Joe sits down today with Anna Sutton and chats finding your Catholic Wife, everyday apologetics and a lot more!

Transcript:

Joe: Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer here to have a cup of Joe with my friend, Anna Sutton. Anna, welcome.
Anna:
Thank you. It’s so exciting to be here.
Joe:
And of course, as always, metal Mike. Mike, welcome.
Mike:
Good morning.
Joe:
I have to make an immediate disclaimer despite the name, Cup of Joe, which is centered around having a coffee and a conversation. Today, I’m fighting off a cold. I thought I’d infect Anna in person. And I’m drinking tea instead of coffee, which I know is kind of cheating. But this is, as tea goes, an excellent one. It is Yukon … Or no, what is it called? Yukon Gold. Not Yukon Gold. That’s potatoes. Yorkshire gold. That’s what it is. Yeah. I literally just went online a week ago and looked up best tea and found some people raving about how good this tea was and thought, yeah, I’ll trust them. It’s a popular British tea and it is excellent. And you, unfortunately.
Anna:
I know. I’m drinking water. So I drank coffee this morning and then I also drank one of the new Liquid IV energy drinks. I love Liquid IV and they have an energy version now. And then I was like, “Ugh, I don’t know if I should do more caffeine.”
Joe:
I find the title Liquid IV very confusing. Is there another thing you do intravenously that isn’t liquid?
Anna:
I don’t know. Maybe a drug.
Joe:
But
Anna:
They’re all liquid.
Joe:
Yeah, they’re all … I mean, if it’s in solid form, it’d be very hard to- It’d be
Anna:
Really
Joe:
Hard to intend. … put in your bloodstream. So casual advice about intravenous drug use unintentionally. All right. So yes, Mike is slaying with that shirt. Speaking of shirts, this shirt is also a gift from Anna Sutton that I received this morning.
Anna:
Yes. Which worked
Joe:
Out well because I’d spilled tea on the shirt I was wearing earlier, so this worked out perfectly.
Anna:
Happy birthday.
Joe:
Thank you very much. It is my belated birthday. And I am here talking about the perfect wife with a woman named Anna who is not my wife.
Anna:
Yes. Different Anna.
Joe:
Yes.
Anna:
To be clear.
Joe:
My wife actually suggested this show and you said you wanted to do a show on how men can find the perfect Catholic wife. And I have no idea what you’re about to tell us. So Anna, how do you find the perfect Catholic wife?
Anna:
Well, it’s an unfortunately very obvious answer. Well, it’s actually a very nuanced answer. My first reaction would be-
Joe:
Get really rich.
Anna:
Make a ton of money and be super ripped. No, be the perfect Catholic husband, but there’s a lot more nuance to it than that. I think what I see a lot online today is men who are really concerned about the wrong things in attracting women. They are super obsessed with being super ripped. And the whole manosphere atmosphere is like, it’s like what men look for in women and they think that’s what women are looking for in men, but they’re wrong.
Joe:
So you’re saying that the super fit physical attractiveness thing is more of a male projection onto what they would imagine?
Anna:
Exactly.
Joe:
This is kind of like the inverse of when women are imagining the men in their life are overthinking some situation and the man’s unaware the situation’s even going on.
Anna:
Exactly.
Joe:
They’re assuming the psychology they have on the opposite sex.
Anna:
Yeah. It’s the phenomena of you watch a rom-com and you realize no men like this exists. This is just men created by women. And the same way, a lot of the guys online are like attractive men created by men. So it’s not actually attractive to women. It’s, I would say a bit revolting actually for a lot of women.
Joe:
That’s strong language. Okay. Now that probably to some people is going to be bad news. I mean, for those of us who are not super ripped, maybe great news. But for a guy who’s like, “I am putting a lot of time and effort into my appearance. I’m going to the gym all the time and I’m doing all this partly to try to be attractive to a future spouse.” And now you’re telling me that you’re revolted by that.
Anna:
Well, it depends on your personality. If you’re a person who genuinely you genuinely enjoy working out, you like your time at the gym, this is like a hobby to you, then that’s great. It’s good to have a hobby. It’s really, really important to have a personality. That is the most important thing is having a personality and having confidence. So if that’s something you really like, that’s one thing. But if it’s like you’re literally just becoming obsessed with eating chicken and broccoli to be attractive to women, you’re focusing on all the wrong things.
Joe:
Okay. So if those are the wrong things-
Mike:
Can I quickly throw in-
Joe:
Yes, Mike, coming in from the top
Mike:
Row. So I also want to counterpoint that with zero of the men in rom-coms are fat.
Joe:
True.
Anna:
True. But the thing about real life is it’s not a rom-com unless you’re like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey.
Joe:
Oh my gosh.
