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June 26, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:30:47

2733 The Cost of Not Listening - Wednesday Call In Show June 25th, 2014

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	Hi, everybody.
	It's Stefan von Newton-Fried Main Radio.
	I hope you're doing well.
	It is our Wednesday night, Borg-brain-philosopho-fester-raptor-nature.
	And, Mike, I hope you don't mind if you can just relax.
	I have a fairly long introduction, which I'd like to read.
	Okay, first caller, go!
	Stephanie wrote in and said, I recently broke up with my boyfriend and I'd like some tips on finding a worthwhile, kind-hearted, level-headed man and how to filter the quote-unquote applicants.
	How to trust again, how to keep an open heart when I don't really trust my own judgments as far as men are being concerned, etc.
	Stephanie, what did you do to that poor man?
	What did you do to that poor ex-boyfriend?
	Oh god, I just got really nervous.
	Um...
	Nothing?
	Why do you say that?
	I'm just messing with you.
	See, I'm giving you an example of what not to look for, which is guys who respond to vulnerability with Alright, what did happen with the last relationship?
	Why did it flame out?
	Or fade out, or whatever happened?
	Well, it's funny because your chat with Tara and Jeff, like the beginning of their relationship really reminded me of the beginning of my relationship with him.
	Like it kind of...
	It was almost like a strong...
	By him, I'm going to assume you don't mean Jeff, because otherwise we've got a very interesting callback to happen next.
	But anyway, go on.
	Get him back on quick.
	No, it was just almost like a strong chemical reaction or something, just kind of like, I don't know, we quickly...
	So I kind of jumped into dating quickly after my divorce last year, so I guess I don't know if I should start with that first.
	Yeah.
	Let's go back a little further, shall we?
	I try to get to the root causes rather than the leaves of the problem.
	Your parents' marriage, what was that like?
	Oh, so as a child they were fighting a lot when I was a kid and especially my mom had depression and she was really like They went through some financially rough times, mostly due to making dumb decisions.
	But they fought a lot and my mom kind of blamed my dad and was always really mean to him.
	She kind of took that out on our whole family.
	So, she chose your dad.
	I guess they dated.
	Was your mom, like, did she have, like, a hunchback and, like, a twin living on her left shoulder blade?
	Was she a reasonably good-looking woman, a reasonably attractive person?
	I don't...
	I mean, she was always pretty overweight and always on a diet of some form when I was a kid.
	I mean...
	I'm assuming that was always.
	I wasn't there before I was born, but...
	You've seen pictures, right?
	I mean, I thought she was cute in her wedding photos, but I know people often starve themselves for weddings, so I don't know if that's...
	But have you seen pictures of her when she was a teenager or in her early 20s or anything like that?
	Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, she's not a beauty queen, but I, you know, I think she was...
	You know, looked fine.
	I don't know.
	I wouldn't say a 10, but I wouldn't...
	I don't know.
	I look a lot like her.
	Okay, so in other words, she's not like...
	There's only one man who's ever going to marry me, right?
	She would have had some choices in dating and all that, right?
	I don't know if she dated much before my...
	Dad, I don't really know about that.
	It's always struck me as weird when people insult their marriage partner.
	Yeah.
	Like, how did I ever get stuck with you?
	It's like, hey, you remember that whole dating thing?
	Do you remember that whole test drive we had for a couple of years?
	Do you remember that engagement?
	Do you remember that...
	Time when you could have said no to me at any time is like, how did I get stuck with you?
	You chose me!
	Anyway, it's just weird.
	Yeah, but you have to admit that love is like pretty darn powerful, stupid emitter to make smart people do dumb things.
	Right.
	Having been in that...
	Well, no, no, no.
	No, Stephanie, I think you're putting two things that aren't really quite the same in the same bag there and hoping to pass them off.
	You've got a counterfeit note under the real one, hoping I don't look at both, right?
	Because earlier you said something about...
	Spark wasn't the word you used with your boyfriend, your ex-boyfriend.
	But I assume that you mean lust, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I don't know.
	What is love, right?
	I don't know.
	There's like the chemical stuff going on in your head.
	There's like intimacy.
	Hopefully they all come together and interact.
	But love, I think love is something we can assume that rats don't feel, right?
	Yeah.
	Or birds or earthworms when they cut themselves in two in this masturbatory...
	Michael Hutchins' orgy of self-destruction.
	So love has to be something that can't be experienced by lizards, right?
	Now, lizards, they screw, right?
	And I don't know what else screws.
	Amphibians, they screw, admittedly, in the water, but I assume it's good for them, right?
	And mice and caribou and birds, they are all banging each other senseless, which is why we have the ecosystem, right?
	Yeah.
	So lust is common to everything that has eggs and sperm, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And so when we're physically attracted, like we just want to have sex with someone, this is like the reptile part of our brain.
	So that ain't love unless we're going to be willing to grant that frogs have a lovely courtship, sing each other Spanish lullabies, and live lives of virtue in the hopes of getting tadpole eggs fertilized, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I don't know, but I don't know.
	Sorry, I just want to point out, you were talking about your parents and your mother with regards to love and blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yeah, yeah, sorry.
	Side trend, sure.
	But it can't, and you were talking about with your ex-boyfriend, relationships based on virtue don't fail.
	They are bulletproof.
	You know, everyone makes fun of me and says, I'm never going to get divorced from my wife.
	I guarantee you, I am never becoming divorced from my wife.
	The only thing that's going to come between us is a coffin lid.
	That's it.
	We are never, ever getting divorced.
	Because relationships based on virtue, based upon values, rational philosophical values and the consistent practice of virtue are bulletproof.
	They can't be broken.
	Because that is the foundation of love.
	Relationships based on lust are incredibly fragile because lust has a purpose.
	Plant seed with sperm, or at least perform the actions which your body thinks will result in that because it hasn't evolved to figure out birth control yet, right?
	And so if your relationship has failed, I don't mean you have failed.
	If your relationship has failed, I know for sure that one or both of you weren't virtuous.
	And by that I don't mean bad, bad people, but you weren't practicing the highest goals of virtue and so on, right?
	It's a fact, right?
	And so if your parents, you know, if your mom was crabby towards your dad and your dad was distant or whatever the hell was going on, right?
	If the relationship was just kind of staggering along, you know, like a guy with a broken leg trying to cross a desert, he might get there, but it ain't traveling in first class exactly, right?
	There's no...
	Swedish chef up there by the front of the plane whipping you up a nice fluffy omelet, right?
	Nope.
	And it's like the hike that the guy had after he cut off his own arm because he got stuck in the rock was not a fun hike, but just something grim and necessary.
	So, I mean, this is sort of a long answer, but my point is that, and this is very much related to your first question, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	If your relationship is failing or your relationship has failed or your parents' relationship was not a success, that doesn't mean that they necessarily separated.
	You can have a very unsuccessful relationship staying together.
	It means one party or both parties is not being virtuous.
	If the relationship lasts any significant amount of time, and certainly the year that you had with your boyfriend counts for that, it means that both parties were not practicing consistent virtues.
	And I'll make the case for that more if you want, but does that sort of differentiate itself from the let's fuck lust stuff?
	Yeah, yeah, definitely.
	Wow, you sound wildly cynical about this.
	Like, I think I've just given you a pretty strong...
	You call and you say to me, how do I find a good guy?
	And I'm giving you sort of an answer, and you're like, yeah, yeah, okay.
	I don't know.
	If you disagree, tell me.
	That's totally fine.
	I mean, I could be talking right out of my armpit here, but if you disagree, that's fine.
	Let me explain, because, um, so the deal, like what you were saying, if you have a virtuous relationship, it won't fail.
	Like, my ex-husband and I, like, we met when I was, I'm 34 now, and we met when I was, um, well, we actually met in college, but we didn't start dating until I was, I was still in college, but I was like 20, I'd just turned 23, and, um, was, actually, I'd just finished, um, Even at the time I was like, we fell in love and at the time I was like, oh well, how do you feel about children?
	I was 23, it wasn't the top thing on my mind.
	And he was like, I don't want them.
	And I was like, isn't that a problem?
	But he was also my first love.
	And he was 22 or 23 or whatever so I kind of let it sit.
	I can tell you your biggest problem in your relationships right now.
	How blunt do you want me to be?
	How much value do you want me to shoot across the internet here?
	I like honesty.
	All right.
	You are a terrible listener.
	I know that.
	Okay.
	How do I know that?
	How do you know that?
	I don't know.
	Did I not listen to you or was it an example from the conversation?
	It's an example from the conversation.
	I think I didn't want to hear at that time.
	What didn't you want to hear?
	At what time?
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	What does that mean?
	You mean the conversation with my ex-husband?
	No, the conversation that you and I just had over the last few minutes.
	How do I know you're a terrible listener based on that?
	I don't know.
	Okay, I gave you a definition of love, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And then you keep using this word as if I never gave you the definition.
	No, I think that other than the...
	We had...
	My ex-husband and I, like, other than the child issue, we had a very healthy relationship and we were respectful of each other and kind, but we didn't have that passion.
	That's what I was trying to explain, is like...
	I'm trying to...
	Wait, wait, wait.
	So your husband was a virtuous man, a good man?
	Yeah, I mean, and we got along.
	Like, we just...
	We were...
	Alike enough but not too alike that we...
	Alright, so what happened?
	Why did you get divorced?
	Because I want a family and he didn't.
	Did he know that you want a family?
	Yeah.
	Of course he did, right?
	You told him.
	From the first, like, couple months, yeah.
	Okay, so...
	This is another reason I know you're not a good listener, right?
	Because he said to you very early on in the relationship, I don't want kids!
	Yeah, but he said, like, but maybe I'll change my mind.
	And that's the part I focused on.
	And I kind of, you know, ignored the first part.
	Because, I don't know, like, the excuse I say is that he was my first love.
	I was 23.
	He was young.
	Like, most 22-year-old guys aren't like...
	Oh, so you...
	Wait, so you're going to blame love for your failure to listen?
	The problem is not your failure to listen to a man who clearly stated that he didn't want kids and then said, well, but you're hot, so maybe I'll change my mind, right?
	Yeah.
	The problem is love, not your failure to listen or to find common ground with the man you married.
	Well, I just really wanted it to work.
	I don't know.
	I thought we could make it work.
	Yes, I understand that, but stop blaming love.
	The problem wasn't that it was my first love, and therefore I didn't listen.
	Well, if you weren't listening, then it wasn't love.
	That's my point, right?
	Now, he knew how much he wanted to have kids.
	Sorry, how long were you guys married for?
	We were married for four years.
	And you got married in your mid-20s or early 20s?
	Oh no, you said you just got divorced like a year ago, a year and a half ago?
	Yeah, so we got married like, I think I was 29 or 30.
	Oh my god, are you kidding me?
	So you met him when you were 23?
	Yeah.
	And like six years later, you got married and you still hadn't worked out the kids thing.
	Well, we were in a long-distance relationship for a while.
	No, no.
	Don't give me distance now is the excuse.
	I'm asking you the question.
	You were with this guy for six years.
	You got married in your late 20s and you still hadn't figured out the kids thing.
	Yeah, I was really dumb to do that.
	No!
	Don't blame dumb.
	Don't blame distance.
	Don't blame love.
	Oh, okay.
	If you want me to help, at least as far as I can see how to help you, this was a decision.
	You made that decision trying to offload it on I was dumb, or it was love, or it was a long-distance relationship, and so on.
	You've got to own that decision if you want to change it, if you want to have something different, right?
	Okay, I guess I don't see it different.
	Because you pissed away your prime years of fertility...
	Oh, yeah, I know that.
	...on a guy who openly said he didn't want to have kids.
	Yeah, I did.
	So how on earth is that possible?
	And I'm not trying to come down on you, like I'm genuinely, I really need to understand this about you if I'm going to give you any useful feedback.
	I was in grad school for eight years during my 20s.
	Did he pay?
	No, no.
	But how did you afford grad school?
	I was in physics, so I worked in a lab.
	All right.
	They paid me for the lab work.
	All right.
	I know how you feel about me.
	So you're smart, obviously very intelligent, right?
	At math and science, for sure.
	All right.
	Well, let's see if we can stretch that definition for you a little bit tonight.
	Okay, so in your late 20s, you still wanted to have kids, and he still had not committed to having kids.
	Yeah.
	And what did your friends say?
	That's the thing is, all of my friends thought he would change his mind because he loves kids, he loves being around them, and he just seemed like, and I thought this too, that's why I really thought that he would change his mind.
	To this day, I hope he changes his mind and becomes a dad because I think he'd be an amazing dad and he would love it, but I couldn't keep waiting.
	But my friends all thought the same thing.
	They thought he would change his mind.
	Like, most of my friends were shocked when I got divorced and he didn't, like, say, okay, wait, no, I changed my mind.
	I was just faking it, you know, or whatever.
	I mean, he really, really doesn't want to have children.
	Yeah, so he just really doesn't.
	You know, that's his life.
	Now, when you first met him, he said he might change his mind.
	Did he still say that when you were going to get married?
	Yeah, basically.
	We went through, at some point in grad school we went through couples counseling.
	So there were like two or three times where he sent me the message that everything was gonna be okay and I focused on that.
	I don't know, what message?
	You mean that he wanted kids?
	I know I'm stupid to let this mean everything was gonna be okay, but at the time Uh, I was stupid.
	That's okay.
	People can make mistakes.
	So when we were in couples counseling one time after our therapy session, he said to me something like, well, you know, I'm going to do it for you and end or something.
	Like, you know, we're going to...
	Something like that was like, yeah, I'm putting up all this fuss now, but, you know, eventually I'll...
	So, of course, that's stupid.
	I shouldn't want to have a child with someone that is going to agree to have a child with me based on that, right?
	Like, who wants...
	Oh, wait.
	So he said...
	Did he say, I'm going to have children with you?
	Yeah, but in a way that I shouldn't have even...
	Thought was positive.
	It was like, you know, I'll give in eventually or something like that.
	Like, who wants that to be the father of their child, someone who gives in?
	Well, you, apparently.
	Yeah, that was stupid.
	Because, so, hang on.
	So, he said, well, if you really corner me, like, if you dig the condom out of the toilet and send it up there with a turkey baster, I guess I'll not kill the kid in its crib.
	And you're like, yeah, let's get married.
	Yeah, it was...
	I feel like if I hadn't been in grad school, I would have been in a better place to not be so stupid, but I made so many dumb decisions.
	Wait, wait, I don't understand.
	What does grad school have to do with it?
	Is now the problem grad school and not your choices?
	Oh my god, you want slippery salmon here, young lady.
	Were you guys talking about insomnia in the last call, too?
	Yes.
	I came in and out.
	So I have insomnia and it got really bad in grad school.
	So there was like four years where I wasn't really sleeping.
	Well, of course you weren't sleeping.
	Do you know why?
	Well, everything.
	Because you were drowning your eggs in your womb.
	Yeah, probably.
	By staying with a guy who wasn't into having kids.
	Yeah, but I was just also the stress of like...
	The work.
	It was like stress on all sides.
	So I kind of...
	No, I get it.
	I decided to not focus on that stress.
	When he gave me that message, I was like, okay, there's like a million stressors coming at me from all sides.
	And this one just gave me a message that said, you can ignore me.
	Even though it's not a good message, I was dumb and I ignored it for a while.
	And then finally when I got out, I was like...
	Okay, now we've got to focus on this again.
	And then finally when he came out and said, I don't want kids and I'm not going to change my mind, then I was like, okay, then it's over.
	And when was that?
	That was four years into the marriage?
	Yeah, so that was the end of 2012.
	All right, so are you going to tell me...
	That this fucking guy is so virtuous and such a great guy that he's gonna string you along for approximately 11 years, if I get my math right.
	I'm not a physicist.
	He's gonna string you along dangling maybe kids until it's almost too late for you to have children.
	Yeah.
	And then he's gonna drop the no sperm bomb, right?
	Yeah, I... Are you gonna try and sell this guy to me as a great guy?
	Well, he really messed up, and I don't think he's ever taken ownership of that, but I think he wanted to...
	Like, he did love me, and he wanted to have kids with me.
	He wanted to make me happy.
	He wanted to change his mind.
	But in the end, that wasn't what he wanted.
	He was lying to himself to think that he could change his mind.
	So it's hard to get angry at him.
	Like, I was angry at him.
	I only recently let go of it, because...
	Of the breakup I'm going through now, but I'm not really angry at him anymore because I know he loved me and he wanted me to be happy.
	And in the end, he said to me, you know, like, you're a mom, you should pursue that, you know.
	I mean, it all happened in the past.
	I can't, unless I find a time machine in my physics research, then I can't fix that, so...
	I mean, what can I do?
	It's a great and fantastic way to not answer my question, but we already established that you're not the best listener in the known universe, so that's not too shocking, right?
	Although I am waiting for you to blame the Perseid media shower, the Northern Lights, and the Canadian band Rush for the problems in your relationships as well.
	But anyway, so...
	I'm telling you that a great guy who really loves you doesn't spend 11 years of his life basically drying up your womb and not giving you children when it's the one thing you said at the beginning that you really, really want, right?
	Yeah.
	I'm telling you, if you want to know how to pick a right guy, you have to stop making excuses for your bad choices and your ex-husband's near-criminal deception of your desperate ovaries.
	It's true.
	I mean, I was angry at him for a while.
	It's just, I don't feel like it helped me to be angry at him.
	I don't know how I would, other than obviously not letting things go that long, like, or at this point, I won't date anyone who doesn't want kids.
	Although if you ask a guy, I'm- Okay, but hang on.
	How do you know that you really want children?
	Because I got a call, hmm, potential bullshit on this.
	Mm-hmm.
	Because a woman who really wants kids, I don't know how you'd stay 11 years with a guy who was pretty negative about having kids.
	I just really believed.
	I don't know.
	It was dumb.
	I don't know.
	I'm a real optimist, and I think that bit me in the butt, you know?
	I don't know what the it is.
	I mean, it's like this happened to you or something.
	Well, I just really believed that it was going to work out.
	Like, I'm...
	I shouldn't have.
	I don't know.
	Optimism is not always the best thing when...
	No, no.
	Come on.
	You're a physicist.
	If you spent 11 years testing a theory that continually fails, are you an optimist?
