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June 1, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

04:20:09

2712 The Dangers of Dating a Sex Worker - Saturday Call In Show May 31st, 2014

Avoiding estrogen based parasites, why parents don’t teach their children about predatory people, dating a Romanian sex cam girl, stealing from work to pay for her medical treatments, logic or emotion, all ya gotta do, paranoid people attack the world and negotiating with your inner critics.

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	Good evening, everybody.
	Oh, my God, it's the end of the month.
	It's the end of the month.
	Mike, Mike, Mike, what do we need to do at the end of the month?
	I can't exactly remember.
	It's one day before the pinch punch that greets our daily management meetings.
	What else do we need to do at the end of the month?
	It might be time for a donation pitch.
	It might.
	A donation pitch.
	Alright, I will put the Vaseline on the ball.
	See?
	I said singular there because of all these sexual harassment complaints that keep piling up in my shredder you laughingly call a suggestion box.
	Alright, so what's the pitch this month?
	Well, I will say this week has been probably one of the most work-intensive weeks I've certainly had in a long time, and that covers some serious ground.
	Yeah, it's been like, what, eight, nine, ten hours this week?
	Seven.
	Can you believe it?
	Seven hours.
	Not counting shaving.
	Yeah, your head.
	No, my wife actually calculated, because Lord knows, I just kind of disappear into this stuff, but 90 hours this week for me, between the...
	You did 90 hours this week.
	90 hours, and weren't we talking about me slowing down?
	Yeah, that didn't happen, but...
	Yeah, Elliot Rodger presentation and the Maya Angelou presentation.
	Both were pretty time-sensitive and did two all-nighters to get those done 90 hours this week.
	And don't get me wrong, I love what I do and everything, but tons and tons of effort and work goes into presentations like those.
	And the Elliot Rodger one is actually doing incredibly well.
	Two-hour-long video.
	Almost a quarter million, right?
	Almost a quarter million.
	Yeah, no doubt going to hit that in the next week.
	And for those who don't know, for those who don't know it, it's absolutely true.
	That Mike does all night is to put these presentations together.
	But can I tell you something?
	I read them.
	I mean, seriously, I... Anyway, go on.
	No, you did an amazing, amazing job reading the Elliot Rodger presentation.
	That was fantastic.
	And yeah, so these presentations, they take a lot of work to put together, to record, to go through and try and figure out how to read them and the style.
	And this is how new people find the show.
	This is how new people get exposed to philosophy.
	You know, someone clicks on an Elliot Rodger presentation that's doing 200-plus thousand views on YouTube.
	Before you know it, they're talking about peaceful parenting and that kind of stuff, and that's how we change the world.
	So, I love doing the presentations because they really help.
	There are advertising.
	They're really worth pouring a ton of.
	I mean, I think we hands down, and this is...
	Of course, largely due to your research, but we did hands down the best Elliot Rodger coverage, I think, that's out there.
	I'm 100% comfortable saying that.
	I've seen a lot of other things, and without question, I think ours is the most in-depth, the most substantial.
	Although I did miss a slide where you were yelling at everyone to wake the fuck up because it was a false flag operation.
	False flag people are just complete douchebags, you know what I mean?
	Like, if you're right, then stop screaming at people about stuff that's completely counterintuitive.
	But anyway, that's neither here nor there.
	But yeah, I think we did the best stuff.
	I agree.
	I agree.
	So we're really happy with it, but oh my goodness, this was a heavy week.
	So if you've been listening for a while, you're a fan of the show, you like what we're doing, you want to see more of this stuff, fdrurl.com forward slash donate.
	Please, please, please, if you could sign up for a subscription, I cannot begin to tell you how helpful the subscriptions are.
	I've been talking with quite a few other people to kind of offload some of this research stuff so we can do more of these kind of presentations and bring more people to the show.
	So that subscription base, signing up for one, really helps us know what we have to work with budget-wise and allows us to do cool stuff like that.
	If you can find it in the chat.
	Sorry to interrupt, but just remember, Stuart, last time I'll interrupt until the next time I interrupt.
	But it's important to remember that while Mike was delving deep into the heart of a sadistic psycho killer, I was researching really gay ice magic.
	So – because I ended up doing what, a 15-page essay on Frozen, which was fun but a lot of work.
	And really it's been a while since.
	It's been like six years since I've really written anything of substance.
	So other than I guess the Amsterdam thing, which was not exactly of substance.
	But yeah, so I mean it's – yeah, a lot of work from both of us this week.
	And it's very encouraging when we do get some financial rewards, some kibble.
	And we're buying a new camera.
	Oh yeah, that's coming up too.
	Going to buy a brand new fancy schmancy camera to improve it.
	Yeah, we're going top-of-the-line cameras.
	It's just kind of annoying to work with consumer cameras when you're trying to do a professional-looking show.
	I've actually been using my cell phone for recording video.
	It does not feel like it should be.
	The upside-down pyramid resting on...
	A cell phone does not quite seem like the right approach.
	Well, Steph, the most important thing is we've got requests for higher video quality next time you go topless.
	So that's very important that we get that high quality camera.
	That's the only way that quality is going to improve because I'm not doing any more bench pressing.
	Something about tanning as well.
	I'm not sure what that meant.
	Hey, we've got a white background so I can look like two blue eyes with a beard.
	Yeah, so fdrurl.com forward slash...
	Donate.
	Please do help out.
	We are doing great, great, great stuff.
	I mean, what are our gigs for downloads these days?
	Just podcasts, nothing to do with the videos.
	Oh, we had a couple, like, almost 900 gig days last week.
	And it's pretty high on a weekly basis.
	And we're breaking our monthly records.
	We're going to have to buy some overage on our server.
	I'd have to pull up the exact numbers to get it, but it's...
	A lot of podcast downloads.
	So that's all good.
	Those are problems you want to have.
	But it does cost money.
	So if you can chip in, sign up for a subscription.
	The subscriptions, again, incredibly important.
	So if you can sign up for a subscription, immensely appreciated.
	And we will keep doing good stuff and make you proud.
	I'm sorry, Mike.
	Was that something about a subscription?
	I may have missed something.
	Something about a subscription.
	Subscription?
	Something like that.
	Something subscription.
	Subscription.
	That's what we like.
	So help us out.
	All right.
	So now it's our turn to listen to you.
	And who do we have up first?
	All right.
	Up first today is Bob.
	And Bob wrote in and said...
	Please pretend that my name is Bob.
	Because my real name is...
	That is the case, yes.
	My question is, how can an honest man reconcile the understanding of female biological nature, such as hypergamy, and pursue relationships knowing his own disposability?
	Ah.
	You hunt for the mythical now world.
	Not all women are like that.
	Bob, are you on the line?
	Yeah, I'm here.
	All right.
	Now...
	For those who don't know, so hypergamy is a woman's biological desire to trade up, to sort of marry up, to marry somebody who's more successful than herself.
	This also means to look up.
	Apparently, while men like looking down at tits, women like looking up at nasal passages because finding a woman to go out with a shorter man outside of the Jewish community It does seem to be sort of tricky.
	And I remember seeing a documentary many years ago which basically a guy who was like 5'7 or 5'8 had to be like a millionaire heart surgeon to compete with a guy who was 6'1 or 6'2.
	So there's a lot of compensation to do.
	And I don't find that this is a problem fundamentally in that it's real.
	The problem is that it's not acknowledged.
	That to me is like women don't say, oh yeah, we like to marry up.
	And women don't say, oh God, yeah, I really like a tall guy.
	Or, yeah, I really like a guy with money.
	There's nothing wrong with this.
	It's all biological impulses.
	Women being attracted to resources makes just as much sense as men being attracted to youth and fertility.
	We are mammals and there's nothing wrong with it.
	It's just, despite it being blindingly everywhere obvious in the world, nobody seems to want to talk about it.
	Which is just kind of weird.
	It's like, you know, if you don't think something's there, it's still there.
	It's just like covering your eyes, trying to walk through a closed door and wondering why you bump your nose.
	So what's your history been like with dating?
	Have you run into this kind of stuff?
	Yeah, definitely dated a girl who...
	Had some pretty wealthy girl, or like came from a wealthy family and had all her girlfriends, you know, had pretty wealthy boyfriends or husbands or whatever.
	And so it was definitely like, it was definitely something she was like trying to compete or was like part of her lifestyle, I guess.
	Like to have the wealthy boyfriend?
	Yeah, and almost just to kind of be entitled to it.
	Like just like there was like so much pressure in the relationship to, you know, always kind of Try to just like instead of just kind of being content or like finding a path that's kind of just like you know like a simple life it was just always you know just a constant struggle and strive to like outdo the girlfriend or you know I don't know and like I was just basically felt like I was the utility to achieve that end and yeah it just killed
	the relationship completely for me but Well, and have you thought about not dating?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, I've been single for the last five years now.
	And I've gone on quite a few dates in the last five years, but I mean, I haven't really.
	I've really made sure to...
	I try to wait for a decent girl, but the longer I wait, the more it seems like I'm just wondering if being single is the way to go or that kind of thing.
	Right, right.
	It's a tough call.
	It's a tough call.
	It's not part of social planning at the moment to help women wake up to some of their shallower aspects.
	People say, well, why do you focus on women?
	It's like, because men have had about 10,000 years of, you guys are shallow, you need to be deeper, and blah, blah, blah.
	This is not unknown in the male community that we need to do things different or do things better.
	But there's this grinding, boring, repetitive, ridiculous, quote, emotional superiority on the part of women in society.
	Like, women are just great.
	No problems with women.
	Women are fine.
	And boy, if only we could get men to be more like women, who are the perfect ones, then wouldn't everything be fantastic?
	Well, that's just a complete load of crap.
	And it doesn't even take much thought to understand or any research beyond a page or two of Google results to realize just how much crap that actually is.
	If women are so great, then society should be perfect about now because women have taken over childhoods over the last 100 years.
	Women now are like 95 or 97 percent of elementary school teachers.
	They're the vast majority of daycare workers.
	Single moms have been exploding over the last 40 or 50 years.
	And so women are basically in charge of childhoods for the most part.
	And how's the world doing?
	Well, guess what?
	Women have been given almost everything that they've ever asked for politically.
	And guess what?
	You'll be shocked, but they're still complaining.
	I mean, you can't satisfy, in general, the female population.
	Now, again, statistically, you can't tell anything about individuals, but you can tell some things about aggregations, right?
	And so, you know, please don't bore me with the I know women who are different than like that.
	I mean, come on.
	This is just ridiculous.
	You have to think a little better than that.
	Not you, Bob, but others in general.
	If women are so great...
	To running relationships, then why is domestic violence so high in the lesbian community?
	Not a lot of penises floating around in the sea of vaginas known as the lesbian community and domestic violence.
	And I know this.
	I had a roommate who was a lesbian and was constantly complaining about the level of violence and abuse in her coven.
	I guess I don't know what you call it.
	So this idea that, you know, if only men could be more like women, then I guess we could destroy the planet ten times faster because we'd need a whole bunch of useless crap to smear all over us in the pretense that we're just about depth and emotional connection and blah, blah, blah, right?
	We'd need push-up bras, too, to squish our hairy man boobs in other people's faces saying, hey, hey, hey, my eyes are up here.
	I mean, it's true that I've painted rotating disco lights on my tits, but I now need you to look up here.
	So...
	There is, and this stuff, I don't even want to get on a huge rant here.
	All of this, we don't like to be objectified.
	There's just no honesty in it.
	Yes, yes, women, most of you do want to be objectified.
	That's why makeup and plastic surgery and body-hugging clothing and Spanx and all this kind of junk is a multi-hundred-billion-dollar-a-year industry around the world.
	Of course you want to be objectified.
	I get it.
	Nothing wrong with that.
	Just all you got to do is be honest about it.
	And the more attractive a woman is, the more she wants to attract an alpha male so she's got to make herself look as hot as possible, as great as possible.
	But then, do you know what happens?
	Do you know what happens?
	Oh, you wouldn't believe it!
	When you make yourself as attractive to bag an alpha, a lot of ambitious baiters try and date you as well.
	And then you have to call them creepy, and all this male intention is so unwanted.
	Yeah, right.
	Brad Pitt comes up and asks you out.
	You won't be like, oh, that's so creepy.
	I can't believe he's looking at me.
	It's like, Brad Pitt?
	Rip!
	Here, put these up your nose.
	So anyway, I just – and look, I mean, again, I'm not saying that it's any different for men, right?
	It's just that the faults of men have been laid bare savagely, surgically for generations.
	I don't know why women find it so hard to admit that they want to look attractive.
	It's not like there's this massive secret, a conspiracy of silence.
	In the old days, you had to go and buy porn in a brown paper bag.
	It's not like all of the magazines that are fetishistically promoting shamanistic female penis painting contests.
	In other words, how can I paint myself to get the most money attached to the Most attractive penis.
	I mean, they're all over.
	It's like, it's not a secret.
	They're all over the place.
	Every single advertisement in magazines, in daytime TV, in family hour, every single advertisement is about how some woman can make herself look prettier or feel better or smell like some virgin rainforest waterfall or something.
	And so it's not a secret, but it's just like there's no honesty about it.
	And I just find that kind of schizoid.
	So I think...
	As far as it goes, there are some things that you can look at that will help in terms of, I think, finding a woman who's got a reasonable...
	I get lots of emails from women when I go on these female rants.
	I get lots of emails from women like, oh man, thank you so much for saying it.
	These women are driving me crazy too.
	And I would just forward them all to you.
	So there are a couple of indicators.
	So first of all, here's a couple of tips.
	First of all, if a woman is in debt, run.
	Do not pass go.
	Do not collect $200.
	Run.
	Run, run, run.
	A woman who cannot handle money will not be able to handle your heart.
	A woman who is basically a thief, and women who run into debt significantly are basically just thieves, they will shred you up.
	And basically, you can never trust a woman in debt because she's so often looking for a sugar daddy to bail her out, right?
	I don't care what kind of debt this is.
	I don't care if it's student debt.
	But a woman who's in debt and not like paying it off and blah, blah, blah, but it's just kind of going into debt and getting by is toxic.
	So if a woman's in debt, oh my god.
	I mean I remember being set up with a woman years ago.
	Well, of course it was years ago, Steph.
	You've been married for 11 years.
	But I remember being set up with a woman and she was talking about how her ex-boyfriend ran up like $17,000.
	In credit card debt and then vanished and now she's been struggling to pay it off for the last two years.
	I'm like, good luck with that.
	I'm out of here because I'm just not getting involved with anyone who's in debt.
	Basically, her debts become your debts and then you end up paying off all of it.
	So debt is number one.
	Number two, sports.
	Is, I think, a pretty positive indicator of a potential now-wells, right?
	Not all women are like that woman.
	Why sports?
	Yeah, like she's got a history with sports.
	Because then her body is being used for something other than being attractive.
	Oh, you mean just like being in shape kind of?
	No, I don't mean being in shape because you can be in shape by...
	Running on a treadmill, right?
	Or whatever.
	I mean, sports.
	Like, she's done some competitive team sports, I think, in particular.
	I mean, maybe I'm biased.
	I met my wife playing volleyball, and she's very sporty.
	And so, I think sports is a pretty good...
	Yeah, but I'm not really sporty at all.
	So, for me, that would be kind of like...
	I'm not really into sports at all.
	So, I mean...
	I don't know.
	Are you into exercise at all?
	Yeah, I go to the gym, and I'll go for walks or hikes, but I've just never been really into team sports.
	I didn't say, look, I mean, if you want to have sex with yourself, you certainly don't need to ask your hand if it's sporty.
	So I'm talking about the woman here.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	It doesn't mean you have to play the same sport with her, although it wouldn't be the end of the world.
	But team sports have a lot of negotiation, a lot of conflict resolution, a lot of stuff.
	And studies have shown that women who are engaged in sports as teenagers...
	Tend to have higher self-esteem, tend to be less focused on their looks, tend to look for personal qualities other than the shallow ones and so on.
	So I'm just saying, you know, you don't have to become the jack-of-all-trades sports guy.
	But if the woman says, I've played a lot of competitive sports or I still play competitive team sports, I think that's...
	That's a plus.
	I think a woman who has shown some foresight – now, the debt thing is just one of those things where you can see if a woman hasn't shown foresight.
	But did she get a degree in art history and then try and figure out if she could get a job?
	And that is not a sign of somebody who's got any kind of shit together at all.
	Now, look, don't get me wrong.
	I mean, look, I – I got a degree in history.
	Now, I was originally going to go on and do a PhD and all that, but for a variety of reasons I've gone into before, I didn't.
	But I ended up, you know, working, I've been working with computers since I was like 10 or 11, so that's sort of what I did, and got into that, and then I got into this, where history has been very helpful and important and all that.
	But I would definitely say, if the woman is like, you know, what I wanted, like my wife, she said I wanted, she was really interested in psychology, I wanted to study and become a psychologist, so she became a psychological associate, which is many years of study.
	And, you know, many years of being mentored and all of that kind of stuff.
	So she's willing to have – she's made the sacrifices to get the payoff, right?
	And so that's sort of an example of a woman who's willing to defer gratification in order to achieve something good.
	Because if you don't have someone in your life romantically or in terms of friends who's willing to defer gratification, you can never resolve disputes.
	Because dispute resolution is all about – Delaying gratification, right?
	Delaying the gratification of wanting to be right, of wanting to dominate, of wanting to win and recognizing that you're going to have to have some hard conversations to make it all work.
	So you need to – these are all signs for somebody who's got some maturity, is willing to defer gratification, is willing to work for something that's really great and so on.
	Obviously, I think a healthy body type, neither too skinny nor heavily overweight and so on, I think is another good sign.
	And a woman who is a good conversationalist.
	I mean, that's really important.
	To be a good conversationalist is a highly underrated conversation.
	Skill.
	I mean, that's all these shows are.
	It's good conversations, hopefully about useful and important topics.
	But a good conversationalist, a woman who's got some idea of what's going on in the world.
	Ask her what her interests are and find out what does she read.
	I mean, reading is, of course, so essential that it's...
	It almost goes without saying.
	Somebody who's able to read.
	Somebody who enjoys culture.
	Somebody who's gone to see some plays.
	Somebody who knows a little something about music.
	Somebody who's really a person with a vagina.
	Not a vagina regretfully dragging an unhealthy person around.
	Right?
	Right.
	The woman puts herself first and foremost – like she puts herself forward and it's not a hypersexual display that is something that awakens your penis and repulses your heart, right?
	So does that help at all?
	Yeah, to a certain extent I suppose.
	Well, that's about as nice to know as I've ever gotten in this show.
	So how can I help you more?
	Well, I guess I'm just kind of the way you're describing this woman is maybe my ex was a lot like that in some ways.
	I mean, she did, you know, she had a practical degree and she had...
	You fool!
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Who knows?
	Maybe at the time I wasn't good enough, but...
	Well, why did you break up?
	Well, it was literally because her social sphere was very upper, I would say, higher class.
	And I come kind of from a middle class background.
	So, I mean, I make good money, but I just felt like I was just constantly being compared to And like my just my personhood wasn't really being acknowledged and it was just kind of like I was just you know like even like she was you know she was educated she was really smart she had a good job but at the same time it was just like I was you know like I it was I felt like I was just really being kind of used as utility still like yeah
	I don't know what that means like I'm it's all very abstract can you give me some sort of concrete examples Well, just like her getting upset that I'm not buying her these expensive purses or boots like her friends are getting.
	What?
	What?
	Sorry, what?
	She had a job, right?
	Yeah.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	I'm sorry, I'm just trying to process this.
	Why would you be buying her purses?
	Well, she was saying that was a sign that I loved her or like that.
	Oh!
	Oh no, come on.
	Don't tell me that this was a quality woman who then said, love is you squirting fiat currency at me in the form of Hermes bags, right?
	I guess.
	Seriously, love cannot equal buying stuff for someone.
	I mean, does she not listen to the Beatles?
	This is like age old, right?
	Yeah, I guess.
	So she literally said, if you love me, you will buy me expensive stuff.
	Handbags, right?
	Well, not in those exact words, but almost.
	No, no, of course not those exact words, but that's the impression you got, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, women can't even be honest enough to be open whores, right?
	Because that is basically, because love then means sexual availability, sexual access, right?
	I put out for purses.
	Yeah, I guess.
	No, no, tell me where I'm wrong, right?
	Yeah, no, that's right.
	And she could well afford these things herself, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	Now, did she actually want the purse?
	Sorry, she could, yeah.
	So now, did she actually want these purses, Bob?
	Or did she want to go to her girlfriends and say, look what Bob bought me.
	Look at these purses.
	Yeah, I think it was more of like a competitive thing.
	You know, and I only had to give him half a handjob with a fur glove on to get this.
	Isn't that amazing?
	Look what came out at the end of that penis.
	It's a purse.
	That thing's amazing.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Now, if you didn't get her these things, what happened?
	I guess you didn't, right?
	Because you've got a brain.
	So you didn't fall for that stuff, I hope, at least not too much.
	But then what happened if you didn't get her this stuff?
	Well, I did on a couple occasions.
	We were out about shopping or whatever, and she kind of...
	I put the pressure on to buy something, and I did a couple times, and she was very happy about that.
	For the most part, I wasn't a big gifter during the holidays, and that was something she thought was really important.
	And was she a good gifter too?
	Yeah, she was a pretty decent gifter.
	I would say it wasn't just one-sided.
	She would get good gifts, but I don't think it...
	She would ever go and buy me, you know, $300 or $400 or $500 shoes or anything like that.
	Well, what would she buy you?
	I'm just trying to think.
	Oh, like, I don't know, maybe like an Xbox game or...
	Oh, you're kidding me.
	Please don't, don't.
	You're breaking my heart here.
	She would buy you a CD? Yeah, I mean, sometimes.
	No, because those things are like $15.
	And...
	I'm sure you can go down to the Salvation Army and get like a big bag full of purses for like 15 bucks because you buy that shit by the pound, right?
	So her idea was I buy you a CD, you spend $400 on my purse.
	That's a pretty good ROI. I've got to start looking into that.
	We'll have the FDR gift exchange where I buy stuff.
	Here, I'll give you a gift card for $15.
	You give me a gift card at the same store for $400 because I'm generous.
	Yeah.
	So she was basically priming the pump and she was saying, well listen, I buy you things.
	I buy you things.
	So why, you know, why aren't you buying me things that are 20 times as expensive?
	I suppose so.
