. And I think another thing too is like.  They don't show us. So my next, my next question. What role, let me preface it by saying, I think as a people, you can make the argument for Nigerians. I would make the argument more specifically as ebos. We can be very, very superficial, right? And I've heard a lot of women complain that some of the beauty standards, colorism, texturism, featureism, are making things a bit more difficult for them. Or even now, like the BB, BBL epidemic, are making things a bit more difficult for them to date because men are looking for this. And then men are saying the same thing. Women are looking for this. What role do the beauty standards play in this dating pool that we find ourselves in? Someone who hasn't spoke yet should speak. Real quick, somebody said, what do you mean I spoke with Fisher, so can you clarify that for them? Yeah, yeah, so superficial meaning that, we prioritize optics, what car is he driving? How tall is he? What do his cheekbones look like? Is he fair? Some of our parents are still very much colorist, right? So how do those things affect your experience as a man, your experience as a woman in the dating pool? Brandy, you wanna speak? You would call on me. Okay, so typically I have my type, but I try not to focus so much on that. I don't really care what a, the car a man drives or how much money he has. Stability is important to me, how he treats people, how he treats the waiter and waitress, that's important to me. You gotta look at those type of things. Well, I do at least. So I just, the vibe, I don't really think about the materialistic things. I try not to at least, I don't think that's really important, but I don't know, I just try to focus on, how this person treats other people, his family, how his interactions with other folks and how I feel when I'm with him. And in what ways do you think, just so men can get some insight into the female experience or the female dilemma, in what ways you feel like you've been discriminated against in the dating market, especially in Atlanta? Well, personally, speaking for myself, I think men are intimidated by me. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's my lashes today. I don't know if it's my lip gloss or whatever it is, but I just feel like men are just, they're like, damn, she is, she's probably not easy to talk to.  I can't get her. And I'm like, please just come over and talk to me. Let's have a conversation. It's that easy. I'm very approachable, I think, but I- I'm glad you made that caveat, I think. I think I'm very approachable. When people get to know me and they have a conversation with me, they're like, damn, you're really not that person that I thought you were. So, you know, I don't know. I just, I encourage you, come speak to me, you know, and let's see how the conversation goes and we'll go from there. So there's a concept I read about recently. It's called the Joe Harry window. And basically the concept helps us better understand ourselves because it breaks it up into how we see ourselves and the things we know about ourselves and how other people see us and the things they know about us.  So for instance, you might not know you have something in your teeth.   And I think that's really what, you know, impacts our experiences because I've heard what you're saying come up a lot in my experience interviewing women. Men are intimidated. I think I'm approachable. And then when you ask the men who know her they typically say she is not approachable. She's got the RBF. We're not intimidated by her. She might just be unbearable. She might be one of those ball busters. She might be one of those people who insists on G-checking a man at every step of the way. So have you taken the time out to actually ask people who you know now that may not have known you before and what was their experience with the version of you that they didn't know yet? Well, I started learning this sometime after high school people thought I was, you know, this person, you know, this, you know, unapproachable stuck up this and that. But whenever they have conversations with me after many years later, they're like, you're not that person that I thought you were.  But I don't know. I don't know. I try to interact with people as much as possible. You know, I want people to get to know who I really am and not the person that you think that I am. I like to think of myself as a good person and, you know, but I can't speak for everybody. I won't judge you unless I get to know you. When I get to know you, then I'll make decisions accordingly. But I don't know. I just have to, I would say encourage, I would encourage people to reach out to people that they don't, or they would like, well, how would I say that? That they're curious about, you know, don't just judge them. You don't know them yet. Speak to them, you know, see where it goes. I agree with you. I agree with you. I would encourage you to empathize a little with the risk to the ego that men take when we embark on an approach, especially with black women, because what tends to be some men's experiences is not just being turned down, but being embarrassed, right?  I would encourage you to round up maybe some men that you know or some women that you know and ask them, how do I come off to people that I don't know from my face, from my, you know, from my, you know what I'm saying, the rest in me face to my like mannerisms. Because the other thing too, like I've had conversations with women where it's like they were the sweetest person in the world, but their demeanor was just super stoic. And they might not even have been aware of it, but it's not until we take the leap of saying, hey guys, okay, tell me the truth.  