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April 28, 2020 - Louder with Crowder
32:05
How to Deal With a Liberal Girlfriend | Life Advice | Ep 671 Louder with Crowder
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Time Text
Tap love!
With Guru Crowder.
That's right.
That's the sound of, uh... Well, for people who are too... Many people who are not Mug Club members, by the way.
It could be the first time.
It's true.
It's the first.
We have a very, uh, significant, steep discount.
Steep discount.
So steep.
I think it's steep.
Steepest.
People don't know, necessarily, that we do this every other Monday, depending intermittently with Mass Monday.
Usually my half-Asian lawyer, Bill Richmond, is not here.
It's usually just me and Gerald.
And you can send your requests for life advice at lifeadviceatladarothcrader.com.
Yes, sir.
Lots of keys.
Yeah, a lot of keys.
A lot of keys.
And, by the way, this is the time that I should warn you, of course, that if you are having any serious thoughts of self-harm, to seek professional counseling.
I am not a doctor.
That being said, doctors look at me with yearning, with longing in their eyes.
They do.
Longing, because I'm a mail-order guru.
So I actually... That's a higher echelon.
And in some ways, that's more important than a doctor, especially amidst this crisis.
Yeah.
We don't have enough gurus.
I'm available.
It's a shortage.
I'm gonna do a drinking game.
What's this?
Every time you pop those papers, I'm gonna drink.
Well, that's fine.
I'm good.
You don't need my excuse to drink.
That mug, by the way, it is filled to the brim with Irish whiskey.
Every time.
Every time.
So, okay.
Let's get to your letters.
Dear Senior Guru, Lord of all Gurus, only yielding to the true almighty God.
Wow, that's loud.
But do I yield?
You should.
I am a high school student and I have a brain disorder.
Yeah, I'm kidding.
Well see, when you say, really set me off, the etcetera is kind of important.
to be bothered by repetitive sounds.
Things like chewing gum, breathing heavily, tapping a pencil, etc. just really set me
off.
Well see, when you say really set me off, the etc. is kind of important.
What are the actions following that?
Is someone going to turn the microwave on and the family turns up dead on the news the next day?
I don't like, this is not an et cetera, et cetera.
Extrapolate.
End other things.
End other things.
End things of that nature.
And so on and whatnot.
Um, I know it sounds like I'm making this up, but bear with me.
I first noticed it when I found other people eating with their mouths open, annoying.
Well, we all do.
Yeah.
That's how this whole pandemic got started.
Well, and food falls out.
Seems logical enough.
However, this progressed into being such a problem that my brain turns to anger when these things occur.
It has really affected my relationships with my parents as to the point where it is almost impossible to have a quiet sit-down meal with my family.
I want to know what you would have to say about this.
Keep up the show.
These are awesome.
Fellow Mug Clubber, JCR.
I don't know what that stands for.
I don't have a whole lot to say about this if you haven't been diagnosed
and haven't sought out professional counseling.
Like I know, I find it annoying when people eat with their mouth open
or chew gum with their mouth open.
But I don't fear my own capabilities at that point as to what I could carry out.
Your et cetera is limited, right?
Whereas this one may not be.
My et cetera, like what do I do when someone's chewing with their mouth open?
My et cetera is like, stop.
Cut it out.
Yours might involve a trip to the shed, machete, sharpening tools,
storing human heads in your freezer.
I don't know.
I mean, you've got a couple of good options here which is doing the whole counting method, right?
Right.
Someone's getting, it's the normal anger management techniques.
Yeah.
There's also the just leave the room and punch a wall and not punch a wall with someone in between you and the wall.
Right, right.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Or if you have the reach, like Gerald, make sure there's nobody on the other side of the wall.
That's true.
There was one time he just hit a contractor.
I mean, he's just... Wait, it happened?
We settled the lawsuit.
Speaking of anger management, when I was a Early in my marriage, I've always struggled with anger issues.
And sometimes, and I've talked about this as a man, sometimes you get mad for your wife, but it seems like you're getting mad at your wife.