	Depending on the theory, I don't know.
	I mean, sometimes it takes a long time to...
	I'm trying to remember Jan Hall.
	It took him a Yeah, maybe a decade or so to do the speed of light measurement they were doing.
	I don't know.
	I remember hearing stories about physics that takes that long.
	It takes an insane amount of patience.
	Okay.
	All right.
	I mean, I understand that I used an analogy that probably wasn't hugely helpful.
	Sorry.
	Okay.
	Let me put it this way.
	If I spend 11 years trying to get grant money from a person who says they're never going to fund my research, Yeah, that would be dumb.
	Would I be like, well, no, I'm optimistic.
	I'm optimistic.
	He said, Maybe I'll change my mind.
	And everyone I talked to was like, well, he's young.
	Like, I had an office mate in grad school who was older than me, and I was like, I talked to him a lot about it, and he said, you know what?
	Like, he knew my ex-husband, and he said, you know what?
	When I was his age, I didn't want kids, too, and now I really do.
	So, you know, if you wait it out a little bit, like, you're in grad school, don't worry about it.
	Just wait it out.
	I mean, I shouldn't...
	I don't know, like...
	I shouldn't have done that, but it was just...
	I was too afraid to be alone because I had only been with him.
	All right.
	Now we're starting to, and I appreciate that honesty, right?
	Yeah.
	Now we're starting to get somewhere.
	It wasn't love.
	It wasn't insomnia.
	It wasn't that you were dumb.
	It wasn't grad school.
	It wasn't optimism.
	What was it?
	Well, it was just that I was with him so long, I couldn't imagine this without him.
	No, no, no.
	You just told me.
	You may not be the best listener in the world, but I think I'm pretty good.
	You said to me, Stephanie, and I appreciate this call, I really do, and I hope that it's helpful for you, I'm sure it will be.
	You said to me, I was afraid of being alone.
	Yeah.
	So isn't that the real...
	Maybe.
	Driver, isn't this the dark matter in this conversation that we need to acknowledge?
	Yeah.
	I mean, right now I'm afraid to be alone too, but a part of it is that I'm freaking 34 and I don't...
	I'm trying to find the right guy, like, pronto.
	So it's like...
	Well, I don't know that you're trying to find the right guy.
	Yeah, well, I kind of...
	Like, no, seriously, because you're obviously calling me because you think I have something useful to add to the conversation.
	And you're kind of giving me a lot of dodges and not listening.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm not trying to.
	No, I'm not.
	I'm not accusing you.
	I never said maliciously or meanly.
	Like, I'm not suggesting that.
	But when I say...
	Like, because you want a good guy, right?
	I think I'm a good guy, right?
	So I'm just trying to give you this clear feedback because, you know, if you're a female listener and a physicist...
	Breed!
	Breed like the wind!
	Breed like a bus full of horny Chinese people.
	I don't know what that means, but...
	Breed, fine.
	I'm going to help you.
	I want to help you to breed.
	But, you know, if someone says to you, you're not listening to what I'm saying, then listen to that person saying that, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	What am I not listening to?
	How do you think I can listen better?
	And then really try to focus your mind on listening to that person, right?
	Right, because you just lost 11 years of fertility, and you know fertility starts to decline even after 25.
	Yeah.
	You lost 11 years of fertility by not listening, right?
	So if you want to change things, kind of do the opposite.
	So start really listening.
	Yeah.
	And that also means really taking responsibility and knowing why you did it.
	And you're coming up with a bunch of covers that don't make any sense, right?
	It was insomnia.
	It was grad school.
	It was love.
	It was, you know, my friends said that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	He said once in passing that maybe he might change his mind.
	But the truth is that I would imagine that the truth is really fundamental, which is that You were scared of being alone, and what have you learned about the effects of that fear?
	I don't know.
	It came true.
	Yeah.
	Right, obviously you wish you could go back 11 years, slap yourself upside the head and say, look, it may be scary to be alone, but it's a hell of a lot less scary when you're 22 or 23 than it is when you're 34, right?
	Seriously.
	Where's my time machine?
	Well, right, right, right.
	But now, if you're late to the game, you've got to study up real quick, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, if I've got a boxing match in three months, I've got to spend eight hours a day in the gym, right?
	Yeah.
	So this means really...
	So this fear of being alone, right?
	You were fearful of being alone, and you were fearful of not having children, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And what has happened when your eggs are starting to dry on the vine, you're alone and you don't have children.
	Yep.
	So that fear was...
	Founded.
	It became a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
	Yeah.
	So I think that's really important.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Well, I was just saying, like, the best time for me to meet a new guy would have been when I started physics grad school, where I was one of 50 people with, like, four other girls, or, like, four girls total.
	Oh, God, yeah.
	I mean, nobody could ever sell to me that it's tough to meet guys when you're a Young, attractive woman in a physics department is like, oh my god, isn't it tough to keep them away with tasers?
	You've got to throw Dungeons and Dragons dice off into the corner to have them run over there, right?
	Well, what we say is the odds are good, but the goods are odd.
	That's funny.
	That's funny.
	I think some physicists would be pretty good dads, but...
	Oh, yeah.
	Definitely.
	So...
	Why were you so scared of being alone that you shot your eggs?
	Well, I think part of it is that I just had a lot of trouble dating in my 20s when I was in college.
	Some guys think that smart women are attractive, but in their early 20s in college and you're at a party and you tell a guy you do physics, It's pretty quickly intimidating.
	I don't know.
	And I don't know if it's me or what.
	I just had a lot of trouble dating back then.
	I don't know.
	I found dating to be frustrating, annoying, and stupid.
	I was like...
	It seemed like playing games.
	I was like, just, okay, if you like me, say it.
	If I like you, I'll tell you.
	Why do we have to do all this stupid, I don't know.
	I'm not good at that, like, subtle girl stuff that other girls do, you know?
	I'm like, just...
	Well, did you do that, though?
	Did you, if you found a man attractive, did you just walk up to him and say, hey, I think you're attractive.
	Should we want to get a coffee?
	No, because at that time, I didn't have the confidence to do that.
	But now I would do it.
	Like, now I don't really care.
	Like, I have the confidence that if some guy rejects me, it's not going to, like, make me go into a room alone for the next month or whatever.
	Right.
	But when I was 20, like, I hadn't...
	Like, now I've, you know, I have a PhD.
	I've done a lot in my life.
	I've accomplished a lot.
	I have a lot of self-confidence.
	But back then, like, well, A, I didn't really...
	Like, think I was physically attractive.
	B, I didn't...
	I don't know.
	I just didn't have the confidence.
	I don't know.
	Then.
	So I think that's why I was afraid to be alone then.
	I don't know.
	Because you felt that if you...
	I mean, trying to understand.
	I don't want to put words in your mouth, so obviously correct me if I go astray.
	But did you sort of feel like, okay, well...
	And this is a big conundrum for women.
	Like, I really get this.
	Which doesn't mean it applies to you, right?
	But this is sort of...
	So, if the woman feels passive in her dating, and most women do, like 90 to 95% at the most conservative estimate of dates are initiated by men, right?
	And so, if you don't feel confident to attract a man...
	Which is why I kind of asked about your mom at the beginning.
	If you don't feel confident to attract a man or to play whatever Southern Belle, Blanche Dubois, faint-against-the-window flirtation voodoo that you feel is necessary to get a man to ask you out and so on, then you're in a very difficult position, right?
	Because if you can't attract a man and you can't ask a man out, then you are going to be alone, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, I actually talk about this with other people and with my ex-boyfriend, because I think he had somehow figured out some of that subtle...
	I don't know.
	He would say, a girl will look at me a certain way, and then I know that she's interested.
	I'm like, whoa, what is that?
	How did I do that?
	I don't think that I... That anyone would know that about the way I look at people.
	So I guess maybe they teach that in not physics class or something.
	Well, you know, I don't know how to answer that in particular.
	I've always been, I'll just ask a woman out if I feel that she's attractive to me.
	Yeah.
	So, I mean, as a man, you know, that's...
	Women want equality, but not everywhere, right?
	Not where it's really difficult a lot of times, right?
	So, I mean, it's great that you've got a PhD.
	I'm fantastic, you know, and all that.
	But...
	And you felt confident enough to pursue that in your 20s, right?
	Yeah.
	But if you feel like you have to be this honey trap of incomprehensible Persian Shahzad sexuality in order to get a man to approach you and can't approach him...
	Then it's going to be a challenge if you feel it's a kind of like magic spell that you don't have, right?
	Yeah, it's frustrating.
	So then you get some guy, you know, rather than face the anxiety of can I attract a man or...
	Will I then have the confidence to go and ask a man out, right?
	You're like, well, I'm just going to stay with this guy because I understand this is familiar and this is working, right?
	As well as it was.
	Yeah, that's probably why I was so afraid to end it because I just hated dating so much when I was dating.
	But now that I dated a little, I actually...
	I didn't feel much better about it.
	I don't know if it's guys in their 30s or whatever.
	I dated maybe 10 guys before I met my boyfriend.
	I felt like it went a lot better.
	They didn't get intimidated by me.
	I was dating online, so I didn't have to try to somehow use the magic to get them to come talk to me or whatever.
	Right.
	And what do you think about, because, like, I'm forward and honest, so to me I'm like, I wouldn't mind, I would approach guys if I found them attractive or interesting, or I would ask a guy out now that I'm 34, like, Why use stupid rules from the 50s?
	But then I know some people that are like, no, you have to make them pursue you or they won't appreciate you or something.
	Do you think that's BS? Oh, God.
	Don't listen to idiots like that.
	Oh, my God.
	Oh, God.
	No, feminine wiles and shit like that.
	I mean, God Almighty, if you're not currently in a fucking whalebone corsage, don't listen to anybody like that.
	You know, this, you gotta do this, and guys like that, and if you try this trick, or you try that trick, or you compliment them, and then you insult them, and you do this voodoo, and then you get your voodoo doll, and then you do a handstand, and then you put one tit in your ear.
	I mean, Jesus Christ!
	You go up to a person, and you say, hey, I find you very attractive.
	Would you like that?
	To go on a date.
	Would you like to have a coffee?
	You know, would you like to get to know each other?
	Okay, good.
	Right?
	I mean, no, God, don't listen to these people who think, I mean, that's very insecure people who just won't put themselves front and center.
	And anybody who suggests that you manipulate your way into the start of a relationship is a completely dangerous human being.
	Because if you manipulate yourself into the start of a relationship, there's either two possibilities.
	A, the person, I guess two possibilities.
	One, the person knows that you're being manipulative and is fine with it, which means that they're going to be manipulative too, which means the relationship is doomed.
	Or two, They know that you're being manipulated if they're not fine with it, in which case they won't react positively.
	The only thing worse than not hooking someone with manipulation is hooking someone with manipulation, because that's an even worse prize, right?
	Okay, good, because I don't even have one interest in being like that, so I'm glad we're on the same page.
	Yeah, good.
	No, being upfront, direct, and honest is a great way of getting insecure, neurotic people as far the fuck away from your ovaries as they should be, right?
	Yeah, that makes sense, right?
	Like, if a guy can't handle me being forward and honest, like, I don't even want him in my life.
	Screw that.
	No, look, if you're going for a job interview in physics, they're going to talk to you in physics, right?
	They're going to use the language of physics.
	They're going to use the language of mathematics.
	They're going to use the language of science.
	And if you don't know that language, they're not going to give you the job, right?
	So you want to speak the language of honesty and directness and, yeah, look, I'm, you know...
	Time's ticket away.
	I got a biological clock.
	You know, maybe you can freeze your eggs and buy yourself some more time or whatever.
	But no, be direct.
	Absolutely.
	Be direct.
	I mean, that way, when people run away from you, it's like, thank you for saving me time and money and getting me to the sperm donor that much faster, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, I don't want a sperm donor.
	I want, like, a good man.
	Right.
	A dad.
	Right.
	Sorry, I was being facetious, but now I know you want the dad, and I hope that that's what you get, though.
	Yeah.
	But if you want to be honest and direct with other people, who's the first person, Stephanie, that you need to be honest and direct with?
	Me.
	Okay.
	Do you feel that you do that when talking to me about your love life?
	Oh, I'm sure I'm lying to me a lot.
	I'm trying to be honest.
	Okay.
	Again, I'm not assuming any malicious or negative intent, right?
	But most people don't call us on our crap, right?
	Now, when you find somebody who does call you on your crap in a positive way, right, in a way that makes you feel empowered rather than they use it as a way to dominate or humiliate or put you down or anything like that.
	But if you do find someone who calls you on your crap, that person is like gold or like catnip or a cracker to the bird that I believe is in your room.
	But that is a very important person.
	To have around.
	Somebody who can tell you when you're not being true, when you're not being authentic, in a way that inspires you to do that rather than to run away or feel bad or whatever it is, right?
	So if you want to be direct with other people, the first thing you need to be is direct with yourself, right?
	It's a gap analysis, right?
	You know all about this, right?
	So if you have a deficiency of listening, you need to work on your listening skills.
	Which means really try and get inside the other person's head and figure out what they're trying to say, what they're really saying.
	If you have a deficiency of confidence, you need to work on new confidence.
	If you have a fear of being alone, then you need to work on that fear.
	And you need to, of course, recognize that it is nobody's job in the world.
	To make you not alone.
	That's something you've got to earn.
	Like, there's nobody's job in the world to give you a job in physics.
	You've got to go earn that somewhere, right?
	There's nobody's job in the world to give you a PhD in physics.
	You have to go and earn that.
	And it's nobody's job in the world to be your baby daddy, to make you not feel alone, to get you married, to get you...
	Whatever, right?
	There's nobody's job in the world.
	You've got to go out and earn that.
	And the best way to have honest people in your life is to be relentlessly honest with yourself.
	If you want...
	The best tennis players to play with you, what do you need to do?
	Get better so I don't bore them?
	Yeah.
	You need to practice your tennis.
	Now, if you practice your tennis and you practice your tennis, then you'll play with the best players.
	And if you want somebody who's virtuous and honest and takes responsibility and is sensitive and a good listener, you need to work on all that stuff yourself.
	And then naturally, like attracts like.
	You will gravitate towards those people and they will gravitate towards you.
	And all the people who are saying that you can somehow masquerade and fool and put...
	Powder and push up your décor de l'étage and so on.
	This is all nonsense.
	You work on relentless self-honesty, relentless self-ownership.
	Yes, you have made mistakes.
	Please don't call yourself dumb.
	That is not true.
	You are not dumb at all.
	Please don't blame it on anything other than you chose not to confront your fears.
	You chose an easier path and you found out, as everybody does sooner or later, as I did in my time and as you do now, that The easier path is the harder path, right?
	Yeah, and to be honest, since I separated from my husband, I've grown a lot, and I'm kicking myself so much because it was actually a really good thing for me, but I was just so afraid that I kept putting it off.
	And if I had done this five years ago, who knows where I'd be now, but you can't.
	But there's a lesson in that, right, Stephanie, which is you have fears now.
	Yeah.
	And if you let fears dominate you and rob you of motherhood for 11 years and rob you of a stable relationship in your prime man-attracting year, so to speak, right?
	Those fears kept you from what you really needed.
	Now, you have fears now.
	That are doing exactly the same thing.
	The lesson of the last 11 years is never let fear stop you.
	Never let fear stop you from listening.
	Never let fear stop you from making the right decision.
	Feel the fear.
	You don't need courage if you don't have fear.
	The whole point of the virtue of courage is that it's got to climb over some mountain.
	We don't call someone an expert mountaineer because they climbed the steps to a pizza hut.
	So the fear is natural.
	But the lesson is...
	Don't let the fear dominate your decisions for the next couple of years before your fertility window really begins to close in earnest.
	Don't let your fear dominate your future couple of years in the way that that fear dominated your last 11 years.
	Yeah.
	And left you where you are now.
	Yeah.
	You made a choice not...
	You made a choice to avoid fear and to sacrifice your long-term interest for the short-term gain of the illusion of security, right?
	But I was afraid both ways, so it's not like I avoided fear by not leaving him.
	Well, no, but you would rather have low-grad anxiety than a big spike, right?
	Yeah, apparently that was it.
	No, right.
	It's like the smoker.
	The smoker says, well, of course, I'm scared of lung cancer, but that's a low-grade fear.
	Quitting smoking produces a big spike in fear and anxiety, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Or like the eating.
	Yes, I worry about being overweight and diabetes and joint problems and all of that.
	But changing your diet is going to provoke a lot of anxiety and upset, right?
	So it's the low-grade fear people will often choose, which then becomes the big-grade fear anyway.
	But people will often choose the low-grade fear over the big-grade fear.
	But, you know, it's important to bite that bullet, right?
	And so you may have a fear of asking someone out.
	Now, you may have a fear, as I think you do, of pretending...
	Sorry, let me figure out.
	I think I put too many metaphor layers on.
	I lost track of where the hell I was.
	I think you have a fear that if you say, I really own my bad decisions, I'm not going to blame them on any external influence like love or insomnia or grad school or whatever, right?
	I really made bad choices in the past, which is why I am where I am now.
	I think you're afraid of that making you look negative, right?
	And it will to idiots.
	But to anybody of any sophistication and self-knowledge, you being that upfront with recognizing the bad decisions you made is going to give them great comfort.
	Because if you've made bad decisions and you don't fully own and acknowledge them, anybody with any sophistication is going to recognize that you're going to repeat them.
	Indeed.
	Would you like us to forward any interested parties?
	Anyone in Denver, sure.
	I don't want another long...
	Yeah, because the last long distance thing didn't work out too well, right?
	Yeah, obviously who have a desire to make babies.
	Yes, yes, that's important.
	That may actually be the focus of the second date.
	No, I'm kidding.
	I'm kidding.
	No, I mean, way to scare...
	This is the other thing I'm worried about, is not just the, like, 30-something guys, like...
	Being a 34-year-old woman who wants kids, that's kind of scary for guys in that age range.
	I guess for the adult ones, it shouldn't be.
	I'm sorry.
	Look, you want a guy with an IQ over 80, right?
	Yeah, definitely.
	Okay, so a woman who wants to date in her 30s most times is going to want to have kids, right?
	I guess so.
	There's a lot of people that don't now, though.
	Well, okay, but let's say that you say that.
