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Nov. 28, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:02:42
924 The Ricky Sandwich Part 2: The De-shallowing of Ricky

Ricky confronts his addiction to female physical beauty...

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Time Text
Hey, how's it going? Alright, hello?
Hi, can you hear me? Yeah, sorry, I have to, like, quickly adjust settings real fast when you call me, because Skype's retarded.
But, alright. Can you hear me?
You can! Okay, alright, good.
Sorry, go on.
Alright. Alright, you cut out.
Are you still there? I sure am.
Okay. So, we have a challenge, which we've talked about sort of face-to-face.
And it may be a challenge, it may not be, but you have an interesting or exciting problem, which may or may not be a problem, with the question of vanity and looks, right?
Yes. As far as I understand it, it's like, if she ain't pretty, she ain't getting the direction.
Yeah, it's always been a kind of first requirement for me, at least to engage them.
It's never been a thing that keeps my attention.
I mean, unless there's more to the person, but...
But yes, certainly, it's always been an inhibiting factor for me meeting people.
And of course, it wouldn't be a problem if it was working for you, right?
Like if you were meeting quality women that were beautiful and also wise and virtuous.
The problem is that you've kind of been drawn into a happy pit, right?
Oh yeah, if it was...
Yeah, if I was finding some quality with that, I suppose it wouldn't be a problem, but that's not what's happening.
And so what would you define as a solution to problems?
Well, I'd imagine...
It's the...
I don't know.
In the form of a solution, I'd imagine it would be...
I don't want it to be a mere contentness.
You know what I mean? I want it to...
I want to... You know that movie Shallow Hail?
Or do I ever? Yeah, no, I thought that was one of the truly great copies earlier this decade.
I thought that was a great, great film on many levels.
Except for the...
Yeah. But anyway, go on.
Right, right. But yeah, it's that kind of thing.
I honestly...
I mean, the weird thing about that movie was...
I mean, he still saw beauty.
Like... But it was from their personality, but I guess in the end, when he found out what they really looked like, it was enough.
It didn't faze him.
I don't know. This is a really elusive thing for me, because I don't know any better.
I don't know what the other side's like.
I don't know if... You know what I mean?
I'm truly lost in this sense.
I mean, if I go out and you have, I don't know, it's just for some reason physical beauty is like the one lure that I find myself gravitating towards.
Right. And it feels like it's a necessity.
That's how it feels.
I don't know. I just don't know any better.
Right, right. Now, the first thing to understand is that this is not uncommon, right?
I mean, you are not alone, right?
Oh, right, right. And just about everybody bullshits about this.
Right? Just about everybody bullshits about this.
And I'll just sort of give you two examples.
And I'm not saying that you're bullshitting about it.
I'm just saying in terms of everyone says that looks don't matter, but that's not how they act.
Right.
So, I mean, in the movie Shallow Hell, Anthony Robbins, a.k.a. Banana Hands, which I thought is a good description.
Anthony Robbins says, you know, you should be into more than looks, Shallow Hell.
My wife, for instance, is a wonderful, wonderful person, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Now, of course, when you look at a picture of Anthony Robbins' wife, she's a blonde bombshell.
Right.
So everybody lies about this, at least almost everybody.
There was a Dr. Phil where they were talking about, you know, looks aren't important, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But of course, Dr. Phil's wife is one of the most attractive women in her age group, right?
Yes. And then they bring his son, who's very good looking, his eldest son, went out sort of pimped up to look kind of crappy, right?
And people treated him badly versus when he was sort of looking good and so on.
And so they, you know, looks so important, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, yes, and he's just gotten engaged.
And they pan to the picture of his fiancée, who is a blonde bombshell, right?
So everybody lies about this stuff.
There's very, very few people who say looks really matter.
Everybody says they don't and then acts completely differently.
Because women say looks shouldn't matter and then all they do is buy magazines with pictures of...
Good looking. And of course, looks don't matter, everybody says, or they shouldn't matter.
And then when you go into a department store, like the entire ground floor is a hellish shrine to female vanity, right?
Or female necessity, depending on how you look at it.
But it's all perfume and makeup and primping and eyelashes and all of the bizarre cyborg stuff that women do to pretend that they look different than how they actually look.
So... So, I mean, you're not alone.
It's not a bad thing. There are strong biological reasons behind preferring physical attractiveness.
So it's not a weird problem, is sort of what I want to say.
Yeah, I used to actually go out on a limb to justify it before, like a few years ago.
A friend that used to live around here, me and him used to argue about it, and I was...
Let's say I persuaded him in the bad side.
I got him to think that it was a requirement to have pure physical attraction for the person that you...
Well, at least initially. All those biological arguments was kind of my comfort zone.
I guess I just know better.
Deep down I know better, but it doesn't always feel like that, you know?
Well, sure. Well, sure.
And I mean, there's a couple of ways we can approach this.
I mean, I can sort of slice and dice the concept of beauty as I see it, but it may be more useful for me just to get a sense.
I mean, you're a physically attractive fellow, and your sister is physically attractive, and I'm imagining that that doesn't come from the parents who are like the ugly side of the hunchback of Notre Dame.
So my guess is that you come from a fairly photogenic family.
Is that fair to say? Yeah, everyone in my stream is kind of like that.
I would also say that in the Christian world, photogenic is godly.
Oh, yeah. And the reason that I say that is whenever you see these Christians on television and so on, they always have a kind of look.
You know, that all-American, vaguely apple-cheeked, white-toothed, confident, cocky grin and those dewy eyes.
Like, there's a real look. To the public perception of Christians.
Christians in the media are a very, very strong advertisement at a physical level.
It's very, very shallow, but it's very deep in the Christian culture.
You don't see a Christian with pimples as a preacher.
You don't see, except in the black community, you don't see fat preachers, right?