Anna:
For the rest of us, it’s just normal. So this is another big point I was going to make. It’s to find a good Catholic spouse, and I think especially for men since they’re so visually driven, you cannot look at people online. You have to look at real people in real life and interact with real people in real life because everything is fake on the internet. We all know this, but I feel really bad for young guys who are kind of growing up in this intense online culture because I think it would actually probably be a very hard adjustment to make to see women online all the time and all the filters and all the makeup and all the fakeness and then try to adjust that to real women. And I also feel bad if you marry a super hot girl and then she cranks out a bunch of kids-
Joe:
Cranks out.
Anna:
Well, if she’s Catholic, she might crank them out. Then that might be kind of hard adjustment to make too. You really need to be grounded in reality and women need to be grounded in reality as well, but this talk is about finding a wife, not a husband.
Joe:
Fair enough. I mean, it’s a good thing to remember that beauty is fleeting. Several people in the chat have pointed out that Jack Black is beloved by women and is a great … I mean, look, you would be surprised. I mean, women like Jack Black because he seems confident and funny, et cetera. And I think there’s plenty of men in real life who are like that. So okay, we’ve seen what not to do.
Anna:
Yes.
Joe:
And we’ve seen not to focus in either direction simply on the surface level stuff that goes away with age. What should we do?
Anna:
What should you do? Well, you should just go home to your wife. Yes, absolutely. Congratulations. Okay. So the number one thing you need to do is you need to be confident. I think the key to confidence is recognizing your strengths and weaknesses and being okay with them. Not that you never stop trying to improve your weaknesses, but you look at the stuff you’re really good at, you look at the stuff you’re not so good at and you’re like, “Okay, this is who I am.” If you’re like, “I’m a mid guy, I’m kind of a nerd,” that’s great. Be that. That is okay. You can definitely attract a woman. There’s no problems there. You just have to be like, “This is who I am.” And recognize that that’s a similar woman you’re going to attract. You’re not going to be a mid guy and get a 12 on a scale of 10 women.
Joe:
Said
Anna:
Contra. I mean, yes.
Joe:
There’s a lid for every pot.
Anna:
Exactly. So keep that in mind. And then just don’t be afraid to actually approach women and put yourself out there a little bit. If you’re really terrified of rejection, you’re never going to get anywhere. And the thing is, if somebody rejects you, it’s not really about you. It’s really about them. I think a lot of people get frozen in this fear of rejection, and it’s okay if you get rejected. It’s not the end of the world. Everyone gets rejected. It doesn’t lessen your value as a person at all.
Joe:
Still
Anna:
Hard. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been rejected. It happens.
Joe:
Yeah. There
Anna:
Was that one time in fourth grade.
Joe:
This is unhelpful. Okay. Speaking of … No, not actually speaking of mid and nerdy, but shout out to Matt Frad and his wife, Cameron, who are watching in a green.
Anna:
Oh, great.
Joe:
Hi,
Anna:
Matt Frad. Big fan.
Joe:
Yes.
Anna:
Okay. The other thing, there are things you can do. Okay. So here are a few of the key tips. One, smell good. Oh my gosh, you have to smell good. Shower, put on deodorant. And if you don’t have a signature cologne, get one. I was thinking about this last night. I was thinking, Andy has a signature cologne. Andy’s my husband. I could recognize the smell anywhere. I also think my ex- boyfriend from 15 years ago, I would still recognize the smell of. The scent memory trigger is really strong. I
Joe:
Mean, I’ve met some people with strong smells, but it’s not always a- Well,
Anna:
That’s why I said smell good.
Joe:
Yes. Yes.
Anna:
Not
Joe:
Just distinctive, but distinctive in a positive
Anna:
Direction. Yes. Good is key. And then the other thing is if you’re picking out clothes and you’re doing things like this, just be generally aware. Pay attention to what colors look good on you. Take a picture of yourself, put it in chat GTPT. Say, “What color should I wear? Wear things that fit.” So there are basic things, but honestly, oh yeah, this person said not ax. Yes.
Joe:
That’s another woman and she is right. So I mean, I would actually say on the cologne thing, don’t try to do it on your own. This is something where it can be very helpful to have a woman you trust in your life who can tell you what smells good and
Anna:
How much. Oh
Joe:
Yeah. Because I think the temptation is to way overdo it.
Anna:
Or just go to the counter of a Nordstrom.
Joe:
Eric says, “Please don’t let Anna think she’s the first one to be in the studio collaborating with you. ” This is true. You taught me it was possible, but you’ll notice now we have two mics, which is less awkward than to try to share the one mic back and forth like we’re two lead singers in a band.
Anna:
A boy band. Everyone loves a boy band.