	I mean, this is what my wife said to me the second time we were ever alone together, right?
	She said, listen, I'm not looking for a play.
	I'm not looking for a short-term relationship.
	I'm not looking for a fling.
	I'm in my 30s.
	I want to settle down, right?
	And that didn't scare you away.
	God, no.
	I mean...
	There's a woman who knows what she wants.
	She's expressing what she wants.
	I hugely respected her for being that honest.
	I mean, come on!
	You don't think baby ghosts are peeking over your shoulder when you go out on a date in your 30s if you're a woman?
	Of course they are, right?
	I mean, it's like you're pushing around this big pram on a date saying, oh no, I'm just footloose and fancy free.
	What do I care?
	No, there's a pram here.
	Of course you're right.
	That's the default position of a woman in her 30s is that she probably wants to have at least a kid, right?
	Yeah.
	So if you don't bring it up, like, for God's sakes, don't try to be popular.
	You're trying to find love.
	And these days, as has been the case throughout most of human history, love is the opposite of being popular.
	Don't try to be liked.
	If you try to be liked, you will never be loved.
	Because trying to be liked is manipulative.
	And love is your authentic, take it or leave it, love me or hate me, who I am.
	Be who you are.
	Be that beacon.
	Own your mistakes.
	Recognize your responsibilities.
	And don't pretend that kids are not in the equation when they are.
	That's called being honest.
	Yeah.
	Well, I definitely am no longer ignoring that issue.
	Right.
	And any man with any sensitivity, if he's dating a woman who's 34...
	Especially if she was previously married, is going to say, well, what about kids?
	And if your answer is, as it will be, I really, really want to have kids, then a man who has any conscience, any soul, any heart, any respect for himself or you is going to work as quickly as he can to find out if you're compatible or not and not waste your time if you're not.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	You talk.
	You don't sound at all like that's possible or whatever.
	I mean, I just spent a year and a half in a relationship that fizzled or whatever.
	And I'm not sure if you told me why it fizzled.
	Well, I don't know if you're going to like my answer to that.
	It was two versions.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Funny, because I'm actually having a very good conversation with you and learning a lot, which I thought I would, but he started listening to your show, and he totally changed my His personality changed, and then he basically decided he couldn't have a family with me because I didn't agree with all his...
	Like, I agree with some of the stuff that you talk about, but I'm a very, like...
	I'm not a believer in much of anything that I don't see proof of, otherwise it wouldn't be a good science, right?
	So I'm not, like, gung-ho...
	The way he is about all of your stuff.
	And so basically he was like, well, if we can't teach our kids that, you know, the state is evil and wrong, then we can't have kids together.
	And I'm like, okay, well, I don't want to ever teach my children in a dogmatic way, whether it's that the state is good or bad.
	I want to tell them evidence and, like, eventually, when they're old enough, they would make, decide what they believe.
	Like, that's how I want to raise kids.
	To me, the impression was that he wanted to basically...
	I mean, I don't really know.
	I don't watch as much of your stuff as he has, but I didn't like the way he was talking about raising a family.
	And then he started to get really mean to me.
	He insulted my intelligence five or six times, which I know is just his self-esteem.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Okay, there's so much in what you're saying here.
	So, you've insulted your intelligence at least six times that I can remember in this call alone.
	Yeah, in my decision making, I will.
	No, no.
	You insulted your intelligence six times at least you called yourself dumb.
	With love I am dumb, I know.
	Or I call myself dumb about love.
	I know that.
	I'm sorry, is the word dumb not an insult to someone's intelligence?
	I guess when it comes to...
	I guess for some reason I've normalized this idea that it's okay to be dumb about love because everyone is.
	Maybe that's why I keep saying that.
	Alright, okay.
	So you can insult your intelligence, but he can't, right?
	I mean, who taught him to insult your intelligence?
	My guess is, I don't know the guy, but my guess is...
	That you invited him into that arena by constantly insulting your own intelligence.
	I just sort of wanted to point that out.
	I don't think I... The other thing is, do you think that...
	I mean, what do you think it's like to be on the receiving end of what you're saying, just out of curiosity?
	Receiving end of what I'm saying as you or as him?
	Yeah, as me.
	Uh...
	I don't know.
	I mean, it would bother me.
	What would bother you?
	Um...
	I don't know like it would maybe feel like I would be felt feel defensive or something.
	I don't know Defensive about what?
	Like that well, I mean obviously things weren't gonna work out one way or the other so your show him him getting into your show was just Actually good that it came sooner than later if that was gonna be the downfall I Don't know.
	Sorry.
	So the downfall Was my show.
	So it's not love, it's not insomnia, it's not grad school, it's not that you're dumb, it's my show now that was the reason your last relationship failed.
	We weren't right for each other in the end, and I recognize that now, but the thing that precipitated us realizing that was the show.
	Does that make sense?
	Sorry, can you say that again?
	We weren't right for each other in the end.
	We weren't right for each other from the beginning, But the thing that made us face that fact was the show.
	Does that make sense?
	Not at all.
	I mean you made a decision with him And then he ended the relationship.
	Saying that you weren't right for each other takes your decision completely out of the table.
	Completely off the table.
	Like, you didn't make any decisions.
	You just didn't fit together like your two incompatible jigsaw puzzles.
	But you made decisions, Stephanie.
	And that ended the relationship.
	This is what I'm trying to get across to you.
	What decision?
	I'm...
	Okay, first of all, I hope that you didn't insult him as much as you insulted me.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	Because if you did, I can see that it was probably your insult towards him that ended the relationship.
	I'm not trying to insult you.
	I know you're not.
	I absolutely know you're not.
	That's why I'm not insulted.
	But what you're saying is highly insulting.
	I know you're not trying to insult me.
	I get that.
	I get that you don't even know how insulting it is.
	I'll just give you one example.
	You said, I'm just not that gung-ho on your philosophy.
	I respect you a lot.
	No, no, no.
	You don't.
	I mean, you don't.
	I'm not that gung-ho on your philosophy.
	Now listen, if you were at a physics conference, And you presented a laborious physics theory that you'd worked on for approximately 30,000 hours and 30 years.
	And someone who'd never studied physics came up and said, well, I'm just not that gung-ho on your physics.
	Someone would probably say that.
	That's something that would happen.
	And what would you think?
	You have to learn to have a really thick skin as a physicist because there's like...
	I've seen fighting, like yelling after talks, like...
	No, I get that.
	I get that.
	But if somebody came up And said, I'm just not that gung-ho on your physics.
	What would be so insulting about that?
	The first is the idea that physics is some sort of cheerleading squad, like you've got to be enthusiastic and gung-ho, like it's just some fucking sports team you're supposed to cheer, and you're either into it or you're not.
	That's not what physics is.
	Physics is a very rigorous discipline of rational theories and empirical evidence, right?
	So it's not gung-ho.
	It's not a matter of enthusiasm.
	And it's not your physics.
	It's either good physics or it's bad physics.
	So my question is, you said, well, you don't agree with everything that I say.
	First of all, agreement has nothing to do with it.
	Nothing to do with philosophy whatsoever.
	I don't want anyone to agree with me.
	Right?
	Why don't I want anyone to agree with me?
	Oh, you lost me.
	I have no idea.
	Because if they're agreeing with me, they're not doing philosophy.
	Philosophy is not, let's agree with Steph, or let's disagree with Steph.
	That's not philosophy.
	If I say to you, listen Stephanie, two and two make four, do you agree with me, or do you accept the proposition as valid?
	No, I see the truth in the statement.
	So you're not agreeing with me, right?
	Okay, so...
	And if I say two and two make four, and someone says, well, I agree with Steph, then they're not doing math, right?
	Yeah.
	So, if I had worded it like...
	I don't know, something like...
	That I... To me, it's hard to...
	Like...
	I don't know...
	It's like, I see a lot of the arguments and I agree with a lot of them.
	And God, I mean, just the thought of like, oh, if we got rid of the state today and war...
	Oh, no, no, no.
	Stop.
	Stop.
	You're just way out of your depth.
	Look, and I would be out of my depth if I was trying to talk to you about physics, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so grant me 30 years of working on philosophy, and I respect your mind.
	You know, I'm the one who said, don't call yourself dumb.
	I mean, PhD in physics is fantastic.
	What a great achievement.
	But you're way out of your depth when it comes to philosophy here at the moment.
	And that's fine.
	I mean, let's just recognize and accept that, right?
	That doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong.
	It's just that you're floundering here really badly, right?
	Like, you don't know what to say, right?
	Okay, so the statement is, if...
	Your ex-boyfriend said that if he could prove to you that the initiation of force is immoral, and he could prove to you that the state relies on the initiation of force, then when he says the state is evil, he's correct.
	This is not a gung-ho thing.
	This is not a you just agreeing with Steph.
	Now, if your boyfriend makes an argument that I've made, and you point out a rational flaw in the argument, Or at least there are mountains of counter-evidence to the argument, and then he just rejects all of those out of hand.
	Well, Steph said something different, therefore, whatever evidence there is against it, whatever you claim to have found, throwing it out, because I just want to agree with Steph, then he doesn't understand philosophy at all, and he doesn't get this show at all, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, nobody graduates with a PhD in physics saying, I don't know what the answer is, but I'm going to pray to Zeus to find it, right?
	Yeah.
	No.
	Anybody who says, I'm going to pray to Zeus to find it, doesn't understand physics, right?
	Or the scientific method, right?
	Yeah.
	So, it's not a matter of enthusiasm or agreement or disagreement.
	It's a matter of rational proof with empirical evidence, just as it is in your discipline.
	Yeah, I guess maybe my...
	My main thing is that, like...
	No, no.
	I don't understand.
	This is the listening part of the show.
	Okay.
	This is the listening part of your show.
	You still have a pretty good relationship with your ex-boyfriend, right?
	Oh, no.
	We're not talking right now.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	I missed that.
	Okay.
	So if he could be the one, and you said the major disagreement was about my show and children, right?
	How to raise children.
	Are you still there, Stephanie?
	No, she just dropped.
	She did?
	I'll try and get her back.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	We need a conclusion.
	Yes.
	Did she drop now?
	Hmm.
	Unfortunate internet moment.
	Now it's Skype's fault.
	Insomnia.
	Now it's Skype's fault.
	No, it could be.
	It could be.
	We don't know.
	I'll keep going so we don't have to edit too much.
	I mean, if she gets back, great.
	Okay, so when it comes to child raising, of course you don't just give your children conclusions.
	You don't say, the state is evil, right?
	I mean, of course not, right?
	I mean, that would make no sense.
	That's like getting a two-year-old to scribble E equals MC squared and then imagining that they've rivaled Einstein in their understanding.
	And so, if he says, well, we have to teach the children that the state is evil, then, of course, we're getting this through Stephanie's filter.
	I don't know what the actual conversation was.
	But if he said, listen, I'm not going to lie to my children about ethics and society, well, of course, you shouldn't lie to your children about ethics and society, however painful and difficult that may be.
	You can't take your children to church because your neighbors go, and you can't tell your children that the state is moral just because that's the prevailing belief within society, because we have a responsibility to reason, evidence, and integrity that doesn't matter when it comes to social convention.
	We answer to a higher power.
	We thinkers, we philosophers, we answer to the power of reason and evidence and nothing else.
	We may bow to the gun, but we worship reason and evidence.
	So, Stephanie's back, I believe.
	Yeah, that's a lot of that.
	Can you recap?
	You can listen to this after the show.
	I got a little recap just for you.
	But basically, if he said, listen, we have to shake the children in their cribs when they're six months old and yell at them that the state is evil, then of course that's abusive, right?
	And I've always said I don't teach my daughter...
	Conclusions I teach are principles, right?
	But the reality is that the state is an immoral institution.
	This is not a matter of opinion.
	This is not a matter of subjectivity.
	This is not a matter of personal preference.
	This isn't what Steph says, right?
	All of those things have nothing to do with philosophy and in fact the quite opposite of philosophy.
	The proposition that the state is immoral is a carefully reasoned out series of arguments.
	They're either valid or they're not.
	But there's nothing to do with cheerleading.
	There's nothing to do with being gung-ho or not gung-ho.
	And we do, as parents, if we are philosophers or thinkers or wish to live with integrity, we must teach our children the truth about the world.
	This does not mean teaching them conclusions, because whenever you give someone a conclusion, you're actually not teaching them.
	The purpose of me as a parent, as I've continually said, as somebody who talks about parenting, is to teach my daughter how to think, not what to think.
	And if you teach your daughter how to think, with some guidance and some help, of course, then she will be very clear on the world as it is.
	Now, is she going to grow up thinking that the state is immoral?
	I hope so.
	I hope so for two reasons.
	One, it's because I will then have taught her how to think, because that is the rational conclusion if you accept the non-aggression principle.
	And two, it will mean that the proposition has withheld her scrutiny, which means that it's just got one more toothpick holding up the edifice, so to speak.
	So the idea that you would then get to pick and choose in philosophy doesn't make any sense.
	Look, do you think I might not be a little bit more popular if I wasn't an anarchist?
	Of course I would be, but that's not up to me.
	Might I be a little bit more popular if I said some corporal punishment is okay?
	Of course I would.
	Might I not be a little bit more popular if I was an agnostic or a minor theist or a minarchist?
	Of course I would be.
	But that's not up to me.
	That's not up to me at all.
	The truth leads where the truth leads.
	The arguments lead where the arguments lead.
	The evidence is what the evidence is.
	And if my friend is caught on film murdering someone, I'm very unhappy about that.
	I wish my friend hadn't murdered someone.
	That's terrible.
	Do I have any choice about the matter?
	No.
	The evidence is what the evidence is.
	So it's not up to you.
	It's not up to me about what we should teach our children.
	We teach our children rational ethics and we teach them critical thinking and we teach them to respect evidence and reason above all else.
	I'm sure you would agree with that.
	Those are the basis of the scientific method.
	All of that.
	I agree with all of that.
	Okay, so when you characterize what I do as something that you can just choose to agree with or disagree with, or something you're either gung-ho about or not gung-ho about, it's a massive insult to what I do.
	Now, I know you're not trying to do that.
	I get that.
	I really get that.
	But it indicates a lack of understanding of philosophy, and not giving it the respect that you would give to a physicist, which of course philosophy is responsible for physics because the philosophy, the scientific method, and the philosophy of empiricism and rationality had to come prior to the scientific method.
	Philosophy is a hell of a lot older than the scientific method by approximately 2200 years.
	So the fact that you would take this approach to somebody else who's skilled in a different discipline, again, I know that you're not trying to be insulting, but the reality is that it is a very contemptuous and denigrating and incorrect.
	I don't mind, hey, be contemptuous and denigrating if I'm making an obvious mistake and refusing to acknowledge it.
	But your ignorance of the discipline combined with your contempt for it and you're recasting it as some sort of subjective rah-rah, cheer-for-your-team subjective nonsense may have had a lot more to do with your breakup than what you blame your ex-boyfriend for.
	Yeah, I mean, I just, to me, I see the arguments and I... It's like...
	The hardest part for me is, like, picturing what the world would be like in a way that we don't know what it would be like, right?
	So, to me, it's like...
	I guess, I don't know.
	I mean, I actually took ethics in, like, senior year of high school at the college in my area, like philosophy.
	And, like, I know utilitarianism is kind of dumb, but if, like, becoming anarchist actually caused...
	Things to be like objectively worse in like a utilitarian quote-unquote sense like in a bad way which I don't know like I could see that it could work and be awesome but without like evidence to me it's like you have to do the experiment right to me it's like oh gosh you know what if what if this next physics theory um causes some negative repercussion in society what if some evil geniuses use it to create a a super weapon does that mean that the physics theory is incorrect No.
	Oh, so you're saying...
	No.
	You don't give a shit what the consequences are to the theory.
	The reality is the theory is either valid or it's not.
	Consequentialism is ridiculous.
	It doesn't work in physics.
	It doesn't work in mathematics.
	It doesn't work in biology.
	Like, you don't say to Darwin, well, you know, if you put forward that theory of evolution, a lot of people might lose their religious faith, and that could be really bad for society.
	Hey, it's true or it's not.
	It's valid or it's not.
	The consequentialism is irrelevant.
	Wait, so can I ask a question about that?
	Sure.
	So...
	To you, as a philosopher, then...
	Like, you base...
	I don't know.
	To me, like, I do science, and, like, there's the ethics and repercussions, right?
	Of course, the bomb and awful things do come out of science, but, like, as a scientist, you do ignore that.
	And I guess as a philosopher, you're studying, you know, different things that also have repercussions that could cause harm.
	But you're saying you do the same thing as a philosopher.
	Like, you're just working for...
	Oh, no, no, no, no.
	I know that they will cause harm.
	I absolutely am for certain that certain moral propositions that are universal and consistent and empirically supported will cause harm when implemented.
	I have absolutely no doubt about that whatsoever.
	In the same way that feminism, when implemented, encouraging, say, women to leave abusive husbands, caused harm to the interests of those abusive husbands.
	They really wanted their women to stay so they could continue to punch them out, right?
	In the same way that when slavery was ended, it caused harm to all the people who shipped slaves overseas and it caused harm to all the people who were very practiced and skilled and experienced in catching those slaves and giving them back and to the owners of the people who made whips and the people who made manacles and all those people suffered.
	All human advances cause suffering.
	I mean there's no doubt about that and there's no possible way that you can say well we should improve human society and make it more moral and more consistent and our theory of ethics should become universal because it is in fact universal and not harm anyone's interest and not cause negative repercussions for people in society.
	Of course.
	Look, if spanking is immoral, as I think I've made a very solid case that it is, then people who accept that, and I get emails from these people every day, feel like hell about it.
	They feel terrible about it.
	If circumcision is immoral, then people who've had their children circumcised feel terrible about it.
	They feel wretched about it.
	Sometimes they just get plain angry and abusive about it.
	I get that.
	I get that.
	But still, we should not hit our children and we should not cut the ends of their penises off with a knife.
	Yes.
	You know, I'm sorry that it harms some people for there to be progress, but that's irrelevant to the equation.
	It's not a popularity contest.
	It is what is true, what is valid, what is defensible, what the empirical evidence supports.
	That's what matters.
	The consequences to each individual is more a reflection of their own prior virtues or vices than anything to do with philosophy.
