"Five minutes each week that might change your life."
The night I met my wife, I was explaining Russian grammar at 3AM in a Brazilian nightclub. I did my best to scare her off.
I was living as a nomad at the time. I was 23 or 25 or 27—one of those ages where you think you're hot sh*t but you're really just sh*t (and not hot).
I met her at this club in Brazil. Within maybe five minutes, I'm somehow deep into how Russian grammar differs from romance languages.
At 3AM. In a nightclub. To a woman I just met.
And she's just... there. Listening. If she wasn't actually serious, she deserved an Oscar for acting like she was.
I remember looking at her mid-sentence and thinking: "Holy sh*t, she's still here."
That's when I knew we were going to get along.
The dating world tells you to be cool.
- "Don't be too much."
- "Don't show your weird too early."
- "Play it safe until they're hooked."
I did the opposite—full linguistics nerd within five minutes.
And it worked… Because it was a filter.
Anyone who would've been scared off by that conversation wasn't going to work anyway. The performance version of me might've gotten a second date. But then I'd have to keep performing.
I gave a 15-minute TEDx talk to say what I'm about to say in one sentence:
It's better to be disliked for who you are than liked for who you're not.
Front-load your weird. The right person will stay.
See you Monday,
Mark
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