You know, we've talked about this.
I had a woman who was sort of a coworker who was borderline abusive, and you get mad, and then you realize there's not really much you can do because you can't go into your wife's place of work.
Same thing, I'm sure, if you have kids.
But one thing I will say that has really helped me in counseling.
I tried to do this for a while.
People talk about transcendental meditation.
I still don't know what that means.
I know guided meditation is so lazy.
I had this app.
Simple habit.
And this lady was talking about going to sleep.
She was supposed to be guiding me through meditation.
And you find yourself at a stairwell.
I swear to you, I don't know if it's still on there.
You find yourself at a stairwell.
And all the... You know, sounds and increased alpha waves.
The stairwell could be made of wood or another material.
Yes, exactly.
It's made out of pizza slices.
Let me know.
You are my guide.
So, I think meditation is made to seem a little more complicated than it is.
You know, this is sort of, in creating a barrier to entry, like we've kind of talked about sometimes with the CDC, where people feel as though they can't get the right information or everything that they say is wrong.
Like, can you use Everclear to sanitize something?
Well, yeah, you have to go through all the documents.
They say, yeah, but it's more expensive than hand sanitizer.
Well, I didn't ask you a budgetary question.
There is no hand sanitizer.
Can Everclear work?
It can.
Yes.
Same thing with meditation, where people try to make it sound more complicated than it really is.
Really, meditation is clearing your mind, or you can choose to use that time to focus on something specific.
And breathing is important.
So I will say, this is an exercise that has definitely helped me.
Breathe in, four count.
So breathe in, fill your belly, fill your chest, and breathe out with a seven count.
Breathe in and breathe out.
And so you kind of have to create a little bit of pressure.
Some, some people say go, some people say go, some people say go, but the point is you want that, you want that to go as low as it goes in because your pulse lowers when exhaling.
What if you go contrary to when inhaling?
So simple breathing and doing that 10 times counting.
I, it has helped me a lot when I get a little overwhelmed.
Yeah.
Quiet place, breathe.
And then if you go back and the sounds still bother you, you should probably avoid the, uh, The wet food market.
Is it wet food?
What is it?
Wet blood?
What's the live food markets there?
The live animals.
Anyway.
The whole reason for the coronavirus.
The live animal markets.
Wet blood.
I don't know what they call them.
China.
China.
Okay.
All right, so dear Guru Crowder.
Hope that helps.
My girlfriend and I. And I hope I don't do ASMR.
Son of a bitch.
Sorry, did I say that?
Oh no, no.
Etc, etc.
I hope he's in a safe place.
Gosh, I sound like my dog in the middle of the night.
I'm like, really right now?
You gotta be doing that.
Well, yeah, he does.
No, he doesn't.
Keep it up, Clarence.
All right, Clarence.
Dear Guru Crowder, My girlfriend and I have been going through our political views recently, which has led to some turmoil.
I'm a Christian, and my political views tend to follow my religious beliefs.
My girlfriend was raised a Christian, but does not believe because she was forced into Christendom by her parents.
Since her falling away from the faith, she has put her political views into two main categories—women's rights, mostly abortions, and environmental concerns.
She is more central on most topics, but would rather have abortions legal even after birth than illegal altogether.
I am searching for guidance in this trying time, dear Guru, especially since we have talked about marriage in recent months.
What should I do with someone I love but is also against most things I stand for?
Well obviously Gerald you should answer this but first don't marry the axe murderer.
Yes especially when she broadcasts I'm an axe murderer before the marriage.
Right.
She's leading with murder.
Yes, yes.
She should have saved that one for last.
So, look, I get it.
Honestly, my answer to this, for anybody who is serious about this, if you have such an opposing view on something like abortion, on environmental issues, you can say, oh, well, I think the environment, you know, they're overblowing it, but we should take care of the environment.
And somebody else is like, yeah, I think the environment needs to be taken care of, too, but I think we need to be much more involved.
And you can still kind of reconcile those two things pretty easily.
Half-Asian Bill breathes like a pug.
Does he really?