You see These, you know, fairly all-American-looking, square-jawed, craggy-faced or craggy-eyed kind of people.
So there's a strong photogenic aspect to Christianity or a strong sort of physical attractiveness at advertising aspect that your family must have been pretty heavily wrapped up in.
Yeah, it makes me think of Seventh Heaven when you say that.
Michael Landon, right? I mean, he's the ultimate bouffant, big-haired Christian dude.
He's got those twinkling eyes, that craggy smile, or I guess he had.
And that's how Christians really present themselves in public.
And your family, as a very attractive family, must have been quite a coup for the Christian community, for the Jehovah's Witness community.
Yeah, you're definitely treated different in the churches.
Me, for example, I used to get whored out to go out in service with people.
I'm not even lying.
Just for the people who don't understand what that means, if you can clarify that a little bit so you weren't rented out to Catholic priests, just so people understand what that means.
Yes, I apologize. Witnesses, they go out in service, which is go door to door.
They knock on people's doors, as you all know, I'm sure.
And when they would meet up for that, when I was younger, I used to get...
Tossed around to go with people to be the little cute kid who would give people Watch Tower and Awake magazines.
And I remember being kind of bitter about that when I was like 13-ish, when I started not going anymore.
Whereas, of course, if you had been an unpleasant-looking child, you would not probably have been asked to do that.
Oh, no. Part of the reason I noticed it was because of the other kids who I grew up around.
It was the exact opposite for them.
They were kind of like the pawned-off kids to go and they would stay sitting in the van the whole time.
Right, right. Pretty kids, front and center.
Ugly kids, get back in the van.
No, it really was like that, because I used to hate it, because I didn't want to go knock on people's doors, and they got to sit in the van, and I would get guilt-tripped if I didn't go out and do that.
And this, of course, is from a group that claims that the body is the tool of Satan, and it's one spiritual life that counts, and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Right, exactly. But Christianity, of course, fundamentally is an incredibly shallow belief system, as all religions are.
I mean, because it's fantasy, right?
So it's incredibly shallow.
It is to philosophy as dominatrix is to love, right?
Or to sexual love.
So it is an incredibly shallow philosophy, fundamentally, and you get this very quickly when you talk to Christians about anything of depth.
And so it doesn't surprise me at all that you, as the attractive apple-cheeked kid, would be sent out as a manipulative bait for people to, you know, the kid that no one can say no to, right?
Oh, for sure. What happened with your sister in this regard?
Oh, she, well, most witnesses who...
Keep going past the teenage years.
They end up getting married really young.
They end up getting divorced really young.
My sister got married when she was 17.
Then she got divorced probably I think.
Five years later. Was the guy older?
Yeah, he was only a few years older, though.
I think he was maybe 19 or 20 at the time.
Well, of course, one of the reasons that people get involved in religious communities is the harem aspect, right?
That you can get delivered up impressionable young girls who don't know any better for your marrying preferences, right?
Yeah. Oh, completely true.
And as far as she goes, she was involved in it a lot longer than I was.
I stopped going when I was 13-ish, and then there was a few times where I would...
Feel guilty and go back for like a month and then not be able to handle it and stop.
But she ended up staying around a lot much longer.
I didn't really hang out with her that much in my teenage years.
And we didn't go to the same place.
Because she was actually like one of those...
She was kind of an ugly duckling kind of kid.
She was one of those girls who turned 13 and...
Off come the glasses and it's like...
That's exactly what happened.
She used to have these big, you know, bottle...
Yeah, and I don't know.
And then her teenage years came by.
She looked completely different. So she was one of the kids in the van, right?
And then she was front and center.
Is that right? That is very true, actually.
Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!
So, as far as, I don't know, I couldn't give you a lot of personal examples for her, but I do know, as far as the teenage little social circles go, vanity is so bad in those little cliques.
I'm talking like, you'll have complete groups of like 30 kids who are all very good looking, And then you'll have the ones who aren't kind of in their own clique, and you have that with the Jehovah's Witnesses a lot.
Oh yeah, you can call it their own clique, like they're choosing it.
It's like calling a planet a sun.
But okay, so there is this strong vanity, and of course that would be, right?
Because they're a chosen people and God loves them, and all this kind of stuff.
So... So there is that aspect of things.
You know what, never mind.
You continue with this story. Let me not ask any more questions for now.
What do you mean? I don't know.
I didn't really know where I was going with that.
Oh, okay. Let me ask some questions then.
Go ahead. So, your relationship was that physical appearance, being good-looking, is a very strong coin socially, right?
Like, it gets you advantages, but it also gets you significant disadvantages too, right?
Like, there's times when you would have much preferred to be the kid in the van, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And also, in school, the problem was, even though I was a Jehovah's Witness going through elementary school and middle school, and not so much the half-semester, ninth grade I spent before I got homeschooled, but...
In school, because I was a Jehovah's Witness, that was grounds to mock me and make fun of me.
But at the same time, because of the way I looked and the way I handled myself, I didn't get completely mocked.
They wanted to, but then they didn't.
You know what I mean? I didn't give them the full cue to just go all out on me like other Jehovah's Witness kids probably went through in school.
Right. Now, it may be possible...
And I've talked about this in podcasts before.
It may be possible that I would put it more on the side of probable, though you of course know better than I do, that it wasn't the way that you carried yourself that helped you avoid.
It was because you had the coin of good looks that you were able to credibly carry yourself in a different way.
Like if you'd have been a fat ugly kid, no amount of sort of noble bearing would...
You'd have been even mocked more if you'd have tried to do the noble bearing kind of thing, right?
Hello? Yeah, you're right in that respect.
I would say the root cause was my Lux.
Now, can you tell me what your assistant's relationship to Lux is?
Very, very...
We've talked about this a lot, actually.
She's very vain, and she does have the shallow capacities, and similar to my mom.
I love that, shallow capacities, because, you know, shallowness is more a lack of capacity, but...