	Well, no, again, you sound like really – because you're telling me about how high quality this woman was, right?
	Well, I mean – I think you may not be – you and I may not have the same definition, which doesn't mean that I'm right.
	I'm just telling you we have the same definition.
	Well, I mean, I dated a girl who was a really obvious parasite before her, so it made her look really good, I guess.
	Oh, like the first one took off an arm, but the second one only took off a couple of fingers, so she's a healer.
	Right.
	Now, how many relationships have you had?
	Two legitimate long-term relationships.
	I would say – and then a bunch of just kind of small one-month type things.
	Yeah.
	It's weird.
	I mean I've had this from the very beginning, which – listen, don't get me wrong.
	I've been taken advantage of by women.
	So I hope that you're not – I'm not trying to give off the vibe like, you fool, right?
	It's like, you penis bearer.
	It's like, hey, I'm a penis bearer too and I've been milked like – You know, a fat cow a couple of times too.
	But I've always had this kind of like, no, no, no, be responsible, right?
	So when I was in school, I lent a woman I was going out with some money.
	It's quite a bit of money actually.
	And getting it back from her was really tough.
	I really had to hound her for it.
	And I think part of her was literally basically like, well, but we had sex.
	So I should, I mean, why would I give the money back?
	It's like, oh my god.
	Just so I wouldn't throw up in my mouth every time I thought about that relationship, I had to get that money back.
	Otherwise, I'd have to call the cops.
	You know, like, I'm sorry.
	It turned out I was dating a prostitute.
	You know, and I know that's illegal here, so I just really wanted to report this young lady because I thought we were having a relationship, but it turns out it really cost me a lot of money.
	And so, I'm sorry, officer, but...
	It turns out she's a prostitute.
	I didn't want to make that call.
	And so I had to get that money back from her because otherwise she was going to have quite a record there.
	And yeah, it took me like, what, eight months of hounding her?
	To get that money back.
	And she was like, oh, but my father's in financial trouble and this and that.
	It's like, oh, come on, sister.
	You all grew up in a nice house and I grew up in rent-controlled crap heaps.
	You all had a car and vacations and we had bikes that I got together from bikes that I found.
	And so don't give me this hard-time family crap.
	Just give me my damn money.
	Yeah.
	And yeah, it took a lot of work and it was like one of these things, like, what do you mean I have to give you the money back?
	I mean, oh my god!
	And, you know, it was the only respect that I could give.
	I mean, imagine how much I would have had to hate her to not get the money back.
	That was a clear loan.
	I mean, give that.
	Anyway.
	So, okay, so this was not, right?
	This is not quality, right?
	Yeah.
	Why did she want the purse?
	Well, I mean, like we kind of talked about it, it was kind of partially a display of love for me and then partially like a competitive thing with her friends.
	But she could buy the purse herself, right?
	Yeah.
	So what did she want to say?
	Oh, did she want to say, I'm dating a man who makes enough to buy me this purse?
	Honestly, I don't even know if it's like, maybe it's that, but maybe it's like, well, my boyfriend loves me more than your, like, you know, kind of thing.
	Yeah.
	I'm more loved kind of thing or something.
	I don't know.
	I know girls are very emotional.
	Oh, I know.
	I know what it is.
	My vagina makes a louder ka-ching than your vagina.
	Your vagina only goes like ka-ching.
	My vagina goes ka-ching!
	Your vagina, when you squat, can only pick up quarters.
	Mine can pick up a gold bar.
	Oh, yeah.
	It's Cagle City down there.
	Basically, I can crush walnuts.
	Never, ever let your hamster in there.
	The only thing that will come out is a tail and a tiny, tiny sausage.
	So, all right.
	Yeah, so, I mean, what's my vagina worth, right?
	I guess that's the girlfriend-to-girlfriend auction lottery that she was trying to win, right?
	Yeah, that could be.
	Is that just a biological hypergamic drive, you think?
	Well, it is, I guess, a biological hypergamic drive, but wanting to sleep with Lucy Liu is a universal male phenomenon.
	Hi, Lucy!
	I'm sorry you didn't call me.
	I'm married now.
	But, I mean, wanting to sleep with nubile young women is a male drive, yet...
	You know, the majority of men make it through marriages without being unfaithful.
	So, I mean, the biological drive doesn't explain anything, really.
	Hmm.
	It means that you have a blind spot, a blind shaft, but let's just call it a blind shot for now, a blind spot.
	So what was your mom like in terms of hypergamy, right?
	Because look, moms who had any sense of responsibility should be warning boys, warning – like if I had a boy, I'd be like all over this stuff.
	I mean, my daughter is starting to get curious about all this kind of stuff.
	Not sex, but relationships and all that.
	And yeah, I am talking to her about pretty boys and virtue and long-term commitments and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Okay, so Bob, why didn't your mom talk to you about hypergamy?
	So you say she doesn't know The word.
	Okay, that's fine.
	That's fine.
	I didn't know the word either, but I did have the sense that women wanted to trade up, right?
	That women wanted taller guys, that women wanted high-status guys.
	I mean, that wasn't a mystery, right?
	Right.
	Well, I mean, the only conversation or talk that my mom ever gave me on women, I still remember, I was about 14 or 15.
	And all she told me was, be careful around girls at school.
	All they want to do is use you.
	They don't care about you.
	And that was, like, that was the only...
	So girls at school only want to use you.
	What does that mean, though?
	I mean, that's a scary kind of half bit of info to get, right?
	There are vampires out there!
	Okay, I'm going back to my room.
	Well, the way she said it, it made me, like, I was thinking, like, she meant sexually that...
	Like, that girls wanted to use me sexually, but I didn't.
	I mean...
	What, did she not go into more detail?
	No, I was...
	Because we usually never had those kind of conversations, so when it came out, I was too scared to ask more, and she just kind of left it at that, so...
	She left it at that?
	What do you mean?
	Women are really dangerous!
	You're heterosexual!
	Bye!
	Pretty much.
	The call is coming from inside the house!
	I'm having a nap.
	No, what do you mean?
	So she told you there are women in high school.
	You were in high school, right?
	There are women in high school.
	I was in junior high.
	Sorry?
	Junior high.
	So the women in high school really are going to use you and they want to use you.
	And that's bad, right?
	Because, of course, when you're in junior high, the idea of high school girls using you is not exactly the end of the world for a lot of people.
	But then what?
	What did she say then?
	Nothing?
	No, that was it.
	That was...
	I mean, seriously?
	Like, come on up here.
	And why were you scared to ask her, like, what do you mean?
	What are you talking about?
	Um...
	I don't know.
	I just...
	Come on, Bob!
	Of course you know.
	It's your mom.
	Well, I mean, I never...
	Well, my mom was, like, a pretty...
	a mean lady, so I was pretty used to being quiet, so...
	Now, when you say a pretty mean lady, do you mean pretty mean or pretty, mean lady?
	Just mean.
	She wasn't pretty?
	Well, when she was younger, yeah, she was pretty.
	And your dad?
	He's an attractive guy, yeah.
	And how's he financially?
	Yeah.
	He's doing pretty well for himself.
	He's pretty comfortable, I would say.
	And are your parents still together?
	Yep.
	And I would imagine that your dad doesn't know exactly what he likes about your mom if she's a mean lady, right?
	Yeah, maybe not.
	What?
	Uh-oh.
	You fuck it out of me, Bob.
	Bob, don't make me break out the foghorn.
	I will.
	At a moment's notice, does your mom, does your dad love your mom?
	And if he does, what does he love about her?
	Well, not according to your definition of love.
	He's like a pretty, I would say he's a very hardcore white knight and kind of, you know, he's in there for the long run and he tries his best to be kind and all that kind of stuff to her, but pretty much like it's not a happy situation, I would say, but...
	Alright, so under which definition of love does he love her?
	Well, because your definition of love is finding a virtue in someone else, I suppose.
	Love is our involuntary response to virtue, if we're virtuous.
	Right.
	Okay, so if you don't want that definition, that's fine.
	I mean, but under what definition?
	Because you're seeming to reserve an aspect of love from your father to your mother that is different from my definition, which is fine.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I'm calling it the whole market on love, but what definition of love would you—and you know why I'm asking this is I don't give a shit about your parents, but I really care about your future, right?
	So if you have a definition of love that includes not liking someone who's mean, then you're screwed.
	Right?
	No, seriously, our deepest values are railroads to the future.
	We can't jump the tracks.
	Our deepest values are the deterministic scribes writing down every detail of our future.
	This is why I'm being annoying, as usual, and hammering you on your definition.
	Under what definition of love could it be said that your father loves your mother?
	Well, he would probably say something like 1 Corinthians 13.
	You know, the love is patient, love is kind, love is gentle.
	It's always persevering, that kind of...
	Yeah, so I come from a religious background.
	Okay, I got it.
	So then would he say that your mother loves him because she is gentle and kind and patient?
	I suppose not, yeah.
	So then it's a turn-of-the-art-cheek masochism, right?
	Because if that's what love is, then he ain't loved by your mom, right?
	No, she doesn't treat him with love, I would say.
	Right, by that definition, not even by mine, right?
	Right, right.
	Right.
	Right.
	So...
	What do you think about what we're saying?
	Well, I've...
	I actually, for some reason, I never...
	Well, no, I have thought about that she doesn't love him, or at least she doesn't treat him with love.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	It's just I don't want to repeat that.
	I don't want to marry someone like her at all.
	Well, but you're dating someone, right?
	You dated someone like her, right?
	I guess, yeah.
	Well, that was a while ago, and I really have been trying to really find, you know, the exception, the Nalwalt.
	Yes, but you need to have a very clear definition and a clear understanding of your history and a clear definition of love to find that, right?
	I mean, you can't find the town in the middle of the jungle without at least maps and a compass and hopefully a GPS, right?
	The rarer the thing you want to find...
	your knowledge of navigation has to be, right?
	It's easy to find quartz.
	It's really hard to find gold and diamonds, right?
	Right.
	There's no PhD in, I found tarmac, right?
	But there's, you know, doctorates in finding gold, right?
	So you need more specialized navigation if you're looking for something more rare.
	And what that means is that if you don't have a family history of modeled love, then you're not going to find it without a very clear delineation of what was missing in your past, right?
	Right.
	That's a terrible way of putting it.
	I apologize for being such a roundabout word salad mixer, but let me put it to you another way.
	Why do so few men know about hypergamy?
	It's one of the most essential driving forces in the human species.
	Like, have you ever heard of this term?
	Patriarchy.
	I think that's how you pronounce it.
	You ever heard of that term?
	Yep.
	Patriarchy.
	Okay.
	So, have you ever heard of hypergamy before you got into philosophy?
	Well, no.
	But hypergamy is actually real.
	Patriarchy is largely a delusion to distract people from the reality of hypergamy.
	Right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So...
	The degree of guilt or the degree of manipulation that women have is directly proportional to the degree that their sons do not know the danger of women.
	In other words, dangerous mothers are not going to teach you anything about dangerous women.
	Obviously, right?
	Because if they detail to you the characteristics of dangerous women, of exploitive women, of hypergamous women, They will be revealing themselves to you in a highly unflattering light.
	Would you agree?
	Yeah.
	So the way you know about the prevalence of hypergamy and the way you know how shallow and predatory a lot of, if not most modern women are, is the degree to which sons are not protected from predatory women.
	Why?
	Because they're fucking raised by predatory women.
	And they are raised by predatory women to be exploited by predatory women so that they will raise grandchildren who will never question the predatory women at the beginning of things.
	I can really teach my daughter the dark arts of self-defense in the romantic realm because I am a good and honorable husband and father.
	And teaching my daughter About shallow manipulative players and pickup artists and those who distract women with abs and cars.
	I can teach her all of that because teaching her about predatory men does no harm to me.
	So this is why I keep hammering on these points.
	Why don't moms...
	Teach their children about predatory women because the moms are predatory women.
	And thus, they can't, won't, and will fight to the death any spread of knowledge about the dangers of predatory women.
	It's almost axiomatic.
	It's this foundational and fundamental.
	This is how prevalent female corruption is.
	is that all activist women in general seem to focus on is telling other women how bad men are.
	But it's women who hit children more.
	It's women who initiate half of domestic violence to just name two.
	It's women who initiate divorce a lot more to just name three.
	Women Hit children, according to a recent study, over 900 times a year.
	But it's men who are dangerous.
	For a man to get involved with a predatory woman is a life-destroying action.
	It literally can destroy his life.
	I have known men like this.
	I will not tell their stories.
	It is unbelievably destructive.
	It is one of the most dangerous non-medical assaults that can occur to a man's mind, body and spirit is to get involved, get married, get legally tied up with and God forbid have children with a predatory woman.
	And how much energy are moms spending teaching their sons how to avoid Predatory women, dangerous women, unstable women, narcissistic women, predatory,
	greedy, manipulative, legal-wielding women, hypergamous women, who look at a man as an ATM with a penis as a punchcoat.
	Well, why aren't women warning their sons about this?
	You know all these memes about that?
	Here are eight simple rules for dating my teenage daughter, right?
	I'm going to scare off all the young men who come around to try and date my teenage daughter.
	I know what young men are all about.
	Those hairy-legged, foul-smelling beasts with really great hair and good skin.
	I know what they only want.
	One thing from my teenage daughter.
	I'm going to protect her with shotguns and sarcasm and folded arms and Weighty patriarchal stare-downs.
	Right?
	Why is that such a common thought in society?
	But why is there not an equivalent common thought about mothers throwing their sons' penises in the path of snapping turtle vagina monsters?
	Right?
	If you want to date my teenage son, you better be like this woman.
	You better be like that woman.
	You better not be focused on this.
	You better have this.
	You better have that.
	I know what a lot of young women want.
	I know what they're after.
	Status, money, possible pregnancy.
	Well, because the teenage dads, sorry, the dads of teenage girls, A, really care, and B, aren't that way.
	At least not anymore.
	But for moms to warn their sons about immature and dangerous women, the moms would have to no longer be dangerous and immature.
	Am I not describing your mom a tiny bit?
	Yeah.
	You are.
	Have you ever heard of a mom sitting down and warning her son about dangerous women?
	I imagine that The truly good women out there would do that, but...
	Have you ever heard of it?
	No, no, I haven't.
	Why is all this knowledge kept from men?
	Well...
	Because we are beasts of burdens to be used.
	Because there are not enough quality women out there to warn men about dangerous women.
	This is how you know how far the female species has fallen.
	Where it was originally, I don't even know.
	But this is how far the female species has fallen.
	There aren't even enough quality women left to warn men about dangerous women.
	And they have to find out by being dragged ass-backwards through the brain-scratching brambles of the American family court system to find out, oh, I guess there are some dangerous women out there.
	I guess there are some sharks with vaginas for jaws.
	Well, that left a bite mark, didn't it?
	So you were raised to be fed to the she-wolves.
	You got one cryptic warning, which you remembered.
	It's fascinating that you remembered that.
	It's like the time I went to my mom and said, Mom, when I get really angry, I sometimes break my toys, but I don't really feel like that's the right thing to do.
	What should I do?
	Yeah, right.
	Going to my mom for advice about temper.
	But I remember that very clearly, needing guidance.
	And you, your mom, let slip something there, right?
	And then it's like, oh, no, no!
	Oh, no, no, we can't talk about that!
	Sure!
	They're being groomed to be eaten by women.
	Don't say anything.
	Don't break the estrogen wall.
	We need to eat their wallets.
	We need to eat their souls.
	Don't warn them.
	Don't tell them.
	And who shoots Glenn Close at the end of Fatal Attraction?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	I haven't seen the movie.
	Spoiler, I don't care.
	It's been out for 20 years.
	Too bad, right?
	Go for it.
	It's the wife.
	The man's wife shoots her.
	Right.
	Why didn't your dad warn you about dangerous women?
	Well, I think he, you know, having that kind of white knight mentality, he really just was always kind of on the look to defend women at all costs and, you know, that they're the weaker sex and that you need to, you know, kind of shelter them and whatever.
	Okay, let me ask again, like you actually listened.
	Why did your dad not warn you about dangerous women?
	Well, because having a really articulated view on what a dangerous woman is, you probably would have realized that he was married to one.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Here are all the characteristics of a dangerous woman.
	Number one, your mom.
	Number two, your mom again.
	Number three, a little bit more mom.
	Number four, oh wait, is that mom again?
	Yes, it certainly is.
	Number five, it's the hole you fell out of that you then fell into.
	Oh, and mom too.
	Oh, here's a picture of mom.
	Oh, here's mom's fingernail clippings.
	Hang on to those.
	There'll be DNA evidence of dangerous women.
	Oh, mom's shadow.
	We can't talk about this anymore.
	Right?
	This is the degree to which men have fallen.
	This is the corruption within men.
	Women can't tell you about dangerous women because they're dangerous women.
	Men can't tell you about dangerous women because they marry dangerous women.
	And of course, women, particularly in America, have a man's testicles hung over the snapping piranhas of state power.
	Why do they stay married?
	Because she'll carve him up like the son of Sam in court.
	Harvard says 70% of domestic violence is committed by women against men.
	Because patriarchy.
	So, I think these are things that you need to talk about with your parents, in my opinion.
	And I think then you'll be able to find more quality women.
	Right.
	All right.
	All right.
	Well, thank you very much for your call.
	I appreciate that.
	Great topic.
	And Mike, who do we have next?
	All right.
	Up next is Jan.
	And Jan writes in and says, For the past nine months, I've been in a relationship with a Romanian woman who I met in an online sex webcam site.
	About two months into the relationship...
	All right.
	I need a login.
	The first thing I want is a login.
	You know, there's so many people who, when we did The Dangers of Dating a Supermodel, Mike's original title was The Dangers of Working for a Male Supermodel Calvin Klein Fantasy Agent.
	Anyway.
	But then a number of people are like, where's this picture?
	I need to see this picture.
	So that's my first thought.
	My second thought was I really want to get the call where it's like I have spent the last nine months in a very strong relationship with a cord snaking into my belly that's feeding me tubes of food and air.
	Anyway.
	All right.
	So a Romanian webcam model?
	Yes.
	Sex model?
	Sex worker?
	Let me keep going.
	Two months into the relationship, she developed cervical cancer, and I've ended up paying for the vast majority of her treatment.
	Yikes!
	Well, I've been to see her twice, and I'm sure the illness is real.
	This financial exploitation and choosing of unsuitable partners is a repeat pattern for me.
	Wow.
	I mean, do we have a prize for, like, living hell relationship that doesn't even have good, fap-worthy specialties?
	Bank, bank material for the future.
	Okay.
	Still going.
	Still going.
	John, there's more?
	There's more.
	Due to the severe financial problems I am in, I have stolen from the company I work for to help pay for treatment.
	I'm concerned about why I'm in such a risky relationship and why I have abandoned moral principles in this way.
	Alright.
	Are you ready to work, Jan, my friend?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Alright, alright.
	This sounds insane to you too, right?
	I mean, this is not like, well, you know, but it's not that bad, right?
	I mean, you get that this is mental, right?
	Yeah, yeah, I know.
	It's out of control.
	Alright, alright.
	Well, good.
	So, we're not a standing start then, alright?
	I hope not.
	Alright.
	So, how long have you known this woman?
	Well, around 10 months, all told, since I first met her.
	And you met her, sorry to interrupt, but you met her on a webcam sex site, is that right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	So you logged in and does she do sex acts while you masturbate?
	Is that the sort of plan?
	Yeah, yeah.
	That's kind of the nature of the site.
	But that never really happened a lot with us.
	We just kind of got talking and one thing led to another.
	But obviously the physical attraction, the lust, is a big part of why I was initially attracted to her, I guess.
	Right.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So, did you have an orgasm and then chat?
	No, we chatted first.
	We chatted first.
	And then did you chat and then she did sex acts and you masturbated and then you called her again?
	Or did you ever masturbate to her image live?
	I'm sorry, that sounds like all kinds of pervy questions, but it's important.
	Um...
	The first time, yes.
	We chatted and then I masturbated to her and then after that it was mostly chat.
	I think after the second time I stopped being in the position of paying for it and we exchanged Facebook details and we were mostly just chatting after that.
	Right.
	And what sort of – is it dirty talk?
	Is it a particular action that she was performing that was sexually arousing for you?
	No, not really.
	It was just her whole – her appearance, her personality was – just sort of hit my buttons I guess.
	I guess I'm probably – I'm probably one of those guys who...
	I used to use the sites a lot, and then I stopped for a year.
	And I think for...
	I don't know quite why, but for one reason or another, I sort of went back to it, and by chance, I encountered her.
	And I think it's...
	I'm basically one of those guys who's sort of looking for a relationship, looking for a girlfriend in the wrong place.
	It's kind of a...
	Do you think?
	Yeah, okay.
	All right.
	Well, we'll get back to that stuff in a second, and we'll...
	I appreciate you calling about this.
	I mean, God.
	I mean, I assume it's not that easy to talk about, but I appreciate that you're talking about this.
	So, let's just...
	I want to get sort of a sense of what developed then.
	So, you masturbated with her once, or to her, or at her, or at her, the webcam, whatever, at your computer screen.
	And then...
	You started chatting with her.
	Did she say, well, it was a nice chat before you came, so maybe we can just chat some more?
	I mean, how did it develop into you chatting and not paying for that?
	Well, she said, you know, look, I really like you.
	I really enjoy spending time with you.
	I like you in a serious way.
	I don't want you to be part of my job.
	I want to get to know you.
	And when did she say that?
	The second time we talked – I don't know.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	So I just want to get clear.
	So you called her up again.
	Do you have a specific address for her or would it go to a website and say I want to talk to so-and-so and then they put her on and you said what?
	You said like I'm not here for sex or I'm not here for masturbation or what?
	If you've been online with a girl before, it's in your history.
	So you just go back to their profile and if they're online, you can go in and chat with them again.
	Okay.
	So you went back in and your goal was to chat with her, not to masturbate.
	Is that right?
	I think my goal was just to kind of see her again because it was kind of that lust chemistry, whatever it is, like, you know, the same as in real life when you just want to talk to someone again, you want to get to know them, something about them just kind of hooks you.
	Now, was there something, some physical characteristic?
	I mean, usually men, and I'm sure women too, but men usually have some physical characteristic that, you know, like I'm an ass man or a breast man or a leg man or whatever, but there's some physical characteristic that she had that was sexy for you in particular.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's a little bit less mainstream than that.