Joe:
Okay. So smell good. Take care of yourself. Now taking care of yourself from your perspective is less about getting super ripped and more about just having a tidy appearance. Is that-
Anna:
Yes. Be a healthy, balanced, human person. Okay. I was talking to my niece who’s just, she’s been into this guy forever and they’re finally together. I’m very happy for her. But okay, my niece is incredibly beautiful. She’s a 10 out of 10. She plays the violin. She’s extroverted. She can literally have any man. The guy she’s really into is kind of goofy, kind of lanky. And she told me multiple times over the last couple years, I feel kind of silly that I’m so into this guy, but I cannot get over him. And it’s because he makes her laugh. She likes being around him. She enjoys his company. There were tons of other guys into this girl, but she wanted the one that she had fun with.
Joe:
Yeah. So let’s talk about that because I think you’re onto what I have found to be the key. Someone in the comment said, this is literally exactly like Boomers telling young people to just buy a house like they did. This is detached from reality. I don’t think you’re right at all. This is basic human-
Anna:
I mean, we’re both successfully married, so I
Joe:
Would say- And I think they’d just be like, “You got married in a different age.” I mean, whatever. You’ve been married longer than we have. It’s true. But no, I think the kind of black pilled, oh, it’s just impossible now. I understand completely why it’s harder now in a lot of ways. If you’re spending a lot of your time online and you’re not getting out and you’re not having in- person interactions, then yeah, a lot of that probably seems hopelessly unrealistic, but there is an actual world offline and it isn’t as impossible as people online will sometimes lead you to belief. So I agree. I’d never had trouble dating and didn’t have trouble vocationally in that regard at all, but partly it’s because, as you said, if you’re just confident and you can make someone laugh and you’re not self-loathing and self-doubting, that can be very helpful.
So I’m going to throw out a thesis. I’ve thrown out
Anna:
Once
Joe:
Or twice before, and I want to see your take on it.
Anna:
I bet it’ll be similar.
Joe:
Okay. So the take is this, it’s much easier to talk about a male standard of female beauty than the other way around, because some women really have a certain body type or type of guy or personality or whatever. And one of the things that can make it very frustrating as a man is that those can be very varied, that one woman’s ideal man, even as you were saying, this guy is not what you would imagine as the ideal.
Anna:
There’s
Joe:
A lot of that that happens. So if you’re trying to find a common ground, I would say the common ground is this, and here’s where I want you to disagree if you do. Women are looking for men who are strong, but that strength is very particular. And we can talk about it in two ways. Sometimes she’s approaching things with a certain set of needs, wants, desires. She is worried about physical safety or she’s worried about financial insecurity or she’s worried about something like this and a guy who has his act together in that area. So maybe it is a gem bro. It’s a guy who at least works out and he takes himself very seriously. He looks like he can hold his own in a fight. And so it makes her feel safe. Or maybe it’s a guy who he’s got his act together in terms of job and everything else.
He’s responsible. And so she knows she’s not going to be just in dire straits in that regard. Whatever it is, the common thread, even as varied as these guys seem to be, is a sense of security and safety from whatever danger she perceives, that’s half of it. The other half would be, if a guy seems confident and to have his act together, that this communicates that you can be safe with this guy because he’s … A guy who seems insecure, a guy who seems like he totally doesn’t have his act together, doesn’t seem like someone you can just be safe with. If you get in an Uber and the driver’s just sweating bullets and they’re like, “I’m really afraid we’re going to crash.” You’re like, “Well, I actually don’t want to be in this car anymore because- ” Kick me out, Paul. Yeah, maybe you’re the greatest driver in the world, but you’re communicating a complete lack of confidence.
And I think one of the self-defeating cycles that people can go into, and I will say men can go into, I think it’s true in both directions, is approaching it with this lack of confidence and being like, “This is not going to work,” and then it becomes sort of self-fulfilling.
Anna:
Yeah. I mean, every woman, almost every single woman I know has to push and encourage her husband in his career pursuits. I think men have this deep internal sense that they’re constantly going to fail. I feel like it’s part of the curse of Adam, the working the ground thing. They’re like, “But it’s okay. Fake it till you make it. ” But I do agree with your statement that women want men strong, but I also think there are a lot of, that you feel safe with, but I think there are a lot of women who kind of like the bad boy, who kind of like somebody who’s going out on a limb who kind of like-
Joe:
But isn’t that also a kind of strength, even
Anna:
If it’s
Joe:
Maybe a dysfunctional kind?
Anna:
So I would say the strength can just be like you sort of know the direction you’re going. Even if you’re really not there and you’re really all over the map, if you are really confident in what you want and what you’re pursuing, that in and of itself is like, “Okay, I can get on board with this. ” So I got married super young and my husband was also super young and all he had was like a plan and it was enough. I was like, “Okay, he’s got a plan. We can do this. ” And it was a long struggle and a lot of years of school and training, but I always knew that he had a direction he was moving in. And so I think that’s really important. But sorry, I was still thinking back to the person who said that we’re detached and it is unfair.