	So I guess that's more...
	I don't know.
	I guess I'm thinking more big picture.
	Like, to me, I don't...
	I hate to use the term faith because that's obviously not good for either of us.
	But to me, I don't...
	Like, even though I see the arguments and I agree with a lot of them...
	Until we have the experiment, I don't have the faith that the big picture is actually going to be better for not everyone, but overall, you know what I mean?
	It still has absolutely no bearing.
	Your preference for some massive experiment to prove that which is logically consistent is irrelevant to its logical consistency.
	Yeah, yeah, definitely.
	This is the difference between that which is reasoned and that which is evidence-based.
	So I can say with certainty that a square circle can never exist.
	I cannot say for certainty that a unicorn can never exist because it could be some planet orbiting Betelgeuse which has unicorns on it.
	So you're mistaking that which is evidentiary from that which is reasoned or analytical, reasoned ahead of time.
	So we don't have to search the universe over.
	To see if there's a square circle or not.
	Or to see if two and two make five somewhere.
	They don't.
	And there isn't, right?
	And so the rational arguments for ethics, what I call universally preferable behavior, they're valid or they're not.
	But there's no need for an experiment to know whether they're valid or not.
	They are...
	Simply valid in the same way that there's no such thing as a square circle.
	You cannot have universally preferable behavior with opposing propositions because then it's not universal, right?
	Yeah.
	It's like saying, well, the physics experiment does this in Philadelphia, but the exact opposite in Akron, Ohio.
	Well, no.
	If it's physics, it's got to be universal, right?
	It can't just do one thing.
	The helium balloon goes up here and down over here.
	Well, there has to be something that changes.
	If there's nothing that changes, it can't go up one place and down the other because then it's not physics, right?
	Physics has to be universal.
	It's the most universal thing there is other than logic, right?
	I mean, that was like Einstein's...
	One of his postulates was that the laws of physics don't depend on frame of reference.
	Exactly.
	I mean, even the speed of light is constant.
	Even if you're both going in opposite...
	I mean, it's freaky shit, right?
	But this is the reality, right?
	I mean, it is universal.
	There's no corner of the universe where if physics stops at some corner of the universe, either it ain't the universe or it ain't physics, right?
	It's something else, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I think, like...
	For example, one of the things that we fought about a bunch was like, I don't believe in God, and I don't think...
	There's really anything that would happen that would make me believe in God, but I don't really strongly believe there isn't a God, because I just don't feel like I know.
	There's clearly no evidence for a God, so I'm 95% atheist, but I didn't ever say, I'm 100% atheist, there's no God.
	That really bothered him.
	He's like, you're going to teach our kids there's a God!
	No, I don't believe there's...
	Did he actually say, you're going to teach...
	You've got to be really honest with me here.
	Did he actually say, you are going to teach our children there's a God?
	When you said, I'm 95% certain there's no God.
	Not quite.
	He definitely said, you're a theist.
	And I'm like, I don't believe in God.
	Isn't that a theist?
	I don't know.
	I mean, I think just in the upsetness of fighting, he sometimes said things that he didn't mean.
	But I don't know.
	Because I'm not a believer...
	Even a believer in not God, I think that led to some...
	I don't know, I'm just very skeptical.
	That's how I am.
	That's how I'm a scientist, right?
	Like, being skeptical is part of being a good scientist.
	Just be like, wait...
	Yes, but you're not skeptical of the scientific method, are you?
	No, I guess that's...
	But I'm...
	Right, so skeptical is fine, but you can't be skeptical of the methodology of skepticism, because then you've just lost all moorings and you just can believe anything or disbelieve anything based upon your emotions, right?
	Yeah.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	So, fine, be skeptical.
	And you say, well, there's nothing that could happen.
	I can't imagine what would happen that would make me change my belief in God.
	Nothing could happen that would make you change your belief in God.
	God, by definition, is that which is anti-empirical and anti-rational, right?
	God is the ultimate square circle.
	Now, you're not 95% sure that there's no such thing as a square circle, are you?
	Oh, I'm...
	Yeah, no, I'm...
	By definition, like, that's not even...
	You don't have to prove that.
	It's like...
	Right.
	So, I mean, just very quickly, so God is proposed as a square circle, as something that exists with no evidence of existing.
	In a rational universe, something is supposed to exist which has no evidence of existing and which is the opposite of rationality.
	Such a thing can never exist.
	If God comes down tomorrow...
	Or some guy or some alien or some being comes down tomorrow and performs miracles and raises the dead and so on, right?
	That's not God.
	That's a super dude.
	That's a space alien.
	That's something with empirical evidence.
	The God that has been proposed throughout history is anti-empirical and anti-rational and by definition is the ultimate square circle cannot exist.
	That's what your boyfriend, however he may have put it, was probably trying to say.
	So if we find God, he is not God.
	Because we found him.
	There's empirical evidence and he's in a rational universe.
	That is not God as God is taught and as God has always been believed in throughout history.
	If we go out and find some guy walking on water, On Titan, you know, who's got a beard and can turn water into wine in some cool way.
	That's not Jesus.
	That's some guy with a beard walking on water with some weird coincidences to some ancient stories.
	That's not Jesus.
	Yeah, I agree.
	So you can be 100% sure there is no God, and then you can certainly be open to the idea of some super being showing up in the future, but that's not going to be God, because he's either going to be physically present, physically, he's going to have to be physically manifested or physically detectable in some manner.
	I mean, even though a black hole is there, because all this giant matter is being sucked into it and light can't escape, right?
	Yeah.
	You can at least see the effects of the black hole, though you can't directly perceive it, right?
	Yeah.
	So the moment you can perceive it, then it is no longer God because it doesn't rely on faith.
	Faith is belief in the opposition of reason and evidence.
	That's what God is.
	The moment that you've got reason and evidence for the existence of some superbeing, that has nothing to do with God.
	Huh.
	I never thought of it that way.
	But does it make sense?
	No, I really like that explanation because then I can say, like, I don't believe in any god from history or, like, any religion that humans have made up.
	Like, that all just seems crazy to me, but...
	Would we be a god if we went back 2,000 years with some modern technology and wowed people?
	Oh yeah, they would think we're a god.
	We would be perceived as a god.
	Would that make us a god?
	No.
	Of course not.
	So if some super dude comes down here with some amazing snap your fingers and make doves fly out of my ass, technology, that person would be godlike or whatever, would have the appearance like as Arthur C. Clarke, as I'm sure you know, said all sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
	But that's not God as they believe from 5,000 years ago these sun-baked Bedouin lunatics who were incredibly traumatized and never knew anything about animals that weren't in their immediate vicinity.
	Hey, no koala bear in the Bible.
	Why not?
	Because they didn't know about Australia.
	That's not...
	Ever going to happen.
	That stuff is never, ever going to be there because that stuff, there's no evidence for.
	It's completely irrational.
	It's anti-empirical, anti-rational.
	If some super dude comes down, he's just going to be some powerful being, but it's going to have nothing to do with God.
	Okay, that makes sense.
	Well, if he had said that to me, I would have agreed with him.
	Well, did he?
	I mean, I've written a very short book that's free, which has all of these arguments in it.
	Did you maybe think of...
	I tried to read your stuff, but we were too busy fighting for me to actually have time to...
	Oh, so now the fighting is the problem, not your choices!
	I'm trying to give you some power here!
	Yeah, no, I... You made choices!
	Yeah.
	You made choices to not really try and understand his point of view.
	He may have...
	Look, he's probably not a philosopher either, so he probably hasn't had this argument 10,000 times and reasoned it all from first principles, right?
	It looks easy when you've been doing it for 30 years, right?
	Yeah.
	So you made the choice to not try and dig in and try and understand what he meant, which was a free book which you could have read in a couple of hours.
	Right?
	So, you made that choice.
	It wasn't, well, we were fighting and this and that and the other.
	You were fighting because you didn't make that choice.
	Because I guarantee you, and this is part of me trying to get you pregnant, young lady.
	There are more direct messages.
	No, if you had said to him, I don't want to fight about this.
	If you like this philosopher, I'm going to read his book on religion.
	Right?
	That would have been smart.
	Well, this is what I'm saying.
	Right?
	So, you'd rather be right than pregnant.
	You'd rather win the fight in the moment than get pregnant and be a mom.
	And that's why I'm questioning your desire to actually be a mom.
	So, in my opinion, call the guy up and say...
	We fought badly about it.
	You know, I'm sorry I should have read this book.
	Don't blame anyone else.
	Just say I made a bad choice.
	I should have read this book because this is very important to you.
	We were dating.
	I want to have kids and yet I didn't spend the time to read this book.
	I have time now to date.
	I have time now apparently to go and comb through all of the lunatics in the universe trying to find a good father.
	But I didn't have time for a couple of hours to read a book that was really important to you while we were dating.
	I'm really sorry about that.
	That was a bad decision.
	Yeah, it felt really like he was constantly trying to push me to change who I was.
	It felt like a rejection of me as a person.
	Oh my God, are you kidding me?
	You spent 11 years trying to get someone to want to have kids?
	And then you're complaining that someone's trying to change you?
	Yeah, I mean, but it...
	I don't know, it just...
	Like...
	Yes, of course he wants to change you.
	Of course he does.
	Guess what?
	Relationships are all about change and growth.
	Yeah, I... I'm not the same person I was when I married my wife, and she's not the same person either.
	Thank bloody God!
	Oh, we both have died of boredom years ago.
	Yeah!
	Change!
	If someone's got better at hockey, you change for them!
	You change for the arguments.
	You change for the perspective.
	You grow.
	You mature.
	That's the whole point.
	I guess the way he would get really frustrated and then insult me...
	Yes!
	I understand that!
	I do!
	I'm getting frustrated!
	I'm not insulted.
	You haven't insulted me.
	You didn't call me dense and you didn't tell me I haven't had an independent thought in my life and you didn't say that I had better never have children or I'm going to be a terrible mother or...
	I don't know.
	I can't think of the other stuff that he said to me that, like...
	And that is terrible stuff to hear.
	I'm not going to excuse that.
	I mean, for somebody to say, you should never have children, you'll be a terrible mother, is a pretty horrible curse to put on someone.
	And so I, you know, I'm with you on that.
	If he said that, and I have no reason to disbelieve, I'm sure you are reporting it accurately.
	That's a terrible thing to say to someone.
	And I'm very sorry that you ever heard that.
	I mean, I lashed back at him when we were fighting, too.
	Like, I got upset and lashed back out, and I said things I regretted, too.
	But he didn't apologize to me about it.
	Like, he would say, oh, well, you're taking it out of context.
	And I'm like, I don't think there's much context where it's okay to call your...
	Wait, did you apologize to him?
	When I called him the things that I did, I did.
	I felt really bad.
	Several times I would apologize.
	Because I still felt bad because I was raised Catholic, so the guilt never goes away.
	But I didn't feel like he recognized that that wasn't okay.
	And I don't want to be treated that way, whether or not...
	I would love to learn from him.
	I liked that he had different beliefs.
	I liked that he was passionate about something, even if it was something I didn't understand yet.
	But...
	It was just the way that he went about trying to get me into his corner, like...
	Oh, no, no, no, no.
	See, it's the corner.
	You're personalizing everything.
	Yeah, whatever the right word is.
	I don't know.
	Right?
	If I'm teaching my daughter mathematics, I'm not trying to get her into my corner, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I'm either making a good argument or not.
	And if I'm making an argument that doesn't hang together, she'll tell me and we'll talk about it and maybe I've made a mistake or whatever, so...
	So, yeah, I mean, I would just really...
	Be open to change from somebody else.
	Be open to correction.
	I mean, you know that's part of the scientific method, right?
	I mean, you don't want to be one of these people where everybody's praying that you die off so the new paradigm can be adopted because you're never willing to give up the old paradigm, right?
	I mean, be open and flexible to what people have to say.
	Aggression usually arises from passion plus resistance, at least when there's intimacy involved.
	I don't mean sort of mugging and stuff like that.
	I guess there's a passion for money and a resistance to giving it or whatever.
	Yeah.
	But certainly being open to change, being welcoming of change, and being curious about somebody else's thoughts and their motives, right?
	When people get really passionate, say, hey, help me understand why this is so important to you.
	Because otherwise you're just going to feel bullied, right?
	If they get really intense and passionate, say, well, help me understand why this is so important to you.
	And you can have great conversations without ever really touching on the content.
	Of what they're saying, but just understanding why it motivates them so much.
	I think that's really important.
	And I'm not sure if you answered whether we can forward you any letters from anyone we may get.
	Oh, sure.
	You can let me know later if you want.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I just...
	I really do have an open mind, and I changed a lot of my opinions from learning stuff that I've seen from you and other things.
	I read the Rothbard book, that's The New Liberty, and I was like, whoa, this kind of blew my mind.
	I never thought about it that way.
	I don't know.
	I tried really hard, and I don't know.
	I just...
	I don't know, maybe he just got too fast into it and didn't have the patience to wait for my speed?
	Look, I can't listen to you tell me how great you were and how bad he was again, right?
	Because I'm trying to give you some power in the relationship.
	And the moment you start saying, well, I guess I tried really hard, but he just was impatient or he just didn't get or didn't understand or wasn't nice and all that.
	And I apologize, but he never did and so on.
	You can have all of that stuff if you want.
	My concern is that you can have that and cats rather than children.
	And budgies rather than babies, right?
	So I'm sure he's at fault.
	I'm sure you're at fault.
	Forget about his faults.
	Focus on the things that you could have done better.
	And that's going to give you the best chance for improvement in the next round, which I hope is going to be a round that gets you what you want.
	And I really do appreciate that you've been so open.
	How was the conversation for you?
	I guess I wanted to check in with you at the end.
	I was really afraid because I was like, I'm just going to be honest and I don't know how angry he's going to get at me for just being me.
	I don't know.
	No, I didn't.
	Honestly, I didn't feel angry at you.
	I appreciated your honesty and I never ascribed any malicious intent for you in the conversation.
	I thought some great stuff happened.
	But go on.
	Yeah, I'm sorry if I came out offensive on some things like I didn't mean to be that way.
	No, and I was not offended.
	What you were saying was offensive, but I knew that it was not something that you were trying to be offensive about.
	So I completely understand where that's coming from.
	I mean, if it's any people who get upset about philosophy and hate it sometimes, I mean, it's nothing I haven't experienced a thousand times over the years.
	The frustration with the desire for something different, the appeal to consequences, the desire to retreat from An inevitable conclusion.
	The idea to think of what might happen if I accept it.
	This is all stuff I've been through a million times.
	So I completely understand it and totally get where you're coming from.
	So I appreciate you calling.
	Will you give us a shout at some point and let us know how it's going?
	Sure.
	Just email or something?
	Yeah, just give us an email and let us know.
	And if you do hit a Mr.
	Wonderful, do...
	Do give us a shout.
	Let us know what he's like and maybe we'll get him on the show.
	Yeah, Mr.
	Wonderful, whoever.
	And if the ex is out here, if the ex is out there, feel free to call in too.
	Oh yeah, he's going to call in someday because he has his own story from his family and stuff that he wanted to share.
	Right.
	Mike, who do we have next?
	It's a couple, Tara and Jeff.
	And they wrote in and says, When you say moving too fast, you mean like sexual friction?
	Because that often doesn't help build a stable relationship.
	Um, yeah, well, there's that aspect, but then there's also, like, saying I love you, like, really fast, and, um, yeah, those are the...
	Sorry, I'm a little bit nervous.
	Yeah, but we're both a little bit nervous.
	Yeah, so...
	All right, well, give me...
	Take your time, just give me the story of how you met, what happened.
	Um...
	Right.
	Well, we met online on Match.com and I was going through a pretty rough time at the time.
	I'd been with a couple of people and it didn't work out at all.
	Wait, wait, hang on.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	I'd like to unpack that a tiny little bit if you don't mind.
	That's fine, do it.
	You've been with a couple of people at the same time, in a dungeon, in a yurt.
	I mean, what do you mean?
	Actually, it was like a combination dungeon-yurt, so it's great that you brought that up.
	A yurt?
	Excellent.
	Now, what do you mean?
	Do you mean like you'd had a couple of prior relationships or some polygamy thing?
	Absolutely no polygamy thing.
	So, no.
	Okay, so here's what happened.
	I was in a relationship.
	It was an on-again, off-again relationship for about six years, I would say.
	And in that time, you know, I cheated on him and it was just a really bad relationship.
	In so many ways, that could be unpacked.
	But that relationship ended.
	And at the end of that relationship...
	I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	Go on.
	So you cheated on your last boyfriend?
	Yeah, but we started dating when I was like 15.
	So it wasn't...
	It wasn't...
	I was really young at the time, so I wouldn't consider it as, I guess, as serious as, like, something...
	Like, if I cheated now, like, it would be more...
	To me, that would mean more, I guess.
	But I don't know.
	I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that, so...
	Okay, so you cheated.
	It was a bad relationship.
	Mm-hmm.
	And then what happened?
	Well, he left me.
	It was around 2012, he left me.
	And actually ended up marrying someone else the next year.
	I'm sorry, when you were 16?
	Oh, dear God.
	I'm so sorry.
	No, no, this, like, okay, like, I almost...
	Which century are you calling from?
	Which, that's a great question.
	No, okay, so it's a really long...
	What's his name?
	Mohammed.
	Anyway, go ahead.
	No, it's a really long and complicated story, and I'm afraid to, like, spend too much time on it.
	I mean, I could tell you everything that happened, but I feel like it would take a really long time, and I didn't want to, like, take more time away from the discussion that we're having now, like, to give a bunch of backstory, which would take forever, but I can if that would help.
	So you don't mind moving too fast with your current boyfriend, but now you want to move too fast with me as well.
	I feel so rushed.
	No, listen.
	Whatever you feel is important to talk about, don't worry about time.
	You know, we've got time.
	Don't worry about it.
	We've got no commercials.
	I don't have to be at the rave till like 2.30 in the morning.
	So, take your time.
	Okay.
	Alright.
	Alright, so...
	I met my last serious boyfriend that I dated.
	I met him when I was 15.
	And...
	He was dating someone else and he broke up with that girl and was actually...
	This is the girl that he ended up marrying later.
	So it's really complicated.