Don't do the breathing exercises into the microphone!
Bill, the repetitive guy that we just talked about said breathing!
Stop!
He just killed somebody!
He doesn't care about him.
I'm gonna stop breathing.
That's true.
Okay, well, I don't know about that.
Not all together now, Bill.
Alright.
So, you can reconcile, I think, environmental differences a little bit easier.
When it comes down to abortion, even after birth, to make sure... I wouldn't say even after birth.
That's what she said.
I would say particularly after birth.
So, I mean, when somebody says that... You're acting conciliatory, like, even... as though it's early, like, even the morning after, even... No, that's not the tone I was going for.
Yeah, I was going for, like, are you serious even after birth?
That's what I was trying to say.
I don't think there's a really good way of reconciling the opinions that you have to hold for that to be okay.
There's got to be some underlying things there that you guys are just not going to line up on, and it's going to be a great source of conflict.
Every time we have to answer one of these questions—and I appreciate it, lifeadvice at ladderwithcreditor.com—we've answered this many times.
Someone will trot out some individual story, like James Carville, and I always forget the name of his wife.
We're like, oh, a Democrat and a Republican.
As a general rule, it is close to impossible to have a long-term successful marriage and raise a family when you are on complete opposite ends of the political spectrum, because usually that's representative of your values, particularly as it relates to fundamental issues like life.
For example, you may both be Christians or you may both be atheists.
You may differ on fiscal policy.
One of you may think that a marginal tax rate of 52% is fine.
One of you may think it's 48%.
One of you may think we should increase.
That's different From the fundamental worldview as to whether life is valuable or not.
And in both of these instances, by the way, I don't want to get into this so much right now because this is a life advice show, but abortion and sort of the neo-environmentalist movement, they're both anti-people.
And they're both inextricably tied when you look at the idea of population control.
You look at eugenics.
This is something that the left believes.
AOC goes on a livestream and says, people feel anxiety.
Should they have children?
Because it's a moral dilemma in this climate change riddled world.
Well, actually, it's not.
It's not a moral dilemma.
And maybe it may be for you, but it shouldn't be with the person who's going to be your spouse.
It cannot be a moral dilemma for one and not the other.
It can't work long term.
And I don't understand how people are picking these relationships.
You have to have the same film tastes in common.
You both like board games.
We always try to find things in common that don't really matter.
What matters is how you view the world.
What matters are your fundamental principles.
And if they join up, particularly if you're talking about creating a family unit in the raising and rearing of children.
You shouldn't even be considering marriage whatsoever.
Yeah, I wouldn't think so, and not until you get some resolution to this.
If she just doesn't understand what she's saying, and she's making an argument from an emotional point, like, I'm a feminist, and doesn't really understand what she's saying, that's different than, I know what I'm talking about, I've researched this, it should be legal, even after birth.
That's crazy, that's just basic murder.
I don't even know how she, most people walk that back!
Norton walked it back, like, I didn't mean after birth, well, you did, but...
No.
Yes.
If I drink your life advice, I slip it up!
OK.
And by the way, Academy Award nomination.
That's how shitty Daniel Day-Lewis is.
People, I'd love to have Daniel Day-Lewis in Metal Tree.
Oh my god.
Daniel Day-Lewis, has he ever done anything not over the top?
Lincoln.
Has Daniel Day-Lewis ever done something that is just understated?
Lincoln?
Oh, for crying out loud.
That's not over the top!
Of course it's over the top!
You're sitting there going... Let's look at the butcher in Gangs of New York.
That's downright timid.
That's a kill, boy!
And then you look at There Will Be Blood.
I'll drink your milkshake!
Then you look at The Crucible.
Leave me my name!
Shut up!
Wasn't he in Last of the Mohicans as well?
Wasn't that him?
Last of the Mohicans was also a terrible film.
It wasn't that terrible.
It took him months to do this.
It wasn't terrible.
It took him months to prepare.
How dare you?
His whole spirit.
Right.
Get into the emotional state.
Well, I feel like this was the role where they're like, ah, this is the guy.