What is it that I look like to people who don't know me? Okay, I probably can't come off as, you know, having this dominance about me. People say that about my voice. Yeah, people say that about my voice and maybe I have that, you know, with my demeanor. I will, I'm probably, you know, I look like a matter of fact type person to not tend to be, but I'm really a little mushy, you know, I have a mushy side of me. Right. And you know, it was funny like, so I forgot who I was talking to, but he made the point that that is part of the reason, why, and we got a wrap soon. So please don't allow this to go down a rabbit hole. But he was saying that that's part of the reason why some men gravitate towards white women. Because sometimes that white woman was the first one who was nice to him. Just nice, right?   I saw, was it LeVette? Did you have your hand up? Well, there was a line. It was Chisholm. And then I think it was Arthur and then O.J. And then there was also LeVette. You know, it was like a line. Okay. Let's start with LeVette. And then let's go to O.J. Nice. And then Arthur. Chisholm was first. Oh, Chisholm, I'm sorry. That was the last in the line. Chisholm, I don't know why I was saying Chisholm. No, it's okay.  And I don't want people to feel, especially women to feel like there's virtue in wanting and not wanting a man with money. Like it's okay to want a man with money because the most dangerous man in my experience is an insecure man. And in our capitalist society, a lot of insecurity is rooted in not feeling like you have enough to provide, which translates to not having enough money. It's okay to want and desire a man with money. That's nothing, anything to be ashamed of.  Like money isn't everything, but it is important.  Like all of that takes money and yeah. So that's all I wanted to say. Absolutely. Appreciate your brother. LeVette, jump in there. Okay, so let's see. So I kind of wanted to touch on that part where you said like to go and kind of ask around or ask your friends kind of like how you come off and things like that. And so when I was in college, I did that because I've been told before that I can give off a bit of and kind of like what Brandy was saying before about this like intimidating type of presence. And I was just kind of wondering where that was coming from. And people were saying that like apparently I walk around with this like kind of an air of almost as if I have my life together, which is either from the truth, honestly. I'm gonna too, yeah. Yeah. And so it's interesting to hear that though because it's just kind of like, okay, so what am I doing and stuff like is it, they were just like, no, you just like walk around as if like you just, you have it all together and stuff.  And it's just interesting to hear that. And it's hard to kind of fix that at the same time because it's like, okay, so how do I, because it's not like, I mean, yes, I want a man to at least be working towards something but it's not like he shouldn't have anything together or anything like that. But it's like, so thinking about that, even going in like just with the dating scene and things like that, it's hard to try and draw that balance or like seem more approachable. And then at the same time, I think when we were talking about pressure, especially about men feeling pressure from women, it's interesting. I feel like on the other side, I feel like women also feel pressure from men. And so let me, like don't persecute me, please. But like, I do feel like to women sometimes, like we feel as though like men are expecting a certain level of like, like a motherly type of feeling from women. And so it's like as women, like maybe we need to give off this feeling of like, okay, we can care here and support like our men type of thing. And I don't know, because there was a time, and I'm gonna give you an example. Like for example, I was in the gym once and a man came up to me and was just, we were talking for a bit. He was asking me where I was from and things like that. He was also a Nigerian, not Yubo though. And so he was asking all these questions about like, okay, so are you like, do you stay at home often or do you go out? And I'm just like, I mean, I was answering his questions but I was feeling a little off about it. And then he was like, so do you want like, do you want a family in the future? Or like, do you feel like an interrogation? Yes. An interrogation where it was more like wondering, okay, do I, can I be a good mother versus like me as a person? And so it was an interesting dynamic, interesting conversation there. Needless to say that didn't go anywhere. But I mean... What? That's crazy. I don't guess that. Yeah, so yeah, I do feel like even just for me, like the dating scene, it's interesting. It's an interesting thing to navigate, but yeah, those were just comments on that.  That's it. Like a lot of our women don't freak us out. It is correct, because I wish I was being biased but I'm not even talking about it from the perspective of trying to date women, but just observing women and interviewing women. Like, there's this stoicism that unfortunately, I think the hardships of this country are the hardships of a lot of women's backgrounds is giving them. And like, they feel this sense of like, I need to have my guard up at all times. OJ Eight, man. Jump in there.  