	I kind of have a glasses fetish.
	Alright, okay, okay.
	Alright, and she was wearing glasses, is that right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Alright, and is that something you requested?
	Do you know if she actually wears glasses?
	Yeah, she does actually wear glasses, just...
	It wasn't something I requested, no.
	Right.
	Okay, so then...
	So then you chatted with her the second time.
	Did you pay her the second time?
	Um...
	Yes, at the start.
	And then because she wanted to go on chatting with me, she kind of let me go on for free.
	I think we were talking for about two hours or something when she should have been working and she actually got in trouble with her boss about it.
	Right.
	Right.
	All right.
	And then after that, you exchanged...
	What, like Skype info or you chatted then not watch you as it were?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Most of the time we were just Facebook messaging, yeah, or Skype or FaceTime or whatever, yeah.
	Okay, and then you started to get more involved emotionally, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Alright.
	And when did you first meet her?
	Face to face, I went to meet her in sort of, I went to, flew to Romania and I met her there in the airport.
	And is there anything, I'm sorry, go ahead.
	I'm in the UK by the way.
	No, I get that.
	I understand.
	Alright.
	And is there anything that inhibits you from meeting women More in your own locale?
	I mean is there something like you have like four nipples and nine testicles or something?
	Is there anything sort of physically that you're self-conscious about that's inhibiting you meeting women more locally?
	No, not really.
	I'm pretty scared of rejection.
	Well, sure.
	I mean that's why if you pay It's easier for you to have an orgasm because it's less scary because you know the outcome, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, okay.
	Got it, got it, got it.
	So you're a reasonably good-looking guy and all that kind of stuff, right?
	So she wouldn't look at you and say, you know, oh, you're Jabba the Hutt and therefore this is why, right?
	Oh, she'd seen you.
	No, is it two-way or one-way?
	It's two-way.
	Yeah, it's two-way.
	All right.
	So then you met her and how did that go?
	That went pretty well.
	I mean, she lives with her friend and her friend's husband, and we basically just spent a week With them and went on holiday.
	Obviously, because of her medical condition, there was no sex, but we did kind of share a bed for the week.
	We were very close.
	Well, what do you mean there was no sex?
	Well, because she's got cervical problems, she's not able to have sex.
	Well, she's not able to have sex, but you're able to get blowjobs or handjobs or something like that, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Was she in pain?
	A little bit, yes.
	At the time I met her first, the condition sort of worsened since then.
	Right, okay.
	Now, does she work out of the home?
	Yeah, she does.
	So her friends and her friend's husband are fine with this woman having two-way masturbatory sex cam work in their house, right?
	Yeah.
	Please, God, tell me there are no children around.
	No, there are no kids.
	All right.
	I mean, other than the ones in adult bodies, but okay.
	All right.
	And you said that you had some doubts as to whether she actually had cervical cancer or not?
	Well, until I met her and I've seen the medications that she's on and You know, obviously I've had kind of blow-by-blow accounts of the treatment which all kind of stack up with all the information I've been able to gather either from the internet or talking to people.
	And it's kind of obvious just seeing her that, you know, she's definitely not well.
	She's incredibly pale.
	You know, she looks very ill at times or has done in the last few months.
	So now you accept that she has this illness, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	All right.
	All right.
	And now why does she need money?
	Did they not have socialized medicine in Romania?
	No, it's kind of a complete disaster zone, worst of all worlds.
	The socialized medicine is so underfunded that the doctors won't work without bribes, so you're better off going private, but there's no real insurance system, so you have to just pay out of pocket.
	Right.
	Right.
	Right, okay.
	And what is your hope?
	Your hope, of course, is that she gets better.
	I mean, do you think you might marry the woman or what?
	Well, yeah.
	That's kind of what we both wanted, I guess, in the relationship was to have a life together and get married, yeah.
	Right.
	All right.
	And what is it about her that you love?
	She's – she cares about me.
	She's compassionate.
	She's been remarkably honest with me about a lot of aspects of her life.
	I don't know, I guess we share a sense of humour to an extent.
	But...
	We share some, you know, some more interest in just general topics of conversation, things like philosophy, psychology.
	And yeah, she's very attractive to me as well, yeah.
	Right.
	And to what degree is the attraction the root of the relationship, the physical attraction?
	I don't feel that it is anymore.
	I feel we've got a deeper connection than that, but the environment around everything is so obviously so kind of Toxic.
	I have, you know, kind of my logical part says, you know, this can't work and whatever.
	I don't know, I guess you call it the lizard brain or whatever.
	Or my emotionally damaged side is sort of telling me, well, you know, miracles happen.
	You know, if you just try hard enough, if you just work hard enough, if you just find a solution to get through to this point, then maybe everything can be Amazing.
	I don't know.
	I really don't know why I'm in this position.
	When I look at it, or try to look at it objectively, it seems mental to me.
	Right, right.
	I understand.
	And tell me a little bit about your childhood.
	Oh, Jesus.
	Well, my parents were older because it was a second marriage.
	They were both brought up in the 1950s and they were both firmly of the belief that everything that had gone wrong with society since then was because people didn't hit their kids enough.
	So I was spanked.
	I was hit with a wooden spoon, cane.
	My mum has a particularly...
	Violent and irrational temper and would go into screaming and swearing fits and insult me.
	You're lazy, you're selfish, you don't care about me, you don't care about other people.
	This is talking to a seven or eight year old who's made a mark on a wall.
	So they were complete assholes?
	Yeah.
	My dad, on the other hand, also hit me, but he was completely emotionally unavailable, just never discussed anything or really spoke about anything.
	And he was completely under my mom's thumb.
	The times I remember him hitting me, it was actually when my mom had told him to.
	Right.
	What was your romantic life like when you were younger?
	I didn't have one until I left school and went to university for the first time.
	I was badly bullied at school.
	I was always kind of one of the I guess like nerdy social outcast kids so I didn't really ever kind of stump up the courage to talk to any women until I kind of left school and left home and gone to university.
	Right.
	And what was your sexual or romantic life like in uni?
	Not very successful.
	I was kind of in unrequited love with A girl who, for about a year, she kind of sent out, you know, a lot of mixed messages and I realised now just used me because it was convenient to have me around,
	but really was after, you know, I kind of, I got what at the time was a nasty shock when she technically went to a party with me and She went to the toilet and half an hour later I saw her snogging another guy across the dance floor type thing.
	Snogging is like sort of deep kissing and groping?
	Yeah, French kissing, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah, okay.
	Alright.
	Alright.
	And have you had a longer lasting or longer term relationship before?
	Yeah, yeah.
	The first time I went to university I dropped out and went to work for a year and I met another girl and we ended up living together for three years while I was at my second bite of the cherry at university.
	That was a very financially and psychologically destructive relationship for me as well.
	She was kind of a bit like the guy that was on earlier was describing.
	She felt that I should show her love with money and I did quite a lot.
	No, no, no.
	You didn't show her love with money.
	No.
	You gave her money, but you didn't show her love with money.
	Yeah, I gave her a lot of money and stuff and paid her debts and all of that sort of stuff.
	So it's got to be you plus wallet, right?
	Woman can bring vagina, you have to be you plus wallet, right?
	Yeah.
	So with the webcam thing, you're just more openly paying for it and it's a limited transaction, right?
	Yeah.
	But is it fair to say that you've been paying for it from the beginning?
	Yeah.
	Alright.
	And so, sorry, go on with the romantic stuff?
	Well, eventually I kind of, I don't know, I got so sort of stressed about the financial situation, I just kind of got depression and gave up.
	Sorry, the financial situation was her just wanting money for stuff?
	Yeah, her just wanting money for stuff and wanting to not work.
	So I was at uni, obviously, and trying to work two jobs alongside because she was too lazy and immature to hold down a job.
	And I just got stressed and depressed and kind of gave up.
	And then she dumped me because I wasn't of any more financial use, I guess, looking back at it now.
	Yeah, and she's moving on to some other one, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Well, until she hits the wall, right?
	Until she runs out of looks, right?
	And then she probably goes for the government, right?
	Probably.
	She wasn't even that good-looking, to be honest.
	She was pretty overweight.
	Right.
	All right.
	And then what happened?
	Well, after I left university the second time, I got a job that I'm currently still working in as a reasonably decent sort of graduate training manager type job.
	I guess it was then I started using these webcam sites a lot because I had money coming in and I was… No, no, no.
	The why is not because you have money coming in, right?
	I mean that's what made it possible but that's not what made it happen.
	No, that's true.
	Just to be clear, right?
	Because it's not like, hey, every man's not like, hey, I've got money, I'm going to start getting into Romanian chemotherapy sex check workers, right?
	Yeah, no, it's true.
	Alright.
	And then?
	Well, I had some...
	Some experiences on the sites of getting more deeply involved with women.
	Most of them are from Russia and Eastern Europe.
	And I ended up sending one, what now feels like quite a small amount of money, but sort of on the promise that we would meet later.
	That kind of obviously came to nothing, and I was like, okay, I'm never going back to this again.
	Wait, and sorry, how much money did you send her?
	Probably about 2,000 US. Right.
	Right.
	So then you said, I'm never going back, and then you said earlier, you said about a year, you didn't, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, I guess my only excuse is it's Stressful year in that my dad passed away and my younger sister also was diagnosed with lymphoma about actually a couple of months before you were.
	Oh wow, how's she doing?
	They've just sort of finally said she doesn't need any more treatment.
	She's just got to undergo PET scans every three months because there's like a tiny little thing that they think is nothing but they're not sure.
	But other than that, they believe it's in remission.
	Good, good.
	Well, good to hear.
	Good to hear.
	All right.
	Do you think that the stress may have had something to do with putting you back onto the webcam sites?
	I think so, yeah, but obviously it's not the underlying reason.
	Yeah, it's a symptom, it's a symptom.
	And what is the underlying reason?
	Well, something to do with my childhood, but I can't quite nail down exactly what it is.
	Would you like me to nail down?
	I mean, how blunt and direct do you want me to be in this conversation?
	Well, like 110% because I'm currently – Yeah, because you're in a pretty desperate situation here, right?
	So we don't have a lot of time to fuck around, right?
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Okay.
	So your mother was an incredibly violent and abusive woman and your father was sometimes the evil hand puppet of her fist, right?
	Yeah.
	I'm not putting your dad in okay land.
	I'm just sort of – because your problem here is with women.
	So we're going to focus on your mom, all right?
	Yeah, sure.
	Okay.
	So you do not have an identity around a woman that you're dependent on.
	I'm going to be straight up blunt with you.
	This is all stuff that I get used to very quickly instinctively and I think it's useful, but I'm not going to try and lead you anywhere because just in case the internet undersea cable between us goes down, I want you to have enough food for thought to help.
	So when you are raised by a violent woman, whenever you are around a woman you're dependent on, you don't have an identity and you only exist to serve her needs.
	You have no way of saying no.
	You have no way of negotiating because to say no to a woman that you feel dependent on is to provoke annihilation panic.
	In other words, if you were to reject your mother's power over you when you were a child, you were deeply scared she would have fucking murdered you.
	Yeah.
	Because we don't know where the end point is of parental violence, and the kids who were really keen on testing that throughout history tended to get killed.
	Like I'm not even just being metaphorical.
	Not spiritually killed, emotionally killed.
	That happened a lot too, but physically killed.
	Inconvenient children in a time when there are ten children around, they get handed over to the priest for human sacrifice.
	They don't get any food.
	They get beaten to death.
	They get fed to the – ground up and fed to the pigs, right?
	So we don't have a lot of genes within us to say, oh, no, I'm going to keep pushing back against parental abuse, right?
	You die, you disappear, and you become a ghost haunting her empty-hearted castle hoping not to get exercised more than once a day, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Right.
	So – The reason why sexuality is so dangerous for men with abusive mothers is because sexuality, sexual desire, recreates the mother-child bond.
	This has nothing to do with Freudianism.
	It's nothing to do with an eatable complex or anything like that.
	It's just that if you can imagine not having sexual desire, if you can imagine not having sexual desire, can you imagine Women having power over you.
	No.
	Right.
	The first woman who has power over us is our mother.
	That's involuntary, that's biological, and it's not sexual.
	But it's power over us.
	A man's sexual desire for a woman recreates the dependency that he had with his mother.
	Which is why if you had a fucked up mom, you were going to have fucked up girlfriends.
	Yeah.
	Because if you don't have a way of independently and forthrightly asserting your own needs and preferences in a relationship with the object of your sexual desire because when the first woman who had power over you brutalized you mercilessly, Yea, verily, unto the point of possible death, right?
	Then what's happening with your girlfriend, with the Romanian woman, is a direct mirror of what happened with your mother.
	You don't have the capacity to say no.
	What happens in your heart, what happens to your nervous system, When you think of saying no to a woman?
	Well, I've just been kind of going through that this week because I've, you know, got to the end of all the money.
	So, yeah, it causes me kind of almost physical stress, you know, elevated heart rate.
	Oh, come on.
	Come on, come on, come on.
	Almost physical stress.
	You realize you're caught in jail because you can't say no to a woman and you're telling me you're just managing some physical stress?
	Yeah, it causes me...
	You are on the verge of destroying your life for the sake of a sex cam worker, right?
	I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I'm going to be blunt.
	Yeah.
	And I'm not going to apologize for it again.
	You are on the verge of destroying your life like jail time, a permanent record, unhirable in the future.
	You are on the verge of destroying your life because you cannot say no to a woman.
	And don't tell me then that that's because you feel some physical anxiety, some elevated heart rate.
	I feel that when I'm going down a goddamn rollercoaster, not when I'm heading into a legal wall of blades, right?
	In order to do what you're doing, to steal, you have to be managing a hell of a lot more than an elevated heart rate.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it's panic.
	It's terror, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	Like, how could I possibly say no?
	Yeah.
	And is it the case that this woman is going to die if she doesn't get money from you?
	That's what I don't really know.
	I don't really know if I wasn't there, if family, friends, whoever wouldn't step up and fill the void.
	Right.
	Right.
	Now, women from Eastern Europe, women from Russia, if you're a man from the West, it's almost impossible to have any kind of egalitarian, non-exploitive, non-predatory relationship with them because they're in such a shitty position that you never know whether they're into you for you or into you because staying where they are is absolutely unbearable, right?
	right?
	Yeah.
	And this is why a lot of guys are drawn to the Eastern European situation, right?
	Thank you.
	Yeah.
	Because they feel loved.
	They feel like this woman really cares, that this woman is really paying attention to me, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	That is what it feels like.
	I'm telling you this, my friend, because your dad did not tell you.
	I'm telling you this because your culture will not tell you and I'm telling you this because women, most women, sure as shit will not tell you.
	But let me tell you this, straight up, straight clear.
	If this woman loved you, she would never drag your money into her medical emergencies.
	Let me say this again.
	If this woman loved you, she would never drag you into her medical emergencies.
	Now, if you've been married for 10 years, you loved each other and she got sick, you'd pay the bills.
	Of course you would.
	But you've met, what, twice?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	If this woman loved you and cared about you, she would never drag you in to her medical emergency.
	I'm not saying she'd hide it from you.
	She'd obviously tell you and all that.
	But she would say, look, I've got some money saved up.
	I've got all that kind of stuff, right?
	I'm relying on friends, on family, and so on, right?
	Yeah.
	A woman capable of love is not making money having men squirt their cum on her webcam.
	I don't want to sound all kinds of Victorian and prudish.
	I know it's weird to say that because I can't believe I live in a world where I have to say that.
	But this woman is extremely damaged from an extremely distraught history.
	To the point where this is happening and her married friends are fine with that and I assume she's continued doing this while she's seeing you.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	Because it's kind of weird when you say to me that I went to go and meet this woman who basically does sex acts for a living and won't do a sex act for me live, right?
	I mean she's doing it all day, right?
	Yeah.
	But then she's not doing it when you're there because she hates sex.
	Yeah.
	What was her childhood like?
	Like, if possible, even worse than mine.
	Of course it was.
	Of course it was.
	I think her dad kept beating her until she was about 21 or 22.
	And I'm sure there was sexual dysfunction in her history of some kind or another.
	Yeah.
	So, I'm sorry.
	Yeah, she married a guy to get away from her dad and then he beat her and raped her.
	Right.
	Right.
	And listen, don't get me wrong.
	What a horrible life this woman has had.
	What a horrible life this woman has had.
	And I'm telling you that there are billions of people in the world like this.
	Yeah.
	The mass predation and horror of human existence, if one-tenth of one-tenth of one percent of it were put into one human brain, that human brain would light up with such an unholy fire it would burn the world clean of all evil and all life.
	So I'm not trying to sound unsympathetic to this woman.
	She has got it rough.
	She's living in Romania, for God's sakes.
	She is a sex worker.
	She was beaten by her father until she was 21.
	I would not doubt that she was raped as a child because she was married to a man who raped her and who beat her.
	And now she's working as a sex cam operator and now she has cervical cancer, which is, as far as I understand, somewhat significantly related to HPV, to the virus, which she may have got as an STD, right?
	Yeah.
	So she is not...
	In a good place or a good situation.
	I get that.
	And oh my god, what a terrible, terrible history, right?
	Yeah.
	Sure.
	You cannot help her.
	You cannot help her.
	You are trying...
	To save your mom.
	You're trying to save your relationship with your mom.
	You are trying to be the good boy, the appeaser, the resource provider in order to ward off attack, in order to manage your own anxiety.
	But all that we do to manage our own anxiety without actually getting to the root of our own anxiety will only serve always and forever to magnify and seal us up within that anxiety.
	That's a long way of putting something that you're in a repetition compulsion in my amateur opinion, right?
	Yeah.
	Tell me that this feels totally different than your childhood.
	The sense of dread, the sense of not having a voice, the sense of things spiraling out of control, the sense of not being able to say no to a woman, the sense of fear and anxiety and impending doom.
	Is this not exactly what your childhood was like?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	So that's what you're doing is you are trying to recreate.
	You're so used to managing chaos.
	You're so used to managing dysfunction.
	You're so used to riding to the rescue of women through destroying yourself.
	Right?
	To survive with an abusive mother, you must destroy yourself.
	To have a relationship with this woman, you are in the process of destroying yourself.
	Yeah.
	That's what I mean when I say you cannot help her.
	And this is not love.
	She's too damaged and you're too damaged.
	It's like trying to push together two pieces of ash and saying, look, I'm doing a jigsaw.
	No, you're not.
	You're just getting your fingertips dirty and making a mess.
	You are not ready for love.
	She is not ready for love.
	You are sacrificing yourself.
	Does she know about what you're doing at work?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And?
	What does she say?
	She says she feels terrible about it.
	She feels very sorry.
	She feels embarrassed.
	But she keeps asking me.
	And this is...
	I think in the last two weeks after I told her that and she keeps asking me for money, for stuff, it's where the illusion of the love or whatever is just gone.
	I guess I'm feeling the panic I should have felt months ago.
	Romania has a universal healthcare system.
	As of 2011, total health expenditures were equal to 5.6% of gross domestic product.
	Romania has a comprehensive universal healthcare system which covers medical examinations, any surgical interventions, and any post-operator medical care and provides free or subsidized medicine for a range of diseases.
	The state is obliged to fund public hospitals and clinics.
	That doesn't mean she doesn't need any money.
	Right.
	As you know, I was diagnosed with cancer last year and I had to flee the wonderful socialized health care system in Canada because it was going to kill me.
	Yeah.
	So I'm not saying she doesn't need money and so on.
	That is how it works in practice there.
	No, and I understand that.
	I'm just saying that for those who didn't want to go and look this up, right?
	Yeah.
	But once she's diagnosed, at least I stayed here for the treatment because the treatment outcomes.
	Once you're diagnosed and you're in the treatment thing, then it's usually much better.
	But what does she need the money for?
	For the treatments?
	She shouldn't have to pay for the treatments.
	She doesn't have to pay for the treatments, right?
	Well, yeah, that is what she's needed money for because the doctors won't actually work for the state wage.
	They won't work unless they're bribed on top.
	Right.
	To deliver the treatment.
	So if she shows up for her treatment, they just won't give her the treatment?
	Yeah.
	They'll just put you in a hospital bed, but they won't actually do the surgery or give you the pills.
	Right.
	All right.
	And now you're really stuck, right?
	I mean, how do you say no now, right?
	Yeah, that's the thing.
	And this is what you've done, right?
	So with your mom, and I'm not saying consciously, and I'm not trying to be down on you.
	I'm just sort of pointing out to give you some power, right?
	Because you don't know how the hell you've ended up here, right?
	Or how to change.
	So with your mother, could you say no to her?
	No.
	No, not as a kid.
	I mean...
	Can you say no to this woman now?
	Well, I have done for the last few days, yeah.
	Right.
	But you put yourself in a situation where it's really hard to say no.
	Yeah.
	Now, the qualities that she has, that you share interest in psychology and philosophy and so on, have you been talking much about those?
	Not recently, no.
	Right.
	Right.
	Can you return the money to your company?
	Okay.
	No, because I didn't really steal money.
	I'm sorry?
	The industry I work in is And it's kind of, I think, pretty much globally known for being riddled with corruption and being on the fringes of criminality.
	And therefore I can embezzle stock rather than money and make it disappear.
	So is it my understanding then that you're not in danger of going to jail?
	Thank you.
	No.
	Nobody is any the wiser of what I've done.
	Right.
	So you're not going to be in danger of going to jail?
	No, not unless I get caught.
	Well, yeah, okay.
	But you're saying it's not likely to get caught?
	No, I'm not likely to get caught, but I feel horrible doing it.
	No, I get it.
	How much have you given her?
	In total, around about 30,000 US. Not the cheapest webcam sex I've ever heard of.
	No.
	And I would imagine, has she ever talked about paying back?
	She did in the beginning, but...
	You know, it went past the point where that's even remotely viable.
	That's like four years' salary to her.
	Well, no.
	She could pay it back.
	No, seriously.
	She could pay it back.
	Look, people buy houses.
	It takes them 20, 25 years to pay it off, right?
	Yeah, I guess.
	you Don't guess.
	You know that's true, right?
	Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah.
	Right.
	So, I'm trying to think.
	So, to translate that to American terms, that'd be like the equivalent of giving $160,000 to an American, right?
	It's about four to one, right, in terms of income?
	Yeah, something, yeah.
	Something, yeah.
	Yeah, so people buy houses that cost a lot more than $160,000 and then they just pay it back, right?
	I mean that's what a mortgage is, right?