Yep, Daniel Day-Lewis.
And he's like, yeah, I can be there tomorrow.
I'm already ready.
Has anyone gone back and watched Last of the Mohicans recently?
Look, Daniel, just give me a call.
My blood alcohol is literally like 9% because of how many times you've popped it.
I really don't want to talk.
I'm not used to a physical paper.
I can tell.
It's true.
Have you gone back and seen Last of the Mohicans recently?
It's been a while.
No.
It's just a short action film that ends.
That's it.
Most action films end.
No, no, what I'm saying, it's not this, everyone thinks of it as this picturesque, academy-worthy picture, just a guy throwing a tomahawk around, and then you're like, oh, okay, I guess it's Daniel Day-Lewis and some suede.
There you go.
That sounds good.
Yeah.
That works out.
I like tomahawks.
Feathered pleather?
Leather.
Next one, dear guru of all gurus, thank you, I appreciate your recognition.
I did have to send it with two stamps.
My son is ten years old and I have started the talks with him about drugs and sex.
Okay.
Wow.
First off, ten is a little late for sex.
It's a little early for drugs.
You're right in the middle!
Is that guy from Detroit?
That's true.
This isn't like waiting to celebrate birthdays that are close, you just go in the middle.
You need to have these separate talks.
That's what they do in Detroit.
You know when you're a kid and you go on the beach and you have the medal finder?
You find a coin, silver, dollar.
They do that with crack.
In Detroit.
Math!
Look, it's a 30-gauge syringe!
Last time Kyle only got 28!
This is a diabetes needle, mine's right in the vein!
That's Detroit.
Listen, people raise their kids differently.
It's geographical differences.
We don't want to be that show that's out of touch.
You do you.
I was telling him that a man and woman don't have sex until they're married, and he called me out.
My wife and I have been together since the 10th grade, about 15 years, and we have two children, but we're not married until after the first child.
Well, you made it easy for him at this point.
I mean, if he's 10, if the kid can do basic additions and subtractions, let alone, if he knows his multiplication tables, if he's done his flashcards, you are screwed.
How can I tell them what's right when I did not follow my own advice in the past?
Any help, any and all help is appreciated.
Thank you.
PS, love the show.
That's part of my daily routine.
Well, we appreciate it, and that's why we wanted to make this available to as many people as possible for this month while they're in quarantine.
So, I will say this.
My parents did the same thing, because they were not Christians when they got married.
No, they didn't fudge the math.
We were born after they'd been married, and I would have been able to do the math.
Nine months, okay.
But they then became Christians, and then they obviously shared these views that we hold on the idea of waiting until you're married.
And I've written about this pretty extensively.
So they framed it in a way when they taught me and said, listen, the right way to do it is when a man and a woman really love each other, and they decide they want to spend the rest of their lives with one another.
They get married, and then they explain sex to me in no uncertain terms.
I knew exactly what it was.
I got into trouble in preschool because they were giving us the stork story, and I said, Mrs. Anderson, that's not true.
Let me break this down for you.
And I got in trouble.
You know why?
Because her daughter was in my class.
Oh, no.
And she was telling—she had to keep the shitty lie alive for when she went home with her daughter.
That's true.
So she reprimanded me in front of the class.
Like, the penis goes in the vagina.
And then we're like, what is this?
And I knew this as a kid, because I had to learn.
Except the one thing my parents never explained to me was what a vagina looked like.
So I still believe that it was where the wiener was, like in the front.
So I thought it was like a hole in the front, like death becomes her.
So that was one thing I wish I had learned early.
You learned talking about it with Bruce Willis?
I do, of course. With Bruce Willis.
Where the lady has a hole in her?
Anyway, the point I'm making here is you get to frame this discussion how you want with your children,
but you don't get to frame how authentically you get to have it with your children.
Well, this guy definitely doesn't because he already screwed the pooch on that one.
Yes, he did.