	So I'm sorry if I get fuzzy.
	No, no, hang on.
	Did you pull like an Angelina Jolie on this lovely Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston couple?
	Like, did you move in like a slinky Catwoman-style vixen and steal the man away?
	Something like that, yeah.
	So your relationship started with him kind of cheating on his girlfriend too, you know, mentally or physically or whatever.
	And then you ended up cheating on him.
	Yes, exactly.
	Okay.
	May not be the first time that's ever happened in the history of human sexuality, but I just wanted to sort of point that out.
	Of course.
	And I just wanted to also state that both my ex-boyfriend and his wife, who he originally left for me, are both Freedom Aid Radio listeners, so this is going to be fun for them to listen to.
	But that's beside the point.
	It's okay.
	Listen, just to help protect with privacy, we generally will turn your voice into Barry White.
	So obviously Jeff is going to sound exceedingly gay and biracial curious.
	But anyway, okay, so go on.
	Okay, so we were 15 and he left his girlfriend and we sort of hooked up for like two weeks, kind of, without sex.
	Like I hadn't had sex yet at that point.
	Doesn't hooking up mean sex?
	I don't mean to sound overly old, but...
	You know, I think it takes on new connotations every generation or so.
	To me, hooking up when I was 15 meant making out.
	You know?
	Right.
	But no, I hadn't...
	Hang on.
	Let's switch to the British term snogging so that nobody has any clue what we're talking about.
	We'll start speaking in British code.
	I say I took the lift to my flat.
	No.
	Oh yeah, that sounds like a plan to me.
	Suck down a fag!
	Anyway.
	Okay, so how long were you with ChidiGuy?
	Two weeks, he said.
	Yeah, we were there together for two weeks, and then he broke up with me, right?
	He didn't want to see me anymore, which kind of made sense to me at the time, because I was also sort of going on dates with other people.
	Wait a second.
	So you worked your feminine wiles to get this guy, and inside the two weeks of a non-sexual relationship, you were dating other men?
	Oh, my God.
	Yeah.
	This is really embarrassing.
	Oh, my God.
	How bad is your relationship with your dad?
	Bad.
	Of course.
	Let's start with that.
	Forget the 15-year-old.
	Thank you.
	Lord knows.
	I mean, the soap opera of no sex.
	Yeah.
	But what is going on with your relationship with your dad?
	Oh, my God.
	I grew up...
	God, my dad, I completely idolized my dad when I was a kid.
	Excellent.
	I like it so far.
	As a dad, that sounds entirely appropriate to me.
	But then.
	Yeah, well, the first, okay, so I would say that by around age eight, my parents, both of them, had completely lost all credibility with me.
	And their advice, their punishments, their whatever, I took everything with a grain of salt.
	It was incredibly confusing for me at the time.
	But my dad...
	How did they lose credibility?
	Mostly, I think, because of how...
	How emotionally unstable they were with each other and with me.
	I think some of my earliest memories are just of them screaming at each other.
	I remember being four years old and being up in my room and just waking up to the sound of them screaming at each other and being so scared.
	Now, when you say screaming, do you sort of mean raised voices, or do you mean like full-on throat-shredding, cling-on forehead, ear-splitting, top-of-the- lungs craziness?
	The second one.
	Oh, God, I'm so sorry.
	Oh, Tara, that made us completely terrifying to know that your parents are out of control.
	You know, I've said this before, it's like getting into a cab, realizing the cab driver has...
	Some sort of headband on over his eyes.
	Some sort of two eye patches on and then he hits the gas and goes full speed through traffic.
	I mean, it's completely terrifying.
	So I'm very sorry for all that.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I... And it was worse because my dad, he's a very charismatic guy, or, well, he's very charismatic to people who lack the intelligence to understand that the things that he says are not very honest.
	He's good at making small talk with people and kind of making people, especially people that are less intelligent than him, feel good.
	And he's not that intelligent, so, like...
	So he's plausible to idiots.
	Yeah.
	You know what?
	Actually, here's a great comparison.
	I listened to most of your novel, The God of Atheists, on audiobook, because after I started donating...
	Dave!
	Yes, Davey B. Davey B. I listened to that, and I was like, oh my god, this character...
	But he's worse than Dave.
	He's worse than Davey B, because he can't even make money.
	Well...
	I'm just putting a little bookmark here in that you haven't finished my novel.
	We'll get back to that.
	Okay.
	When it's time for me to air my problems.
	No, that's the part where he loses everything and his wife like...
	Spoilers!
	No problem, no problem.
	We can edit that part out.
	Yeah, yeah, okay.
	All right.
	So your parents were like lunatics screaming empty people, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	Now, you said that before that, was it that they didn't scream at each other, you didn't notice it, or what?
	Well, you could not notice it, right?
	Right.
	Yeah, well, my theory is, like, my family is good at taking care of each other, like, when they're sick, you know, when people are sick, they're very, well, it's kind of like this cloying niceness, it's not like, it's not like genuine niceness, you know, it's like, it's like, it's like you feel, you feel gross afterwards somehow, you know, and I can just...
	No, I get it.
	My mom was a horrible human being and still is, but she was pretty good when I was sick because when I was sick I was no threat to her.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Like I couldn't disagree with her.
	I was in a weakened state and therefore some of her vaguely maternal things could come out because there was never any challenge or disagreement.
	I was weakened, so to speak, right?
	Oh yeah, exactly.
	And so my mom loves animals.
	She loves cats and stuff like that.
	So I think when I was a baby, at least I would imagine that there was somewhat more of a marital harmony because my dad had the role of taking care of my mom and my mom would be less critical because she's got all the endorphins of having her...
	The father of her child there, and, you know, it's all, like, kind of rosy at first, and then as I start to get older and I start to ask questions, but it's, like, it seemed like as I started to get older and, like, become more aware and stuff, like, my parents' marriage, like, sort of started to deteriorate, and by the time I was, like, four, and I was, like, talking and walking, obviously, at this point, they actually separated for a year, and my dad was with someone else, and my mom was with someone else.
	Oh, man.
	Yeah.
	You're kidding.
	No.
	Okay, so when we're talking about you at 15, we're talking about the template of your parents, right?
	Yeah.
	You know all that.
	That's not a surprise to you, right?
	No.
	Okay, okay.
	Not at all.
	So your dad was with someone else, your mom was with someone else, and then how did they get...
	Was this someone else around the kids?
	Like, did you beat the...
	Um, yeah, yeah, I met, uh, it was, it was just me, um, I'm an only child, um, and, uh, yeah, I, well, at least I remember meeting my dad's, uh, girlfriend, um, and she was kind of like this, she's kind of, all I can remember is her hair.
	Her hair was, like, black and curly and huge, and she had sons, and I just remember that she, like, wouldn't let me, like, sit next to my dad or, like, uh, like, in the car, like, she got mad at me, I think, for, like, wanting to sit near my dad, um, The thing is that this period in time isn't talked about in my family at all.
	There were a couple of times later in life that I tried to bring it up, but that was always shut down, pretty ruthlessly shut down.
	What did your dad say to the big-haired witch who didn't want you sitting next to him?
	Nothing of consequence.
	Nothing that I remember.
	Wow.
	But what I was about to say, the story, I think, was that he left her.
	He didn't want to be with her anymore because he was concerned that the relationship was affecting his ability to parent me.
	He felt some guilt over that.
	That's the story.
	That was the story I was told, but I haven't talked to them about this in a really long time, so I don't know how true that is or not.
	Yeah, you know, I guess I could see that.
	Like, if I had a little crumpet on the side and Isabella saw me, like, kissing another woman other than her mother, I could see that that might have a slightly detrimental impact on my daughter's respect for me and therefore my capacity to be a remotely decent parent.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	I mean, wouldn't you think about that before you moved out?
	But when it was someone else?
	But all right.
	Wouldn't you?
	I guess I get, yeah.
	No, my dad has never been one for forethought.
	Well, manipulators are, they're always just trying to win the moment, right?
	The long-term planning is like incomprehensible.
	They're just trying to win in the moment.
	They're trying to dominate or get what they want or get their needs met in the moment to help with the consequences.
	It's typical addictive behavior, right?
	Exactly.
	That's exactly what my dad is like.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So then they got back together.
	Yes.
	Right.
	Usually that means that the other boyfriends or girlfriends dumped them and they went back to each other because they're codependent and can't be without someone, but who knows, right?
	Yeah, I mean, it's really a crapshoot, the reasons.
	I mean, it could have been financial, it could have been anything.
	But I have a hard time believing that it was, like, you know, true, deep, romantic love.
	Like, I don't think it was that.
	Definitely not that.
	Well, if they're still screaming at each other when you're eight, then, right, probably not.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So, did they stay together then, after that?
	Yes, they're still together, but my mom works away from home, so she's gone during the week, and then she comes back on the weekends, and that arrangement seems to be adequate for them, although I can't imagine myself living that way.
	I don't know.
	Well, you can if you didn't like your partner.
	Yeah, I guess.
	Then it would be pretty much a blessing, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Alright.
	And what happened with you and your father in your teenage years?
	He just...
	That was a very expressive half laugh there, I gotta tell you.
	Well, he just, like, as I got older, like, he just became, like, the times, when I was younger, the times that we would spend time together and do things together, like, you know, like, he wanted, I think he kind of wanted a son, but, so he would play catch with me in the backyard, and, you know, we would go mountain biking together, or...
	Swimming together, you know, we'd do, like, that kind of stuff, but, like, as I got older, like, that happened less and less, and he became more distant, and, like, and I started to develop, you know, like, and I've...
	It's just...
	I'm sorry, the things that I'm going to say, I feel, like, just very, like, very angry about.
	Like, I just...
	You could be angry.
	You can absolutely be.
	It sounds like you've got some stuff to be angry about, sister.
	You don't feel inhibited here.
	Well, it just, the problem is that, like, I, apparently, I, like, quote-unquote developed, I got run through puberty, like, very early.
	I don't think it's that early, when I was, like, 12.
	And...
	Yeah, that doesn't seem very early.
	No.
	I mean, I know that there's some, I think in the African-American community, like, girls are hitting puberty at the age of 8 or 9 these days, or 10, it's crazy.
	Yeah.
	And it's generally getting earlier, but 12 doesn't sound excessively early to me, not that I'm any kind of expert, but...
	Well, I mean, when you, like...
	There were just all kinds of problems surrounding that.
	Like, he kept...
	Like, my dad kept, like, slapping my ass, you know, until I was, like, 16.
	And, like, he had to be told to stop.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah.
	And, like, there was stuff, you know, he...
	He just did not...
	He didn't understand how to deal with having a woman, a young woman, around.
	I'm being inundated with memories here of things that he did that were just so completely gross and wrong that I just can't...
	Well, like what?
	I'm sorry, what did you say?
	Like what?
	God...
	Well, when I was 15, when I had, you know, the boyfriend that I was telling you about, I just remember him, like, coming over, you know, to the house, and, you know, he was gonna, they were gonna leave us alone in the house for, like, all of a half an hour or something, and he was, like, he made some, like, crude comments about how, like, we shouldn't, like, have sex.
	Like, the way, I don't even want to repeat the way that he said it.
	It was just, that's just, ugh.
	He's just, he's just invasive, you know, and, um...
	Yeah, just no boundaries.
	He would burst into my room a lot of the time and just seemed to have no clue about anything that was going on.
	He burst into my room once while I was masturbating and burst into my room when he thought I might be on the phone just to yell at me and stuff like that.
	Yeah, I mean, look, when you discover your clitoris, it's like when a boy discovers his penis.
	I mean, you need to knock and wait at least 35 seconds and four rounds of...
	You're ready to come in before you go into any teenager's bedroom, right?
	Yeah.
	It's better to just text them and wait for them to come downstairs.
	I mean, that's the only safe thing to do, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, the boundary problems started before that because I ended up in an abusive relationship when I was 12.
	And I say that it was abusive because it was a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old.
	So you were 12 and you were just developing, right?
	Yeah.
	And you were in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old?
	Yes.
	Do you mind?
	And you don't have to share anything, obviously.
	I mean, it's pretty anonymous.
	In fact, it's very anonymous.
	But what do you mean by a sexual relationship?
	I mean that he touched me in a sexual way and that there was sexual intention.
	We didn't have sex, but there was groping and heavy kissing and stuff.
	That kind of thing.
	All right.
	Where would you meet this 16-year-old?
	Where are these people?
	These horrible, horrible human beings who are like, hey, she's 12?
	Great!
	I'm sorry, Jeff wants to say something.
	I just wanted to say that you told me, we talk about your history a lot, and I just thought it was important to mention that this relationship was sanctioned by your parents.
	Yeah.
	What now?
	Oh, sorry, what?
	Your dad said he's 16, you're 12.
	Great!
	I met the guy at a karate class.
	My dad and I did karate together, and I don't even know.
	I was interested in his little brother at first.
	Well, hang on.
	So are you saying that you actually knew how to punch him in the balls?
	Yes.
	And you didn't?
	No.
	Could you find him now and punch him in the balls, do you think?
	Yes.
	Okay, like hard, so that he doesn't...
	Do any of this stuff again.
	I think that'd be great.
	Yeah.
	Anyway.
	Okay, so you met him in a karate class.
	You were interested in his brother, but he, what, asked you out?
	Yes.
	And your dad was like, yeah, sounds legit.
	Go for it.
	They, no, not exactly.
	They wrote up, they had like a meeting, quote-unquote, you know, with like his mom, the kid's mom, and my dad and my mom, and they had like a list of rules that they printed out for us, and they said that it needs to be like a non-sexual relationship and like all this stuff.
	Yeah, because, you know, 16-year-old boys, when it comes to the penis arts, are entirely bound by rules.
	I think everybody knows that.
	It's very easy to get them to follow rules, so...
	Yeah, it was...
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	Now, did he, the 16-year-old boy, did he have a dad around?
	I'm going to assume not, right?
	No, of course not.
	Right, of course not.
	So, yeah, so a fatherless boy, so a boy being raised by a single mom, we all know they're wonderfully healthy people.
	So these parents, your parents thought that a 16-year-old unfathered boy or fatherless boy would be fantastic, would be a fantastic, like romantic...
	I don't think...
	I mean, I don't think that they even thought about it.
	I don't think they even thought about it like that.
	I think by that point...
	By that point, the relations between myself and my parents had deteriorated significantly, and I think that they were afraid that if they did not concede in some way to this relationship, that I would freak out.
	And not just freak out, but I mean...
	I was already beginning to be, like, more intelligent than them at that age.
	And I don't think that they could...
	I don't think that they felt that they could reason with me, like, at all.
	Well, that's because they hadn't reasoned with you before, because they didn't know how to reason in relationships.
	If they did, they wouldn't be screaming at each other like two idiots at the top of their lungs, right?
	Exactly.
	Yeah, and let me just sort of take a brief pause here for a sec and just want to point out to...
	I mean, you probably know all this, but just to the other...
	Listeners, you cannot really play catch-up as a parent.
	I think this is fair to say, and of course it's your parents, so correct me if I'm wrong relative to your experience, Tara.
	But you can't play catch-up.
	If your kid's 12, you can't just suddenly start being a good parent.
	All this stuff has to be layered in ahead of time.
	I remember when I was younger, I knew a girl who, when we played with her, she'd been put in daycare from when she was really, really young.
	And when we played with her, if the game, you know, when you're on an open field, the games drift back and forth for kids.
	You know, we're all playing over here and then we're all playing tag.
	We run over here.
	Every time this sort of center of gravity for the kids would move anywhere else than where she was, she'd like burst into tears, throw herself on the ground and cry that we were all abandoning her.
	And it was a...
	I mean, you know, as a kid, I'd go home.
	What's the matter?
	We're right here.
	You know, you try with your, you know, idiot kid skills to try and do something useful.
	But, you know, this kid was...
	I think seven or eight years old.
	Now, the damage was she went into daycare when she was very young, right?
	So the sense of abandonment, the sense of a lack of security and trust in her friendships.
	You know, I mean, kids move like those flocks of birds move through the sky, you know, like it's a bunch of cinders being blown in a high wind.
	And...
	That lack of trust had her sort of the moment that the kids moved in some other direction that she was being abandoned.
	It awoken to all of her primal terrors and anxieties and I guess radical, I would guess what would be called radical attachment disorders.
	And her parents spent a lot of time trying to calm her down.
	Like trying to get her down.
	But they could never solve the problem because the problem was pretty hardwired in very, very early on.
	And to me it was always like Okay, well, why do you have so much time to manage the problem now, but beforehand you didn't have the time to be a parent?
	And it's sort of like this prison psychiatrist who, you know, the parents come trudging down every week to spend half a day trying to talk to their kid, and it's like, okay, you've got time for this now, but you didn't have time to be a good parent and prevent the crime when he was young and growing up, so...
	So it is really tough to play catch-up.
	A lot of parenting, of course, is preparing for the teenage years, when the children are physically mature, but still emotionally immature relative to how they're going to be in their 20s.
	But they're independent.
	Now they're more susceptible to peer pressure.
	And a lot of parents, when the teenage years hit, they try to play catch-up.
	It's like, well, now you have my attention, right?
	But the problem is now that the child has the power to make the parents anxious, whereas during the latency period in toddler and Baby years, the parent has the power to make the child anxious, right?
	The parent's got all the size and strength and authority.
	When the kid becomes a teenager, well, the balance of power has shifted.
	Now, the kid can stay out late, the kid can disobey, and what's going to happen?
	You're not going to get thrown in jail.
	I mean, parents might yell at you, but, you know, fuck you, parents.
	You yelled at me all the time when I was a kid, or you yelled at each other.
	What the hell is yelling at me going to do, right?
	So, a lot of parents, they either try to sort of become parents in the teenage years without having had that history, but I think it really doesn't work at that point.
	And when stuff happens as a teenager, when things go off the rails, I always look back to like infancy and toddlerhood and what wasn't done during that time period.
	And of course, if you had...
	Idolized.
	If you had continued to idolize your father, Tara, right?
	And if he just said, listen, you can't date a 16-year-old boy.
	I mean, you're just going through puberty.
	He went through puberty like, you know, four or five years ago.
	And he wants to do Morgan Kiss.
	I mean, he's a 16-year-old boy.