	So she could pay it back, right?
	Yeah.
	Would take a long time and she might have to get a job that doesn't involve sex shows for strangers or whatever, right?
	But she could.
	Look, I'm not saying she's going to, and you obviously are not in a position to enforce anything legally, but I'm saying she could, if she wanted to, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, I mean, if she survives, I guess...
	Right.
	Right.
	Well, yeah, I mean, my suggestion is, you know, 30,000 bucks, that's even more than I spent on therapy, right?
	I mean, it would have been a much more productive use of your money to get to a good therapist, right?
	And to figure out how to not get involved in these kinds of situations.
	Oh, yeah, for sure.
	For sure.
	Did you ever think of that?
	I was actually thinking about starting therapy when this relationship happened.
	Please, please, please.
	I don't know if you want to use the word relationship for this.
	Yeah, no, I guess not.
	um i i have been i have been going to see a therapist for the past few weeks here but it's kind of uh it's on the government health care system so it's not the greatest
	It's just a quick fix, patch over the problems, and the guy isn't really I feel like he's almost sort of enabling my behaviour rather than...
	That's kind of why I knew I needed to speak to you.
	I needed someone to tell me like it is.
	Right.
	Right.
	Well, look, you've got to put the money back.
	You know that.
	I don't need to tell you that.
	Because you're already caught by yourself, right?
	If you don't put the money back that you stole, then you're condemning yourself and saying, this is all I'm worth.
	Right?
	All I'm worth is stealing from people in a vain attempt to buy my way out of my childhood agony.
	And you have to give the money back.
	You have to put the money...
	It's not your money, right?
	No.
	No, it's not.
	And if you don't pay for your mistakes...
	We either learn through reason or we learn through experience.
	It's either prevention or cure.
	Now, in this case, you need cure.
	And if you get away with this within yourself, it's just going to repeat, but worse.
	But you know that you need to start dealing with your history in a way that is not this because this is going to keep happening and it's going to escalate until some very nasty guys, possibly even in the business that you're involved in, are going to find out what you did and they're going to come by with a couple of baseball bats, right?
	And then it's going to be you being hit with implements all over again just like when you were a child, right?
	Yeah.
	Tell me I'm wrong.
	Well, no.
	One way or another, I'm putting myself in incredibly risky, destructive situations.
	Like you said, it could destroy my life.
	Yeah, and the worst of it is – or the worst part of it is that if it just ends up with you in jail, that may be the best outcome.
	So, yeah.
	I mean, I've got a whole section in real-time relationships called Simon the Boxer, which is about why trauma tends to repeat, in my opinion.
	That might be worth looking at.
	But I certainly wish you the best.
	And I'm sorry if you told me this.
	Are your parents still alive?
	My dad passed away about almost two years ago.
	My mom's still alive here.
	Yeah.
	Are you in contact with her?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It might be worth sitting down and breaking the habits of the past by having more of a confrontation with her about your history.
	Yeah.
	I don't know why, but the prospect of that just terrifies me.
	Oh, come on.
	Please tell me we haven't been talking for nothing and you have no idea why that terrifies you.
	Please don't make me feel like I've just been talking in one giant circle and we've ended up with no newer knowledge at the end of the conversation than the beginning.
	Why does it terrify you?
	Because I'd have to admit that she doesn't love me or care about me.
	No.
	That may be the result.
	But the reason that it does terrify you so much is because you are doing what might have got you killed as a child.
	Right, yeah.
	You're going up to your mom and you're saying, I have preferences.
	I have needs that weren't met.
	I'm going to stay here and continue to insist upon you listening to my needs and doing what is uncomfortable to you but necessary for me.
	Not abusing your kid if you have a history of abuse is uncomfortable for you but necessary for your child.
	Abusing your child is more comfortable for you and horrible for your child.
	So when you go to talk to your mom about, you know, honey, you did me wrong.
	Mommy, you did me wrong.
	And she's not going to want to talk about it.
	And she's going to manipulate and she's going to, you know, this is bad for my heart and your father is dead and, you know, you were a difficult kid and, right, she's going to pull all the usual dodgy bullshit that abuses, right?
	Evade, avoid, project, repress, change the subject, accuse, you know, all of that twisty bullshit that abusers do.
	And if you stay with the honesty of the conversation, And don't let her get away with erasing you through words where she wants to erase you with fists and belts.
	Then you will have a breakthrough which is that you will be able to have desires in the face of your greatest abuser and survive.
	And then you will find it much easier, having broken that pattern, to have needs with women And not be exploited and used as you were by your mother and your father.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	All right?
	Yeah, you are right.
	And will you give us a short call perhaps and let us know how it goes?
	Yeah, I will.
	Yeah, I will.
	All right.
	Well, thank you and I really appreciate you Calling in about this.
	How was the conversation for you?
	It was hard, but I needed to hear that.
	And I don't have anyone in my life who's that honest and that clear and that That direct to deliver me that message.
	Well, I certainly hope so.
	I certainly hope so, and I appreciate the call.
	If you get a chance, let us know how it goes.
	But I think I'm going to move on to the next caller.
	I just need to take a break.
	Mike's telling me that my audio quality is bad, so I should probably do some sort of reboot, and then we'll move on to the next caller, if that's all right.
	Okay, thanks, Steph.
	Thanks, man.
	Alright, Mr.
	Mike, who do we have up next?
	Alright, up next is Kevin.
	And Kevin wrote in and said, When it comes to making life decisions, what do you listen to?
	Logic and reason?
	Or feelings and emotions?
	I know there's a time and a place for both, but many times in life I've been conflicted with life choices and how to make sound decisions.
	And my goodness, Kevin, your audio sounds terrible.
	What happened?
	Now is not the time to start Shuffleport.
	No, I haven't touched a thing.
	I thought it was great.
	Oh, we did.
	There's a lot of background noise or something, but go ahead.
	Okay.
	Yeah, to touch on that topic, geez, where do you even start?
	Well, what's a major life decision that you're looking at?
	We can focus on work, I guess.
	Don't guess.
	Don't guess.
	Give me something you're committed to.
	You know, not like, well, you know, I'm trying to figure out where to plant my begonias, right?
	Okay, fair enough.
	No, work's definitely always been an issue.
	I have always been against, I guess you could say...
	Secondary post-education.
	I don't feel that I have to get myself into debt to pick up skills and to earn money.
	So I've always kind of paved my own way.
	Unfortunately, while doing that, I ended up getting pretty sick.
	So I had to change my course of action.
	Family reached out at this point and gave me a job, which in the end never turned out.
	And I I've been marching, we're trying to clear a path to a good career, but unfortunately, it seems that, you know, especially in the construction industry, you meet a lot of assholes and really narcissistic, you know, they're all about money and their bottom end, and I'm having a really hard time finding a place to fit in.
	Right.
	And it basically boils down to, well...
	Do you take the abuse, the mental and the physical abuse that comes with it, and just bear down and work your way up?
	Or do you just say, fuck it, and take the schooling, pick a different career path, and not have to go with all that mental anguish, possibly, that comes with that?
	Right.
	So you're thinking of going to school for what?
	Well...
	Everyone always says, I have the gift of gab, so to speak, and I should be doing something that does more interaction with people.
	Even in construction, I find that it's helped.
	In fact, working for the family construction business, I was told blankly that it wasn't my skills that were going to lead me to money.
	It was my mouth, because I could sell ice to an Eskimo.
	I'll bedazzle people with bullshit and at that point in time I got diagnosed with Crohn's so I was feeling very physically weak and kind of like this is my only option now.
	I can't physically do work.
	I need to pick a different path that doesn't demand the physicalness.
	I did it for about three years but I realized that you know Basically kissing the hand that feeds you, I was treated like worse than garbage.
	So I quit because it just came down to morals.
	Do you want to take advantage of people and, you know, live your life as a lie, but you'll be rich, you'll have lots of money.
	And I mean, I chose not to do that.
	I walked away from it and subsequently because of that, work for me has been terrible.
	I'm sorry.
	What was it that you found morally objectionable about that career?
	Well, I wanted to get proper training.
	I wanted to go to school and I've always basically said, hey, I will always prove my worth to you.
	I'm just looking for someone to further the trade, sign me on as an apprenticeship.
	And everyone in the company would be like, yeah, it sounds great, but it'd be two, three years down the road and nothing would come to fruition.
	They would hire other skilled workers and I would always keep that labor-y or intensive position.
	And then, yeah, when it came with it...
	I just always felt like I was bullshitting people constantly in that trade, because I knew my stuff, but I wasn't technically refined, and I wanted to make sure, and I've always been like this, that if I'm going to do something, I want to make sure that I know what I'm talking about.
	Right.
	And I'm sort of of two minds here.
	Like, I'm trying to figure out how blunt to be.
	I don't know how...
	Do you like, sort of, spoonful of sugar, or are you...
	Oh, no.
	No, no, no.
	Blunt.
	Blunt, blunt, blunt.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I mean, you're selling me now, right?
	You're selling me now.
	This is why there's no emotional content, and you're just reeling off stuff.
	I bet you said all this stuff to people a million times before, and it's all about how you're in the right and other people are in the wrong, and you're just selling me a whole bill of goods here.
	And if you want to do that, it's not the right show for that.
	Okay, fair enough.
	I'm going to try and sell a bill of goods, or maybe I am.
	But this is why I'm calling in, because I'm struggling, because...
	My brain says that, you know, go ahead, do this.
	This is the right thing.
	People are pretty stupid and they can be easily taken advantage of.
	Yeah, you're just blowing past what I'm saying, right?
	Okay.
	Right?
	You just launched back into selling me your bill of goods, right?
	See, and that's where that comes from.
	I don't know if it's been enabled, but, you know, well, how do I get past something like this?
	Like I say, if you want to be super blunt, please do this.
	No!
	See, Kevin!
	Oh, my God.
	All right.
	First, we try blowing it past and then you ask how you can do something, right?
	If you want to stop selling me a bill of goods, you can ask me a little bit more about what I'm experiencing.
	You're trying to manage me.
	You're trying to control me and then you're trying to get something out of me, but you're not relating to me.
	Okay.
	You're trying to impress me.
	You're trying to sell me how you're right and other people are wrong.
	And you speak very rapidly, which is usually not a very good sign for communication.
	You haven't asked me if I understand something.
	You haven't asked me if I'm following what you're saying.
	And then when I sort of point out that I feel kind of alienated or I feel like you're selling me a bill of goods, you start selling me more goods.
	And then when I stop, you say, well, how do I stop that?
	It's still all about you, right?
	Fair enough.
	So to stop selling me a bill of goods, you could ask me a little bit about...
	What I'm experiencing.
	So let me ask you, sort of to show you what it means, what it looks like.
	So when I said that I felt you were selling me a bill of goods, what was your emotional reaction to that?
	Well, I am nervous.
	And my first emotional reaction to that was, wow, I screwed up.
	I feel like I could have probably better worded it or explained myself better.
	I feel bad because I was hoping that this was not the direction the conversation would go.
	And so what I'm pointing out is that you only focused on you.
	And I will admit to that.
	In fact, I've been saying that a lot lately.
	I've been very selfish.
	To be clear, I'm not criticizing you, right?
	I'm simply pointing out that...
	Yeah.
	from the other person's discontent with what you're saying.
	You only focus on yourself.
	And then to try and manage your negative emotions or your self-criticism, you start to try some other manipulation.
	Not consciously or anything, right?
	Right?
	No, absolutely.
	So, from what I did say then, what do you feel about how I explain that situation?
	Because I feel that's probably just the tip of the iceberg.
	I'm not sure what you're asking me.
	Well, I've always battled with between listening to my heart and listening to my brain.
	No, no, no.
	See, now we're back to talking about you again.
	I'm still doing it again, man.
	Yeah.
	No, and I appreciate that.
	This is a habit, right?
	You just need to become aware of it.
	Now we're back talking about you again, right?
	Okay.
	So I've now said three times and given you an example of what would probably be a more productive thing in this conversation for you to do.
	Do you remember what that is?
	Yeah.
	I guess I can't even recall because I'm so – I just – no, I guess it's not sinking in.
	Flummoxed.
	You're flummoxed.
	If I could use a new century novel word, right?
	You are discombobulated and flummoxed.
	Yes, very, very, very nervous.
	So what I suggested was, if I'm not connecting in the conversation, you, Kevin, can say to me, Steph, what was your experience of the conversation?
	What didn't work for you?
	Okay.
	Steph, what was your experience in the conversation?
	How did it make you feel?
	And before I answer that, what is it like for you to ask that question?
	Well, I... I wish I came up with the answer myself.
	I wish you didn't have to point that out to me.
	So it's a little embarrassing.
	Okay, so you feel embarrassed to ask that?
	Anything else?
	Maybe shameful as well.
	Because, you know, I thought that, you know, again...
	Back to me, which I shouldn't be doing.
	But yeah, I thought I... No, no, no.
	I'm asking you about your experience.
	So that's totally fine right now.
	So I just want to make sure that we're...
	Before I answer it, just that I want to know where you are.
	No, that's exactly where I sit.
	Just, you know, embarrassed and shameful at this point.
	I should know better.
	And of course, that's partly what you manage by keep talking, right?
	Absolutely.
	Right, right.
	Well, I find it because you speak rapidly and kind of in a monotone and because you bring up like 12 monstrously weighty issues every 20 seconds, it's very hard to feel part of the conversation.
	Gotcha.
	It feels like I'm reading a really rapidly scrolling screensaver, you know, like I'm trying to pick out words and figure out what's going on.
	And so because I generally assume that what I'm feeling in a conversation is Is often what the other person is feeling but not acknowledging?
	Correct.
	Okay.
	So I would imagine that.
	So I was sort of picturing, okay, well, if I'm feeling kind of rushed and distracted and not connected, then Kevin must be feeling rushed and distracted and not connected.
	Which for me is, you know, it's disheartening because I, you know, I've been wanting to call in for quite some time and I've actually kind of run through this scenario in my head and I kind of pictured it going one of two ways and, well, this is one of the ways where I fumble through it and, you know, basically embarrass myself and not get to the heart of the matter because I'm not, you know, there's been a lot going on lately, so.
	You know, I... No, fair enough.
	Fair enough.
	It's rare in this life, right?
	Most people are kind of nodding and waiting to talk their turn and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah, I was actually hoping to bring more life to a conversation because you're right.
	I've been a proponent in the background always going, oh, these colors are so boring.
	There's no emotion or feeling involved.
	And then here I come doing the exact same thing.
	Well, you know, it only looks easy when you're watching, right?
	Well, absolutely.
	Yeah, you can sit back and put your feet up and chuckle when you need to and shake your fist whenever, right?
	Okay, so when you were a child, Kevin, when you were a child, were you listened to?
	No.
	So why would you think that you have a skill called listening?
	Do you know that you don't have, like if you weren't listened to, it doesn't mean you can never listen or be listened to, but are you aware that you don't have a skill of being listened to?
	Or a lot of experience in being listened to as a child?
	Absolutely.
	I was, I'm the black sheep.
	Yeah.
	I always felt different.
	I never...
	I always fought.
	Whatever people thought was cool or the in thing, I've always done the opposite.
	So with my family, it's going to tug-of-war, whereas you need to listen to us.
	We know what's best, even though I'm surrounded by family members And they repeat the cycle of violence or the cycle of abuse.
	I have a feeling that this is all stuff you've either said before or thought before.
	Definitely thought before because I just...
	Okay, so I need you to stop giving me pre-chewed sound bites.
	Okay.
	Okay?
	Because it's not connecting to me to have you read the fortune cookies of your own prior thoughts.
	I need you to talk to me in the moment.
	Okay.
	So when you weren't...
	How did you know you weren't listened to as a child?
	Just always a negative reaction to everything.
	Everything was always, no, that's wrong or, you know, that's a bad idea.
	Stuff along those sorts of lines.
	It just seemed that anything I had interest or would voice an opinion, it seemed to be the exact opposite of what my family would want to hear or their advice they'd want to give.
	Now do you know that your unconscious was recreating that situation in me?
	No.
	You know that now though, right?
	Absolutely.
	Because what happened in your childhood happened again with me, right?
	Yes.
	And then I had to say, no, no, you're doing it, quote, the wrong way, or whatever it was, right?
	But I'm not doing it with any attack.
	No, no, that's why I welcome criticism.
	I truly do.
	And you're doing it in a way that, yeah, it doesn't feel like, you know, someone's about to hit me, or, you know, someone's going to raise their voice and get really angry.
	And were you hit as a shot?
	Yeah.
	I was very big.
	Not...
	Fairly fat or anything, but I was always, you know, a grade or two above, I was their size.
	So growing up, it was because of my size, they had to hit me twice as hard to get the point across.
	So be it with a wooden spoon.
	That's a line, right?
	That's a line.
	I agree, yes.
	Okay, so I've asked you, and I'm going to be insistent on this, you've got to stop feeding me lines.
	Okay.
	Okay?
	So I just asked you about being hit, and you gave me this absurd justification that you were bigger, so you had to be hit twice as hard.
	Oh, pardon me.
	That was their justification.
	Right.
	But don't...
	I'm not talking to your goddamn parents.
	And I don't want to talk to your parents.
	I want to talk to you.
	Fair enough.
	Fair enough.
	So how often were you hit?
	Um...
	I would say at least on a monthly basis up until I was 12, 13 years old.
	So once a month?
	Give or take, yeah.
	I mean, there might have been breaks for like two or three months, but any memories I have of childhood are the abusive ones.
	There's not a whole lot happening.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Now, you say any memories you have of your childhood is an abusive memory, but that's more than once a month, right?
	It very well could be.
	I just don't want to overguestimate, right?
	Make it seem maybe not to say that what happened to me wasn't bad, but...
	No, but what you're telling me is contradictory.
	Fair enough.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Again, it's not a criticism, right?
	I'm just pointing out.
	No, absolutely.
	You can't say it was once a month, but all my memories are of abuse, right?
	No, no, okay, no, fair enough.
	Yeah, it was...
	I need you to stop saying fair enough.
	I say that a lot.
	That's part of your pattern, right?
	That's part of like a Barker's pattern, like step right up.
	I used to do that a long time ago at the Canadian National Exhibition, which is basically a giant fair in Canada.
	As a teenager, I worked as a Barker, right?
	So I know what that sounds like.
	Step right up, two bucks will get you six more, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So you've got a couple of these tics.
	I do as well.
	Right, right, right.
	But you have to not give me the sort of fair enough and absolutely and the things that you have as your verbal tics because they're a way of you telling me that you're not listening because you're on autopilot, right?
	Okay.
	No, and I don't want to be on autopilot.
	And thank you for pointing that out because I noticed that those are two phrases I use a lot and I never knew really why.
	But...
	But thank you for that.
	Oh, no problem.
	How often were you hit as a child?
	Jeez.
	I would say at least six times a year.
	My pants were pulled down or the wooden spoon was brought up.
	So this is the third change in frequency, right?
	Okay, yeah.
	Are you aware of that?
	Yes, yes.
	I just don't want to make it...
	Because it doesn't sound like you're aware of it.
	Because you just said, I would say, six times a year, whereas previously you said 12 times a year, and then you said all your memories are of abuse.
	Well, I guess, no, you're right.
	I just don't have any fond memories.
	Things that do stand out are the times where I were hit, and I know it was quite frequently, as far as I can tell, because I either spent a lot of time being yelled at, Right.
	And how do you know that it was twelve or six times a year?
	Because I seem to get yelled at and hit quite a bit.
	You know, it happened in school to a certain extent.
	I was, you know, suspended quite often for acting out, being loud.
	Talking out of turn.
	So I seem to spend at least a little bit of being yelled at because you knew what was coming next was, you know, you don't get it, so we're going to have to hit you.
	So you get it.
	Okay, so you had to agree with your parents or they would hit you?
	Correct, yeah.
	Right.
	So, if I disagree with you, it makes you very anxious, right?
	Absolutely.
	And even when the voice...
	Don't say absolutely.
	Oh, shoot.
	Did it again.
	Okay.
	You're right.
	Correct is another one.
	Correct.
	Absolutely.
	These things have to be right.
	Uh-oh.
	I'm in trouble with that.
	So, yes, you're right.
	Even when voices are raised from some sort of authority figure, no matter if it's a co-worker, a boss, a parent, I tend to act like a scalded dog.
	That's another line, right?
	Is it a line?
	No, line.
	Oh, line.
	Oh, sorry.
	I use that line because it's been mentioned to me.
	Right.
	And so you're giving me cue cards, right?
	Again, you're not telling me what your experience was in the moment.
	It's like, oh, this is how I've described it before, so I'm going to describe it again, right?
	Fair.
	Okay.
	It came from my uncle.
	He was the man who ran the construction company, and he tried to be a father figure to me because my dad was very absent, just bad all around.
	So he figured that, you know, To be a dad, you need to be very aggressive and, you know, you need to be a man and man up.
	I need to show you how to be a man because you're too soft.
	So he would teach me lots of tough lessons and he made note that any time that I would get yelled at, he's like, you look like you shrug and literally hide in a corner and you're waiting to get hit like a scalded dog.
	Right, because you were waiting to get hit.
	And did he have any sympathy for that?
	Um...
	No.
	He even said once that just because you're my sister's brother doesn't make you family.
	There's been some harsh things said.
	I haven't spoken to him since I've left the company and that's been about six years.
	I can actually say that I've probably been happier since I've disconnected with a lot of the family.
	Right.
	Which makes me sad, because I've also got two younger brothers that are many years behind me, and right now my mom is pretty much dying of cancer.
	So I've kind of had to go back for them, even though I know entering the family circle is going to bring a lot of torment and anxiety, but I'd like to be there for them, because my dad's not.
	Because your dad's not what?
	He's not there.
	My biological dad is my younger brother's same dad, even though they're 17 and 13 collectively.
	But he left as soon as the last one was born.
	He fled.
	And sorry, your dad is not coming back?
	No.
	No.
	Not at all.
	Right.
	Right.
	Well, so if your question is about to make decisions sort of emotionally and so on, I think that my sort of suggestion would be to work to get more in touch or engage with your own emotionality, right?
	And that is a challenge.
	Language...
	Language is something which can be liberating, can be connecting, but it can also be something which we use to manage ourselves.
	In other words, so language is often like a story that we create in order to explain our lives to ourselves.
	This is a terrible way of putting it, so I apologize for not being probably even remotely clear.