Hey guys, I guess I can't necessarily speak for all guys, but I can just like speak for myself. I think attractiveness does play a role in a relationship because I mean, at the end of the day, like, I mean, I'm a guy at the end of the day or like for a woman to promote my ego a little, right? I want to at least like feel good when we're walking around. Like, for instance, like if I'm expected to, I don't know, like playing the date or like playing an entire day of events, you know? I mean, I would at least like to look good while we're hanging out, right? I don't know, it sounds super visual, that's just my two cents. Absolutely. Brandy, did you have something to say? Okay. Well, no, I don't. Come on, you have something to say, I can tell. Jump in there. You're teasing us. What do you mean? Like, okay, piggybacking off of what are you saying? Okay, me, I'm one of those people where I like to dress down a lot and I've always felt fine about what I look like. I didn't have to have lashes, brows, none of that stuff done. I put on a hat, some, you know, jeans or something and go to Lenox Mall and feel cool. I'm walking around with the people with heels and all these names and something like, what is wrong with these people? So, I mean, I'm secured with myself enough to just be cool with just me. I dress for comfort.  I'm good.  I mean, to each his own, I mean, whatever you feel good doing, I think you should do that. It is what it is. It is what it is. All right, Toya.  Yes, so, I just want to, I don't know what it is, but when I hear the whole, like, you know, I just feel like, honestly, this is a whole bunch of just judging the book by its cover. And that's the problem, like, you should just honestly read the energy of the person and just approach them and then get to know them and based off what they're saying, then see if they're for you or if they're not for you. But this whole, like, you know, women just need to smile or you just need to look pleasing or approaching it. I just feel like that's not, that's not right because that's just judging a book by its cover. And I feel like that's not how you should approach anybody at all. And this is just my opinion. And it's brandy about your comment about how you dress. Honestly, like, one thing I've noticed is that I don't want to say a real guy, but nine times out of 10 guys will approach you more when you're just looking how you regularly look on average instead of looking like all dolled up. That's something I've noticed and I've experienced. I get a lot, I get approached a lot more when I'm just going to the store, I'm in sweats. I feel like I look like a boy, but I don't know what they see, they enjoy it. So I always say, like, just wear what you want to wear. Just dress how you want to dress and a man will just approach you, a man with true confidence will approach you and wants to get to know you, they want to get to know you. But I feel like somebody shouldn't have to walk around being looking a certain way or like trying to act a certain way just to get approached by people. If you want to approach somebody, approach somebody and get to know them if you want to get to know them. And then from there, make your judgment about if this person is for you or not. That's just my piece on it though. I think I've heard that more and more than you would realize. I think the challenge with that is two things. You know, guys know for instance, and I'm going somewhere with this, I promise, guys know for instance, if the girl has big gnash, she don't get breast. If she get breast, she don't get gnash. If she has a face, she might not have a good body. They're trade-offs in life. And I say that to say the type of guy who is going to be a good boyfriend, a good husband, a good father, a good grandfather is going to be somebody who's nice, a kind man. He will be put off by a woman who has a stoic demeanor. He's not going to shoot his shot for the sake of shooting his shot. So you have to think about it from the perspective of the type of man that you want to attract. Now, some of the snipers that I know, they're not reading any energy. They're looking at it as like a game. They're looking at it as a competition and it's like, oh, she thinks she hard or whatever the case may be. I'm going to bust through that, right? So I think the intuition that women are expecting us to have about her energy, I don't think we consider the opportunity cost of the man who actually has good intentions. And I'm here to tell you all ladies, the man who has good intentions, he's going to go about his business because he's going to be considerate of what if she's having a bad day or what's on her mind or whatever the case may be.  He's the one who's going to shoot a shot because I've seen dudes do it. I've seen them shoot shots at the hospital, at the airport, the whole nine. So instead of expecting men to read your mind or have this supernatural sense of discernment of your energy or your vibes, I would more so try to mitigate how you present to the world. And this goes for men as well. Like we can't be all mean and all gangsta and expect to attract a good woman. We're going to probably attract the hood rat because that's what's attracted to that type of energy. But yeah, I wish, I really wish women would stop saying that and consider what it's like to be on our side. Let me get one more person and then let us wrap. We've been talking for a while, y'all. There's the DMV. Anybody want to speak from there? DMV chapter? Shout out to the DMV chapter. I was a party y'all for like two weeks until COVID hit. And then I was relegated to the house. But go ahead, brother. Two weeks. Two weeks, man. I think you're muted. No, he said continue. Nothing to add at this point. OK, gotcha, gotcha. Brandy, you're unmuted. I see you. What's up? Oh, was I? Yeah, yeah. OK, I mean, I didn't really have much to say. I just think that development is really important and, you know, for a man and a woman, I mean, we think that, you know, we think sometimes we don't have things that we could change or, you know, get better at or whatever it is.  