The Truth is every man’s journey through dating in his 30s—with one massive exception: unlike most men who struggle with women and settle in favor of dying alone, Neil Strauss, the world’s top pickup artist, has endless options and a much wider sexual menu along with a wise friend, Rick, and his one, Ingrid. For a few days, I couldn’t put this book down as if it was the newest Netflix special specifically released and designed to be binge-watched. While the first half was a nail-biter all the way through, part of my interest was relevant to me and my current life trajectory as it relates to dating. The story slowed towards the middle of the book through to the end during Strauss’s second go at healing himself and marriage. I think because it was all for naught. Stay with me. The book is about sexual addiction and rehab, dating in your 30s and 40s, whether or not to settle when you have a lot of opposite-sex options, with the ultimate message being: yes. That message is toppled by the following timeline: Neil writes the book based on experiences between 2011-2013 Neil married Ingrid in 2013. Neil published The Truth in 2015. He also had his first child. Neil divorced Ingrid in 2018. “I wonder why I feel like I can’t handle marriage, but I can handle fatherhood.” (p. 159) I read The Truth hoping for relationship answers to my own doubts. Hoping to prove myself wrong about why I think marriage, or moreso a lifelong required relationship requiring two people to live together, is no good today. Knowing that Neil is very similar to me, a thoughtful 37-year-old bachelor with no intention of marrying but to have children, I was hopeful that he would provide rational explanations to why, ultimately, a relationship with one person is the correct answer. He failed at doing that. So, let me put down what my current thoughts are on marriage and long-term relationships. I am not open to marriage because -it makes you lazy in terms of physical health and socially -people naturally grow apart over time and should not be required to spend their life together if the resulting life would be much worse than the alternative. Marriage today seems to end badly. Why not have a long-term relationship and end on good terms? Being married doesn’t mean you will end badly, but something about it seems to increase the probability of it ending poorly, and how sad! After building something with someone for 5 or 10 or 50 years for it to be thrown away, maybe along with some friendships too. -if the man is wealthy but not uber wealthy ($100M+), the financial strain would be catastrophic in the even of a divorce I am open to a long-term relationship with the understanding that I could leave, and she could, at any moment, but that we will still be friends for life. That’s what it means to be in a long-term relationship with me: I can guarantee that we will always be friends until our deathbeds. I will treat this and all relationships similar to how I would treat employment – if a much better opportunity arises, I will try it so I don’t regret anything. I will leave that past employer/relationship on the very best of terms, and may even return to it. I am open to having a child with a willing woman who is mentally stable, intelligent, and will be a great mother with my financial backing, as long as my role would be more of that of an uncle. I will still be the child’s father, but I will not live in the house. That way the child will see me as a superhero instead of all my warts they’ll see if they’re around me 24/7. The child will respect me if the mother respects me and I am an exemplary human. I also want to hedge my bet, not having to raise a child and forgo my own life for 10 or 15 years, when the child may grow up to be a drug addict, or to never want to see his parents again. This is what seems to happen to most families so I’d like to avoid this and prefer spending time when the child is older. “‘Your problem is that you still think of love and sex as things that have to go together,’ his friend said. ‘You need to separate them. Start a family with a good platonic friend who’s your own age and keep sleeping with whoever you want.'” (p. 304)