Episode 10 - Bad Boys and Bad Algorithms

This week on The Handsome Hour, Wes, Cody, and Stony go remote and start broadcasting on shortwave radio from a decommissioned oil platform. From there, they hit the discourse: rejection texts, Venmo requests, "nice guys," bad boys, dating-app algorithm hacks, and why modern gender narratives are making everyone worse at finding love.First: a brutal post-date text exchange. A woman cancels because she wants to explore things with another guy, and the rejected man responds by requesting $250 on Venmo and calling her trash. The guys debate who's really in the wrong, whether men should still pay for dates, what "chivalry" means in a feminist dating market, and why getting angry over rejection almost always makes you look worse.Then they tackle the eternal question: should you become a bad boy? Stony argues that men have to respond to market feedback. Cody pushes back, saying you shouldn't let the market deform your personality. Wes splits the difference with a practical framework that shows why he is the master: improve the traits everyone values -- fitness, style, confidence, conversation -- without pretending to be someone you're not.This leads in to a bigger conversation about awkward young men, missed signals, and why so many guys were told the wrong rules. The guys talk about the lost art of approaching women, nonverbal communication, flirting, escalation, and why "just be respectful" often fails to explain what women actually respond to in the real world.Later, they examine one of the strangest dating-app strategies yet: boosting your profile by changing your orientation settings so the algorithm thinks you're more desirable. Is it genius?The episode closes with bigger questions: whether attraction grows through repeated exposure, why dating apps are so bad despite being the most common way couples meet, why women increasingly report negative views of men, and a viral red button / blue button thought experiment about altruism, self-interest, and game theory.Click here to view the episode transcript.