#MeToo confessions of a 'creepy guy' — how a former misogynist saved his marriage

Rob Measures was often told by women that he was a "decent-looking guy." But many of them were put off by his misogyny.

"If you had gone out with me, you might have found a pretty misogynistic, creepy guy. That's just kind of the way I was," he told Checkup host Duncan McCue during the show about sexual misconduct.

It took nearly losing his marriage for Measures to realize he needed to make a big change in his attitude toward women. He went online and found dating coaches who helped him understand the "nuance in sexuality."

"It's not easy, I don't think it was ever easy — the fight between men and women to date," he said.

Measures said the key to success with his wife was building up his own self-esteem. They live in Nelson, B.C.

Listen to the full conversation above, or read the transcript below. Note: During the show, Measures initially said his name was Warren, but he later allowed Checkup to use his real name.​

Rob Measures: I was that creepy guy for many years.

If you had gone out with me, you might have found a pretty misogynistic, creepy guy. That's just kind of the way I was.
Because I wasn't taught anything different as a kid, I was never taught anything about women.

So there came a time in my life where I got really angry at myself because I felt like I was broken because I had no success with women. I find anger is what motivates us so I got motivated and I went out and I tried to look for answers.

Basically, I went online looking for answers to solve my problem.

And when I hear people talk about this movement, I don't hear a lot of solutions, you know, what can we tell people to do in order to fix themselves. And what I did is, I went out and found the dating community, the dating coaches. If you go and you search, you can find the nuance in sexuality and how to go about it, and you can gain self-esteem. When you do that you can change and you can be better to women.

Duncan McCue: What was it about your earlier behaviour that was so creepy? What was causing it?

RM: My own insecurity around women. It's very nuanced, dating.

I can give you an example of a guy getting shot down by a woman with a pretty common pickup line. When this happens to men over and over again, they lose their self-esteem and they become misogynistic.

If you picture a guy going over to a woman at a park bench, and he can tell that she's in a bad mood and she's not smiling, and he says she's a beautiful woman and I hear if you give a woman a compliment sometimes that works maybe I'll try this.

So you go over to her and you say, 'Hey you'd look a lot better if you were smiling.' So how do you think that's going to go off? Not very well. But the guy's intentions weren't necessarily bad. He's just clumsy at flirting.

DM: What was it that made that light bulb go off for you?

RM: Another failing relationship with women is what made me finally go over the edge.

I always felt growing up that I was a decent looking guy. Actually a lot of women told me that, but they'd always shake their head and say what a shame because I was just unavailable emotionally because I had a lot of baggage. And a lot of beliefs about myself that didn't have to be there.

So eventually my marriage was falling apart again and I realized it's me. It's this problem I've always had.

So I ended up going out looking for solutions and, honestly, instead of ruining my marriage, it saved my marriage. This is seven years later I started doing this and searching for help.

DM: If you could give one piece of advice to men what would it be?

RM: You have to go out and you have to want it.

And if you do go out you have to put your ego aside because you're going to see and start reading a bunch of stuff that's hard on you because you think you've been doing it wrong your whole life. And you have. So it's easy just to put the books down and not read them.

So my advice to guys is, if you want to be better with women, and you want to be more attractive, you've got to be more attractive to yourself. You have to do some work on your inner self.

You don't want to say 'Fake it 'til you make it,' but sometimes that's kind of what you have to do. You have to just decide 'I'm going to believe this thing for a little bit, I'm going to go try it' and then you get a good response the next thing you know you build your self-esteem and you go from there.

It's not easy, I don't think it was ever easy the fight between men and women to date — to get along. It's always going to be hard and nuanced.

But at this point in society, we haven't been taught by our dads and everybody's completely confused about what's creepy and what's chivalrous and just how to go about it.

All comments have been edited and condensed. This online segment was prepared by Ieva Lucs.