Right, right, right. And we were talking about it, and she is hilarious, and she's very goofy, and she has a lot of personality.
And we were talking about that...
She thinks a lot of it came from when she was younger and not so much on the good looking.
And she even said that when things changed for her, she feels like she lost a lot of herself.
But she's still very, very much a slave to it.
Whereas, I mean, she doesn't go out unless she's dressed to the nines almost, you know what I mean?
And what is her relationship to people who don't happen to be blessed with her looks?
Because as she knows, it's purely accidental, right?
It's not like she earned it. It's not like she got a PhD in hottiness or whatever, right?
Oh, right. And I promise not to talk in any inappropriate way about your sister, right?
But I mean, it's not like she earned it, right?
So what is her relationship to the people who are less attractive?
Um... She doesn't really have many relationships with people who are less attractive.
Right, okay. Okay, good.
So this, believe it or not, this is massive progress, right?
Because we're getting to...
I mean, the reason that you have this challenge is because you are in a system of discrimination, right?
Right. It's more than just like, oh, I like pretty girls.
It's a system that is widespread that you were embedded in.
And again, to take a silly example, no kid just grows up and says, I don't like blacks.
But what happens is they're embedded in a system of discrimination that becomes part of their personality.
And what happens is the only way they can avoid the ugliness of discrimination is to avoid blacks.
Yeah, I see. So you are embedded in a system of discrimination based on looks, right?
Yes, I can actually...
The black metaphor is kind of funny because my dad was kind of racist.
Right, and as long as you don't bring a black kid home as a friend, you can not...
Your face is not going to be rubbed in the racism, right?
Right, right. So when people avoid blacks, mostly, at least when they're younger, what they're avoiding is seeing the ugliness of their parents' bigotry.
It's not that they hate blacks, it's that they don't want to see how ugly their parents are.
Gotcha. Yeah, that's right.
So you still hang with your sister, right?
Because I remember you posted a picture of you guys at a Halloween party.
Yeah, I spend time with her every once in a while.
Not too, too much.
I like to see my nephew.
I'll help watch him if she has to work late and then that kind of thing.
Yeah, it sounds like you guys have a fairly decent relationship.
There's no criticism on my part from that, right?
I mean, you enjoy each other's company and so on, right?
Yeah, yeah. And something she told me and something that her fiancé told me was that she's a lot different around me.
She's not the crazy vain person.
She... And I noticed this too.
A lot of her personality comes out with me around, but a lot of our relationship revolves around talking about philosophy and actually doing something with it in your life.
And we didn't have that relationship until we had that.
Okay, so tell me what would happen if...
We'll work from the outside in because we're talking about shallowness, right?
So it's usually good to work from the outside in.
What happens if you introduce a homely girlfriend to your sister?
Oh, you know this one, right?
There's nothing. I mean, that laugh tells it all, right?
Why don't you be clear about what happens?
Oh, what happened is, what are you thinking?
That's what happens. Why are you slumming it?
You could do so much better than that, right?
Exactly. Right, so when we talk about, and what would have happened if you were a kid, and you brought over an ugly girl to play with that you were friends with?
Probably the same thing.
Right, from your parents more so than that.
Like, we have an image to maintain, son.
We can't have this homely people clouding up our imaginary family portrait that God can see and whatever, right?
Right. Right, so you avoided the ugly kids because you wanted to avoid the ugliness.
Like, you avoided the physically ugly kids because you wanted to avoid the spiritual ugliness in your family, right?
Oh, yeah, for sure.
In the... And I can see that with my other siblings too, because there's three others.
I have a brother and an older sister.
And looks wise, you guys are like the Mormon, like the askments for the Mormons, right?
The big advertisement. Yeah, yeah.
The teeth and talent and ha ha ha, aren't we having a great time and you should pay 10% to our church too, right?
Yeah, you could say that.
Even though we're the more dysfunctional family of the Of the church.
Oh, you don't know that, right?
You guys make it the most functional they have.
Probably true, probably true.
But, I mean, we're probably the one family that showed it.
Okay, so, I mean, if you want to...
I mean, you didn't wake up one day and just say, I'm not going to be attracted to ugly people.
Now, of course, we'll get into the biology and all that in a sec, but it's important to understand that the only way that you could avoid seeing the ugliness in your family, their vanity, their hostility, their shallowness, their, like, all of the really...
And it's really gross, particularly for people who claim to be all about the soul.
It is really revolting to see this kind of...
Because you get, not only do you get bigotry, but you get hypocrisy, which is even worse in many ways.
Like, it's one thing for some crackerhead to say, I hate blacks, right?
But it's quite another thing for someone to say, all men are brothers, and skin color means nothing, and then secretly shun and hate blacks, right?
Oh, right. And the flip side to that is, I mean, you bring home a pretty girl, then you're praised, right?
Sure, sure. So, with your parents, what was even more revolting than their bigotry against physically unattractive people was their proclamations of spirituality, right?
Oh, definitely.
Yeah. We're all beautiful.
We're all made in God's image.
Wait, wait. That kid has a pimple.
Get him out of the backyard. Yeah, it was taboo for sure.
I mean, you'd have to go through those lessons of it.
And even my mom, I guess, like now that I think about it, even everyone my mom hung out with was...
It was fairly attractive.
I can guarantee you that this goes top to bottom and back to front, right?
That people who don't value themselves fundamentally as individuals, and you can't just make up a value for yourself.
You have to earn it through virtue.
But people who feel like, I'm not enough.
Again, I've talked about this before.
I'll just touch on it. I have to be me plus something.
Like, I'm not a good person fundamentally deep down because I'm shallow or manipulative or hypocritical or, you know, whatever.
Mean or false or, you know, I'm a coward pretending to be a warrior or whatever.
So if you don't feel valuable deep down, then you have to manufacture value, right?