So that's something that I work on all the time. You know, I listen to other people's perspectives, especially a man. I like to know what men want in a woman.   So I it's just a it's just a journey of personal development, just getting to a place where you're becoming a better you. I think that is really important. Absolutely. Absolutely. Listen, I appreciate you guys for having me. I appreciate this conversation. Shout out to y'all. So that's what I'll make sure you check out my content on YouTube because it really relates to this conversation. For the fellas, you get a lot of insight on like what women really think. Like I had one lady, she said, even though we asked men to be more emotional in the times that a man has been emotional, it turned me off, right? And then I try my best to articulate what the male delegation is saying. So if you're curious about, man, if you're curious about women, check out the content and ultimately what I've been trying to. What's that? So I've seen I've seen a lot of your podcast. Hey, that's what's up, man. Appreciate you, brother. Appreciate you. Appreciate you. But yeah, so, you know, we need to. First of all, we need to be honest with the fact that we want each other. I think that's a big disconnect. A lot of women want to admit that they actually need a man. A lot of men want to admit that they need a woman. And because you don't need something, you don't see enough value in it to try to think from its perspective or to try to consider the world from its vantage point. And that's kind of what bridge I've been trying to a gap. I've been trying to bridge with my content. So again, thank you all for having me. And we got to do this again and in person this time.  I'm an in person type of person. So again, shout out to y'all, Tara, Ne or Nah. Yeah, I put the link to your YouTube. Page in the chat. So be sure to subscribe, everybody. He got some really good content. And can't wait for a part two. Hopefully in person this time. I'm going to look forward to that. And thank you. Yeah. And thank you guys so much for tuning in and for discussing and being a part of this event. And we appreciate y'all. Before we wrap up, I think D.M.B. was the pub and event. So I'll allow the president's old guy, Presidento Paul from D.M.V. to shout out his chapter and whatever event they have for our members that may be interested. All right, good evening, everyone. Thank you, Nat and Tara. Great event, even though I sneaked on in late. Great conversation. Yes, as we all aware, May is a mental health month. So we are having a mental health series with Talk Night job next week, Tuesday, May 2nd. So if you're willing to just plug on in, learn some new coping skills and what have you in today's day and age, just feel free to log on in on Zoom. We'll be posting the event if we haven't done that already on our IG page. And if you're in the D.M.V. next week, if you are, that's fine. We are having a bumper to bumper Hollywood party dressed up as your old Nollywood character like Cimai, Rita Dominique, and all of them. You just come down to your face. But also having that next week's Saturday as well. So if you're in the D.M.V. area. But thank you for giving me the floor and now back to you guys. Thank you. So once again, on behalf of the Atlanta chapter, I want to thank Alan. We need to talk podcast. I want to thank you for coming and doing this event with us. I am excited for the next time we do something together and hopefully it's in person. I think that's going to be very, very something. Very, very something. So, yeah, she's on. We're definitely going to try to get Alan to Atlanta. He does have a follow on here in the ETL. So, oh, yeah. So just really funny. Somebody somebody stopped me on the street the other day. It's still new to me. Like he was like, I watch your channels. But yeah, now I'm definitely going to pull up. Yeah, no, definitely. So just for those of you that are in town this Saturday, we are having a community service event at the YMCA. So if you're interested, they do have shifts. You will have to just go on the page, the link in our bio to sign up. And there's also a waiver that you will have to fill out as well because you are dealing with children. So look forward to seeing you all. Traditionally, our Memorial Day picnic is always on Memorial Day. This year is on the 27th, which is a Saturday. So stay tuned for that. Well, we'll be posting the flyer soon. So look out for that. And so yeah, we have some events coming up this year. So look forward to seeing you all at our future events and tap in what is if you're not a member. Well, actually, everybody here is a member. So scratch that. But thank all of you for being here. I thank Alan for, you know, leading this conversation. The interview shout out to you for showing up. Thank you. So without further ado, you don't have to go home. You really don't get out right here, man. Shit, I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. That's it for. Call me. Dalu. He's she. Bye bye. OK, bye.