	Why on earth would he have anything in common with a 12-year-old girl?
	I mean, there's a huge amount of time difference there, right?
	It's like 20% age difference.
	You know, why would that...
	It's like a 50-year-old guy having a huge amount of interest in a 29-year-old woman.
	It's like, what would you possibly have in common?
	It's such a different life experience.
	If you had really maintained that respect for your father, you'd have listened to him and he wouldn't have needed all these rules, so to speak, right?
	Yes.
	And that's the price that is paid, right?
	Yeah.
	So I'm sorry.
	I mean, it's incredibly inappropriate, just to go on the record and be really clear.
	It's incredibly inappropriate and, frankly, extremely legally dangerous, if not morally tragic, to let a 16-year-old boy grope a 12-year-old girl.
	I mean, that this even needs to be said in the world is shocking to me, and I'm incredibly sorry.
	That your father felt in any way, shape, or form, and your mom, we haven't even talked about your mom, but that your father thought in any way, shape, or form that this could be anything other than disastrous.
	I'm incredibly sorry.
	Because then, of course, what happens is you realize that you have the sexual power over men, which makes you less likely to want to get to know them as people and gives you a certain amount of contempt for these needy penises.
	And also...
	Which I think is all the more tragic, because you didn't feel a lot of power growing up, I would assume, right?
	Your parents are splitting up, they're screaming at each other, you don't respect them, but they won't change.
	Then the moment you start to get power over men through your sexuality through puberty, then you don't really have a way of using that power in a wise manner.
	You have no experience of seeing people use power in a wise manner, right?
	Yes.
	But anyway, enough of me telling you what it's like to be a 12-year-old girl.
	Why don't you continue?
	Yeah, so...
	How long did you...
	Sorry to interrupt.
	How long did you go with this 16-year-old creep?
	Two months and six days.
	Right.
	And then?
	He broke up with me.
	He left.
	He didn't want to see me anymore.
	Was that because you didn't want to go any further sexually?
	No, it was actually because, I think it was because I really didn't like the fact that he drank.
	And he told me once about how he like went into coats, he went into like wherever to, damn it, to buy weed and like...
	Oh, God.
	Yeah, and I was like, I was 12, you know, and like I started crying.
	Like, I was like, what the hell are you talking about?
	But what the hell did you think of your parents, Tara, who were like, yeah, pot smoking, drunken 16 year old, here's our daughter.
	I honestly, I mean, at the time, I couldn't, I couldn't, I didn't think of them at all.
	I didn't, I really, like, I hated them.
	I hated them to the degree of, like, just, like, they were, they were invasive and, invasive and neglectful at the same time.
	They were, I couldn't stand them as people.
	Like, I, I was in constant pain, like, just constant isolation and constant pain.
	And, um, It was just, like, this relationship, I remember, like, when I was with this guy, it was the first time when I fell asleep, like, it felt like I slept like the dead when I was with him.
	Because before, like, I just, I never slept well, like, I never, like, I, it was always, like, you know, on the periphery, like, I would kind of sleep well, kind of be able to fall asleep, and it would be okay, but then when I was with, when I had this relationship, it was like, it was like I was asleep, and I was, it was great, you know, and, um, So he was sort of like this drunken narcotic who smelled like Bob Marley, right?
	Yeah.
	Right, okay.
	Yeah, it was just awful.
	I couldn't reason it out.
	I mean, I was already angry at them for so many things at that point.
	Mostly, I think I was angry at them because...
	Actually, I wanted to tell you this because for a long time, I've been listening to this show for years now.
	I was like probably I was like around like six or seven or eight I think when I sort of grasped the concept that I didn't choose to be here that it wasn't my choice and I would like level that against them like a lot when things were bad I would tell them like you know you guys chose to have a kid like I didn't choose to be born and like that was I think if I was angry at them for anything I think it was that at that time that I didn't choose this life and I didn't choose any of it Well,
	no, I mean, sorry to interrupt you, but that's not technically correct.
	Okay.
	Because you weren't angry that you didn't choose them.
	I mean, my daughter is fully aware that she didn't choose me as a father, but that doesn't make her angry.
	Hmm.
	It's not that you didn't choose to be there, it's that you didn't choose to be there and it was seriously shitty.
	It's the seriously shitty part that makes you angry.
	The lack of choice is like salt in that wound, but the wound is there first, right?
	Oh, that's what I meant, yeah.
	Right.
	Now, tell me some of the stuff that you were angry about.
	I've got some of it, but I just want to get a bit more of a 360.
	Well, you know, let's just start from, like, when I was young, I was, like, four, my parents were separated, I was already in daycare, you know?
	Like, my mom didn't stop working, you know, the entire time that I was a kid.
	Like, I was in daycare, and I remember hating that, and then...
	From what age?
	God had, like...
	My grandmother watched me when I was probably like a really little toddler, you know, like two or three, but by four I was definitely in daycare.
	What about when you were one?
	Yeah, probably.
	I mean, I would be more inclined to think that my grandmother was watching me back then.
	I think my mom was at least a little bit discerning about who she left me with at that age because, as I said before, she has an affinity for animals and things within her care that she perceives as defenseless.
	And I don't think that she would leave me in daycare at that age, but I have no basis of saying so.
	Okay, and now what did you hate about daycare?
	People were mean to me.
	The girls and stuff, they would pick on me and throw things at me.
	I was tired.
	I had to get up really early in the morning and go.
	I would just go back to the corner and fall asleep.
	People would get on my case about not talking.
	I would try to play with the other people, the other kids.
	You know just there is like always like one girl that would just like pick on me and just push me around and stuff and it was just so like incredibly hard to cope with like they just it felt like they like zeroed me like zeroed in on me for some reason.
	Right well because you didn't have a strong bond which is partly they know instinctually and also because you're in daycare at that age right?
	Yeah.
	Especially if you go in daycare when you're really young, then you can develop the ugly brutality that you need to survive in daycare.
	But if you have more of a constant care companion like your grandmother when you're young, and then you get thrown in daycare, then you're late to the development of bullying.
	And then you're truly screwed, right?
	Yeah.
	Because you've developed some empathy and some sense of yourself and some healthy insecurity.
	Whereas if you're thrown in late, it's like, hey, these people have been training in boxing for three years straight.
	In you go with no training.
	How's that going to work out, right?
	Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what happened.
	Yeah, I mean, that actually really clears that up for me because forever I felt like I've had a target painted on my head.
	Yeah, I mean, I had a very great, as far as I understand it, a very great caregiver when I was very young, when my mom was hospitalized for depression.
	I had this wonderful nanny who I really bonded with.
	And then, of course, when I go to boarding school, I find it a very painful place because I actually have some knowledge, some primal memory of empathy and caring and love and all that.
	And then all of these monsters who have never experienced that are way ahead of me on the evil scale.
	And I mean, how the hell am I supposed to compete?
	I'm like a mammal, like a tiny little squirrel with T-Rex feet coming crashing down all over the place.
	Definitely.
	All right.
	Okay, so what else?
	You said you're angry.
	Well, I mean, after that time period when my parents got back together, they purposefully moved closer to my father's family.
	My aunt and my uncle and my grandmother, they all lived together.
	My cousin.
	And so rather than daycare, pretty much before and after school and in the summer, I would have to spend time at their house.
	My grandmother would watch me and my cousin while all the parents were off at work.
	And my cousin was stronger than me.
	I was a pretty weak kid.
	I was little.
	I actually had an operation, a pretty serious life-threatening operation when I was a baby.
	Physically, I just was not as adept as my cousin was at that age.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Are you saying that smaller people tend to be less bullying?
	Wait, what?
	Sorry, I missed that.
	Well, okay, so there's this thing called the Napoleon Complex, which is also written about, of course, in Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck, where, you know, smaller people are kind of pugnacious, right?
	Because, you know, they want something to prove something or whatever, right?
	And you seem to be saying that you were less aggressive because you were smaller, right?
	Um...
	Well, I was afraid because I got a sense of my own size and my own power, like she was bigger than me, you know, and I knew that.
	Oh, no, no, no, you don't understand.
	It's not that.
	No, and I'm sorry to interrupt you and I'm sorry to correct you so abruptly.
	It's good.
	But listen, size has almost nothing to do with bullying.
	Okay.
	No, let me tell you.
	Okay, so let's just say you're four and you're in daycare, right?
	Now, let's say you're the biggest kid in daycare.
	But let's say you know there's some little psycho there who is going to try and gouge your eyes out when it's nap time.
	Right.
	Or hit you with a big giant stick on the head from behind.
	I get it.
	Right?
	Size is not...
	That relevant to bullying.
	Now it's true that some of the bigger kids are more physically intimidating and so on, but if you want to be a little kid who wants to not be bullied, then if you are perceived as a kid who is completely insane and will do like crazy things, Like, come set fire to your house, or slash your parents' tires.
	You can be as tiny as you want.
	You can be the smallest kid in the class, but everybody has to turn around.
	Everybody is in the toilet at some point.
	If you're the kid who's going to throw a live rat into the toilet stall, do you know what I mean?
	If you're just crazy that way, then size is not hugely relevant to bullying.
	So the reason that I'm saying is because it's not that you were smaller that you were vulnerable to physical aggression.
	Yeah, I can see why you're pointing that out.
	Especially if you live with the people, they go to sleep, right?
	Yeah.
	Like I had a guy I knew growing up.
	Had this ancient, like, Mesozoic-style, brutal Scottish grandmother.
	And she would get angry at him and try to hit him, right?
	But she was, like, conservatively 8,500 years old.
	Like, she was like somebody out of Deuteronomy.
	She was like Methuselah's grandmother.
	Right, so she couldn't catch him, because this guy was like greased lightning, right?
	I mean, he was one of these real footprints-on-the-ceiling kind of hypercats, right?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	And so, basically she was angry at him and she couldn't catch him.
	He just ran away laughing, right?
	Yeah.
	So then, you know, that night he's watching TV and she comes up behind him with a tea tray and cracks him one atop the head, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	And she says, I cannot catch you when you're moving, but you gotta stop sometime.
	Wow.
	And it's like, yeah, okay, you're 9,000 years old, but you can clip a five-year-old speed demon on the head, because Speedy Gonzales got a nap sometime, and then the dinosaur boot can come down on his cranium, right?
	Yes.
	And so he never tried to run away from her after that, because he knew if he ran away from her, she could hit him on the head with a piece of metal.
	Yeah.
	Because he's got to sleep sometime, he's got to sit down sometime, right?
	Yes, yeah.
	And so I'm going to submit to you, and this is an important point, which is why I'm kind of hanging on it, that it was residual empathy.
	It was the capacity for self-empathy, and it was also, I mean, I don't know, have you ever hit anyone in your life?
	Once.
	And what happened?
	It was a kid that was bullying me at school.
	My mom told me to hit him So I did.
	I punched him in the eye on the bus.
	Because every time I would walk off the bus, he would get a whole group of people to scream at me.
	Kind of scream like a name at me.
	So one day on the way out, I just clocked him in the eye.
	I felt so terrible afterwards.
	I went outside.
	I couldn't even walk home.
	I kind of collapsed on the curb and just cried because I was worried that I had hurt him.
	Right.
	Did it solve the bullying?
	I mean, I got some cred, I guess, but no.
	So you felt bad for hitting the bully, right?
	Yeah, I was worried that something would happen to his eye.
	I just felt so bad.
	It made me feel sick.
	Now, you know, of course, that the bully did what he did because he felt wonderful.
	It made him happy.
	It made him excited.
	It made him thrilled.
	It made him giggly.
	It was a high for him.
	Whereas you...
	So he was initiating bullying and making you feel horrible.
	And that was a joyous and wonderful thing for him.
	Whereas you were legitimately acting against a bully...
	And you felt terrible.
	Yeah.
	So that's why you were able to be physically overpowered, because you were concerned about hurting someone, whereas the bully would be concerned about not hurting someone.
	Oh my god, that's insane.
	That's completely right.
	Yeah, it had nothing to do with my size.
	It had to do with the fact that...
	Nothing to do with your size.
	No, it had to do with the fact that I wasn't willing to pull out all the stops to hurt somebody just to make a point.
	Yeah, look, I mean, if you drove a pencil into his eye and blinded him, I mean, I guarantee you nobody would have fucked with you at all, right?
	Not saying you should have or would have or could have.
	Yeah.
	Right, but...
	And if everybody knew that, then we'd be like, well, whatever, right?
	Yeah, that's like a...
	And so it's not size, it's the fact that you had empathy.
	This is why people who have empathy have to get away from bullies, because it's literally like the gazelle going up to the hungry lion for a hoof shake, right?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Hi, let's be friends!
	Actually, it's just really interesting that you mentioned this, that you're bringing this up, because have you ever read the novel Ender's Game?
	No, I actually have it on audiobook, but I have not finished it yet.
	I started it and I got interested in something else.
	Well, I would really, really recommend that you listen to it, because it's all about that issue.
	It's about a kid that has empathy, that does brutal things to make a point, to make people stop bothering him.
	Actually, he might not have empathy then, but I would be really interested to hear your take on it, so if you do have time at some point.
	I'll do a review.
	Did you watch the movie?
	Can I cheat?
	The movie is good, in my opinion.
	A lot of people didn't like the movie, but the book The book is much more powerful, much more detailed, and it gives really in-depth description of how this kid chooses to deal with bullies and what it means and what ends up happening to him.
	Is he still an empathetic character at the end?
	Is he a monster?
	It raises these amazing questions.
	Yeah, because usually science fiction writers are the worst at empathy.
	Other than like sentimental pseudo-Eastern philosophy writers, like Chopra and stuff like that.
	But anyway, okay, so Will, but it's important to understand, for me, I think it's important to understand that you felt horror at hitting someone, but someone took great pleasure in tormenting you.
	And this is just...
	It's a different species.
	Same genus, opposite species.
	Human beings are one of the few apes, I guess, as a whole.
	I remember seeing a National Geographic special about a bunch of Monkeys after a chimpanzee where they killed and ate him, or I guess I saw one also where killer whales were trying to kill a baby humpback whale despite the mother trying to protect it.
	And then they killed the baby humpback whale and only ended up eating half its tongue and left the rest of its carcass float down to the bottom of the ocean.
	So there's some inter, you know, I mean the same species, but they're all whales, right?
	But there's predator and prey within certain genus or certain species, I guess.
	And within human beings, it's the same thing.
	We have predator-prey relationships in the human species, right?
	And people who have empathy are at great risk for being prey.
	Technically, we are the prey of the human ecosystem.
	We are the gazelle, we are the zebras, we are the mollusks, we are the prey.
	And not only do we not have any defense, we're anti-defensive.
	And we're taught most of society teaches people with empathy to be prey, right?
	In other words, they say, well, hitting anyone is bad.
	Any use of force is bad.
	Be a pacifist.
	And if you can't be a pacifist, feel like shit for doing it.
	Feel really guilty.
	And then forgive your abusers.
	This is all priming you.
	This is all grooming you to remain prey to brutes and bullies and sociopaths in society.
	Almost all ideology, almost all this emotional stuff That people tell you, well, holding on to your anger is really toxic and you've got to forgive people and let it go and put it in the past.
	It only poisons you.
	It's like poisoning yourself to kill your enemy and forgive and forget.
	This is all just training you and programming you Yeah,
	I mean, I... I'm familiar with those concepts that you just described and the idea of the predators and prey in human society or within humans themselves.
	But I never applied it that deeply to my own life.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah, and I mean, one of the great and challenging pieces of training that I think is really important for a life of true virtue.
	A life of true virtue is not just having good people around you, but fighting evil, fighting bad people.
	And this means that you can't have a one-species blueprint in your head, because we're not one species.
	We're predator and prey.
	Sure.
	And to be predator on the predator is one of the great challenges because to be a good person you require empathy.
	But if you take the mistaken religious approach that everyone has a soul, that everyone is good deep down, that bad people are just ignorant and if you help them they'll become good people and so on.
	All the shit that we get force-fed so that we're better prey.
	You have to recognize empirically To be a really good and effective and strong person in the fight against evil and the furtherance of the values of virtue, then you have to have empathy and at the same time you have to recognize predators.
	In other words, you can't have empathy for predators.
	I mean, if a gazelle has empathy for the lion, they're like, okay, eat.
	You know, I know you're hungry.
	Let me lie on my back for you so it's a little easier to get at my spleen, right?
	Because I know how hungry you are, and I have empathy for your needs, and I wish to sacrifice myself to your needs.
	This is also known as signing up for the army.
	Yeah.
	So recognizing the predator-prey relationship, having empathy for the empathetic, and staunch fuck-you armor for the predators is really, really important.
	So anyway, I just wanted to mention that, but go ahead.
	I'm so sorry, I just lost my traded thought.
	Would you ask another question, I think?
	I don't know what to say next.
	Sure, no problem.
	Yeah, we hug friends and foe alike, but with foe, we have spikes in our arms.
	It's important to recognize.
	So we were talking about the things that made you angry at your parents, and you really have only talked...
	About dear papa, not the mama who done chose him, right?
	Who done many other things as well.
	Yeah, what have they done many other things?
	She...
	She was hyper-involved in my life from the minute that I was conscious until I was about 18.
	I could shake her off.
	She just micromanaged everything.
	She wouldn't let me tie my own shoes or anything until I was like...
	I don't even remember how old I was when I was allowed to tie my own shoes.
	She was definitely the dominating force in the family.
	She made all the money.
	She was just dominating.
	She was much taller than my dad, and she used that.
	She started with school, and she'd be like...
	She, like, was crazy about me, like, getting perfect grades and stuff, and, like, if I brought home, like, anything less than, like, a B +, I would say, she would, you know, yell at me and get really angry and, like, you know, make me study more.
	I mean, I remember I got a C on a math test once in, like, third grade, and...
	Because I got in a fight with a friend, and I was distracted, and she, like, yelled at me and, like, ordered me out of the house for a few hours, and...
	Yeah, I mean, it was just...
	Sorry, how old were you?
	I was like eight.
	She ordered you out of the house for a few hours when you were eight.
	I mean, it was like nice out and stuff, but yeah, like I didn't...
	Like there was this moment I was on my swing set, like just sort of sitting there like, where would I go?
	Like, where else can I go?
	And she told you like, don't come back until like when?