	But you have these language structures that you use to delineate and define your life, and you sound very certain, and you sound very like you have all the conclusions in the world about your own life.
	Well, it's because of this, and it's because of that, and I was hit this many times.
	No, wait, it was this many times.
	No, it was this many times.
	I'm like a scalded dog.
	They're all answers.
	And I think it's got to be pretty painful for you to not know stuff.
	Yes.
	And I'm asking you questions that are difficult and painful.
	And you're skating on the surface, which, given your history, being hit with, you said wooden spoons, right?
	So being hit with implements is terrifying and brutal to occur.
	But one of the great challenges in life is to not...
	Live in conclusions about your history, particularly if your life is stalled, but to have a lived and curious perspective on your own history.
	Now, I'm not putting you anywhere within a million miles of this category, so please don't take this the wrong way, but I just did a video on Elliot Rodger, and with Elliot Rodger, you could sort of see him In his videos and in his manifesto, he was creating this world of certainty that was not correct.
	And if you say, well, you know, I want to be – I want to have the choice basically or how do I judge rationally or judge emotionally?
	Emotions come out when there's doubt.
	Emotions come out when there's doubt.
	Like, you ever have it where you're driving some route you've driven a million times before and you get to your destination, you get home, and you literally think back and you say, you know what?
	I don't even really remember that drive, right?
	Because it's automatic, right?
	You're just doing it.
	You don't really think about it.
	And so when you have certainty, you know where you're going, the drive is automatic, you've done it a million times before, then you don't really have much of an experience of what is occurring.
	Right?
	But if you're trying to get someplace cool or to a job interview and you think you might be lost, you're very alert to your surroundings, right?
	Because you have uncertainty.
	Yes.
	Now, emotions, one of the best ways of repressing emotions is artificial certainty.
	You know, my childhood was like this and I've become like this and I'm like this.
	You have all of these words to describe yourself.
	Or to describe your history.
	And there's no particular exploration, no particular lived-in-the-moment experience of your history.
	There's just a massive amount of certainty.
	And they're all conclusions.
	And they're not explorations.
	Now, I would love for you to have a greater access to your emotions and your instincts.
	But in order to do that, I believe...
	I only believe, and it's not a proof, right?
	I believe that you're going to need to cast aside your fortune cookies of explanations and your linguistic tics, and you're going to need to sit there and say, the true answer, how often will you hit, is I don't know.
	Right?
	You gave me one certainty, then you colored it with another thing, and then you gave me another certainty...
	None of which are probably true.
	I don't mean you're lying.
	I just mean that when you grow up in abusive households, people don't like a lot of curiosity and ambiguity, right?
	Primitive, I almost would say ape-like personalities, very primitive personalities can't handle ambivalence, ambiguity, irony, curiosity, not having answers.
	A long time ago...
	Oh my goodness.
	I'm trying to remember the trail that led me to this person's house.
	But I was at this person's house.
	And they had a husband.
	Oh my God, did they ever have a husband.
	And this husband was like, it's like this, and it's like this, and it's like this.
	Period.
	Right?
	Now, that is the mark of a very primitive personality, of a very immature and undeveloped personality.
	You know, it's like this or it's like this.
	It's black or it's white.
	It's up or it's down, right?
	That's it.
	Period.
	People who can't handle contradictions, curiosity, ambiguity, not knowing the answers.
	Like all the stuff that is basically the mark of a civilized and curious human being, right?
	Okay.
	Bye.
	And again, I'm not putting you in these people's category.
	I'm just giving you very extreme examples, hopefully to scare you off if it makes any sense.
	Oh, it does.
	It does.
	Right?
	So you don't know enough about your childhood to have conclusions.
	I don't have enough about my childhood to have conclusions, and I've been thinking about it off and on, well, for about 46 years, right?
	Right?
	So, I mean, let me give you an example, right?
	So when I was probably about 12 and my brother was back in England for a couple of years, so it was just me and my mom.
	My mom just did not get out of bed.
	She just stopped getting out of bed.
	I would get up.
	She'd be lying in bed.
	I'd go to school.
	I'd come home at lunch.
	I'd make her some tea and some toast and then I'd leave it by her bed.
	I would go back to school.
	I would come back at night and she'd just lay in bed and lay in bed and lay in bed and lay in bed for weeks.
	You know, that's some pretty terrifying stuff going down right there.
	But I didn't know why that happened.
	I could tell you that it happened, but I didn't actually know why it happened.
	Now, a week or two I was thinking about this, and it struck me why I think it happened.
	Again, I don't know for sure, and I'll never know for sure.
	I don't think anyone knows for sure.
	I don't think my mom could tell you.
	But why did it happen?
	I think it happened because my mom turned 40.
	And 40 is a giant age for women.
	Because 40 is the war, you know, the war.
	We're going to hit the wall, right?
	Now, my mom lived on her looks, and she basically said, you know, screw this becoming a decent person.
	I'm pretty.
	And she was very pretty, right?
	So I'm just going to go with the looks thing because it's a whole lot easier than it is struggling to deal with my history and growing up at the war and all this terrible stuff, which would have been very difficult to deal with and all of that.
	But she's like, well, screw all that.
	I'm pretty, right?
	And when you gamble on being pretty for a woman, right, it works out pretty well.
	If you just want to have guys take you out and want to have sex with you, actually getting guys to commit is a different matter, right?
	I mean, if you've ever, and I think men should all, you know, in terms of its portrait of a dangerous woman, you know, prior to Fatal Attraction, it was a streetcar named Desire where Blanche Dubois...
	Bangs anything that moves and is trying to get a man to marry her and commit to her.
	And she says, you know, I'm almost 40 or I'm getting too old to turn the trick anymore.
	I'm getting too old.
	I'm panicking.
	I'm hitting the wall, right?
	And so she pretends to be all kind of virginal and southern ladylike and all that with some guy.
	And then he finds out about her history.
	And he says, I'm not.
	He comes over and wants to have sex with her, and she's like, I don't know where you get these ideas from.
	And he's like, well, you put out for everyone down south, so why not me?
	And she pushes him away.
	He gets angry.
	She says she wants him to marry her.
	He says, I'm not going to marry you now.
	You're not clean enough to bring into the house with my mother.
	And then she just, of course, that's a horrible thing to say, right?
	She goes nuts.
	And so the reason I'm mentioning all this stuff, and I'm sorry it's such a convoluted answer, but not even an answer, but...
	Is that, you know, so my mom, she hit the wall.
	And I think she got, she understood that she wasn't going to get married by a rich guy.
	That the gamble of looks...
	When she'd hit 40, was not going to pay off.
	And that was it.
	And that was it.
	And I didn't know that, despite having thought about that horrible series of weeks many times over the years.
	I didn't really understand that until just a couple of weeks ago.
	Now, if people had said to me, Or ask me, why did your mom do that?
	Or what happened?
	I said, I don't know.
	I kind of have a theory.
	You know, here's what I think, but I don't know, right?
	And people say, how often, Steph, were you hit?
	I don't think anyone would ever ask me that.
	But the answer is, I don't know.
	I can give some educated guesses, but I don't know.
	And in a way, it doesn't really matter.
	Now, I know I just asked you this question, so it sounds kind of like a cheat.
	There is a difference between being hit once a year and once a week, once a week and once a day, once a day, once an hour.
	I mean, there's some differences.
	But in many ways, it doesn't hugely matter because if you're hit and there's a significant chance of repetition, it doesn't really matter if it's once a month or once a year.
	If you're still afraid of being hit, if that's still something that's on the table as a viable parenting strategy, right?
	So my suggestion is if you want your instincts to help you, you have to stop bossing them around with conclusions that you don't have yet.
	And listen, I don't even have a conclusion about my mom when I was 12.
	You know what happened 35 years ago?
	I don't know.
	I think this is a pretty reasonable explanation, but I don't know.
	And now not knowing allows me to continue exploring.
	Emotions are tentacles that feel in the dark.
	So the octopus of the heart can't know where it's going, can't know where the conclusions are.
	That's when we reach out.
	That's a good quote.
	And everything that you gave me, if you listen back to the conversation, everything that you gave me, Kevin, were conclusions, were statements.
	There were no questions for yourself, for others, I don't know.
	And in the absence of uncertainty, our emotions will not probe.
	They will not give us guidance.
	In the same way that you don't turn the GPS on for something you've driven a thousand times, right?
	Does this make sense at all?
	No, it's almost like an epiphany right now because you're right.
	I have been throwing these thoughts in my mind and you're right, drawing my own conclusions thinking that I'm going to know best because if I go to anyone else with this they're just going to give me stuff that is going to be in my mind wrong or I'm going to be laughed at or you know Again, suck it up princess type attitude, right?
	There's no real emotional support group where I can go and feel comfortable to tell these things to people.
	And to be uncertain, right?
	Yes, yes.
	I mean, it sounds like you were raised by some pretty low IQ and EQ people.
	And certainty is generally a product of lesser intelligence.
	The greater the intelligence, the greater the humility, right?
	And you're smart.
	So I'm not trying to say that your certainty arises out of being around dumber certain people, in my opinion.
	I'm not putting you, but you have the capacity to begin to open up this stuff to questions, to not knowing.
	Now, that's going to be scary for you because when you say, I don't know, around primitive people, they will pretend that they're superior to you, right?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	I don't know why I am this way.
	Well, I know why you're this way.
	It's because you're a little shit who doesn't listen, right?
	Well, I know why you're this way.
	It's because you never learned how to suck it up and take it like a man, right?
	People will just give you all sorts of stupid shit.
	Stupid, unconsidered, idiotic, retarded shit that people will give you if you express uncertainty.
	Yeah.
	going along and thinking that, okay, well, I figured it out now.
	Just keep going, skipping down the road.
	You figured it out.
	When clearly I've been, I don't want to say I've been making things up because that to me, to me, doesn't seem logical.
	I don't think I— No, you've been managing your own anxiety because to not know provokes feelings of imminent attack, humiliation, right?
	Well, what do you mean you don't know, right?
	Ah, please don't.
	I'm going to give you an answer that's going to make you feel like shit.
	Well, no, no.
	I know.
	I know.
	It's okay.
	Don't tell me, right?
	Yeah.
	Please don't give me an answer.
	And you also, you gave me the clue about all of this quite early on in our conversation when you said, you know, all the people who seem so certain, their lives are terrible, right?
	Right.
	Yes, I'm surrounded by people who seem to repeat the same mistake over and over again.
	And yet consider themselves to be experts on how to solve problems, right?
	Yes.
	They know everything.
	Beware the phrase, all you gotta do is...
	That's never, ever come from anyone useful ever, ever in the known universe.
	No smart, wise, intelligent, compassionate person has ever said, all you gotta do is...
	Now, of course, people are going to go find podcasts where I've said exactly that, but I disavow all of that.
	So anybody who portrays to you complex challenges as having simplistic answers is an idiot whose life is either now or will soon be a complete disaster.
	You know, immigration, all you got to do is seal up the borders.
	Right?
	Drugs, all you've got to do is arrest the drug dealers.
	Just like that.
	All you've got to do is pornography.
	All you've got to do is, oh my god, right?
	Welfare, all you've got to do is get the government to redistribute the income.
	So you're an idiot.
	I get it.
	Not you.
	No.
	Whoever says that.
	And if you listen back to this, and this is what's so great about Having this stuff recorded.
	I mean, it is important to do it this way.
	Because you can listen back and you can hear how you sound now when you and I are actually, I think, talking.
	Yes, I would agree with you.
	Or where you were basically firing the buckshot of conclusions at me and calling it a conversation.
	And not because there's anything wrong with you or you're not a nice guy.
	It's just that this is a habitual way of surviving among closed-minded people who think that answers are easy.
	High five.
	High five.
	No, it's spot on.
	I was very nervous in the beginning, and like I said, even before the call started, I had sweaty palms, and because of my running through my own head with all these scenarios, because I've been listening to you for about a year, and I've kind of been more honest about things that happened in my past, and I've been trying to piece together why I act a certain way in certain behaviors and then thinking, well, I've already come to the conclusion.
	This conversation is going to go in this direction.
	And you're right in the fact that I was trying to direct it in that direction.
	Yes, but unconsciously you were trying to do something much more interesting.
	Which is why I didn't just say, well, you're just a conclusion spewer.
	I'm going to move on to someone else.
	Unconsciously, you were trying to do something way more interesting.
	Hmm.
	Which was, you wanted me to break the cycle of correction and abuse.
	You wanted me to notice that we weren't connecting and to point that out in a way that was encouraging and not destructive.
	Because that breaks a cycle for you, right?
	Yes.
	Um...
	I mean, I don't think there was anything humiliating in what I did.
	I didn't feel anything like that.
	And I also didn't give you an answer.
	All you gotta do is give an answer, right?
	Yes.
	That was just it.
	It was just a natural reaction to just having that voice raised and, no, no, no, no.
	You know what I mean?
	That was just a snap decision to be like, uh-oh, here it comes, here it comes.
	Yeah, because you wanted to be exposed to assertiveness.
	Not abuse, right?
	It must be, because I can't argue with that.
	Yeah, my needs are not getting met in this conversation.
	I can't have a quality conversation with you if we're in this mode, but I'm not going to shame you because of that.
	That's just the reality of where we are, right?
	Or at least where I am.
	I wanted to talk to you, because I knew that even though I might come through the stumbling blocks in the beginning, that in the end...
	If you're a sound mind, you're a pretty rational guy.
	You're going to be able to kind of point me in that right direction because, again, in my life right now, who else is going to point me in that kind of direction?
	Who has the knowledge and the temperament?
	It's not there.
	I really have a hard time finding that sort of same kind of wavelength.
	Not to say that I'm perfect and I know all the answers, It's just I find it incredibly difficult to find that ability to reason or at least open-mindedness to, you know, to dig deeper and try to become a better person.
	Right.
	Right.
	And you're in an environment where improvement is impossible because everyone's...
	But no, this is...
	I think this is a good step for me.
	Yeah.
	I've been balanced or struggling to think if I need to go to counseling and I'm kind of leaning towards the fact that I do.
	So I think I need to work on maybe talking to a professional rather than just trying to figure everything out for myself and calling it right.
	Well, I think that's, as you know, I'm a big fan of a good talk therapist.
	And I think that's a good idea because I think you need to be exposed to People who don't have answers.
	You know, because it's funny.
	Everybody loves new cell phones and upgraded cars and all kinds of cool new computer stuff.
	But that's all people who didn't have answers.
	I'd like to have my phone be able to talk to other phones with text, but I don't know how that would work, right?
	All you got to do is have tiny carrier pigeons inside the phone with homing beacons and flares and right...
	And, I mean, because, look, I get this all the time.
	I mean, this is why it's on the tip of my head.
	Steph, all you've got to do is run commercials on your site, right?
	And everything will be fine.
	Steph, all you've got to do is this, that, and the other.
	Let me give you the simple way that you can expand this philosophy conversation.
	All you've got to do is blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yes.
	I just know that these are people who aren't doing anything.
	I mean, that's just so obvious.
	It's like throwing stones from a glass house, right?
	I just don't know where people get to start telling other people, like, well, this is how it should be done.
	You're missing this.
	Constructive criticism is great, but, I mean, it almost feels like they're trying to feel like they— No, it's not.
	Criticism, to be valid, criticism must start with curiosity.
	Steph, what are your reasons for not running ads?
	But people, they can't handle the humiliation or the attack of me saying, what, you don't even know why I'm not running ads?
	Then who the hell, why the hell would I listen to you?
	Blah, blah, blah.
	So people will always, a lot of people will basically just try and give you all of this endless, useless instruction on what you should do.
	If you want to be a successful actor, all you've got to do is write a hit screenplay and cast yourself.
	Really?
	All you've got to do is that.
	Okay, got it.
	You know, if you want to make a lot of money, all you have to do is invest in stocks that go up and don't sell them until they're about to go down.
	Oh, no.
	Really?
	That sounds like, yeah, a lot of advice that I've been given.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	All you got to do.
	All you got to do.
	It's fail safe.
	It's proven.
	Can't fail.
	If you want to be a great parent, all you got to do is have your kids respect you and do the right thing.
	If they don't respect you, just hit them.
	They'll figure it out.
	Yeah.
	All you gotta do for that cancer is take some snake oil.
	All you gotta do.
	Right?
	I mean, those people, I mean, you just have to not...
	My suggestion would be, you know, like, just...
	If you have to be around people like that, for God's sakes, don't ask them any questions and don't show any vulnerabilities.
	Because they'll just rush right in with, all you gotta do!
	It's like, there's no certainty like a fool's certainty.
	Right?
	There's no progress like a wise man's doubt, and there's no stagnation like a fool's certainty.
	Again, I will agree with you that, yes, I engage and I'm probably too open with these types of, what's the word I'm looking for?
	You can call it personalities, I guess.
	I leave myself vulnerable and open to attacks, and I don't know how to respond in the right manner.
	And that usually is the reaction.
	No, no, you can't respond in the right manner.
	You can't.
	No, it's just that.
	You can't because they're not interested in a response.
	You are a mere object for them to preen in front of.
	Yes.
	I mean, nobody sits there and says to the mirror, unless they're insane or a Disney character, which is basically saying the same thing, but nobody sits there and says to the mirror, hey, do you love my new haircut?
	Tell me what you think about it and don't be shy, right?
	Because the mirror is simply an object to reflect back.
	The person's reflection.
	Reflect back the person's reflection.
	Sorry to be redundant.
	But people who write to me and say, Steph, all you got to do is run ads on your channel.
	That's how you should monetize.
	That's how you should make your money.
	They're not interested at all in my feedback.
	What they're interested in is feeling like they're smarter because everyone else is retarded.
	Because they have the right answer, right?
	Right.
	Yeah, and they just – they obviously have run highly successful, complex, challenging, groundbreaking philosophical conversations.
	So, of course, given that Freedom Aid Radio, given that this kind of philosophical conversation, live, public, to the world, spanning the entire globe, delving with almost every issue that is put together on the fly by listeners with a huge variety of personal issues with no particular preparation on my part, of course this has been done so many times before that there's lots of experienced people who can tell me how to do it.
	I mean, it's ridiculous.
	It's ridiculous.
	All you got to do is – also, it's similar to just – now, Mike, do you have any – you deal with the bulk of the email now, Mike.
	What are your – all you got to do is people – what do they tell you?
	It's mostly advertisements or, oh, you need to have this person on your show.
	It's absolutely – this will grow the audience and it's someone who has like a blog with four people that are subscribed to it.
	You got to talk to this guy.
	He's revolutionizing the field, man.
	I kind of grew the show three times in the last year.
	I might know what we're doing.
	We might have a clue.
	We run the most successful and I think most in-depth conversation that's going on in the world today.
	Might have some clue what I'm doing.
	I've been an entrepreneur now straight for almost 22 years.
	And these people who are like, well, I haven't had a job since I got fired from the donut shop, but Steph...
	All you got to do is – I think I know why you're fired.
	And telling me what to do without having any doubts or questions is – do you get any other?
	So advertising, I also like the – here's my 350-page PDF if you could skim through it and tell me what you think.
	Yeah, it's not quite in the same category, but the emails I get where it's, let me tell you every horrible thing that has ever happened to me.
	I'm sure you have time to read this, and I'm just going to dump all this on your plate.
	That's another thing that's quite, quite challenging.
	And Mike, now is the time, because I know that this has burdened you for quite some time, and this is actually a fairly good opportunity.
	Is there anything you would like to say to potential emailers to help them perhaps find an email format or content that is going to make you a little more receptive?
	How long of a show do we have, Steph?
	Can we go on for the next episode?
	Come on.
	I think it's Mike's turn.
	Sorry, I hope you don't mind, Kevin.
	Kevin, how do you feel?
	Was that useful?
	I don't want to get on a mics thing, but was that useful?
	Obviously, give us a shout and let us know how it goes, but that would sort of be my suggestion.
	Just try and stay as much open to questions and try to avoid conclusions.
	Hey, eventually you'll get some, right?
	But try and avoid them like the plague until they can really stick.
	No, I definitely will.
	It's been very uplifting.
	I needed that.
	I needed a good pep talk.
	Great.
	Well, thank you very much.
	I appreciate your call.
	Thank you.
	Get it off your chest, man.
	Yeah, you know, if you're going to send me an email, maybe include all the relevant information.
	That would be helpful.
	If you want to call into the show, your Skype username, considering the show has run through Skype and everywhere where we talk about the show, it mentions Skype and how we need your Skype username.
	Including your Skype username would be a help.
	Mike, it's essential that you contact me.
	This is a throwaway email address I will never, ever check again.
	Go!
	I get those.
	I definitely get those.
	And when I send you specific questions, you know, I need X, Y, and Z information in order to move forward if you want to be on the show or, you know, you want to do something, it helps actually answer the questions.
	There's nothing worse than spending more time responding to somebody than they spend actually writing the email, and I've kind of stopped responding to those.
	Like, if you've put no time and no effort into your communication and correspondence, I get so many emails.
	I used to feel bad not responding to that stuff.
	Now I just can't, and I won't.
	So what you mean is if somebody obviously hasn't read your email and it's responded before finishing it?
	Oh, I'm talking about the initial email.
	Maybe spellcheck or punctuation or a coherent thought.
	That would be appreciated.
	If it's like random monkey typing, then I don't even know how to respond other than with wingdings.
	I get the wingdings emails from time to time.
	Right.
	Are there any suggestions that you don't need to hear any more of?
	Well, the ads on YouTube would definitely...
	Ads on YouTube, absolutely.
	We don't need any more suggestions.
	I'm aware that Patreon exists, a place where you can set up, you know, for every video you put out, people will give you a dollar or something.
	I'm aware that it exists.
	Kind of don't want any central point that could interrupt the show if things went badly.
	So be aware that it exists and not interested right now.
	I appreciate the suggestions as far as guests and that, but I've got to be honest, if it's not someone that has any profile whatsoever and they haven't put out a groundbreaking study that's something that absolutely needs to talk about, we're not going to be able to do the interview.
	If you want Mike or I to bring someone on the show, Google that mofo.
	I mean, seriously, do a Google Trends.
	If it's indistinguishable from a cadaver's heartbeat, he may not end up on the show.
	Steph, you absolutely need to debate this guy that works out of his garage and has a listenership of four people, one of which is his mom and his mother's sock puppet.
	Right.
	We're probably not going to do that because the opportunity cost and time involved in that kind of thing, it's pretty high.