And the things that people, manufacturers value, you know, money, looks, fame, talent.
I have to be me plus...
Whatever, right? To be able to have value.
And of course you can see this in your parents where they say that to be alive is to have value.
You are a soul created in the image of God.
God loves you for who you are and doesn't matter if you're ugly or old or fat or bad skin or squint-eyed or hairy-lipped or whatever.
And then of course, but they can't actually live like that because that's all just a load of nonsense.
So they have to, under the table, create value, right?
And they do that by associating with pretty people, by being attractive, by being hearty, by having the endless constant public advertisement that your family sort of had going on at all times.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you.
I Hello? Okay, sorry. Sorry, you're very quiet.
Did you change something there? Is that better?
Or did I? I don't think I did.
Try again? Okay.
Okay. Even with my family, at least I didn't have cousins who I hung out with or anything, but my mom would hang out with her family quite often.
I went to a family reunion and I saw these people I didn't know, and I didn't know why.
Now I know why.
They were the ugly ones, right? They were the ugly ones.
My mom would only hang out with her sisters who were good looking.
Right. So as you can see, your fear or hostility towards or avoidance of Ugly, physical ugliness is really an avoidance of spiritual ugliness, right? So you're not avoiding ugly people in the flesh, you're avoiding your parents and to some degree your sister's spiritual ugliness in the soul, right?
No, I can see that now.
That's very, I suppose, that feels counterintuitive, but I know what you're saying.
Right. You're managing the anxiety of knowing.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you found some woman who really made you laugh, who was, you know, bright, and so on.
And here, let's jump briefly into some aspects of appearance that are important, right?
That are important. So, again, this is nothing that's particularly shocking to me.
Sorry, to anyone who's sort of listened to podcasts, but, you know, extreme obesity is usually not the sign of a mentally healthy person.
Right. I don't mean like, you know, five pounds overweight as you age.
Lord knows I couldn't say that.
But, I mean, when you're talking about somebody who is, you know, bulimic or whatever, or extreme underweight, is anorexic, I mean, this is a sign of a severely disturbed personality.
So, from that standpoint, that's important.
Somebody who doesn't take any care of their grooming at all, even if they're of sort of normal weight or within a reasonable range of normal weight, But they don't take care if they're grooming at all.
Like, I mean, they smell and, you know, their hair has never seen a comb and so on.
That is also probably the sign of a kind of disturbed personality.
So somebody who's got, you know, they look like they fell down a flight of stairs holding a tackle box and got so many piercings that they, you know, they basically be picked up by a car magnet, right?
Those kinds of people also, again, may not be, or at least I would say, would not be on my top ten list of people to get involved with.
There's also somebody who's of normal weight, not pierced and so on, but is wearing a t-shirt that says fuck the world or something like that.
Or has a United Way logo on a t-shirt.
Whatever it is that's particularly horrifying.
No, sorry. Just one.
That's all I'll do. You earned it.
I think so.
So there are physical markers that can be a warning sign that are important to recognize.
But what we're talking is somebody of reasonably normal weight who's got decent hygiene and is wearing reasonable clothes, not pierced or studded or tattooed to the nines or whatever.
That kind of stuff, it is based on appearance, and appearance can also tell you a lot.
There's a certain amount of posture and eye contact that is also, I think, relatively important, right?
So if you, you know, some woman you meet at a party is slumped over, staring, can't raise her eyes to meet yours, mumbles and whatever, right?
Then this obviously is an advertisement for somebody who may not have, like who's going to be high maintenance, right?
Because they... Their self-esteem is not self-sustaining, right?
So there's a certain amount.
And of course, then you've got the guys who've read every book, you know, hi!
You know, crush your hands like a vice and stare at you without blinking until you just want to throw sand in their eyes or something.
So, you know, somewhere in the middle is usually...
Right, right. Good.
You know, the quality of someone's laugh, you know, this and that.
But things like height, you know, breast size, hips, figure as a whole, hair, you know, quality, quantity, thickness, curl, color or whatever, right?
Size of eyes, fullness of lips, all this kind of stuff.
I mean, and shape of face, right?
Women have no control over that, right?
Fundamentally, you can't will yourself to be taller or shorter.
Unless you're going to go into platform shoes and you can't will your boob size unless you pay someone to put those milk bags in your tits, which is not a good idea.
I certainly would not feel too comfortable with somebody who had gone down that road for anything other than the most extreme medical reasons.
So there are certain physical markers that are important that I think can tell you a lot about a person.
So I just wanted to put those to one side.
There's another aspect as well, which is of course that physical looks are all about fertility and making babies, right?
There's a reason we have a sex drive, and it's not to build up our forearms when we're teenagers.
It is also important to recognize that a 90-year-old woman is never going to be as attractive as a 20-year-old woman.
That's just basic.
There's also the basic reality that acne is not as attractive as clear skin and never will be.
There are certain things that are just part of what you have to get into.
Recognize in yourself as a biological male that the reason you have these sex drives is to procreate and they are going to be aimed at the healthiest looking woman around and even features are a sign of genetic strength and full hips and full bust is a sign of being well fed and you know all that kind of stuff.
So there's a certain kind of fertility that does drive at a biological level that does drive our Mating instincts, and of course, the average life expectancy was like 20, right?
So the purpose of our biology is to make babies that will live, right?
And it's a scattershot approach, and we all have that, you know, hunter-gatherer-sprayer of semen aspect of ourselves, right?
Honestly, it's like, you know, I'll just basically whack off in every hole I can find, including a rabbit hole, and hopefully something good will come out of it, right?
And so there is that aspect that we need to recognize and understand in ourselves.
But unfortunately, matching that aspect to hopefully a 50-year marriage where you get old together, that doesn't work, right?
It's sort of like saying, well, you know, we are drawn to fats and sugars and are not so keen on vegetables, and so I'm just going to eat cake, right?