	She didn't say...
	She didn't say, she just said, get out.
	Oh, so you didn't even know when you were supposed to come back?
	Yeah, I didn't know what would happen.
	Jesus.
	Did they ever read a parenting book that you know of?
	I mean, even a bad one?
	No.
	No.
	My mom got baby rabies and she desperately wanted to have a child and they went through all kinds of crap to have a child because she had infertility problems and...
	Yeah, she didn't really think about what would happen when the kid would start thinking for themselves.
	Yeah, it's really, really important.
	You know, I love Ming vases and I would go to the ends of the earth and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and go into the deepest caves of oblivion to get myself a Ming vase just so that I can bring it to the surface and then try and hit it as hard as I can with a ball-peen hammer and break it.
	Yeah.
	Anyway.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So, oh, yeah.
	So, would you say that she was overprotective?
	I'm trying to figure out what the...
	Like, it sounds like status stuff.
	Like, she wanted you to have status stuff, right?
	Yes, definitely status stuff.
	She...
	But the thing is, like, she was...
	Like I said, she was neglectful and invasive at the same time.
	Like, that was the problem.
	It's like she would...
	Okay.
	The biggest problem that I had with her when I was a kid is the fact that she used to, like, she used to, like, walk in on me when I was in the bathroom a lot.
	Yeah.
	And she, like, made me take baths with her until, like, I think I was too old.
	Like, I think I was, like, you know, probably, again, like, eight, like, the worst time with me and my mom was, like, around the third and fourth grade, I think, you know, like...
	Wait, are you saying that you're, like, bathing with your mom's bush when you're, like, eight years old?
	Yes.
	Oh!
	Oh!
	I'm sorry.
	I just have to go into my Kevlar soul-scrubbing suit of anti-maternal...
	All right.
	All right.
	I'm trying to get myself my brain clean.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Welcome to my existence.
	Oh, my God.
	Oh!
	And I think...
	And this is...
	Hey, that's where I came from.
	Let's clean it.
	Ah!
	Ah!
	All right.
	No, my mom was...
	Anyway, she was European!
	I don't want to see that!
	No.
	No.
	But this thing that I'm going to say next...
	I mean, she dropped something naked.
	I'm just like, oh, I'm glad there's not an awl here to blind myself.
	And I'm pretty sure at some point, I have this memory of going into my mom's room to kiss her goodnight and of her sticking her tongue down my throat.
	Oh no!
	Really?
	Really.
	Your tongue kissed by your mom?
	Yeah.
	Are you sure this wasn't something that some evil dentist told her to do, like check for cavities?
	No, she was a drunk, you know, and...
	And how old were you when this happened?
	Again, I want to say, like, seven or eight, but eight seems to be the number that's resonating with me, so I'm going to trust that.
	Yeah.
	Okay, so, like, in all seriousness, then, of course, the fact that they weren't able to protect you from a 16-year-old drug-addicted, alcoholic, grope-fiend boy when you were 12 is...
	Obviously, grimly inevitable, right?
	Yes.
	Right.
	Yeah, I mean, that's so horrifyingly inappropriate, you know, tongue-kissing your kids, slapping, your dad slapping your mom, your mom bathing with you till you're eight years old, and...
	Oh, God.
	I'm so sorry.
	And so invasive, right?
	And the invasive is domination, right?
	Yeah.
	Hey, this is my fucking space.
	You just live here.
	I can go wherever the hell I want.
	You have no space, no room, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, she would like...
	I remember she used to like...
	This happened when I was in second grade.
	She used to like take my diaries and like read them and like correct them for grammar.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah, so boundaries is self and other, right?
	It's UPB because everybody who violates boundaries always gets very angry when their boundaries are violated, right?
	Yeah.
	So the UPB, I mean, just basic universality, is I have preferences that I don't want other people to disturb, and so I don't disturb other people's preferences.
	But...
	Narcissism, this monstrous, selfish entitlement is, well, I have my needs, but nobody else has any needs.
	And if anybody ever tries to assert boundaries with me, I view that as a massive attack upon myself, and I will respond with escalated aggression, right?
	Yeah.
	And then there's the other side of the coin where if we would get in a fight about something, which happened often, Very often there was fighting between my mother and I. And, like, if she felt like the conversation was getting to a point where she couldn't resolve it, she would order me out of the room and, like, tell me to go and, like, wait in my room all night.
	And that was probably, like, that was the thing that I remember.
	Well, how can I say this?
	That was the worst part of it for me.
	That was like the, when I was a kid that from my experience, from my perspective, like that was the worst part was being like, was being told to go away and being told to like sit in my room and like, and not talk.
	And then we'd wake up the next morning and she would pretend like nothing happened.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So there's no, there's no throughput.
	There's no, um, continuity in emotional interactions.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Yeah, I mean, this is a brutal exercise of power.
	And it is fundamentally because the child can't leave that these fucking bullies exercise this kind of power, right?
	Yes, yeah, because there's not even...
	I mean, imagine saying this to an adult, right?
	You know, like on your third date.
	Right?
	Some woman disagrees with you or some guy disagrees with you and you're like, hey, you sit there in that chair until the restaurant closes.
	I'm leaving you.
	Sit here right now and think about what you said.
	And then you go storming off.
	I mean, what would you say?
	You're a fucking lunatic.
	I'm out of here, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But you can't say that when you're, you know, you can't say that because...
	No, you can't because you can't go.
	You can't do anything.
	Yeah, I wish I could have done that.
	Well, I mean, it's a little easier for men in many ways.
	And I also was not an only child.
	I think it would have been infinitely harder.
	I don't know if I would have made it if I was an only child, as far as getting that kind of independence that early.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Was there anything else you wanted to say about your mom?
	Um...
	I feel like there is.
	I mean, there's other stuff.
	I remember I was like 8th grade.
	That was after the relationship, quote-unquote, with the 16-year-old.
	And I was really messed up after that.
	I had actually, sorry, this is like disjointed, but before the relationship happened with the 16-year-old, I was already going to see a psychologist because I had suicidal thoughts.
	When you were 10 or 11?
	Is that prior to puberty?
	Yeah, like 10 or 11 I had suicidal thoughts.
	Sorry, this was prior to puberty, prior to strongly sexual feelings and so on, right?
	Yes.
	Okay, okay.
	And yes, I was seeing a psychologist and when it was elucidated specifically that I had suicidal thoughts and a plan somewhat...
	Then you got institutionalized and drugged, right?
	I was drugged, not institutionalized.
	Not institutionalized, but drugged.
	Yeah, I was sent to a psychiatrist.
	Yeah, because I'm sure...
	Was it a psychiatrist or psychologist?
	I was a psychologist who then, when I said that I was suicidal, like had sent me to a psychiatrist who gave me Zoloft.
	Right, but I'm sure that the psychiatrist said, well listen Tara, I mean obviously you've had a very, very unstable And damaged and damaging upbringing.
	So the important thing is we need to bring your family in here because, you know, in families the person who acts out is often what's called the identified patient but everyone else is like the unidentified patient.
	In other words, one person is acting out the dysfunction that everyone else is bringing to the table.
	So obviously we don't want to blame you.
	We don't want to drug you.
	We have to bring your parents in and get some family counseling.
	But that seems to happen approximately never with psychiatrists because that puts them on a collision course with people who can complain and get them in trouble.
	So what they do is they drug children instead because it's less conflict-ridden, less dangerous, and much more profitable.
	Yeah, I was just about to say, I think he was probably more interested in his $220 check to maintain his very, very gorgeous home, prime real estate there.
	So I'm sure it was very expensive.
	Right.
	And I'm incredibly sorry for that.
	So it wasn't like you were exposed to a whole bunch of positive authority figures anywhere here, right?
	No.
	Not at all.
	Okay.
	Okay, so of course, then part of the suicidality, I mean, obviously was a cry for somebody to recognize how horrifying and destructive and lonely your life was.
	And then, of course, when you go through puberty, then you start to gain, you know, boobs and all of that and curves.
	And then you gain some sexual power, which, because you felt so helpless for most of your life, is one of the things that...
	I mean, I've always sort of felt, and I'm not saying this is true of you, I don't know the story of your teenage sexuality, but promiscuity is, in a way, to me...
	An escape from Thanatos, from what Freud called the death impulse, the death wish.
	Yeah.
	In other words, if I didn't have sexual power, I would kill myself, because then I would absolutely have no power at all.
	That is how I felt.
	Oh, good.
	Okay, then it's not just my theory.
	Or at least if it is, it applies to at least one person, but...
	I don't know if it exactly manifested that way to me at the time.
	At the time, it sort of just felt like I wanted affection.
	And it got minced with sexuality also because the urge was so strong.
	But I think that if that sounds like the underlying...
	That might have been why the urge was so strong.
	And why I couldn't separate...
	I couldn't separate...
	It felt like I needed that.
	It felt like I needed it like I needed water.
	Yeah, of course.
	I mean, you needed contact.
	You needed touch.
	You needed whispered intimacies.
	You slept.
	With the 16-year-old guy, you said you got good sleep for the first time in your life.
	And a lack of sleep or light sleep or insomnia is partly related to intelligence.
	And again, I give you high IQ like I give everyone as a default position in this show at least 120.
	Yours was probably even higher.
	So a high IQ is going to make you more of a night owl and it's going to make you less likely to sleep well.
	But if you combine that with predatory, destructive, unstable, incredibly scary home environment, I mean, sleep is fucked, right?
	Completely fucked.
	Fucked utterly.
	Yeah, I mean, half my childhood memories are like just not sleeping.
	Just being awake, watching the sky move incredibly slowly, watching the moon drift across the frosted window pane, watching the shadows go around the wall, making up stories with hand puppets, pretending that my raised knees under a blanket were a volcano, Going down to the reverse edge of the bed in boarding school and pretending that Nazi guards were coming through when I was hiding.
	I mean, it was just being awake was like half of my childhood memories are just like not sleeping.
	And then naturally crashing an hour or two before I had to get up and then being completely exhausted.
	Oh, that was the worst.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	That's the worst.
	And, you know, you get enough of that and it's like, well, what the fuck do I want to live for anyway?
	I'm awake in the useless hours and I'm half dead from exhaustion in the waking hours.
	Why?
	What the hell is the point of this?
	Wouldn't you pay to have this stuff?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's fucking...
	It's just...
	It's hell.
	It's just truly, truly hell.
	Yeah, it is.
	It is.
	Yeah, because, I mean, your whole...
	The parasympathetic nervous system, the circadian rhythm, the natural rhythm of sleep.
	I mean, it's all completely fucked up.
	You know, your family is supposed to be like rings to keep the predators out, right?
	If the family are the predators, if the family are the...
	I mean, it's like trying to sleep with a tiger in your room.
	Yeah.
	Oh, God.
	Yeah.
	Because, you know, I never knew.
	Like, I never, I never knew when one of them was going to burst in there for something.
	I mean, my mom, it seemed like my mom had, like, a honing device for whenever I was in the shower.
	Like, she needed to walk in the room and, like, talk to me exactly when I was in the shower.
	Like, I don't even...
	Well, it's very, you know, again, I'm no expert, but I'm telling you, Tara, it sounds to me very, very sexually disturbed.
	Yeah.
	Not you, right?
	I mean, your parents.
	Well, I mean, I have it on good authority.
	Well, my father has never told me.
	Well, very sexually disturbed.
	I'm sorry that I'm laughing right now.
	It's just I'm so angry.
	I'm so angry about it that I just I can't even I don't even know what to do with myself.
	But apparently, like my dad, my dad was molested when he was a kid.
	And he felt, yeah, he felt the need to tell this to, like, my gay friend who came over, you know, who's, he's just very, he just felt the need to express this to him, you know, never, never had a conversation with it about me.
	And I asked my mom about it, and she was just like, yeah, some guy fondled him when he was little.
	And I was like...
	Oh, that's why he told the gay man, because it was a gay man who fondled him, right?
	Or we assume, right?
	Yeah, we assume.
	But he went up to Matt's room when he was just...
	My father is completely inappropriate.
	He went up to my gay friend.
	My gay friend was sleeping at our house because his parents are awful and they kicked him out.
	I was like, look, you don't have anywhere to go.
	Stay at my parents' house.
	I'm sorry.
	My parents aren't great.
	For God's sakes, don't go on the streets, right?
	Yeah, like, don't.
	Just go stay at my parents' house.
	And, like, I trusted my parents, well, enough that I didn't think that my dad would, like, go up to his room in, like, a drunken state and, like, you know, hug him and, like, kiss him on the cheek and tell him about how he was, like, fucking molested when he was a kid.
	Like, that's the kind of shit that my dad pulls.
	Oh my god.
	I mean, can you imagine?
	So you're having such a terrible time with your own parents.
	You've been kicked out of the house.
	You don't know where the hell you're going to go.
	You're going to sleep at the bus station or on the street.
	God knows what's going to happen to you.
	And then you find a safe haven.
	And the father in the safe haven comes up and shits all of his history all over you.
	At a time when you're just about breaking your back under the weight of your own parental dysfunction.
	He's like, hey, this is a 16-year-old kid who just got kicked out of his home, and he's gay.
	I'm sure he's got nothing going on.
	He'll be happy to deal with my shit.
	God, that's so unbelievable.
	Believe it or not, it did not happen.
	Oh, I'm so sorry.
	It did not happen when he was 16.
	This happened, like, last year.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, forget that part then.
	Sorry, I thought that happened when he was 16.
	Yeah, so I still...
	I don't know.
	It's better that he's not 16, but I cannot believe my father acts that way still.
	Well, I can believe it.
	I'm just disgusted.
	Right.
	Right.
	Well, you have a lot to be angry about.
	I'm sort of trying to think that what do you not have to be angry about?
	I guess...
	It's a blessing of whatever level you want to think of it.
	It's a blessing, at least, that you were not sexually molested as a child, though obviously it became pretty goddamn close with that 16-year-old guy, right?
	Well, actually, I was not sexually molested as a child, but there was something else that happened.
	A very close call.
	A very close call.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	The history, like, I messed around with a lot of guys when I was a teenager, and the worst of them was this person.
	He was someone that I played music with, and he was...
	I'm sorry.
	I want to continue telling this story, but I feel so embarrassed and so upset about this stuff because I'm just sort of confronting it in a real way now.
	Because I've always known that it was messed up and I always knew that things were wrong, but the depth of the wrongness is crashing on me like a tsunami.
	And it hurts.
	And it's so hard to go back through all of these details and sort it all out.
	But...
	If you want to share it, you can share it.
	If you don't, you've got a history, of course, of people who don't respect any boundaries.
	This is entirely your choice.
	If you want to share it, we can cut it from what we publish.
	We can never publish this.
	It's your choice.
	But if you want to share it, I'm happy to hear.
	If you don't want to share it or you feel too uncomfortable, I'm happy with that too.
	It is entirely your choice.
	I want to share it and I want it to be publicized because this guy and I can't say I don't know if I can say his name or not I can't say his name really but don't say his name yeah I didn't think I didn't think so but this guy he was you know he was 18 and he was dating this the 17 year old girl they were I met them when I was again when I was 15 So they were like, you know, four or five years older than me.
	And they were, they were like, kind of like- Wait, sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	They were, sorry.
	There was just a two-year spread of age there.
	I'm trying to figure out.
	So he was 18.
	The girlfriend was- 17.
	17.
	They were four or five years older than you.
	So what age were you at this point?
	I- Okay, okay.
	I was, no, no, I'm so sorry.
	I was 14.
	I was 14 when I met this guy.
	Okay, so three or four years older.
	Okay, I just want to be, okay, 14, all right.
	Yeah, like I was in eighth grade and they were juniors going into senior year of high school.
	All right.
	And so this guy was, like, very, like, very, again, charismatic and very, like, he was a...
	I was in this after-school program, you know, and we were...
	It was like we were putting on...
	We were actually doing a rendition of Pink Floyd's The Wall, and that album, like, meant a lot to me at the time.
	And I was...
	Side three, baby.
	Side three.
	Oh, you're too young to know what side three is.
	Yeah, sorry.
	Because it was a double album when I was a kid, but...
	Yeah, the part that starts with, um...
	Goodbye, Blue Sky...
	Oh God, yeah.
	And got a little black book with my poems in.
	Got a bag, got a toothbrush and a comb in.
	But I'm a good dog, they sometimes throw me a bony.
	Love that song.
	Anyway, yeah, it's an incredible album.
	And the idea that it's about politics is deranged.
	I mean, unfortunately, I mean, although the movie is visually astounding and compelling, making it about fascism is missing the point.
	But anyway, okay, so...
	Hope you didn't mind me singing along with you there.
	No, it's great.
	You can do nothing but improve my rendition, I'm sure.
	Oh yeah, Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?
	Yeah.
	Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
	Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?
	Yeah, great, great stuff.
	Cindy Laupe actually did a really good version of that, the live version.
	They did it Berlin.
	Anyway, So you guys were doing a live rendition of Pink Floyd's The Wall?
	Yes.
	In the thing he was playing, he was playing the main character.
	He was doing all the voices of the songs of the main character.
	And he was just very flamboyant, pretty talented, not that great of a musician, a bass player, but pretty good singer, just very strong stage presence.
	Him and his girlfriend were really hypersexual in front of people.
	They would make out in front of people and stuff.
	And I was like, whoa, this is weird.
	And they were super open about sex and talking about sex all the time.
	And I was sort of overwhelmed, I guess.
	But it was like, I guess about a year after I met this guy, I think.
	It was about a year after I met this guy.
	And we had had kind of like a working relationship and kind of like a big brother, little sister kind of thing going on for a while.
	And then suddenly it turned weird.
	And, like, him and his girlfriend were having trouble, and, like, I thought that...
	And I, like, had kind of struck up a friendship with his girlfriend, who was, like, the first feminist that I ever met, and I was like, that's cool, right?
	Because feminism is cool.
	And, like, it was just a super weird situation that I got involved in, and, like, I ended up, like, hanging out in his car with him once and telling him that, like, his girlfriend didn't appreciate him and stuff like that, because that's what I saw.
	I really have a problem with painting myself as the mistress of seduction here because I was like 16, 15.
	No, I understand.
	But I mean, a feminist not appreciating a man, I can't imagine that.
	I mean, under what scenario could...