Look, if you're going to talk about these issues and no one can claim the moral high ground, you can still use it to say, hey, I made mistakes and here, let me, or I made something that I now believe is wrong and I want to talk to you about it, or here's why I didn't, and you can speak from a place, because one thing that you often hear, and at least I heard it a lot in church growing up, was, oh well my parents were perfect, they never did anything wrong, like they don't even don't even know about living life. Whereas a lot of the
parents, when you later would find out, they did live life. They chose the life that they
live now and the moral path that they're walking on because they had gone the wrong way.
That doesn't mean that everyone has to go one way so that they can realize what the moral
path is. But you can use those as examples to say, I'm a real person. I'm trying to help
you learn from my own mistakes.
As opposed to being like, yeah, no, we didn't do it, but I know that you learned.
Mom and Dad, you told me that in 1987 you met at a Christian youth retreat.
I presented Exhibit A, girls gone wild.
Is that not you licking your tits on Bourbon Street for beads?
Still want to enforce that curfew?
That's you, mom.
That is you licking your tits on Girls Gone Wild 4.
I always wondered whenever I saw those, I was like, these people are going to have children.
Yeah, I think a good example of this, my parents.
My dad had never done any drugs, ever.
And he's very honest about it.
My mom had smoked pot and stuff as a kid.
And when they talked to me about drugs, they were very honest about it.
My dad said, I have never done it.
I would tell you if I had.
Your mom has.
This is why you don't want to do it, particularly when you're young.
Same thing when they had the conversations about alcohol or sex.
They framed it and tried to be as transparent as possible, and then explain why the way they wanted me to do it was the right way.
And not just the right way in some abstract sense, because when you're young, you can't always understand the philosophy behind it, but why it was beneficial to me in ways that I would be able to actually Understand and quantify.
Yeah, and it equips your child to be able to make a choice.
Right.
Instead of just saying, well, this is what my mom and dad do.
Now, I understand that my dad or my mom didn't do it this way, but they also either experienced the consequences of that action or were very lucky not to.
Right.
And good advice is good advice.
Whether it's followed or not, it doesn't change that the advice is good.
It's just hard to get your kid probably to understand that if you constantly just tell them as though you were perfect throughout your whole life.
So I think that's right.
Don't lie to your kids.
There's like a hundred movies that come out a year that are like, if only I had told you the truth about the thing I had done before and the reason why I was giving you the advice is because I lived through the problem.
If you've watched any of those movies, just know it's not good to just wait and not talk about it.
Go back to the same example.
I've never seen any of those movies.
All of the movies were like, if I had only shared this one backstory about this thing that I've been helping you to stay away from, right?
Think Oedipus.
Is that the one where the mayor says he's not going to close down the beach on the 4th of July weekend?
Probably.
It's 4th of July weekend, what are you talking about?
I've seen that movie.
I've seen that one.
We should have listened.
Should have listened.
Should have listened.
What, he had another experience with a shark?
Oh, right.
Gerald Morgan.
Hope that helps.
LifeAdviceAtLightOffCrowder.com.
Dear Guru Crowder, I'm honestly not sure where to turn for this question.
By the way, everyone's getting the Guru right today.
They are.
We're getting pretty solid.
You may have called that one too soon, sir.
Foreshadowing.
But the other day my girlfriend revealed that two years ago she cheated on me and fooled around with an ex for about three months.
It was a pretty serious relationship.
We had been dating since high school.
They didn't technically have sex.
Technically, I'm glad you used that term.
So we now know that the ex is Bill Clinton.
Yes, exactly.
But still fooled around, and on top of that, I had been ring shopping recently.
I'm just unsure if I can trust her again and if the relationship can manage to get through this, or even if it's worth trying to fix.
I'm just at a complete loss of what to do.
On one hand, it's someone I care deeply for and was even probably going to get engaged to.
On the other hand, she did not completely No, she did completely betray me.
That's a big sticking point right there.
I was focused on the lack of punctuation.
I'm sorry, I was distracted.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Alright, so this is a tough one because for some people, I wouldn't say some, I would say for most people this is the line.
No, here's, I'll tell you why.