I mean, we have to recognize that we have a certain longer-term relationship It's a strategy that we have to encompass now as human beings, that we live for a lot longer, that the marriages hopefully will be a lot longer.
And of course most people weren't around to raise their children to adulthood.
You just didn't live that long.
That's why it took a village to raise their children.
Parents kept dying.
Whereas now we have children and we are going to raise them for the full 20 years, so there are other criteria other than whatever physical stuff turns you on.
The woman has to be a good mother, the woman has to be a good companion, the woman has to be loyal, she has to be trustworthy, she has to be faithful, she has to be whatever, whatever, right?
So we have a certain kind of biological wiring that no longer matches with the longer-term objectives that we have, in the same way that we have a biological wiring to try and get something for nothing, which works in a primitive society where scarcity is common, but does not work at all in a society where scarcity is uncommon, and we need to negotiate for the long term, if that makes sense.
No, I see what you're saying.
So, whereas we're kind of biologically set up for survival, I mean, nowadays, with the way things have changed, our concern would more be happiness.
I think if I had put it that way, we could have saved three minutes.
Probably. Good for you.
Good for me. I appreciate that.
Anything that helps, huh? Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that.
So that's just something to recognize that you have, as all men do, and women too, right?
A natural drive towards, you know, fairly immediate procreation with the most fertile female in the vicinity, right?
Hopefully human, but people are known to be less picky.
There's some Venus flytraps that have been most critically violated throughout the course of human history.
But... And that is part of your drive, and that is part of your desire, and that is part of your nature as a sexual being, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But you just don't want that to be the criteria with which you lay down the foundation for a lifelong partnership, right?
We all have that person or that woman that gives us a real sexual zing, right?
Like, she walks in the room and it's just like, honey, your shoe is untied, right?
Right? Right, right.
And we all have that person that we frankly just want to mount and it may be more than one person.
But, of course, that is not the decisions that we're going to use to make longer-term life partnership choices because, of course, In the modern world, if you get a woman pregnant and she comes to term or whatever, then you are in for a lifelong 20 to 25 year obligation running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and that's just with one kid and that's quite different from hope I procreate before I die of Tooth infections at the age of 17,
right? It's a very different situation that we live in now.
We just have to extend our time frame into a longer-term scenario, which means that we have to enjoy the sexual impulses, but not let them dominate our thinking from that standpoint.
Yeah, I agree. When you talk about seeing yourself like living in the future kind of thing, is that kind of thinking help in that regard?
Well, sure. I mean, a good antidote to whatever your particular sexual turn on is with women, a good antidote is to look at the woman and imagine placing your precious child in her hands, right?
I mean, that's not exactly the biggest turn-on in the world, but that, of course, can help you make more rational decisions.
Because what you want to do, assuming that, and it seems like you would want to do this and you let me know if you don't, like if you want a family and kids and to have all of the pleasures of fatherhood and so on, That you want to work back from the ideal mother of your children and that does not mean a desexualized woman who is a birthing and feeding machine or anything like that.
What that means is that you want to work back from the virtues and the patience and the capacity for affection and also the capacity for good humor.
I mean, I can't tell you how fundamentally important it is to have a woman who is good-humored around.
Just as it is for a man, right?
Because life is full of stressors and you can either laugh at them and roll with them Or you can fight them and get really bitchy, right?
And so finding a woman, you know, who's got a good sense of humor, and that doesn't mean that she's a stand-up comic, but she enjoys the challenges of life, she rises to meet them, and so on.
All of that kind of stuff is so fundamentally important, because it's one thing to eye the woman with the deep cleavage across the party, but it's quite another thing to have the baby wake up for the third time in a night when you both have to get up early.
How the woman is going to handle that situation has a lot more to do with your happiness than does she look good in a halter top.
So are you trying to tell me that I can't just flip a switch?
I'm going to have to actually work at this.
Go on. No, I'm just kidding.
Did you get Podcast 666 Just Flip a Switch?
Exactly. So, that's the...
See, in my head, I want it to be like the shallow hell scenario.
Like, I don't want to even...
Like, I hate the temptation.
I hate the...
Like, with all the challenges I've had to face, this one seems like the tougher of...
Well, look, first of all, there's a couple of practical things that you can do.
Where is it that you meet women currently?
Other than on the FDR chat rooms.
Right. By the way, I'm Bambi.
Sorry, go on. Oh, I knew it.
Dang it. Sorry, I can't make it Friday.
That's creepy. Wait for your dreams tonight.
It'll be even worse. Step is a fawn.
Anyway, go on. Someone actually said I look like Mr.
Tumnus from Narnia, so I'm a fawn too.
Anyway... Where do I meet people, I guess?
No, where do you meet women that you are interested in dating?
Where do you get them when that special urge steals over your loins?
Sorry, go on. I've met a few at the bookstore.
I've met a few at coffee shops.
I've met a few through people.
I don't know. I'm not really shy.
I mean, you know that. Usually, I'm not really too concerned where I am.
If... So yeah, so you can go up to and talk to women, right?
Right. And so, what is your criteria?
And I think I can guess this, but we might as well be explicit.
What is your criteria for a woman who's worth your time to go up and talk to?
Usually, it's physical attraction.
Okay, so you say usually.
Can you tell me a time where that was not the case?
No. Okay, so when we say usually, we mean always.
Always. And that makes sense, right?
I mean, because otherwise it wouldn't be a problem that you need help with.
Right. Okay, so when you see a woman who is, like, let's say you see a woman who's reading a newspaper, the right side up, or is reading a book that you consider to be somewhat challenging, it's not like C-Spot Run or whatever, Right.
Or a book that you've read and enjoyed and so on.
And she's not, again, we're not talking some, you know, monster heifer who's 350 pounds, but we're talking about somebody who, you know, just may not have inherited the wonder figure of Barbie or whatever.