	So we're going to do something.
	Yeah, look for a win-win for us and the guy, right?
	Yeah.
	So I'm actually not feeling very ranty today.
	I'm feeling a bit more solemn, but...
	Listeners and emailers, I'm afraid you've broken me.
	I just think that's just...
	He's like a chew toy made of glass.
	You have smashed up his entire soul.
	And now we need to find some way to regenerate him, usually with the blood of a statist.
	Anyway, so...
	Oh, good.
	Okay, well, just so, yeah, I mean, be concise.
	And don't be obvious.
	You know, we respect Mike's intelligence and mine, I guess.
	All right.
	Mike, do you want to do one more?
	Do we have a shorter one?
	I'm not sure if it's a shorter one.
	But it kind of fits in with the theme of today.
	Justin...
	Oh!
	Can I do one more?
	Go ahead.
	Go ahead.
	Please rant away.
	A... The listener calls are too long.
	Oh, okay.
	What you need to do is cut the call-in shows up into shorter segments.
	I'm sure you've never thought of that.
	I don't want to listen to a three-and-a-half-hour show.
	What if I need to pee?
	You can pause and resume on YouTube anytime you like.
	There are MP3s you can download which will pause and resume.
	It's like, Atlas Shrugged?
	I can't read that.
	That's 1,200 pages.
	What if I have something to do?
	You know you can put it down and pick it up again later, right?
	Now Walt stuff.
	Now Walt.
	Not all listeners are like that.
	Come on.
	Oh my god.
	So that's always an exciting suggestion.
	And the second is...
	Why do the listener call-in shows have so much unhappy personal history in them?
	Why does a cell phone store have so many cell phones in it?
	Because that's what people want.
	Look, I don't ever say, Mike...
	This person isn't miserable enough.
	They only have an abstract philosophical question.
	Throw them out!
	Because all we want to do is talk about personal histories of unbelievable misery.
	Mike, how often do you get a request for an intelligent discussion of an abstract philosophical concept?
	Maybe 1% of the time, email-wise.
	Now, what about even retarded discussions of abstract philosophical concepts?
	Do we get a lot of those?
	I do get more of those, where I can't even tell what the email was trying to communicate.
	Right.
	It may or may not be in Klingon.
	The great Klingon lord Zar Kwafort has told me that I need to question Steph about the furry insides of his testicular N-dimensional mayhem matrix.
	I was emailed by someone yesterday that claimed to speak to aliens, and he sent me a photocopy of his driver's license, which I thought was wonderful.
	Well, no, he sent a photocopy of his driver's license to show that he's not an alien.
	Maybe he just meant illegal aliens.
	That could be.
	Maybe I misunderstood the whole thing.
	You'll be right.
	Or maybe he thought we were like a mothership and if he showed us his driver's license, we might let him drive.
	I don't know.
	I guess.
	I don't.
	But yeah, I mean, look, the call-in shows are the way the call-in shows are because that's what people want to talk about.
	Yeah.
	You know, if people have personal issues that they want to bring up and philosophy can help, that's what, you know, you cannot command a market.
	You cannot command a market.
	It doesn't mean you can't have an influence on it, but you cannot command a market.
	And I'm thrilled to talk about UPB. I'm thrilled to talk about the non-aggression principle.
	I'm thrilled to talk about Bitcoin and economics.
	And when people want to talk about that stuff, that's great.
	But that's not what people mostly want to talk about.
	Shoot me for serving Spanish food in a Spanish neighborhood.
	I mean, that's just the way that the market works.
	And people who think that I have some magical control or Mike has some magical control over the content of the call-in shows are deluded.
	Or if they think that we're turning away all of these guys who want to talk about rigorous abstracts, then they are just sorely mistaken.
	So it's just this.
	And look...
	The call-in shows are the call-in shows and I will try to satisfy as much as humanly possible everyone who calls in.
	I am fully aware that people who want to call into the call-in show have generally been listening for a year or two years or five years or seven years and this is a huge opportunity for them to be able to be on one of these shows and they have an issue that they want to talk about and I am an important person in their life.
	So I will do my very damnedest To have them walk away from that conversation satisfied.
	That they got something out of it.
	I will work as long as I feel I can.
	As long as humanly possible.
	Until the air vacates the entire studio.
	I will work as long as I can to get that person receiving value.
	Because...
	If I was dying to talk to someone I hugely respected and that person cut me off and tossed me out, that would stick with me for a long time.
	You know, I mean, if I had the chance to talk to Socrates and he was like, well, you're an incompetent idiot, right?
	Get out, right?
	I mean, that would stick with me.
	That would have a big effect on me.
	And I'm very conscious of that.
	So if people have...
	Listened to the show for a long time and waited for the months it takes to get on this show.
	That too.
	Right?
	Then it's a big deal for them.
	It's a big deal for me too.
	I mean, I really try my best to care about every listener who calls in, but it's a big deal.
	And I believe that these conversations are rare and it can be life-changing for someone to have a real connection with someone who's really curious about where they are.
	And has some philosophical knowledge to bring principles to bear on their situation and has some self-knowledge to share about the human journey.
	So, I do not, you know, I don't pull a Tom Likas insult the listeners for entertainment.
	And I don't pull the plug on anyone unless I feel there's no possibility of progress or unless the person is being rude or unless the person is simply being completely obstinate and not willing to do any work.
	And I do that out of respect for the listeners who do want to ask questions and think.
	So, yeah, the show is...
	For me, not a show, right?
	I wish we had another one.
	But the conversation for me is I will work as hard as I possibly can to connect with someone and to provide them a value that ideally can change their life.
	And if that takes 10 minutes, it takes 10 minutes.
	And if it takes two hours, it takes two hours.
	But that's my commitment to the listeners.
	That's one of the reasons why the show is growing so quickly is because I think people really sense that commitment that I have to the listeners.
	And I know that because when – I can really remember the people in my life conversationally who had a real impact on me, how important those conversations were and how much of life felt like a complete waste of time and bullshit static until I had those conversations.
	So I want to provide that as much as possible.
	So I just really wanted to mention that.
	All right, Mike.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I just said testify.
	Testify, yeah.
	All right.
	Time for one more?
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Dustin is up.
	And Dustin wrote in and said, what would constitute a healthy relationship?
	And how would one recognize when to either repair or end an unhealthy relationship?
	Well, the first healthy relationship we must have is with reality, right?
	That's the first and most important thing to look for is somebody's relationship, not with someone else or whatever, but with reality.
	Does that make sense at all?
	Yeah, I think it does and the reason why I called in is because I've had a string of horrible relationships.
	I haven't had best role models and I kind of wanted to go kind of brutally into the way that I've looked at relationships before and of course reality and you know Sort of fix it, figure out where I've gone sideways, and hopefully get a better view of reality so that my future relationships can be better.
	I like that.
	So we'll call this conversation Brutally Into and Sideways.
	Normally that's a manual for prison intimacy, but all right.
	Well, those are great questions, and look, I appreciate that you got a pattern that you want to get out of, right?
	I mean, this is what...
	This is what we really are trying to do here so much, get out of these patterns.
	So what has been wrong with your relationships, my friend?
	Oh, let's see.
	I'm trying to figure out the...
	Volume one!
	Right, exactly.
	I probably could write a book on it.
	Well, I guess we'll start with where it all started.
	Parents.
	That's usually where it goes anyway.
	But with my father, he has paranoid schizophrenia, and that's been really difficult to deal with.
	I remember as a kid I had to run away from him and go down to live with my aunt which is the best summer that I ever had because I've lived in kind of like a perpetual state of like varying levels of fear around him because it would never be my mom that would actually punish me.
	It would be my dad usually with a leather belt and it only happened like five or six times when I was young.
	It didn't happen often at all.
	But when it did, it was horrible, like severely shocking because typically my mom would only have to point at me and give me a dirty look and I would suddenly burst into tears.
	So when my dad would do that, it's like this earth-shattering thing that happened.
	And ever since, I've been deathly afraid of going against somebody because I would think, you know, I would die.
	I would go into this fight-or-flight thing.
	My body would siege up and...
	Like, even tiny little things.
	Like, I forget to sweep an area when I was a cook when we were closing up for the night.
	And I would think, oh god, the world is ending, you know?
	So, I'm sorry, no, go ahead, go ahead.
	Yeah, and then especially to give you an idea of the way that my dad kind of conceptualizes things.
	I remember when I was living with him, I think I was around like maybe 17, 18 at the time, he finally decided that nothing really mattered in life and he would flip a coin to make major life decisions because Dumb luck was the foundation for anything great that happened in life.
	No matter what preparation you put into something, no matter how hard you studied, it was just simply dumb luck whether you ended up in a successful career or whether you ended up on the street.
	Wow, so he must have realized that by punishing you he was being entirely wrong in doing so.
	Because it was just dumb luck about whether you listened or didn't listen, quote, obeyed or didn't obey, did the right thing or the wrong thing.
	So it was just dumb luck.
	So he must have, with that realization, enormously apologized to you for punishing you as if you were responsible for the mere accidents of reality.
	No, I think that he kind of disconnected from his actions, especially when...
	Oh, so it was a little bit more fucking convenient than that for him, right?
	Right, exactly.
	Other people will do what it is that they do.
	You just throw your stone into the river and it goes wherever it goes.
	When I graduated from college, I got honors and whatnot.
	I went up to say, hey dad, I graduated from college.
	He said, I don't care about you.
	You could die for all I care.
	My job as a dad is over with.
	And it was like he completely disconnected from the...
	God, what was your experience of that?
	I'm sorry, what was that?
	What was your experience of that?
	Of having my dad tell me all that?
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	I moved up to a different place that was about an hour away because I got a different job.
	And I remember for about that whole year, I wanted nothing to do with my parents.
	And I was trying to reconcile, you know, is the person that my dad is now a result of...
	Oh, you are doing a skillful dance of non-answering there, aren't you?
	Oh, I'm sorry, Stefan.
	Lift off to Abstractly!
	If only we could hear the engines.
	Okay, I'll focus on the emotions, sorry.
	What was your experience of your dancing then?
	It was horrible.
	It was a knife to the gut.
	It was like all of my effort didn't mean anything.
	And I couldn't win.
	Nothing really made sense.
	Like, nothing I thought actually meant anything.
	It just felt like I was gutted.
	Well, to him.
	To him.
	Well, no, because you're missing two...
	And I'm sorry to interrupt, but you're missing two kind of magic words here, right?
	Okay.
	Right?
	Nothing...
	That you did, none of your effort meant anything.
	And I was waiting for it to him.
	Because those two are vastly different statements.
	Wow.
	Right, because you said nothing means anything, all my work was for nothing, and blah blah blah, right?
	Yeah.
	And I was waiting for it to him.
	But you didn't say that.
	You're right.
	So what that means is that he infected you pretty heavily with coldness, right?
	Yeah.
	He's like the ice wizard.
	Got a nice frozen heart for you.
	That thing's never going off, right?
	Immune to infection and life.
	Yeah, that's true.
	No, to him it's really, really important.
	Because otherwise it becomes existential.
	It becomes reality, right?
	Inescapable.
	Yeah, that's the way that I felt for a long time.
	That makes sense.
	Instead of saying that's the way that he felt, I thought that that's the way that it was.
	Right.
	And the reason for that is that your father presented it as existential, flipping coins and shit like that, right?
	Which is a really intrusive way and a really passive-aggressive way of infecting other people with your craziness, but I guess that's what crazy people do, right?
	They are...
	Most personalities are socially transmitted diseases, right?
	Yeah.
	So, and also to say...
	I'll tell you this from growing up with a crazy mom.
	When you say to a crazy person, that's not the world, that's you, what happens?
	Usually they just laugh at me and say, you don't understand.
	You don't see it.
	At least that's the response that I've gotten from my dad.
	He just says, you'll grow up.
	You'll see it.
	It'll come to you eventually.
	Wait, didn't he hit you?
	Yeah, he did.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Okay, you be your dad.
	You be your dad.
	Tell me something crazy.
	Okay.
	Let me think, let me think.
	Let's just go with what he told me.
	Everything is dumb luck.
	Even the guy that Neil Armstrong, he became an astronaut simply out of dumb luck.
	God flipped the coin one day and decided that he was going to become an astronaut.
	So you believe in God?
	Yeah, he does.
	He does believe in God.
	So God then can't punish anyone.
	If God's making decisions about who does what, then there's no punishment.
	There's no heaven, right?
	No hell.
	No punishment and reward.
	Right.
	It's just things that happen.
	Is that what he would believe?
	Yeah, that's the impression that I get.
	Alright.
	So then to punish and reward people for the mere accidents of luck...
	Would be irrational, right?
	Would be wrong?
	Yes.
	So why did you punish me as a child?
	That's true.
	That would be inconsistent.
	You keep jumping out of his personality, right?
	What would he do?
	I'm trying to think.
	I mean, if we shouldn't praise Neil Armstrong for becoming an astronaut because it was just luck and God snapped his fingers and made it happen, then we shouldn't either punish people who are unfortunate, right?
	And everyone who says we should not praise the hero is begging forgiveness for being a villain.
	Everybody who focuses on forgiveness for sins Is a sinner who would rather have forgiveness without the trouble of restitution.
	It's virtuous to forgive is the bad person's way of saying, I'm too lazy to make amends for what I've done, so I just want forgiveness to be snapped into existence as a moral absolute.
	It's completely lazy and exploitive shit.
	Anybody who commands a virtue is exploiting Advice.
	So what would your dad say if everything's accidental and we should neither praise nor condemn people?
	And he said, well, then why the hell was I hit and punished as a child?
	What would he say?
	He'd probably say he didn't understand the way the world was back then.
	So you owe me a big giant apology then, don't you, dad?
	Because you hit me and you were completely unjust and wrong in doing so.
	So where's my apology?
	Wait, hold on.
	Now that I think about it, I was going to say that he might also say that he was trying to show me the way that the world is, but then if he was trying to instill values into me and then use spanking as a punishment, that would mean that my decisions would matter and it isn't dumb luck.
	Exactly.
	Right, okay.
	So, yeah, there's no way out of that.
	So what happens when you start to make a crazy person feel crazy?
	In other words, by saying, this isn't the world.
	This is not the world.
	This is you.
	That would completely unravel them.
	They would have to change.
	What do they do when that happens?
	I've never seen it.
	I don't know.
	Oh, you've seen it.
	Oh, I guarantee you've seen it.
	Otherwise, you would have done it a hell of a lot more.
	Sorry, I said hell of a lot more and I meant to say whole or hell and it came out whole of a lot of it.
	But why would you not have done this?
	When crazy people say crazy things, why don't we point out that they're crazy?
	What do they do?
	I don't know.
	I'm drawing a blank.
	You know.
	And you know because you keep jumping out of your dad's skin when we do the roleplay, right?
	They explode with rage.
	They explode with rage.
	I see.
	Paranoid people, in my opinion, I'm no expert, right?
	But paranoid people...
	Think that the danger that's actually within them is out there in the world.
	Paranoid people are persecutory people.
	They're actually out to get the world.
	They're actually incredibly harmful, dangerous, and damaging to other people.
	But they like to think that the world is out to get them because nothing fuels the persecution complex like self-pity.
	Feminism!
	Excuse me.
	Nothing fuels the persecution complex.
	Or a persecution drive like self-pity.
	Hmm.
	Hmm.
	Okay.
	Your father, you said he was paranoid, right?
	So he thinks that there's big forces there that are very harmful to him.
	Yes.
	That are unjustly attacking him.
	That's because in your life, he was a big force that was harmful to you, that was unjustly attacking you.
	But rather than deal with what he did and the harm that he did, he then ends up pretending that it's out there, all this danger.
	And he's the victim, right?
	Yeah.
	I'm trying to relate this back to the way that I see things, though.
	It seems like I became sucked into the way that he sees things.
	No!
	No, not sucked into.
	Not sucked into.
	Listen, were you sucked into concentration camps?
	Is an unjustly imprisoned man sucked into jail?
	Does he just kind of have a weakness that allows him to be susceptible to being in jail?
	No, forced.
	Forced, yeah.
	You were forced to agree with your father because your father was a violent man.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Do you know how paranoid Hitler was?
	Yes.
	Incredibly paranoid.
	Incredibly paranoid.
	Do you know how paranoid Stalin was?
	And do you know how paranoid mafia leaders are?
	and you know how paranoid Lenin was?
	The paranoia is what they use to justify their attacks.
	Yes.
	So this is how they pretend it's self-defense.
	But it's not.
	They're an initiating force.
	I see.
	Yeah, if somebody's out to get you, then it makes sense to use whatever means that you can to try to, quote unquote, protect yourself.
	Yeah.
	Get them first.
	Right.
	If I want to shoot someone and get away with it, I have to stage a break-in.
	I have to get someone to stage a break-in, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Then it's self-defense, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So no, you weren't sucked into it.
	And the reason you couldn't say nothing meant anything to him was that the moment that you put the craziness of your dad inside your dad's head, he explodes with rage and it's incredibly dangerous.
	I see.
	That's something that I had to have learned then while being forced into the way that he saw things.
	Yeah, you can't contradict crazy people who have power over you.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	You can't do it because it's too dangerous.
	As a child, in particular, you can't do it.
	You have to nod with the crazy people.
	Because otherwise, they will screw you up badly.
	I think he has.
	Well, but less than if you had consistently pushed back against his paranoia and craziness, right?
	Yeah So how have your romantic relationships been bad?
	Well, I Well, I'm kind of hesitant to say that I've been taken advantage of considering, you know, this paranoia that I've been forced into, but that's the way that it appeared to be to me.
	No, no, just don't give me the edited, censored.
	Right.
	Just tell me what you think.
	All right.
	First relationship that I had, first girlfriend.
	When we started dating, she started tearing me down saying that I was out of shape.
	Of course, small penis.
	She held a list of guys that she could have dated instead of me and said, you either need to learn to have better sex or I will date these other guys.
	And I felt like I... I was obligated to do this because if I didn't, then that would mean that I was a horrible person and unworthy of love.
	I'm sorry, if you didn't do what, you'd be a horrible person?
	If I didn't live up to her expectations, then I would be a horrible person and it would be a reflection of how bad I am.
	Right, so you had to conform to crazy.
	Yes.
	You see the pattern, right?
	Yes, I see it.
	You can't deny crazy, or crazy will get you.
	And now that you see that, the string of other girlfriends that I've had, there's a girlfriend that thought that she was a vampire.
	What do you mean?
	What do you mean she thought she was a vampire?
	Well, she drank human blood.
	Now, does that mean that She actually thought she was a vampire?
	Yes, she played it off as that.
	Eventually she came out of that.
	I'm not sure whether she was just trying to play along with people at the time.
	I don't know.
	Maybe she felt a sunbeam and it didn't burn.
	Right.
	Maybe she couldn't turn into a bat, I don't know.
	But just like paranoid schizophrenics, when they have their delusions, they can justify virtually anything.
	Oh yeah, there's no null hypothesis for crazy, right?
	Exactly.
	So that's what happened there.
	And I remember when I tried to break up with her because I was talking to my good friend and he said, she's not good for you.
	She's continually doing bad things.
	I figured that I should probably go along with him.
	And then when I tried to break up with her, she said no.
	And it was another week before she was finally convinced that we were breaking up.
	And it was a whole long, drawn-out process where I had to fight my own instinct to just keep going with the relationship and my best friend told me, no, keep at it, keep at it.
	And then the most recent relationship that I had was a five-year relationship that was drawn out.
	It originally started when I was a cook, and she happened to be a cook as well at the same restaurant.
	And on our first date when we went out, she said, all I want to be is a friend.
	I don't want to be in a relationship right now.
	And eventually she slowly revealed some more details about herself that she had a second job as a stripper and that most guys that she had a relationship with either tried to rape her or sexually assault her and I was one of the only guys that Didn't want to do that with her.
	That would be a friend for her.
	And for most of the five years, I ended up being a kind of a shop around, a bodyguard when she would go to different clubs to dance.
	And I would be, you know, the person that would get her out of fights and everything else.
	Oh, wow.
	Yeah, she, we also...
	Five years?
	Yes, it was five years.
	Didn't have sex once.
	Wait, were you friend-zoned?
	I don't quite understand.
	Well, yeah, that was the very first date that we had.
	So you were like an unpaid bodyguard?
	Pretty much, yeah.
	Well, shit on a stick, I've got to tell you, that's a new one to me.
	I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh because there's five years of your life, right?
	So this woman would go to clubs and you would go and make sure she wasn't beaten up or raped?
	Yes, I was her, like you said, unpaid bodyguard.
	I mean, how pretty was this woman?
	Ridiculously pretty.
	Wow.
	Did you want to have sex with her?
	Yeah.
	And did you tell her that?
	Only after the five years when we stopped seeing each other.
	I think that was pretty much the end of it.
	Once I admitted that I did have feelings for her, that's what ended the relationship.
	Oh, come on.
	Are you telling me you thought she just – she actually wouldn't have seriously thought that you just liked being her bodyguard and had no sexual interest in her whatsoever?
	No.
	I mean no woman – I mean if she can tie her own shoes, no woman would be that stupid, right?
	She knew that you had feelings for her and she knew that you were doing her favors because you wanted to be out of the friend zone and have a romantic relationship, right?
	Yes.
	Did she like pretend to be shocked when this came up or – You're just like everyone else.
	No.
	She was very conscious of that.
	She was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
	And she admitted that she wanted to keep people at an exact personal distance.
	Didn't want them to get too close or too far away.
	So anytime that I would start pulling away...
	God, are you like...
	If you don't fit into the DSM-IV, I can't date you.
	If you're not in the extreme alert pages of mental illness, I can't have anything to do with you, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so five years, that went on.
	And how often did you see that woman?
	At the beginning, it was virtually every day, if not every other day.
	Right.
	Right, and of course, this kept you on a – I mean, were you fairly celebrated during this time?
	That's a whole other story within itself.
	This occurred when I was about 19 and around this time too I was dealing with severe depression myself.
	Drank a lot.
	No kidding, yeah.
	Yeah, started smoking.
	I was also into a little bit of weed and also tried to kill myself twice.
	But Heather stopped me from doing that.
	Right.
	And why were you suicidal do you think?
	It was because I had lost my religion.
	I became an atheist and I didn't have any sense of meaning within my own life.
	All I had done was just try to appease others, help other people.
	That's what I lived for.
	And once I lost that and people started asking me, what do you want to do?
