Author Mark Manson: ‘I dated way more than was healthy in my 20s’

Mark Manson is an author best known for his bestselling book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Here, the 40-year-old shares what he inherited from his mother, the go-to pick-up line he used when dating, and meeting his now-wife in a nightclub.

I was a classic immature guy, a player, always juggling women, with commitment issues, and a bit selfish.

My maternal grandmother Latana worked as a model for Harley-Davidson Motorcycles in the 1940s. We have old photographs of her wearing leather outfits on the bikes when she was 19. It was very sexy for the time. She was a free spirit; divorced at a young age and lived all over the US, Europe and ended up in Saudi Arabia, where she learnt how to brew beer.

My paternal grandmother Maureen taught me how to play card games. She was an old-school Texan woman who did the same thing every day – drank Scotch, smoked cigarettes and played cards. She was a big reader and did the New York Times crossword every morning. She passed away when I was a teenager. A few months before she died, I got into Freud books. I was too young to understand it, and she ripped through them and started explaining them to me.

My mom Alice definitely has her mother’s free spirit, and I get my travel bug from her. Mom worked in the travel industry and went to Europe, the Caribbean and Mexico in the early ’90s – she was exposed to lots of different cultures.

My parents divorced when I was 13. It was Dad’s decision to end the marriage. In the same year that happened, my brother moved out so I got to spend a lot of my adolescent years alone with Mom. I had a front-row seat witnessing Mom process the end of her marriage.

My mom is very laissez-faire and didn’t really want to impose herself on her sons; she was the opposite of overbearing. At times, it felt like she didn’t care when I was young. She is very independent. As a kid it was frustrating, but as an adult, I understand it.

My first kiss is comical; I was clueless and her name was Avery. I sat next to her in English class and she used to write on my hands. At the age of 12, I never knew that meant she liked me! She started drawing hearts on me and writing her name and my name under it. Finally, I picked up the clue, and she told me to meet her behind school one day. She gave me an almost step-by-step guide of “hey idiot, stick your lips out and do this”.

Mom found a report card from my kindergarten teacher, Mrs Peggy Lankford, who said that I might become a famous author one day. She knew I loved writing stories, and spotted my talent early on. She called it when I was six.

I dated way more than was healthy in my 20s. I was a little bit over-invested in dating lots of women and probably derived too much self-esteem from it. I was a classic immature guy, a player, always juggling women, with commitment issues and a bit selfish.

What inevitably happens is you run into some women who you do care about, but haven’t developed the skills to have a healthy, functioning relationship with, and you end up hurting them. I had a few girlfriends in my 20s, and I was a terrible guy. I wanted to be a good partner, and that involved doing a lot of work on myself.

I met my wife Fernanda Neute, a wellness influencer, in a nightclub in Brazil at 3am when I was 28. I approached her, and she shot me down at first. I bumped into her a few hours later, and she was more talkative. It turned out she and I have very strong values. She is very independent like my mother, and I think what makes our relationship work is that we really put the wellbeing of the other first. We have good boundaries and alignment about being the best each other can be.

Before meeting my wife, I lived as a nomad for six years. My pick-up line when I met women in a bar was, what’s your favourite thing in the world? It’s best to find out who someone is and what they love to talk about. When I asked my wife this very question, she immediately said travel. I had visited 60 countries by that point.

We got married in 2016. When I was younger, I didn’t understand the point of marriage. I came around to the idea once I was dating my now-wife. I am a huge proponent of marriage, and it’s undersold to younger people. It’s a wonderful thing.

Mark Manson is touring Australia in November 2024.

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