And your, when you would think about, when you sort of picture it in your mind going up to talk to that woman, what are the emotions that go through your mind?
It would probably be like a bittersweet kind of thing.
Like you're lowering yourself, right?
Yes, yes.
Okay, okay. Because in a book that I wrote, which I'm still sort of preparing for publication off and on, I talk about a beautiful woman who...
She wanted to put her beauty to work for her like a glistening slave.
And I've always kind of liked that phrase, right?
But we view beauty as a sort of coinage, right?
And so to date a woman who is not physically attractive in whatever classical or stereotypical sense, it sort of feels like you've got a PhD in economics, but you're taking a job in Starbucks, right?
It feels kind of like there's something fundamentally wrong and humiliating about it.
Does that sort of make sense?
Yes. Like, I should use my beauty to buy beauty, and if I spend my beauty on non-beauty, I'm debasing my own coins, right?
Yeah, I can identify with that.
Right, okay. And so the question is, what is it that you want to buy?
Because I'll tell you this, if you bypass the beauty prison, and you go for quality, your beauty, your own beauty, can buy you even higher quality.
I see what you're saying.
It's like converting your fiat money to gold, right?
Because there's inflation, right?
But if you say...
Because a woman who is not conventionally physically attractive is not used to guys coming up and talking to her, particularly not good-looking guys, right?
Right. So, you can use, and look, beauty is a coin, and we can't sort of pretend that it's not, right?
But if you spend beauty on beauty, then you're not buying happiness, and you're getting a one-to-one return on investment.
Yeah, that's an interesting perspective, yeah.
But if you spend beauty on non-beauty, you get a huge multiple in terms of your return on investment.
Very true, very true.
So you can use your beauty to buy even more happiness.
Now, it's a risk, right?
Because if the woman is only interested in you because you're attractive, then you're not going to be happy either, right?
Right. Because if she then goes out with you because you're attractive, then she places such a high value on attractiveness that she herself has issues.
And also, of course, what will happen is she will then become jealous.
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
You want to spend wisely, but it's important to understand you've got this coin called attractiveness, which will get you into more doors than if you weren't, right?
And if you spend it wisely, you can get an enormous return on investment for that.
But if you spend it foolishly, then it actually is worse than nothing, right?
It's worse than being ordinary looking or even unpleasant looking.
That's a pretty neat perspective.
I've never even heard that before.
Every once in a while. So you've got this coin.
You can't pretend it's not a coin.
And you want to invest it as wisely as possible.
And basically, if you invest in beauty, you get a thrill.
And it's like you take your million dollars down to the casino and you walk out empty-handed.
And that's a good metaphor. Whereas if you invest it in a solid, sensible savings account or, you know, whatever, right?
Then that is going to grow over time and you will get a great return on that, right?
Because, of course, I mean, I know that you're young, and for men it's a little different than it is for women, but, of course, the coin does have a devaluation, right?
Which is that we all get older, right?
I know that seems shocking to you, but just from my side of the fence, it apparently does happen.
So it's a losing investment?
For sure. It is absolutely a losing investment over time.
And if you really focus your efforts on finding somebody of quality, finding a woman of real quality, you know, physical appearance, it's not like you've got to date someone who's repulsive to you.
I mean, nobody's talking about that.
But it's about lowering the bar in terms of that which is inconsequential and actually kind of destructive, right?
Because A woman who focuses enormously on her own appearance is not going to be somebody that you want to To get married with, right?
And settle down with and have raised your children.
Because the process of not only aging, but parenthood is a physically ugly process, right?
The woman's figure is never the same after she has a baby, and particularly after she breastfeeds, she's going to just droop like the Dow.
So it is a losing proposition.
You're going to have less time to exercise, less time to be active, you're going to be eating more on the run, people often gain Some wait after parenthood and, you know, your good looks do you nothing at 4am when the baby's, as I say, awake for the third time, right?
There's nobody there saying, ooh, how hot he or she is, you know, I'd love to get her number.
You don't get any of those ego thrills when you get into the realm of parenthood, right?
And your kids, of course, don't particularly care, especially when they're very young, how good looking you are, right?
So... You enter into a situation based on looks where looks no longer have any coinage.
And in fact, if you're dependent on looks, you will end up far more unhappy than if you had never taken that investment.
It's weird because I always thought about the solution being...
Or like when I think of people who...
I don't place that kind of importance on looks.
I always thought it was kind of like the way you actually see things changes.
Not like a Shallow Hell kind of thing, but where you actually don't even get the desire or impulse when you see someone who's physically attractive.
Where it's kind of like...
You don't really get any kind of satisfaction from it.
You don't get the desire. And that's what I kind of thought the solution was, is that as I grow as a person or...
Yeah, magically you're gonna just find yourself attracted to nothing but virtue, right?
Right, and that's what I thought it was.
Oh, you have boobs? I didn't even notice.
Right, and I think that's part of the reason I was having such anxiety about it.
It's never going to happen. It's never going to happen.
But that's a Christian thing.
To have a goal that is impossible is one of the most destructive myths of religion.
Impure in thought and deed to think infidelity is to commit infidelity.
I mean, just this thought police thing, right?
That's something you've got to watch out from your childhood, right?
Anytime you get a temptation to invoke the thought police, you know it's coming directly from your childhood, right?
And a really fucked up part of your childhood.
Right, yeah, and that's, I don't know, that's why I kind of felt so hopeless about it, because it wasn't changing, and nothing I could possibly contrive would change.
No, and you can't make yourself attracted to someone that you're not attracted to physically.
You can't will that, and you can't have that as a standard.
But what you can do is you can say, I'm going to get to know this person because she seems like an interesting person.
I'm going to get to know this person.
I'm not going to will myself to be attracted to somebody that I don't have that immediate sexual zing with, but I'm going to get to know this person and see what happens, right?