	I didn't have an answer for them.
	And that in, I didn't have any feeling really.
	Everything just felt numb.
	There's all kinds of emptiness that I couldn't really escape.
	And I thought there's something wrong with me and I'm just a waste of resources.
	So it'd be better for other people to feel temporarily sad and then move on with their life rather than have to deal with this parasite within their own life.
	I'm sorry, I didn't quite follow that last part.
	It would be better for me to in my own life and have people experience temporary sadness and then move on rather than deal with a parasite within their own life that would continually drain resources for a long period of time.
	But why were you draining resources?
	Were you because you were unhappy?
	Well, at this time I had read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and what I gathered from that novel was that people develop themselves, their own personal value into a state of interdependence where when people develop value,
	like for instance when Dagny Taggart would run the railroad, she would be providing value by allowing transportation for the different resources throughout the company and then Riordan would of course reciprocate and Developed steel that would build for the railroad, so on and so forth.
	And the way that I saw it was that if I didn't have an attachment to anything else in the world, if I didn't want to do anything, and if I didn't have passion within myself, there would be no way for me to generate value.
	There would be nothing that I want to do and I would just sit around and drain resources.
	So your suicide was sort of like if you were going to turn into a vampire, you'd kill yourself so you wouldn't eat others, is that right?
	I guess that's a good analogy, yeah.
	So it was sort of an act of kindness to others given what you were going to become.
	You were better off dead than draining others, right?
	Yes, that's the way that I was thinking.
	Alright.
	But what about all the other people who drained you?
	How did they get to live?
	I figured that they just weren't as selfless as me.
	They didn't think about the other people that they were draining from.
	So they weren't as kind as me.
	Well, and certainly, suicide is selfless, right?
	I mean, you then end up with no self at all, right?
	Exactly.
	But then I eventually came out of that and developed my own little, not little, my own personal way of thinking about things, my own personal concept, where I decided that if I can decide to kill myself and do that, that, then I can also decide to put myself through something that I won't enjoy and just have this irrational decision to get up every morning and create value in my own life, regardless of whatever I was feeling.
	Right. .
	Do you think that it may have had something to do with...
	The perception that if you weren't providing value to others, you had no reason for living.
	Exactly.
	And that's the main thing that shocked me the most about reading Ayn Rand's At We Shrugged.
	It was kind of like my version of the coma test with morality.
	Only I call it like the grandma test.
	I wanted to take care of my grandma.
	That's something that to me intuitively feels good.
	I should take care of my grandma that can't take care of herself.
	And that wouldn't make sense within the Ayn Rand model.
	She's not generating any wealth for me and taking away from my ability to share with others.
	There's no interdependence.
	It's just a parasite.
	Wait, so wait.
	If you take care of your elderly grandmother, that's not Like Ayn Rand would think that's a bad thing?
	That's kind of what I gather from the book.
	I'm not sure if I understood that correctly.
	You know that she took care of her husband when he was sick, right?
	Oh, I didn't know that.
	I was just going...
	She lent money to friends and she let friends stay with her.
	Objectivism has no problem with charity whatsoever.
	Oh, I see.
	Well, how does that...
	Yeah, I mean, if you want to help out friends, you want to lend money and...
	Do you want to take care of your grandma?
	Now, if your grandma is a horrible person who abused you her whole life, then I think objectivists would have some question like, okay, you're not violating the non-aggression principle by taking care of your grandma, but if she's been a horrible woman who – I'm not saying she was – but if she was a horrible woman who abused you her whole life, why would you give up 10 years to take care of her?
	Like, they're not into serving bad people, but, I mean, if your grandmother was a loving and wonderful woman who you care about and, you know, all that kind of stuff, right?
	Then, I mean, if you choose to help her, that's, I mean, nothing wrong with that, I would assume, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	But I was trying to figure out how that fit into the whole interdependence model.
	No, you were surrounded by so many horrible people that you couldn't find anyone worth helping.
	That's probably what – you confused the horrible tribe you were surrounded by for humanity as a whole.
	And if objectivists would say, well, these horrible people who exploit you and beat you and try to – and say they don't give a shit about you and that nothing you do means anything, then the objectivists would say, I think, well, why would you want to help those people?
	They're horrible human beings.
	But because that's all you knew, you thought that meant never help anyone.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, it does.
	I guess I have trouble in seeing how the situation would be different between a person that would be deserving of help and a person that wouldn't be.
	What do you mean?
	How you would know objectively?
	Well, no.
	How would you justify charity to a good person?
	Versus charity to a horrible person.
	It's just...
	Have you ever donated to this show?
	No, I haven't.
	Oh, that's fine, because otherwise you'd have an answer, right?
	But here you don't know, right?
	Okay, well, let's say that someone says, I need 50 bucks to finish my cure for cancer.
	Would you give them 50 bucks?
	If they actually did, right?
	And you believe them and they actually did have that, right?
	Right.
	If they were telling the truth and honest, definitely.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	You would, right?
	Okay, right.
	So if somebody is doing something good or something decent or something right and you want to give them a hand and they need help or that's their – or if you've consumed from someone, right?
	So I can sort of say to people, look, if you're downloading, it costs us money.
	Everything that people download costs us money.
	And the show costs money to produce and Mike needs food and I need food and my daughter needs food and all that.
	So people who consume these podcasts are costing us money.
	And we sort of say, at least pay your way.
	At least don't cost us money.
	But hopefully if the show gives you great value, then contribute beyond that.
	So that's like...
	Generosity begets generosity, right?
	So if I've lent you $5,000, right, and then you've paid me back or whatever, right, and it took you a long time, and I say, listen, I need 50 bucks till tomorrow, would it be fair to say you'd lend me 50 bucks?
	Well, yeah, but in your example, too, there's a possibility of further value being generated.
	It's not a parasitic relation.
	No, no, no.
	This is all about the past.
	Let's say I'm never going to see you again.
	I'm going to Paraguay or something, right?
	I say, listen, I need 50 bucks till tomorrow.
	I'll pay it to you.
	Then I'm going to Paraguay.
	The reason that you couldn't really say no to that because you've already borrowed from me is you couldn't say, well, neither a borrower nor a lender be because you already borrowed 5,000 bucks from me, right?
	So you can't on principle say, well it's really helpful for me and it's a good friendly thing if you lend me $5,000 and then if I need to borrow $50 to then say, well no, I'm not going to do that.
	You'd have no moral ground to stand on, right?
	I see.
	Okay, so...
	Right, so if people are generous and kind towards you, they build up and you accept that kindness and generosity, then they build up a principle of reciprocity with you.
	I see.
	So instead of worrying about future value, you worry about past value as a judgment for the way that you act.
	If your grandmother was loving and kind and encouraged you and read your poetry and your novels and helped pay for you to go through school and has babysat your kids and so on and then she needs some help moving, well, of course you will, right?
	I mean, if you had someone like that in your life, you wouldn't even need to analyze it that much.
	We're like, yeah, of course, I'd love to go and help, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	My daughter is in the position now of saying, she asks me, Daddy, what would you like to do this afternoon?
	What would make you the happiest, right?
	Why?
	Because I spent five years asking her what she would like to do this afternoon and what would make her the happiest, right?
	Yeah.
	So, you know, when I'm old and dying, hopefully those two go hand in hand, but when I'm old and dying...
	My daughter will want to spend time with me because we will have the intimacy of death, right?
	She will know the intimacy of following me down into death and she will gain wisdom and knowledge and strength thereby and she will also cherish the last times that she spends with me, the last weeks and days and hours that she spends with me because I am an irreplaceable force in her life and she will never meet anyone like me again in the same way that she met me because I'm her father.
	So she will want to come and spend time with me when I'm sick or whatever.
	She will want to.
	Will she want to go live there 24-7?
	I don't know.
	But she will want to be there, not because of any rule, but just when you're generous with people, you build up reciprocal obligation.
	Now, you were generous with this woman, although it was obviously because you wanted to sleep with her partly, and you went to clubs and protected her from being beaten up or hit on.
	Yeah.
	But she had no sense that this created any reciprocal obligation.
	Like, so if you'd have called her up and said, listen, I need some help moving, what would she have said?
	I'm busy.
	Some other excuse.
	I don't do that or I'm not feeling well or whatever, right?
	She would view any sense of reciprocity, she would view that as an annoying imposition.
	Right?
	Because it's a one-way greed vampire street for her, right?
	Yeah, although throughout most of the relationship, she did insist that she wanted to do something for me, but yet she was mysteriously inconspicuous through a lot of the times that I didn't need her or when we tried to do anything emotionally, I would say, this really hurt me.
	Don't do this.
	I remember one of the biggest things was I would say, don't forget about me.
	Don't just leave for six months and stop talking to me.
	Or if we're supposed to go somewhere together, don't just leave with somebody else and You know, completely forget about me.
	And I remember time and time again, she would just do it.
	So, yeah, you're right, the lack of reciprocity there.
	And I kept staying because of a rule.
	I should be a good person.
	I should be this or that.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And look, I mean, this happens all the time.
	I mean, particularly if you're a sort of public figure like I am, the people that I've known sort of tangentially or inconsequentially or in passing or whatever, they're like, oh, you know, I want to call you up and talk to you about something, you know, for an hour or two, right?
	And I'm like, well, is this going to be a show?
	And they're like, no, I don't really want it to be a show.
	It's like, well...
	So you basically want to use me.
	And I sort of check and say, I check my heart and I say, well, have they done me any favors to the point where I am going to, rather than do a show, which is going to spread philosophy and make me some money.
	And it's not like they're a friend, right?
	You know, so, okay, well, when I got sick last year, did they, you know, did they call me up for an hour and find out how I was doing facing death itself?
	No, they didn't.
	So why the hell would I want to listen to them complain about their dating life?
	Because they haven't built up any reciprocal obligation with me, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, if Mike wants to call me up and Mike's always welcome to chat with me, my other friends are always welcome to chat, you know, I'm going to go to a whole list or whatever.
	But yeah, because, you know, they were there and they, you know, in that particular, that's sort of a watershed moment for me, right?
	And so it's like, okay, well, so, you know, what credit have you built up?
	In the bank, so to speak, right?
	And they haven't.
	And so then I say, okay, well, how much of a two-way street is this?
	Am I always providing resources to the other person?
	Well, then I'm not going to pretend it's a relationship.
	I'm not going to enable that because it's not healthy for them, right?
	Yeah.
	You know, have they called me up and asked me how I'm doing?
	Have they, you know, when I was facing the greatest challenge of my adult life, which is a cancer diagnosis, did they call me up and insist that I talk to them about it and be there for me?
	For me, no.
	So, I mean, and the reason that you and I are talking, I mean, you haven't done smack for me yet, right?
	It's fine.
	I mean, I understand you don't understand reciprocity because you were exploited a lot, so I'm not trying to be negative towards you, right?
	But if you'd called me up and said, I want to chat with you for an hour, I've never donated.
	Not like donators don't just sort of get to the front of the queue or whatever, but...
	If you'd say, well, I want to chat with you for an hour and it can't be a show, I'd say no.
	Because you've said, well, I've been listening for a year.
	It's like, well, so you've cost me money and now you want to cost me time and I don't even get a show out of it, which might make me some money and spread some good ideas, right?
	But because this is a show which will go out to other people, people will listen to it, find it interesting, and subscribe to the show, learn some wisdom.
	Now, if you say, well, I've never donated, but I've shared a whole bunch of videos and here's what I've done and this and that and the other, we're like, okay, great.
	Well, that's valuable, right?
	So good.
	I appreciate that.
	Maybe we could talk or whatever, right?
	Which I have done, by the way.
	No, no, I would be shocked if you did, right?
	And I'm not being negative towards you in any way, right?
	That's like saying, well, you don't speak Mandarin, right?
	It's like, well, I've never been exposed to Mandarin, so how could I, right?
	So you think objectivism means never helping anyone, and all objectivism means is you should really question your motives for helping destructive and dangerous and abusive people, right?
	Are you not just conforming to their immorality?
	Are you not just acting out of fear?
	Are you not just appeasing possible attackers?
	Are you not protecting your parents by being exploited by other people and calling it normal?
	Whereas I think objectivism would say you need to find people around you worthy of being helped.
	But the problem is that you grew up in a household that was so chaotic, I would imagine that even your infant needs were not met, right?
	Yeah, I wouldn't know.
	Yeah, you probably kind of know, right?
	Because you don't even have much of an emotional concept of charity, generosity and reciprocity that's not exploitive, right?
	Which means you don't even have a body memory of it.
	You don't even have a base of the brain memory of it, which means it almost certainly did not happen as a child and as an infant.
	I would go with that hypothesis, right?
	It's obviously not empirically provable, but it's kind of in your gut provable, right?
	I think Dustin dropped off.
	Let me add him back in real quick.
	Come back, Dustin.
	You back, Dustin?
	Come back, Dustin.
	Come back.
	Oh, that's too bad.
	We just totally solved your problem.
	We gave you all the mother's milk that you needed as a baby.
	All the hugs and kisses and stability and peace and love.
	Take it away from me yet again.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Snooker it again.
	I can't believe it, right?
	But that is – that is I think the approach that I would take is find people that you're happy to do things for because you're building a mutual support, right?
	People who ask you how you're doing or what you would like or how could they be of help to you.
	And if people are like that, then, you know, obviously don't turn into an exploiter, right?
	And just, oh, well, good, okay, so they'll do things for me, right?
	Now I don't ever have to do anything back to them, right?
	Don't sort of repeat the pattern that way.
	Mm-hmm.
	But you just do little things, right?
	Just do little things, right?
	Offer to help someone with something and if they say, really, oh, thank you so much or, you know, what can I do in return and then actually follow through, that's good, you know?
	Baby steps, right?
	Baby steps.
	But if they just, oh, great, you know, I appreciate that and then they never, I mean, no, forget it.
	Forget it.
	So, yeah, focus on people who have your needs and their needs in the same room, right?
	It's easy to just serve other people, and it's easy to just be served by other people, right?
	Yeah.
	Because you don't have to negotiate anything, right?
	Yeah, I'm horrible at negotiation and talking with other people.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	You're not horrible at it.
	You've not been exposed to it.
	And in fact, children are natural negotiators.
	I said to my daughter, we spent like three – over three hours at a play center and I said, listen, I can only do 10 more minutes, right?
	Getting hungry and all that.
	that.
	She's like, "How about 11?" Children are natural negotiators.
	You just watch – Jeffrey Tucker's written about this.
	But you watch children exchanging the candy they like with the candy they don't like with the candy they like at the end of a Halloween outing.
	They're natural negotiators.
	I mean, dealing with my daughter sometimes is like trying to interrupt one of those barkers at a cow auction, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, it's crazy.
	And it's great.
	So you're not horrible at it.
	You weren't exposed to it and you were punished for your natural inclination to do it, right?
	Yes.
	Right, so don't confuse what you were punished for with who you are.
	Don't confuse your healthy fight-or-flight mechanism for some essential aspect of your personality.
	Okay.
	You were not exposed to negotiation and you were punished for expressing your needs in the opposition of your parents' needs or not in accordance with your parents' needs, right?
	Okay.
	Okay, so then...
	This is not elemental parts of your personality.
	Like if I'm...
	Like when I was a kid, in my usual well-protected state, I was about seven years old and I was wandering through the woods at a friend of my mom's place.
	They had a big giant property.
	Her husband was a pilot or something and this is back when pilots made real money.
	And I was wandering around in the woods and this giant Great Dane...
	Came loping up to me.
	Of course, it looks about the size of a horse when you're a little kid.
	And I pressed myself up against the tree and the Great Dane just glowered over me.
	And every time I tried to move, it would growl at me.
	And I don't know how long I was there for.
	It felt like forever.
	And eventually the Great Dane wandered off.
	And I wasn't sure if the Great Dane wandered off so that I'd move so that it could attack me.
	And then just the other day, I was hiking in the woods with my wife and daughter and Great Dane came bounding out.
	My daughter screamed and I was like, it all came back to me.
	Now, is it some elemental part of my personality that I was nervous around Great Danes?
	No.
	It was just what I was scared of.
	It was what frightened me.
	That's not who I am.
	That's just what frightened me.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah.
	Don't confuse what you were punished with.
	Sorry.
	Don't confuse what you were punished for with who you are.
	So if I was conditioned in that way, through punishment to think that way, then I can condition myself to be otherwise.
	So that isn't my personality.
	Well, you don't self-attack.
	You don't self-attack for the effects of being attacked.
	Right?
	And don't put yourself down.
	And when you listen back to this, you'll hear this, that you insult yourself for surviving an insane environment.
	The fact that you're still above ground is a massive accomplishment.
	The fact that you're not a drug addict or a criminal or a murderer or enabling people in that line of work is a huge accomplishment, right?
	I can't listen to you say you were horrible at this or you're deficient in that, right?
	No, no, no, no, no.
	You are heroic.
	What you have survived and achieved is magnificent.
	I hate hearing compliments.
	It's like sandpaper against my face.
	No, no, no, no.
	Your parents hate you being complimented because it gives you strength.
	And they prey on your weakness and conformity.
	Not your weakness.
	They created your weakness.
	They punished you for strength.
	It is your inner parents who hate you being complimented.
	You desperately deserve and desperately need the compliments of surviving what you survived.
	Don't confuse your parents with you.
	That's what they want.
	That's what all abusers want.
	They want to move in, take up permanent residence and evict the true self so that you're a more efficient puppet for their narcissistic desires.
	Don't let them in.
	Kick the bastards out of your head.
	I remember when I was younger, my dad told me that I'd always have his voice in my head.
	It was eerie to me.
	So, you're exactly right, and I do hear that voice in my head, too.
	I'm just not sure how to get him out.
	Maybe, like you said, just...
	Oh, no, you get him out with hatred.
	Oh, you get him out with hatred.
	Yeah, hatred is the immune system of the deep brain.
	Hatred is the individuality that's necessary when you're under mental siege.
	How do you get a cold out of your system?
	You kill it.
	You want your antibodies to hate that thing and to strangle it until it is fucking dead and then dance on the grave and remember its face so that any time it shows up again, they kill it without you ever getting sick, right?
	Okay.
	My body starts producing cancer cells again.
	What do I want my immune system to do?
	Like, kill those fuckers.
	Line them up against the wall and shoot them with flame flowers and call in airstrikes and acid bombs and rip them into n-dimensional pieces.
	Yeah, I know.
	It's mental viruses like evil people in your head.
	It's hatred that gets those fuckers out.
	Like, uncompromising Murderous hatred.
	You don't act on it, obviously.
	I don't need to tell you that.
	But it is the hatred because that's your body waking up to a deadly intruder.
	I want my immune system to hate cancer cells.
	Like, fucking hate them.
	And I want my mental health to hate my mother and my mother's voice in my head.
	Yeah.
	Because that's how I keep her from infecting my life.
	From killing my capacity for love and connection and good humor and good friendship and happiness.
	So then you have to get them out of your life, not acting violently, but just getting them out of your life, both in your head and physically too.
	I didn't say in your life yet, but what I'm saying, because that's a conversation you have with a therapist, that's a conversation you have with your parents, you confront them, you tell them your truth, again, assuming you're not in any physical danger from them.
	So I'm not saying anything like that, but what I am saying, As you said, how do you get an abuser's voice out of your head?
	You can't negotiate with your father if he's already in your head because all you're doing is negotiating with your father's voice.
	You can't see him for who he is if he's implanted in your head.
	I see.
	Then you need to hate that inner critic.
	Now, that doesn't mean don't negotiate, don't listen.
	And I've had calls where we talk to people's parts and all that.
	But no part of me gets to abuse me.
	I had enough of that shit when I was growing up.
	No part of me gets to abuse me.
	I will listen.
	I will listen to my inner mother.
	My inner mother is really good at knowing when I'm In danger of being exploited because she knows all there is to know about exploitation.
	She knows when I'm in danger of violence.
	She knows all there is to know about that.
	But she doesn't get to call me names.
	Absolutely not.
	She doesn't get to insult me.
	She's a great ally in times of need.
	But she does not get to insult me.
	And she fundamentally doesn't want to.
	My inner mother is what I use to save me from my outer mother.
	She's not my enemy.
	But the degree to which she's still provoked by my outer mother is the degree to which she has to more perfectly mirror her abusive position.
	Sorry, this is really crazy advanced stuff, but you're a smart guy, right?
	Yeah, I think I see what you're saying because I've had some pretty stressful jobs.
	Like I work at a trauma hospital now and that voice in my head that says to, you know, quit crying.
	My dad used to say, you know, wipe that shit off your face whenever I would start to cry.
	And it would just allow me to shut off my emotions, do what I need to do, just completely neglect anything that was going on internally so that I can get blood to help save people.
	And in those clutch moments, that definitely helps.
	But it's when I can't turn it off.
	And I, like you said, allow that voice to call me names, to make judgments on me that aren't fair.
	That's when it becomes a burden.
	It becomes a poison.
	My inner mother basically said, I can be your ally if we dump the bitch.
	I can be your ally if I'm not constantly being provoked into insane self-attacking self-defense by being around her.
	I can be your ally if she's not around.
	I cannot be your ally if she's around because I need to defend you against her, not strengthen you against potential exploitation.
	I need to defend you and have you conform to an abuser because self-defense against an abuser you can't avoid is conformity, right?
	So I need to become an abuser to protect you from an abuser if that abuser is around.
	If that abuser is not around, then I can let my guard down and I can be there to protect you from other potential abusers.
	But not the known ones.
	Not the historical ones.
	Not the womb-based ones.
	Does that make any sense?
	So you switch around the rule in your head.
	You become the thing that's been abusing you so that you can defend yourself.
	Of course, yeah.
	You have to internalize the abuser.
	Because you can't...
	Your internal abuser cannot punch you in the face.
	Your external abuser can.
	And so you need to internalize your abuser...
	So that you can figure out your abuser and you can figure out how not to trigger them so you can self-attack rather than have them attack you physically, right?
	I see.
	So it becomes a mental inoculation, essentially.
	Yeah, it's the best chance you've got.
	Right?
	Look, if I came up to you and said, listen, you can either punch yourself or I'm going to punch you, which would you take?
	Of course, punch yourself.
	Of course, you have some control in that situation, right?
	Yeah.
	If I punch you, you don't know what the hell I'm going to do or how strong I am or whatever, right?
	And so we self-attack so that we don't get physically attacked.
	Because we can survive and control, to some degree, the self-attack.