I'm gonna say, Jared, you're being pretty wishy-washy right now.
No, listen, I know that there are some people out there who can get past something like that in a relationship, but it's very rare.
And you should if you're married.
Yes, I agree with that.
But, you know, other people, this is just a deadline, you can't get past this, and that's not gonna happen.
And I would fall on that side, where it's like, if somebody cheated on me dating, I would probably just be out because I don't know that I could ever trust that person.
If you're gonna do it while we're dating, I don't know that I could trust you.
If you were married, it would be entirely different advice.
I agree, yeah.
Marriage is different.
There are people who have healed from infidelity in marriage now, especially, and contextually, go back to other life advices.
We've talked about that.
If it's a one-time deal, someone makes a mistake, some people can't get past it, but a lot of marriages have.
That can happen, and it is important, particularly if you have children, to try and see what your options are and see how you can potentially fix a relationship that's fractured.
That being said, right now you are entering into a relationship with eyes wide open, where you know that this is a possibility, and this is someone who has betrayed your trust.
For me, it's pretty simple.
It wouldn't be worth it.
No, it wouldn't, because you're always going to have that second guess.
Like, oh, wait a minute.
She was late.
She's been at the office a few times.
Like, it's always going to be this seed that's planted in your head, too.
Especially because it's an ex.
That changes the context a whole lot.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not like she went out on a girls' night, right?
And she had too much to drink, and on the way home, when they were stopping at Vaughn's to get a pint of Penn & Jerry's, she slept with the bag boy.
It's not something like... It's like, this is an ex.
You're a lawyer!
You're a lawyer!
What are you doing with a grocer?
You're never going to let me forget about the bag boy.
You're a lawyer.
You're a guy's lawyer for three years.
You think he can forget about the bag boy.
You're a lawyer.
What are you doing with a grocer?
You're a lawyer.
You could do better.
It was a lot of fun.
You just wanted to slum it like the rest of us for today.
So I think there's no bones about it.
If this person doesn't feel like they can trust, trying to regrow, you definitely got to put any marriage consideration on pause.
You're more likely not going to be able to regrow that trust.
If you're in the mind that you're going to say there's only one person out there for you, you're not married.
You've still got the opportunity to be able to figure that out.
As hard as that may be.
And maybe you've gotten to the point where you are past it, and you truly are.
But if there is a harboring there, that harboring will more likely than not, given that it's pre-marriage, not get any better.
And will likely only get worse.
Well, we also don't have a timeline on this, by the way.
We don't.
It's revealed that two years ago she cheated on me with an ex for about three months.
It was a pretty serious relationship.
We were on a break!
If you think, by the way, if you think that you can get past it, I still wouldn't let her know.
I still wouldn't hand her an engagement ring.
And I'm not saying make her jump through hoops like a dolphin at SeaWorld, but I am saying she should have to earn back your trust, even if you are looking for a reason to forgive her.
Because sometimes we've done this, especially with parents with kids.
You want to excuse the inexcusable behavior because you love them, and maybe you think it's cute.
You were looking for a reason to forgive them.
And that's great, and you can still forgive this person without being in a toxic relationship with them.
But if you do find yourself wanting to be in a relationship, which I think all of us have advised against, don't tell her that right away because you're giving her carte blanche to just do this going forward.
Yeah, you can't get walked over again.
Two years for three months with an ex as an ongoing... No, absolutely not.
The more I read this, the more mad I get.
I don't care.
I appreciate that you called me, Guru.
I'm not mad with you.
I'm not mad at you.
I'm mad for you.
There you go.
Just being clear.
On your behalf.
By the way, I was reading an article, I think it was at Slate or Salon, where someone sent in a request for advice saying, I caught my boyfriend playing with himself to an old video of his ex-girlfriend.
Is this cheating?
And should I stop dating him?
And the person responded, well, my biggest concern is that that is a violation of consent, because I bet you his ex-girlfriend doesn't want to.
I'm like, that's your biggest concern?
It's retroactive removal of consent.
Like, listen, if they both took the video together, like, they would both have to delete it together.