And as I said before, neither Christina nor I were attracted to each other physically when we first met.
Now, of course, I think she's the sexiest woman alive, but we just weren't attracted to each other.
We weren't each other's types, or I don't know what, right?
But we just weren't attracted to each other physically.
I mean, I noticed, like, oh, good-looking woman or whatever, right?
But it was not... Something where I was like, you know, wow, you know, I must get to know this person because of X, Y and Z, right?
So we just met because I was getting a book published and she was impressed by that and she was in psychology and I was impressed with that and we sort of went and chatted from there and then after our second date we never spent a day apart, right?
So it's just about opening yourself up to getting to know someone And you don't say, well, if I can will myself to be attracted to this person, then I will go over and talk to her, right?
It's like, oh, I'm not attracted to her.
There's still something wrong with me.
I'm broken, blah, blah, blah. That's not...
Just say, well, it's around curiosity.
Is this a person that I will be interested in getting to know?
Now, you also have to be aware that your judgment may not be the best.
And you may be, if you go up and chat to some woman in a coffee shop, You may be the most attractive guy who's ever shown interest in her, right?
And you have that backfire kind of thing you're talking about.
Yeah, yeah. Now that I have your address, right?
Right. So you have to be aware of boundary signal problems, right?
And you can do that just by, you know, again, looking for people who look normal.
I mean, frankly, that's going to be your first right hint, right?
Again, no eyebrow piercings, no tattoos on the forehead, no...
You can go up and talk to somebody who is, you know, reasonable looking and so on, and just be curious to get to know them, right?
In the same way that if you saw somebody reading UPB or Untruth or The God of Atheists, that you might go up and talk to that person, whether he's man, woman or fowl, right?
Hey, wouldn't it be ironic if I end up meeting a girl who's wearing an FDR shirt?
Well, that's why we put the logo on the cleavage, which Christine projected to last night.
But anyway. Very good.
That's something.
If you see a woman who is reading a book that you find interesting or reading a newspaper that you think is something intelligent or is reading a textbook or whatever, right?
Then you just, I mean, if she's in a reasonable age range and looks reasonable, then just go up and talk to her.
And it's around curiosity.
It's not like, well, why don't I feel sexual?
Hey, you know, you're obviously smart and I'm just, I'm working my way up to trying to feel sexual attraction to you so that I can talk to you, right?
I mean, that's not a reasonable thing to say to yourself or, of course, to somebody.
But it's just around this person seems intelligent or seems smart or whatever.
I'd like to get to know this person better.
Not from a pure sexual standpoint, right?
Again, you don't want to say this is somebody who's 90 or whatever.
But it's just being curious.
And then, of course, what happens is, right?
Because it's your false self that runs the hormones and it's your true self that runs the love, right?
Yeah, and that's always been a challenge with me.
There has not been many times in my life where I've actually had girls who were just a friend.
Well sure, but that's because you're over-sexualized too, right?
I make jokes about that, but I've noticed that in the chat room too, right?
Yes. That you have an over-sexualized way of approaching women, right?
Oh, for sure. And, like, even when, like, I do have, you know, like, friends who are girls, it's still not like that, you know what I mean?
It's still not, like, a completely non-attraction, non-biased relationship.
It can't be, right? I mean, to say that I'm going to treat the woman the same as a man would be to say I'm going to lose track of reality, right?
I mean, you can't...
And women aren't the same as men, right?
Otherwise, we'd all be bisexual, right?
Women aren't the same as men, and it's more than physical.
It's emotional. It's soulful.
It's the different brain skills that they have.
I mean, we're designed to be complementary in many different ways, right?
So, again, don't have these sort of impossible standards.
I ought to treat my female friends exactly the same as I would, you know, guy friends or whatever.
Let's play touch football, you know.
I mean, that's not how things work between men and women, at least I don't think so.
but it's just around being curious and being open to let your heart, right, rather than your dick, do a little bit of the pointing, right?
And your heart, of course, can only figure out the quality of someone in terms of conversation, whereas, of course, your dick is a divining rod for flesh, right, which is going to lead you off a cliff in the long run.
Right, yeah, I remember that podcast, It Matters, where you point your dick.
Yeah, I think so.
It's a good podcast.
Right, having followed my own penis off a number of cliffs, I'd like to shout up from the rubble.
Yeah, but this is probably the clearest I've ever had perspective with this.
Because, I mean, until before now, I did think it was an actual change in perception for the most part.
And I don't know why the whole curiosity thing escaped me before.
Well, and the family stuff, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah. If you go out in public, right, with, I remember, I mean, before I got married, I was dating a woman, and she's very physically attractive, and I remember when my boss met her, it's like, yeah, she walked in the room, I thought, hey, she's with her bodyguard, right?
That's funny. Yeah, kind of funny.
Anyway. Sorry. But I'm fine.
So yeah, you can't get rid of all of that, but what the challenge is going to be for you in particular is that when you go out in public with somebody who is not as attractive as what you're used to and perhaps not on an even scale as attractive as you, the challenge that you're going to feel is that you're going to be very sensitive to perceived humiliation, right? Oh, for sure, yeah.
And that comes not from the people in the present, but from your family in the past.
And to some degree, your sister in the present, which is something you're obviously going to have to talk to her about.
Shit, man, even I've thought that before.
I've been out and I've seen couples together and I've had that go through my head.
Right, and the funny thing is, this is the funny thing, right?
And this is the very, very funny thing that occurs, right?
Which is that, look, we've all been there when some guy walks in with this, you know, total stunner, right?
Or this woman with this total hunkasaurus or whatever, but usually it's the other way around, right?
Yeah. Right. And we all feel a certain flash of envy, right?
Because that is a sexual prize that is, you know, a high status, and we're all biological creatures, and so there's a certain amount of envy.