	But once the physical attack, particularly when we've got crazy parents, once the physical attack starts, we don't know what's going to happen, but we might get a concussion, we might get a broken bone, we might lose some teeth, we might get punched in the nose and have bone fragments go into our brain, we might just die.
	Right?
	So we will take the internal self-attack over the external physical attack any day of the week and twice on Sundays, right?
	Which means that we've got to be very skilled at mimicking the internal attack because if you self-attack, that lowers the possibility that someone else is going to attack you from the outside, right?
	And so we self-attack to have us also avoid doing the behaviors that would cause someone to attack us externally, right?
	So the guy I was talking to before who felt great anxiety when confronting his mother… Well, the whole anxiety is designed to have him not confront his mother because his mother could have killed him.
	All physical abuse can result in death.
	And emotional abuse, as you know, can result in suicidal thoughts and also death, right?
	Yes.
	So...
	I hate my inner critics.
	I respect them for having saved my life, but I do not...
	Allow them to abuse me.
	And the pact that I had to make to get them to stop abusing me was to get the real abusers out of my life.
	Which makes sense, really, when you think about it, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, no, I'm not taking the armor off when there's still fucking swords flying around, right?
	Armor comes off when there are no swords around.
	You walk off the battlefield, you can take off the armor.
	Taking off the armor while still on the battlefield is suicidal.
	So my deal with my inner critics was, okay, I hate that you guys are calling me names.
	I hate that you're making me scared.
	I hate that you're not letting me sleep.
	So what do you need from me?
	And they all said with one voice, safety.
	Safety, safety, safety, safety, safety, all up and down the line.
	All of the infinite armies of my inner defenders, they said, we need safety.
	We put down our swords when we're off the battlefield.
	And I said, well, what is it that's going to make you safe?
	And they said, don't think it's got anything to do with us.
	We were provoked from outside, we can only be saved from outside.
	We were provoked by others, we can only be saved by the absence of others.
	We were born on the battlefield doesn't mean we have to stay here.
	And they said, we need these and these and these and these abusers, not in their life.
	And I said, what?
	Not in their life at all?
	Well, that was incomprehensible to me.
	It's pretty much everyone I knew.
	You know that, right?
	And so I said, no, no, no, no, no.
	I mean, come on.
	You just need them to not be abusive, right?
	And they said, well, yeah, we need them to not be abusive.
	Which means gone, and I didn't believe them.
	Right?
	And I was thankful, right?
	Because I was alive, right?
	And I was thankful to these guys to say, thank you.
	You know, I'm sorry you had to do all this.
	And they said, we are too.
	And I said, but thank you.
	And they said, yeah, well, we appreciate that.
	You can really show us our thanks.
	You can really show us your thanks by not having abusers around.
	And I said, well, what if I can make these people less abusive?
	They said, less abusive is no good.
	Not abusive.
	Nurturing.
	Helpful.
	Positive.
	Right?
	Right?
	We don't just need fewer swords and we don't just need no swords.
	We need some fucking bandages, right?
	Yeah.
	And I said, okay, well, I'm going to work at turning these people around.
	And they say, we're not going to give you much time.
	And they said, why not?
	Because we don't believe it's going to happen.
	I said, is there a possibility that you're cynical?
	And they said, well, of course we're cynical.
	But that doesn't mean we're wrong, right?
	And they said, okay, we'll take some time.
	I said, well, you guys got to not make me so scared when I'm going to confront people.
	They said, okay, fine.
	We won't make you so scared when you confront people.
	But you have to listen to how they respond.
	Deal, deal.
	So I went and confronted the people.
	And I was less scared when I confronted them.
	And within a couple of confrontations, I got all the answers that I needed, which is that vulnerability led to increased abuse.
	And then I got the people out of my life.
	And now my parts defend me.
	They don't attack me.
	Because I'm not attacking them by continually placing them in the path of abusers.
	I see.
	I want to make sure that I understand this.
	My head is kind of spinning a little bit.
	This is crazy.
	Okay, so you internalize the abuser.
	You talk and try to understand.
	No, I didn't.
	Sorry, to be precise, right?
	Do you make scar tissue if you're stabbed?
	No, it's just the body's natural reaction.
	You don't sort of will sweat to be produced when you're hot.
	It's just the body's natural reaction, right?
	The parts were inflicted on me by abuse.
	But go ahead.
	Okay.
	So, pretty much, did you try to understand how the abuse happened and...
	Sorry, hold on.
	No, I didn't try and understand why the abuse happened, because it doesn't matter.
	Okay.
	No, honestly, it doesn't matter.
	Look, if you get mauled by a lion, does it matter that the lion was hungry or territorial or you were too close to its...
	Does it matter?
	No, it doesn't.
	No, it doesn't matter.
	And also, that's trying to have empathy for abusers, which is a very, very dangerous game.
	Because if you try to justify...
	Yeah, well, yeah, because then it's like, okay, well, then you're dangerously close to sympathy, right?
	My experience was of abuse.
	Now, why the abuse happened?
	Everyone's got a story.
	And also, why the abuse happened is determinism.
	And I fucking hate determinism.
	Yeah, me too.
	I hate determinism because it's only and forever applied to abusers, never to the victims.
	Anyway, I won't get into a whole discussion about that.
	But no, the abuse happened because bad circumstances combined with bad choices.
	Better circumstances would not have needed heroic choices.
	If my mom had been raised in a wonderful, happy, loving family, the odds of her becoming an abuser would have been very small.
	I get that.
	If not, zero.
	If she had a bad childhood, absolutely.
	But a bad childhood does not make an abuser.
	Otherwise, I'd have to – if I said to my mom or about my mom, well, she's an abuser.
	She has to be an abuser.
	She had no choice because she had a bad childhood.
	Well, guess what?
	Then I had a really fucking bad childhood.
	So guess what?
	I have to look forward to a life of being an abuser and I would have just thrown myself off a cliff.
	Right.
	If determinism were true, then this discussion would be absolutely meaningless.
	Well, no.
	I wouldn't even be here.
	I'd be dead.
	Right.
	I'd be dead because I'd sit there and say, okay, so basically bad childhoods mean that you'd be an abuser.
	I had a bad childhood.
	That means I'm going to be an abuser.
	I'm going to hurt children.
	I'm going to hit children.
	I'm going to beat children.
	I'm going to scream at children.
	I'm going to terrify children.
	I'm going to parade around naked in front of children.
	I'm going to just do terrible, horrible things to children.
	I would have, you know, like you're a sympathetic suicide.
	I would have been like, well, I don't want that.
	I either overtly or covertly would have probably just killed myself.
	Right?
	Either through like chain smoking or, you know, I was into motorbikes or like I would have just done something stupid and died.
	Yeah.
	What was done unto me.
	And I would not have lived.
	And I would not have wanted to at a very deep level.
	To do the harm to others that was done unto me?
	No.
	No, no, no, no.
	So I had to say, a bad childhood does not produce an abuser.
	Sure as hell doesn't help, but it does not produce an abuser, if I were going to have A life different than what I lived as a child, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, once I say a bad childhood does not produce an abuser, then I can't say my mother was who she was because of her childhood.
	It was a bad environment combined with some very bad choices and some wrong choices that she knew were wrong.
	But I cannot accept free will for myself, which is the only way out of the hellhole of endlessly cycled abuse.
	I cannot accept free will for myself and deny it to others.
	And you're close to that because you've got, you said, schizophrenic paranoid.
	Yeah.
	Diagnosed.
	Well...
	As far as I know, that stuff's all bullshit.
	There is no diagnosis of schizophrenia.
	And you could read you Thomas Zass for that.
	He's been on this show.
	There's no such thing.
	I think that your dad had choices.
	Yes.
	I think people with Down syndrome, they don't have choices.
	Whether it's physical, obvious medical impairment, I get it.
	I get it.
	Don't have choices.
	I have a half-sister who is extremely cognitively impaired.
	She doesn't have a lot of choices.
	I get that.
	That's a physical problem.
	But my parents No.
	No, no, no, no.
	Sometimes people make really bad choices and they do really wrong things.
	And when they feel bad about it, they get angry and double down on those bad choices and the bad things that they do.
	That's a choice.
	Now, eventually, I believe that they can't come back from that.
	But that doesn't mean they don't have choice anymore.
	It doesn't mean they never had choice.
	Look, if I jump out of an airplane, I don't have a choice except to go down.
	But that's the result of me choosing to jump out of the airplane.
	My choice has now stripped me of choice.
	And if you have a habit of doubling down on your evil deeds, yeah, guess what?
	You can never be virtuous.
	You can never be good.
	And because most of us weren't conscious or aware when our parents still had choice, when we get to be sort of in our early teens where we really begin to look at them as individuals, they kind of look like they don't have any choice anymore.
	But every smoker at some point was a non-smoker and just because someone has smoked so much now that they can never run a Boston Marathon doesn't mean that they don't have choices.
	Can't they make their choices and then now they have to take responsibility for the consequences?
	Or not.
	Or not, yeah.
	But the fact that they can't run the Boston Marathon is the result of choices that they made.
	Yeah.
	Now they say, well, it's completely impossible for me.
	But that doesn't mean that...
	That's just the effects of choices you made.
	It doesn't mean you don't have free will.
	It just means you fucked up your free will.
	Yeah.
	So no, I do not grant...
	Abusers a shred of sympathy for being abusers.
	Because they had a choice.
	If they didn't have a choice, then they're not abusers by definition.
	Because there's no moral content.
	They have no choice.
	I mean, a rock that falls on your car is not an abuser.
	Unless it was pushed by someone, then the abuser is.
	The pusher is the abuser.
	But I use the term abuser very specifically, which is a morally wrong action to take.
	and morally wrong means there's been a choice.
	So, I don't know the degree to which your dad was...
	Choice exempt.
	I don't know.
	But I will always err on the side of assigning as much free will as humanly possible.
	And if someone has a job, if someone is an adult, if someone says they have the right to vote, if someone suffers no negative repercussions from their lack of choice, then I just assume total free will.
	If I have a diminished capacity, I act accordingly.
	If I'm drunk, I don't drive.
	Not that I'm drunk, right?
	But I mean, if I were, right?
	I don't drive.
	And everyone's responsible for that.
	So if I say, well, listen, I have diminished capacity because of my bad childhood, then I will do something.
	Maybe give up my kids.
	Maybe don't have kids.
	Or maybe give up my kids for adoption.
	Or maybe get additional parenting classes to make up for what is deficient, right?
	Right?
	Saying I had a bad childhood and using it as an excuse is a contemptible form of cowardice.
	Because you know what the cause is of your dysfunctional behavior.
	And instead of dealing with it, you use it as an excuse to further spread abuse.
	That's just absolutely hideous.
	That's part of the reason why I haven't wanted to have kids because I knew that there's a lot of things that I didn't have right that I did not want to spread to anybody else.
	No, and imagine the people you would have invited into your children's life.
	Oh god.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	So no, and right at the beginning we were talking about you need to him.
	Right?
	Right.
	I need to develop myself away from that.
	Well, that's sort of a generic thing.
	I know.
	That's not specific.
	So my mom used to sort of – little things would just set her off into these hysterical fits.
	Of horror and futility, right?
	So a light would...
	She'd turn on a light and, you know, it was an old apartment, bad wiring, and the light would sometimes burn out or pop, flash, burn out, whatever.
	And she literally would burst into tears, throw herself on the ground, kicking and screaming, and nothing works in this life.
	Nothing works, right?
	And she was trying to spray out this crazy shit that somehow life was fundamentally dysfunctional.
	Yeah.
	And you could see That crazy shooter guy, Elliot, Roger, was doing this as well.
	I was having a wonderful summer, and then my mother, out of nowhere, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Just when I thought things were getting better, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	He was setting up this whole thing where, in his mind, when everything was going well, something terrible would happen, right?
	And my mother would say, nothing works, right?
	In life.
	And even as a kid, I remember thinking, no, no.
	Nothing works in your life.
	Because you make stupid, evil choices.
	Nothing works in your life, Mom, because you want to look pretty rather than be good.
	Nothing works in your life, Mom, because you're hoping...
	That some dick-driven idiot is going to be stupid enough to marry you and somehow stay.
	Because you're a parasite in search of a host.
	And all you have to offer is looks.
	So it's not that nothing works.
	It's that your plans don't work.
	And your choices don't work.
	And you know that what you're doing is wrong because you don't do it in public and you don't do it when people are over and you don't do it in front of a policeman.
	You're all sunny and smiles and melted butter clogging your words because you're a violent private hypocrite.
	So of course it doesn't work.
	Because evil doesn't work.
	I mean, it works for some people sometimes in terms of just getting resources.
	It doesn't work for the collective.
	It doesn't work for the whole.
	And it doesn't work when you're right up front with people.
	This is kind of why we do these Truth About series where we break down some of the more famous things.
	Once you get close enough to people, you'll find out that irrationality doesn't work.
	So I think that you need to understand that it was your father's thinking that didn't work.
	It was your father's plans and execution of those plans that didn't work.
	It was your father's self-indulgence and immorality and evil and child abuse that didn't work.
	And when he said, what was his words again when you graduated?
	I'm going to get them precise.
	My job as a father is done.
	You can go and die for all I care.
	Right.
	So, lots of people internalize that as, I am meaningless, which feels like a terrible sentence.
	I say, I am meaningless to you, and that is a great liberation.
	Do you see the difference?
	There's a huge difference.
	One puts you in jail, the other sets you free.
	I am meaningless puts you in an existential prison of nothingness.
	I am meaningless to you is a great liberation from violent, ugly, vicious, narcissistic, verbal abusers.
	Life works fine.
	Just doesn't work fine for shitty people.
	But that's their life.
	That's not life as a whole.
	It's like a smoker looking at people running the Boston Marathon saying, no one can run the Boston Marathon.
	It's like, no, you can't run the Boston Marathon because you're a fucking smoker.
	Don't imagine you're saying something about the Boston Marathon.
	and you're just saying something about your own shitty lungs and your own shitty choices.
	And the people who cry determinism are usually the people who punish their children for their choices.
	So I don't give me that shit about, not you though, but people that give me the shit about determinism, right?
	Yeah.
	And my mom was like, well, nothing works in this life.
	It's like, then why do you hit us?
	For making mistakes.
	Nothing works, right?
	Oh no, that's just self-pity.
	And the self-pity is the taking the safety off the revolver of psychotic anger.
	Self-pity, the great gathering before the pounce and the mauling.
	I mean, geez, what did Elliot Rodger have but self-pity?
	So, yeah, I would suggest you push back that crazy back into your dad's head.
	And I'm incredibly sorry that you heard that from your dad.
	I heard the I hate yous from my mom as well.
	But I get she...
	I mean, even as a kid, I got that didn't really have much to do with me.
	I mean, I was actually a pretty easy kid to get along with.
	I mean, I got more feisty in my teenage years, thank God.
	But as a kid, I was pretty compliant.
	I mean, I kind of got the score, you know?
	Resist and die, or comply and survive.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's not that hard a choice in the moment.
	It's not pleasant to have that choice, but it's not hard to choose that right stuff in the moment, right?
	But...
	I mean, it was hateful about me.
	I didn't torture cats.
	I didn't set fire to things.
	I didn't wet my bed.
	I didn't...
	You know, I was pretty quiet and bookaholic, easy to get along with kid.
	Yeah.
	She...
	I mean, she...
	She hated us because, I mean, she had this...
	I think she had this fantasy life of, like, striding the red carpet with Cary Grant or something, you know?
	And if it wasn't for us, you know...
	If it wasn't for you meddling kids, you know?
	That famous line from Scooby-Doo, right?
	If it wasn't for you meddling kids.
	That line is famous because lots of parents have these fantasies.
	If it wasn't for you meddling kids, my life would be great!
	And it wasn't.
	I mean...
	She didn't even, I mean, because people say, well, she really hated herself and this and that.
	It's like, I think a little bit more self-hatred would have been good for my mom, right?
	Because then she might have wanted to change something about herself.
	But as it was, she just kept blaming everything else, everyone else.
	No one was ever to blame for what happened to my mom.
	Sorry.
	My mom was never to blame for anything that ever happened to my mom.
	It was always somebody else's fault.
	And there's great relief in that.
	Of course there is.
	If you can blame someone else, then you get sweet relief.
	But with a lack of self-ownership, you get relief from bad decisions, but those decisions just keep happening the same way.
	You can abandon self-ownership and all you then become is a broken record of Grand Hawk Day over and over again.
	Sorry, you were going to say something?
	I was going to say that I remember the first moment that I did break the record.
	When I was a kid, I tried to avoid my dad.
	Of course, like you said, if you comply, then you go along with whatever they do.
	But of course, if you can avoid interaction altogether, then that would be the best possible situation.
	So I would just delve into video games and I would overeat.
	I was incredibly unhealthy.
	But then I remember I was beating the game for like the 30th time in a row and I thought if I put the amount of time that I put into video games into myself, then I would become somebody worthy of becoming.
	Somebody that I would be proud to be.
	So I remember throwing down the controller immediately, turning off the video game console and doing push-ups.
	Then I started becoming anorexic, had to go into the hospital, and I thought, whoa, I need to, you know, because I hate myself.
	Yeah, that middle ground could be a bit tough, right?
	Right.
	But that's what I try to do.
	But now I'm seeing that I perpetually live in that world where I need to appease the other person.
	Like with the girlfriends that I've had, they've all had similar experiences.
	Patterns of behavior to my dad.
	They would say, you know, this is the world that I live in and I need to conform to that.
	And I would constantly have the same method of behavior.
	I'd be repeating it over and over again.
	So if I can do that same pattern of behavior, recognize that I can pull out of that cycle and say, this is your world and I don't need to live in that.
	I can live in my own world with my own values.
	Then I think I might be able to break that cycle of behavior.
	Right.
	Yeah, I mean, I think you've got entirely the right approach.
	I also thought with your dad, it was almost like he saw what was coming down the road and he was like, you can't fire me, I quit!
	Yeah, maybe.
	I'm the one who's, right?
	Ending this, I'm the one who's, right?
	Yeah.
	Like, my job as father is done, whatever.
	The hell did you start?
	Did I miss the opening salvo of this particular burst of scintillating excellence from you as a father?
	What did I... I'm laughing for how sad it is, but...
	No, I mean, there is something grimly funny about it.
	Yeah.
	I mean, because abuse up close is horror and at a distance...
	It's more...
	There is a kind of dark comedy to it.
	You know, like, if you ever watch two boxers...
	If you ever watch two boxers in the ring, like, sped up, they look like they're doing some really funky kind of dance, right?
	And you put that to Benny Hill music and it, you know, it just...
	I mean, they're pounding the shit out of each other, but speed it up and put it to Benny Hill music and it just looks ridiculous, right?
	And distance from the abuse...
	There is a kind of...
	I mean, there's a kind of pathetic humor to it.
	I don't know if this makes any kind of sense, but...
	Yeah.
	It is so ridiculously...
	I mean, you're dead.
	I mean, he's like a cartoon villain, almost.
	You know?
	You're dead to me!
	My job is...
	You can die for...
	I mean, it is...
	I mean, I don't mean to undercut the horror.
	I mean, it's absolutely horrifying stuff.
	But at least he wasn't passive-aggressive about it.
	At least he wasn't subtle about it, you know?
	Yes, at least it wasn't underneath the surface something that just gnawed at me without me recognizing it.
	Yeah, you don't sort of like three years after he dies, you don't sort of sit there and say, you know, he kind of was a dick, right?
	He's like he's right up front there waving his dickishness for the world to see.
	Let me skywrite this on the moon just in case you're missing, right?
	I'm going to come to you with full dickish subtitles and it's tattooed on my forehead, right?
	Right, just like G.I. Joe's, you know, knowing is half the battle.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	So – and look, you're a young guy, so I'm not trying to say, you know, sit back with a wry Christopher Hitchens-fueled whiskey-a-go-go joke set about your parents.
	I'm not trying to say that.
	But what I'm saying is that it's not insane to find some humor in just how ridiculously bad these people are.
	And they're not even good at being bad.
	Yeah, I think that that would be a huge step going from being fully immersed in it and not even aware of this dark pit that I was in to being able to step away from and distance myself and laugh at it.
	At least then I'm realizing it.
	Or realizing it for what it is.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean when somebody who's been a really shitty dad says, you know, well I feel my job as a dad is done, it's like...
	It's like me literally peeing in your soup as a waiter, right?
	Yeah.
	And then saying, well, I feel my job here as a waiter is done.
	It's like, I don't think you really understand what waitering means if you think you've been doing that by peeing in my soup.
	My job at peeing in your soup is done now, so I'm quick.
	You can't fire me, right?
	Yeah.
	It's like, no, you know, your job as a dad isn't done because you never did it.
	You know?
	Never did it.
	It's like me, I'm going to come help you move, right?
	You go move, I don't even show up, right?
	And then I come by for pizza and beer and say, well, I think my job helping you move is done.
	It's like, I don't even know what a response is.
	You never even showed up to move, right?
	All right.
	It's coming up from 1 a.m.
	my time, so I'm going to pack it in for the night.
	But before I do, I mean, how are you doing?
	I mean, we had a pretty lengthy old chat here.
	Yeah, that was intense to say the least.
	I'm definitely going to start this pattern of reciprocity.
	I'm going to subscribe.
	It's definitely worth it.
	But thank you for your time, Stefan.
	But how are you feeling?
	I'm feeling hopeful.
	I feel like I can fight this.
	I actually understand this negativity that I've been living with, that it's been this world that has been forced on me that I never really realized I was in.
	But now that I do, I feel like I can start climbing out of it.
	I'm not sure what exactly, what kind of steps I can go through, but I've also been going to a counselor here, so I should probably spend a little bit more time with them and discuss some steps.
	But I feel like now I've cleared up some of the muck, so to speak.
	I'm definitely feeling better.
	Fantastic.
	Well, good for you and great work.
	I really, really appreciate that.
	So, thanks to all the callers, of course, for a really, really excellent series of conversations.
	You guys, blow me away.
	I think calling up to this kind of conversation is...
	Not easy, to say the least.
	And I hugely appreciate everybody opening up their hearts and minds to this kind of environment.
	And thanks again to Mike.
	I think we were going to chat afterwards, Mike, but if we can do that tomorrow, that would be excellent.
	No problem.
	I am going to go and get some sleep.
	We'll talk tomorrow during the day.
	But yes, thanks again to everyone.

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