I do feel for people who are trying to date with a heavily, heavily online world, but I think getting offline and meeting real people is one of the most important things you can do, like get offline because it’s not real. It’s not real and it’s not real life.
Joe:
I mean, even maybe worse than that, I’ve talked about this. I think I talked about this maybe on Pines one time. Barry Schwartz has a book called The Paradox of Choice, and you can find talks that he’s given on this same theme. And one of the points that he makes is when you have too many choices, you make worse decisions because you can have kind of option paralysis and this easily happens online. Or if you’ve got an app, even a good app, even I’m not talking about like sleazy stuff, but even like … I mean, shout it to Catholic Match. A lot of people find their
Anna:
Spouse
Joe:
On there. So I’m not knocking the apps themselves. I’m knocking a certain approach where you’re just like, “Okay, there’s a thousand choices and I have to choose the best possible choice.” That’s actually not good discernment. Imagine if somebody was discerning the priesthood and rather than saying like, “Well, where am I from or what diocese do I live in or what diocese am I connected to? ” They said, “I’m going to look at every diocese on earth and find the best fit for me. ” That
Anna:
Person
Joe:
Is never getting ordained. That person’s going nowhere. And I think we can, that’s obviously a ridiculous example who would go through that many options. People go through that many options on the dating scene where they’re looking at the profiles of hundreds, thousands of people over the course of however many years. And I don’t think we’ve maybe factored in how unhealthy that is, that when you’re constantly comparing the person who is proximate to the ideal person who might exist on the internet if you just look some more, I think in both directions, you have people doing that and it can be incredibly destructive for a couple of reasons. One, because you don’t feel like taking a chance on anyone, and two, you’re comparing them quite unfairly to basically an imaginary person.
Anna:
And
Joe:
Then you can become really, yeah, really distraught about the whole thing, really black pulled about the whole thing where you’re just like, “Ah, women are horrible or men are horrible or whatever online because you’re dealing with the kind of unattainable ones who are having a thousand people reach out to them.”
Anna:
And
Joe:
Meanwhile, this person you’d be completely happy with, you’re not taking a chance on because-
Anna:
Yeah, and she’s sitting one pew over in church or whatever. Well, and the reality is every single marriage and relationship has issues. You trade people, you’re just going to trade problems. Or honestly, based on the thousands of conversations I’ve had with women about their marriages, it’s actually a lot of times just the same problems over and over and over again. The amount of time somebody complains, says something lovingly and supportively about their husband and everyone else in the room is like, “Ah, yes, my husband does that too.” It’s like men are all kind of the same at the end of the day. I’ll let the men in the
Joe:
Comments decide if they agree with that. Actually, maybe we should ask the women in the comments
Anna:
Too. But like that to say, another thing that I think is really important to realize when you’re going into a relationship is to remember, you change a lot. The most important thing entering a relationship is that you’re both pursuing God and that you’re willing to change based on your convictions about truth. Because I think about, I got married at 21, I was a totally, totally different person. My husband was a totally different person, but we’ve now moved forward together and become more and more like each other and have more and more in common and are better and better friends because we’re both pursuing that same goal of following Christ. And if you’re both doing that, you’re going to be okay even though you’re going to have problems. Everyone has problems and everyone ages, everyone gains weight, loses weight, all the things. You can’t be so focused on getting this exact perfect thing right.
I mean, it’s hard because on one hand it is like one of the biggest decisions in your life, but you have to not mess up the most important thing, which is that they’re pursuing Christ.
Joe:
Yeah, that is the actual most important.
Anna:
I mean,
Joe:
When we’re talking about vocation, like vocation comes from the Latin Vocari to call and everyone’s calling is to be a saint. And if you’re pursuing your primary vocation, sainthood, well, that makes it easier to discern secondary vocation. Am I called to the priesthood? Am I called to the religious life? Am I called the marriage? And then you have this kind of tertiary vocation, which is just what is God calling you to in this particular moment? And if you are unsure about number two, do number one and number three as well as you can. And I think it goes a long way. If you are striving to be a saint and not just striving to be attractive to women, I think you actually become more attractive to women.
Anna:
Someone
Joe:
Who- A
Anna:
Thousand percent. Because again, it’s that safety. You feel like, okay, this guy cares about the right things, so I’m going to … I like that.
Mike:
Can I actually ask an important question
Joe:
Regarding CFP
Mike:
And stuff like that? So I think a big worry a lot of guys have, especially single guys, is finances. How much are women thinking about finances and what are they thinking about finances, I think would be a really important one to address.
Anna:
Yeah.
Joe:
When you dig, are you looking for gold or other precious jewels?
Anna:... Read more on Catholic.com