But, and I don't know, I mean, I'm not going to sort of try and praise the physical qualities of ex-girlfriends too much, but when I've been on the receiving end of that kind of thing, it's often that the relationship isn't going that well, right?
So, of course, what happens is that these people look up and they go, wow, he's really, really hot woman, he must be rich.
Right, exactly.
And then they go back to their meal with their average looking women that they're having great conversations with, right?
But I've got to sit down and try and have a conversation with this retarded ornament, right?
Like, seriously, they go back to their lives.
I'm the one who's got to sustain an entire evening's conversation with this person, right?
So, like, it's not a really good trade, right?
Like, I get like, ooh, you know, they envy me for like three seconds and then they go back to their dinner and now I've got three hours of trying to make conversation with someone who is like the combined IQ of the Backstreet Boys.
Yeah. I mean, I'm being overly harsh, right?
I never dated anyone that dumb, but you know what I mean.
We go for this flash of status, and then they all go back for their lives, and we're stuck with the permanent situation.
No, I've actually been there when you said that you have to sit down and make conversation with your ornament.
I've been there. It is funny to think about that.
Chia pet and puppets and try and have a good mime show, right?
I mean, it just doesn't work. Right.
Yeah, I guess I've been on both sides of the coin, too.
I've been the person who looks at the person and goes, oh, must be rich or something.
And, yeah, that's kind of funny you put it like that.
Yeah, I mean, this is nothing, you know, as men, right?
Man to man, there's nothing here that we haven't all experienced.
And, of course, when we look at a really attractive guy...
Who's with an average or, you know, ugly woman, physically, I don't mean, again, not like distorted or anything, but, you know, just somebody who's not, you know, has got that sort of vault of cloth figure or whatever, right?
Then what we say is, doesn't he know how attractive he is?
Yeah, or what's wrong with him.
Yeah, or what's wrong with him or whatever, right?
So what happens is, of course, and this is the weird thing that we all, we're all sensitive to this stuff because we're social creatures, but the weird equation is that he then goes ahead and has a wonderful meal with a woman that he really likes, right?
Right, yeah. Right?
So we sit there and say, what's wrong with him?
And then we go chasing after attractive and vapid women because we don't want people to think, what's wrong with us?
When, of course, there's nothing wrong with him and everything with us, right?
I mean, that's the funny part, right?
Waste time chasing after attractive women who don't have the substance to hold our attention, interest or respect.
And he, of course, then sails through life with a woman who is less attractive than he is, but he's having a great time because he really loves her, right?
So, I mean, it's just a weird kind of inversal of values.
Like, we look down on people that we should be looking up to.
Yeah, I... Oh, it's all coming together much better for me, because I know I've bugged you about it in the past.
I'm sorry it took so long to get back to it.
I also wanted to organize my own thoughts a little bit, you know, for once.
No, I completely understand.
But yeah, I did want to lay it on the table for you, because you usually hit everything at least once.
I mean, you got to it.
Almost a thousand coming up now, huh?
Yeah, well, it's over a thousand if you count the premium cuts, but yeah, yeah, no, it's a chunk.
That is true. Nice. But yeah, you've touched on it.
You've hit it in little spots every now and again, but I don't know.
The big picture for me has never...
has kind of escaped me, and...
Yeah, it'll be weird now that I have some focus with it, and I can kind of experiment with it, and hopefully I'll get somewhere.
Just remind yourself that every time your eyes pass over a less attractive woman, you're just pleasing your parents.
You're just obeying your parents, right?
No, seriously, that's exactly what is occurring, right?
You are submitting yourself back to that little, shallow, appearance-based prison of the Jehovah's Witnesses and your parents.
Your parents don't want you to look at any but the most attractive women, right?
Yeah, that's going to be a great determinant.
Pretty much. I know based on your personality and what I know about you, there's nothing I could say that would be more compelling to you.
No, no. But it's their rule, right?
It's their rule and it's at the cost of your happiness, right?
And so to obey that is to obey their shallowness and what was so destructive to you as a child, right?
right and you want to you want to not reproduce that as much as you can so was there anything else I mean, we've obviously given you a fair amount to chew on.
Was there anything else that you wanted to talk about, or do you want to have a listen to this and let me know what you think?
Oh, I think I've lost him again.
Oh, Ricky! Hello.
Oh, sorry, you're back. Did you hear?
I was just sort of saying, I mean, we've got a lot to chew over.
Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about in this topic, or do you want to talk with what we've got?
Oh no, man. You've done more than enough in the past two days.
I really appreciate it. Yeah, I think that sums it up.
I don't have anything on my mind at the moment that's relevant.
I think I've got plenty to work with, Stefan.
How do you feel about this as a postable?
Again, I think this is something that we all have.
Just based on the cultural obsession with appearance, this is something that is a fairly widespread challenge for people.
How do you feel about that? Well, the solution makes me happy.
I kind of feel good about it now.
I kind of had some anxiety about it because I didn't know whether I should feel guilty.
uh, like I, I was, wasn't progressing because I wasn't seeing people, um, cause I was still having attraction issues and that kind of thing.
But, uh, and so, um, I, I felt, I don't know.
I felt like something was wrong with me or I, I wasn't making the progress I should be, or I was stuck somewhere.
It should be pure thought, utterly above the physical, right?
Exactly, and so I feel a lot better that that's not so much the case, but it's more of my own capacity for being curious and seeing what happens, that kind of thing.
Right. Okay, well, that's great.
Do you want to have a listen to this?
Do you feel okay with it as a podcast?
I mean, what are your feelings or thoughts about it?
No, go ahead and publish away.
I really appreciate that.
And, of course, keep me posted on how it's going and let us know how the chat with your sister goes.
Oh, for sure. I'm going to have to relay a lot of this to her.
Oh, it'll be a podcast you can hear, right?
Exactly. It'll be perfect.
All right. Thanks, man. I'll talk to you soon.
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