Unless it was, like, through a hole in a wall or something.
No, no, no.
It was something, yeah.
It was a bizarre thing.
We're just going to show you that nothing good comes from Slate or Salon, aside from op-eds from pedophiles.
There you go.
What?
Do your research.
Salon.
We were the ones who highlighted a Salon pedophile.
It came up three times.
I'm a pedophile, but I'm not a monster.
They tried to hide it.
It should have been titled differently.
It should have been titled, I'm a pedophile.
Stop.
Hi, Stephen!
Last one, then we do have to get going.
Hi, Stephen.
No guru.
Is that a last name?
Wow.
I want to start off by saying that your show gave me a reason to wake up on Thursday mornings.
Interesting.
Okay, but it's at night.
Hey, maybe they're not from here.
Maybe they're international.
By the way, did I tell you that I tried to download Land Down Under from Men at Work?
Yeah.
But it said on Spotify the first thing that pops up is Men Working.
Yeah, it's not the original.
It's like Land Down Under.
I was like, this isn't the same tempo, is it?
It was like Men Who Are Working.
I swear to you, I have it somewhere, and I can't remember it from my playlist.
It's a ghost track.
The Workmen.
Hey, so tell us what the Australian says.
Hi, Steven.
I'm waking up on Thursday.
G'day.
I'd like to hear your advice on how to make people remember you.
What would you say to a person whose classmates don't even remember your name after you've worked with them for months?
I'll admit that this struggle, or whatever the hell you should call it, is probably largely due to my shitty personality, but I'm asking for your advice.
Alright, listen, I don't know that that's necessarily the case.
I can tell you this.
I had a tremendously shitty personality, but people remembered me for that.
I was going to say, if you have a shitty personality... That's your number one quality!
A thin line between famous and infamous.
Right.
It's true.
You're just not memorable.
I'm thinking it might be helpful for certain people like bosses and co-workers to know who I am.
If you've wasted this much time by reading this whole thing, I appreciate it.
I also appreciate your advice.
Okay, first off, listen.
I won't read the name.
Don't.
You've got to develop a little bit of confidence, sweetheart.
It's a girl here.
You're saying you've wasted this much time by reading this whole thing.
Here's the thing.
And I don't want to come down on you because obviously it sounds like you don't necessarily have a great self-image here.
That being said, sometimes that's a defense mechanism.
And I've used the defense mechanism of humor my entire life sometimes to try and shield myself from emotions, or at least from showcasing them to people who may not be in my close circle of friends.
So I understand defense mechanisms, but saying like, oh, I suck, oh, nobody likes me, oh, I have a crappy personality, is a way for you to kind of get to that insult before somebody else does, and it can become a crutch.
That's what I'm seeing written all over your letter here.
Outside of that, listen, you don't know how many people remember you or don't.
And that is true, there are some people who are quiet and they're less memorable than other people.
But what really matters is the people who do remember you.
What kind of impact do you have on their life?
How close are you?
The amount of impact that you make, or the volume of impact, isn't what matters so much as far as how many people you reach.
And I understand the irony in that being that I work in a role where we try to reach as many people as possible, but the intimacy and the quality of your relationships.
Now, if you find that lacking as well, that may mean that you need to put yourself out there a little bit more.
And if you put yourself out there a little bit more, what you can't do is put yourself out there a little more for people to like you, and then tell them that you don't even like yourself.
Now, I'm not saying that you need to be arrogant or cocky, but you do need to put your best foot forward and believe in what it is that makes you unique and believe in what it is that makes you valuable, what you bring to the table, because other people will be able to sense that on you.
And I think this is another thing too with this whole alpha culture.
I speak to men in the sense, I know you're a woman, where people try to talk about how to develop or like charm channels, how to develop charm, how you interact with, how to make people like you.
There are certainly ways to interact with people.
Some people may have an abrasive communication style.
This guy.
Some people may be a little bit quieter.
So you need to learn how to adapt yourself for certain social situations.
That being said, you cannot teach somebody to be likable.
in a step-by-step process or through some kind of a self-help book.
But in my experience, most people have qualities that are likable.
It's very rare that somebody doesn't.
It's exceedingly rare, which is why some people at The Young Turks are marvels.
They are modern miracles of science.
They're like, really, none of it?
And so I think you need to find what it is that makes you you and willingly put that
out there and don't shut it down as a method of preemptively doing so before someone else
can, because I'm seeing that a little bit.
Well, and I think, too, it's not their fault that they don't remember you.
If you are with classmates and co-workers and you find this to be a problem, it's not other people's fault.
You probably aren't engaging a whole lot.
You're probably withdrawing from these circles of people, and then when you go back into them, you're kind of surprised that people don't remember you.
I don't think it's necessarily a bad or a good thing, but if you desire people to remember you and maybe engage a little bit more, you've got to go.
You've got to go out there.
You've got to find out what people are interested in.
You've got to talk to people.
You've got to care about what's going on in their world before they're going to care about what's going on in your world sometimes.
So, yeah, just go do that and don't worry about it.
You know, one thing that I would say is really I've seen used very successfully for people who are introverts or kind of… Money?
Uh, yeah.
That certainly helps.
Yeah, that can help.
Just like the Joker on his float.
Michael Keaton.
Here you go.
The original one.
Also having a nine foot long revolver.
Right.
Yeah.
So, um, is when you go and talk to someone, I see the letter the same way Stephen does, which is it was kind of a limp in and a limp out, right?
You're like, Hey, I'm here, but don't worry.
I'll leave as quickly as I can.
You'll never know I was here.
Yes, right like oh, don't worry about my letters. No big deal. Even if you get the end. Oh my gosh
I can't believe you read it and I'm out whereas the one of the ways it's really successful is you don't have you if
you Can share about yourself?
There is something that you have that you're not sharing with other people that is likable or interesting or
memorable Yeah
But the other way to be memorable is not to have anything to do about yourself
but to listen to people and remember them People will remember people that remember them, which is crazy.
A lot of people that I've met, I remembered a couple things about them because I actually took an interest in them, and the next time I saw them, I reminded them, and I asked them about it.
And people will perk up their ears and go, oh my gosh!
You know what I remember about Susie?
She remembered me.
And then they become remembering.
Yeah, probably that part too.
But I'm gonna guess not here.
But that's just one way.
It's not necessarily about are they remembering?
It's just going out and putting yourself out there.
And I'm guilty of this myself, but let me sort of explain this.
In situations where I didn't want to be liked or I wanted to be remembered badly.
For example, my wife.
We were going to a gathering with a guy.
Let's say friends and or family who might have been on the more left side of the spectrum, and I did not particularly want to spend a ton of time at this gathering.
And so I sat down, and just like you said, I have a crappy personality.
I cut it off at the pass.
And I said, if one of you is expecting me to check my privilege, that shit's not going to happen.
Maga, maga, maga, I'm going to go eat at the kid's table.
I left.
That's the plan.
How liberating it is when you don't, when you're just like, you know what, I'm going
to reject myself before they reject me.
Or you know, you just don't shower for a couple of days.
You're like, oh, okay, I must have been, you know, I ran out of soap.
You can find an excuse.
The point is, it is tough to put yourself out there.
But if you don't, you're never going to have any relationships worth having.
If you don't take any risks in life in general, you're never going to have a life worth having.
So I understand why you do that.
A lot of people have their own different defense mechanisms.
But I couldn't even answer your question as far as what you have that makes you unique.
All you've told me is how crappy your personality is.
And I'm willing to bet that if you search deeply and hard enough, you will find something worth mining in a relationship for somebody else.
Almost everybody does.
There are very few people who have no redeeming qualities.
You just have to find them, and you have to put them on display for the world to see.
Okay, this has been, of course, the latest installment of Tough Love, but you can send your requests for next week.
Again, we're still keeping this going as long as the quarantine's going on.
LifeAdvice at ladderwithcrowder.com.
We will see you tomorrow.
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