	Anyway, so okay.
	So basically, were you trying to get with the guy?
	Is that right?
	I don't really know what I was doing.
	He was just kind of intriguing, and I grew up listening to David Bowie and stuff like that, and he kind of reminded me of David Bowie, and I was like, oh wow, this guy must be really cool.
	I was kind of willing to dip my toe in, but I wasn't really ready to take the plunge.
	Something about him just didn't sit right with me.
	I didn't know what it was.
	It just felt weird.
	Because one of the times that I hung out with him, he sort of like...
	You know, are you familiar with the Stanley Kubrick film, A Clockwork Orange?
	Yes.
	Well, he sort of held me down and tried to force me to watch that, and that really freaked me out.
	So I was like...
	Wait, he held you down trying to watch Malcolm McDowell being held down To watch a movie.
	Wow.
	That's pretty meta, but all right.
	I'm sorry about that, but go ahead.
	Yeah, so there was one day he broke up with his girlfriend.
	We were talking online, and he was like, oh, well, go out with me or whatever.
	And I was like, look, I don't know.
	I just don't know.
	And he told me in the course of this conversation that he had a fetish for quote-unquote diapers.
	And I was like, what?
	I don't know what that means, but I was sort of like, I was still...
	I think he called into this show a couple of months ago, but anyway.
	Sorry, go on.
	No, no, but he, like, but yeah, so it was just very, it was very weird.
	And so I was still open to the idea, but I wasn't going to commit to it that night, especially because I kind of had, like, some other guys on the line that I was, like, more interested in, I guess.
	But mostly also because he creeped me out in some weird way.
	What do you mean he creeped you out in some weird way?
	He's got a fetish for diapers.
	Is there a non-weird way to freak out about that?
	Well, in my 14-year-old mind, I was just trying to be understanding about that.
	It was something else.
	I felt like it had nothing to do with what he had said or done outwardly, besides the clockwork orange thing.
	That thing was like, no, you can't do that.
	I found out later from his girlfriend who...
	Yeah, his girlfriend who I actually...
	His girlfriend is the only girl that I've ever slept with.
	That happened much later.
	That happened much later.
	And she told me...
	Because you were both tired?
	No, I'm kidding.
	Go on.
	She told me that this person had a lot of child pornography stored on his computer.
	And she, like, while she was dating him, yeah.
	All right.
	Oh, God.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	That's horrifying.
	Yeah, I recently tried to do something about it to like check up on him or like find out but you know if he was still like doing that just in some way I was hoping to be able to report him in some capacity but I don't know how based on the hearsay nature of the evidence and like it just seems like it's a lost cause because I am afraid that he would do something to hurt a child and I don't know what to do about it.
	You have good reason.
	To, I think, suspect that?
	Yeah, so that was, that is probably the closest brush with a potential molestation or rape that I ever came against.
	That was like the first, that was like the closest thing.
	That was the worst thing, I think, that happened.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah, I mean, in Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, there's a story of a party, and a man enters the party who brings such a darkness with him, such a sinister and hideous soul into the gathering that almost everybody, and they're a pretty dissolute bunch, but there's whole other levels of dissolution and predation that people can't manifest.
	So I'm not surprised that you...
	Felt really creeped out by this guy.
	Yeah, I really did.
	There's something, I mean, besides all the outward evidence, you know, the flagrant displays of sexuality, the holding me down and forcing me to watch Clockwork Orange and diapers, yeah.
	The thing that I actually got angry about later was the fact that I had a sexual relationship with his girlfriend after they had broken up.
	Oh, dear God.
	There's so many things.
	I feel like every time I try to talk about something, five other things come up.
	And Jeff is sitting here like, are we?
	Because he's heard all this stuff before.
	He's like, are we ever going to talk about our relationship?
	Well, no, but we are.
	We are talking about the relationship.
	Because all of this stuff is informing, doesn't dictate, but it informs who you are.
	Like, I grew up speaking English.
	This doesn't mean that I can only speak English, but it is my first language.
	I can learn another language, right?
	So how long have you guys been together?
	Two years.
	Right.
	And when you said at the beginning of the conversation that...
	I mean, I think the technical term...
	It's fusion, but you guys kind of glommed together pretty quickly.
	I would like to know that, like, what is more your idea of fusion?
	Because, I mean, in some ways, yes, in some ways, no, but I want to be able to be as honest as I can about that.
	So would you describe more what that would look like to you?
	Yeah, I mean, I'm using technical terms that, you know, obviously look them up.
	I'm not a psychologist or anything like a psychiatrist, but To my amateur understanding, fusion is when you meet someone and...
	They're perfect.
	They are the solution to your problems.
	There's never going to be any issues.
	It's magic.
	All boundaries collapse.
	You love each other very quickly.
	You move in together very quickly.
	In my opinion, it is an attempt to create or to bypass the suffering of not having the mother-child bond by having your body flood you with Endorphins and dopamine so that you feel this instantaneous bond that really should have occurred with your mother before and after birth and so on.
	But it lowers any critical capacity that you might have.
	Like, empathy and analysis have been relatively well shown to operate in opposition.
	In other words, when you're analyzing something, you can't feel that empathetic.
	And when you feel very empathetic, you can't analyze.
	So critical judgment and empathy don't tend to go very much...
	Hand in hand.
	Which is why women say, well, you're not supporting me if you criticize.
	It's like, well, you want it because they want you to feel empathetic so you don't criticize them.
	Some women.
	So I think it is an attempt to, your body just wants to flood you with these things with the hope that you can somehow bypass the suffering of not having had a strong bond or any bond or an anti-bond really with your mother.
	And so you fuse together uncritically.
	The other person is wonderful.
	You don't really delve into conflicts.
	You don't really say, here are my standards.
	You don't have any critical standards, like you don't say, well, You know, boy, if we're going to move this quickly, we really should have conversations about how do you want to live?
	Do you like to save money?
	Do you want to spend money?
	Do you like deferring gratification or do you want to live more in the here and now?
	Do you want to have kids?
	Do you not want to have kids?
	Are you involved with your family?
	What's your family like?
	Are they going to be part of our future?
	What are your friends like?
	Let me meet them.
	What do you want to do for a living?
	Like, you don't go through those critical things to see whether you're going to match in the long run as a couple, but you just, you know, sex, you slam together And there's sex and there's all-night conversations and there's nothing about anything that may impede the mad rush into a kind of empty togetherness that is not...
	Founded on any rational or critical.
	Critical doesn't mean negative.
	It just means, you know, having judgment, you know, about whether it's going to fit together in the long run.
	So that's sort of my understanding of it.
	And it's a real high.
	I mean, you really feel like your life problems have been solved and you crave the other person.
	And if anyone expresses any doubts about the relationship, it brings up a kind of irritation and frustration with that other person, like they just don't get it.
	Do they not know what it's like to be in love?
	This is the one.
	And other people telling you to slow down almost become like enemies.
	And it is a very challenging situation to be in in many ways.
	Although it feels like the best thing in the world.
	Well, I would say that there are elements of that.
	Definitely.
	We didn't move in together until like eight months after we'd been together.
	It was like we met...
	We met on Match.com over the summer, and we spent two weeks together, and there was definitely, yeah, we had sex on the second date.
	He said, I love you, after like three days, which I was like, that, like what?
	I can't, I can't attest to how Tara felt, but I could describe my feelings as, like you described, Fusion.
	I hadn't had that many relationships in the past, and And it felt wonderful in every way for me.
	There was nothing that could taint that relationship.
	That first few weeks, it was magic.
	You got mad at me, though.
	The first couple of weeks we were hanging out, you told me that I made you feel really bad.
	You got mad at me.
	Yeah, I mean, eventually there was...
	That's not eventually.
	Well, no, a couple of weeks is not eventually.
	Yeah.
	But...
	Sorry, I don't recall.
	Do you remember what you got mad at her about?
	We were sitting on my deck and I think we may have been trying to decide what to do or something like that.
	And he just...
	I just remember him getting up and being like, you make me feel so bad.
	I'm like walking away and I just sort of sat there on the stairs like...
	I don't understand what's going on.
	I don't feel like it was an abusive thing.
	I think he was just upset and he didn't quite know how to express that or work that out.
	Sorry to interrupt you, Cara.
	Jeff, perhaps you can give us a little bit about your infancy, toddlerhood and childhood.
	Well, now that Tara just brought that back up, I'm remembering exactly what happened there.
	My family, especially my mother, well, first of all, I'm the oldest of four.
	I've got two younger brothers and one younger sister, and we're about three years apart.
	My younger brother is three years younger than me, His younger brother is three years younger than him, or his younger sister is three years younger than him, etc.
	Yeah, I get it.
	I can do that math in my head, but go ahead.
	My mother was always very manipulative.
	She wouldn't yell at you, but she would have this way of making you feel extremely guilty.
	about feeling a certain way.
	If we were at an amusement park or something and I wanted to go, I had enough, I wanted to leave or something, she would say, don't you care about your younger brother?
	He's having a really good time.
	Why should you feel like you want to go?
	Don't you care about his feelings?
	I grew up around a lot of emotional manipulation and When Tara and I got into this disagreement, this argument, it just triggered me.
	It felt like I was back with my mom and my mom was trying to get at my feelings, get me where it hurts.
	The communication between my family members was always just exchanging insults, trying to just get under the other person's skin.
	It wasn't ever...
	It wasn't ever talked out.
	No one ever told me, like, how are you feeling?
	Like, why do you want to leave?
	Why do you want to go somewhere else?
	Like, my feelings were always very inconvenient.
	And I just...
	It just triggered me completely, that situation.
	I just felt like she was trying to attack me.
	And I feel like that's been...
	A huge issue that I've had to deal with.
	Sorry to interrupt, but in my opinion, fusion is your parents attempting you to bond with people who will never question them.
	Who will never oppose them, who will kind of fit in the mold.
	It's the dysfunctional meme attempting to replicate itself through balls and eggs, basically.
	So I'm not saying you're like Jeff's mom, but there must be enough at least of a similarity in that situation to trigger him.
	So this is one of the reasons why it's so dangerous.
	Basically, it's trying to get you to reproduce and get locked into a dysfunctional tribe, right?
	Because in the past, there wouldn't have been birth control and you'd had to get married to have sex.
	So it's a way of bonding with someone saying, oh, great, this isn't going to disturb the tribal bullshit that we all run on, right?
	So that's sort of my thought about it, which is why it feels so right and then becomes problematic.
	So what else happened in your childhood, Jeff?
	Well, like I said, we never really sat down and flushed out feelings.
	Your feelings were always very inconvenient to whoever you were talking to.
	There's a lot of yelling, a lot of back and forth, a lot of criticisms.
	My mother was...
	So if I understand it rightly, when there were conflicts, there always had to be a win-lose.
	You want to leave the fair, but if you do, your brother loses.
	And as the older, you should be considered the younger, so you have to stay so that your brother gets what he wants, so he wins, you lose, right?
	That was not the looking for the holy grail of conflict, which is something that everybody can be happy about.
	That's a win-win.
	Someone had to give away, someone had to lose, and therefore somebody else had, in order for anyone to win, in order for any conflict to pretend to be resolved, right?
	Yeah, that's exactly it.
	I... I never learned any kind of negotiation skills.
	It was always just manipulations.
	You had to make the other person feel just as bad as you did.
	That was how you got what you wanted.
	You had to guilt them into backing down.
	Yeah.
	But they also had to voluntarily surrender their will, right?
	It had to be...
	Yeah, yeah.
	You had to agree that you were a bad person for not thinking of your brothers and selfish and blah-de-blah-de-blah, right?
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Late 1984, not early 1984.
	All right.
	And this is not nearly enough for you to have compatibility with Tara.
	I'm just telling you that straight up, in my opinion, right?
	Right.
	I mean, you've obviously heard Tara stuff before.
	The degree of horror and dysfunction and pseudo- The molestation that she experienced does not meet the level of, I had a manipulative mother.
	You should tell them more about what happened, stuff.
	I'm sorry.
	Your cousin committed suicide.
	So it's like she's fluent in Japanese and you're saying, well, I've taken a couple of weeks worth of Japanese and I'm fluent in Japanese too.
	And it's like, no, you're not, right?
	You have to have studied or been exposed to more Japanese to be fluent with Tara, right?
	Right.
	So what other dysfunction occurred?
	Tara's always been very, very upfront with her emotions.
	Her emotions were always...
	You know, very evident.
	She doesn't ever really get very defensive.
	If she's upset, she'll be upset.
	She'll let you know that she's upset.
	She won't yell at you or lash out at you.
	Why are we talking about Tara?
	I'm sorry, what?
	Why are we talking about Tara?
	I asked you a question about you, Jeff.
	Um...
	I mean, she's fascinating, don't get me wrong.
	But why are we talking...
	I asked you a question about your history and you were talking about Tara.
	Why?
	I'm sorry.
	I'm a bit lost.
	Could you be more specific?
	What else happened in your childhood that was problematic for you?
	I feel like my...
	I didn't have a very good outlet for my emotions.
	I can talk about my dad.
	My dad was emotionally not there ever.
	The only emotion that I ever witnessed out of him was anger.
	He would get extremely angry and he would get violent mostly with me.
	And violent, yeah.
	He would slap me on the face.
	Yeah, he would...
	He would just be very angry.
	And how often would he be angry in this way?
	I'd like to say probably once or twice a month.
	And would he generally slap you when he got angry this way?
	Yes, or hit me on the legs with fists.
	And assuming it has stopped, at what age did it stop?
	I want to say probably 13 or 14.
	Okay, let's be as kind as we can and say 13.
	And let's see, times...
	24.
	So you would have been hit by your father, say, 250 to 312 times as a child.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I am...
	Incredibly sorry for that.
	That's a brutal, brutal set of experiences, to know that the man who is supposed to shelter and protect you is hitting you hundreds of times throughout your childhood.
	And of course, you never know when the next one comes.
	Sometimes they're clustered together, sometimes they're further apart, but it can happen whenever he's in a bad mood, right?
	And sometimes that happens for reasons that make no sense to you, right?
	Because you're not part of his external life, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And what about your mother?
	She would...
	Relatively, she was less violent, but she could also give you an open-handed slap, usually in the face.
	And how often did that happen?
	I'd probably say...
	Um, at least as often as with my father.
	But you said she was less, oh, so she would hit less hard, but she would still hit you.
	Yeah, relative to my father, it was, it was not, it was not something that I was afraid of.
	I was not fearful of that.
	I was extremely, it would be startling, right?
	Yeah, I was, I was, you weren't fearful of like drawing blood or something, right?
	Yeah, but I can remember with my dad, it was just, it was pure, like pure terror.
	It's just he's extremely strong and much bigger than me.
	I just remember just feeling so scared.
	Yeah, of course.
	I mean, it's like being attacked by a giant.
	I mean, it's not like when you were a child.
	It is being attacked by or being targeted by Zeus.
	I mean, they're huge people relative to children.
	So we kind of doubled this, right?
	So five...
	100 to 624 times being hit by your caregivers as a child.
	Yeah.
	Was there any sexual inappropriateness when you were a child?
	No.
	No.
	I don't think so.
	No.
	And did your parents fight with each other?
	Um...
	I wouldn't say it was very often, but yeah, they would fight, and when it would happen, it would be very bad.
	How so?
	What would happen?
	Similar to Tara's parents, it was just extremely fully charged, screaming at the top of their lungs, and just...
	Full force, just like at each other's throats, that kind of yelling.
	You sound to me very detached from what we're talking about.
	It's like I'm getting you to count in a language you don't understand when you're very sleepy.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I know that I have issues with just getting very disconnected.
	Do you feel that way at the moment?
	I mean, I don't think so.
	I can feel my emotions right now.
	But that's been a problem for me.
	A lot...
	When I was a kid...
	I mean, you know I'm someone who's going to listen and I'm not going to pull back and I'm not going to criticize you.
	I'm not going to make you feel bad.
	I'm not going to shame you.
	I mean...
	I will really listen.
	And sympathize.
	When I was a kid, the only way that I could get through certain situations would be to just not be there.
	You couldn't be there emotionally because it would hurt too bad to have your feelings neglected.
	Well, and your feelings were used as punishment, right?
	Yeah.
	Your feelings were used against you.
	If you felt guilty or bad, it was just ammo that would be used in a manipulative way.
	You don't tell the sadist where it hurts, right?
	Yeah.
	I feel like I really built up that...
	That method of coping with uncomfortable situations by just kind of detaching myself from the situation.
	So when I'm asking you these questions, it's almost like I'm probing you to find where it hurts so that I can push my thumb down on that spot, right?
	Hey, where's the bruise?
	Grind, grind, grind.
	I mean, that's where the defenses are coming up.
	Like, why does this guy want to know where my pain is?
	Because, historically, that was used to increase that pain, right?
	Yeah, yeah, exactly.
	Yeah, and that's been very hard for me in You know, being open and honest about my feelings with Tara, it's very hard sometimes to just get connected with my emotions sometimes.
	Well, connected, you say you feel them, but to express them.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Do you have people in your life outside of Tarot who you feel that you can trust with your heart of hearts kind of feelings?
	No.
	No, I don't.
	I don't feel like I really have anyone.
	Right.
	So, I mean, does she do a lot of...
	Sorry, I'm saying so, like this sort of follows.
	It doesn't.
	Does she do a lot of sort of chasing you, like complaining that you're or wanting you to be more emotionally available?
	I think, yeah, yeah, I think it was it was like that at the beginning of the relationship.
	But I feel like I've I've really worked on on trying to connect with with how I feel and be very honest about how I'm feeling.
	that's what we're doing.
	I feel like the person that I was when I first met Tara is very different from how I am now.
	I feel much more able to talk about things that upset me.
	Right.
	Now, are there problems in your relationship at the moment that are causing you concern?
	I mean, there's always challenges or whatever, but serious concern.
	Well, we're planning on getting married.
	I know Tara really wanted to talk to you, because she doesn't really have that many people in her life outside of her relationship with me, where...
	She can get the feedback that she thinks she needs about where we are in our relationship.
	You're talking about Tara again.
	Yeah.
	It's called deflection, right?
	So when I'm asking you a question about...
	I think I was asking right in general.
	But you talk about her, right?
	As a way of me not talking about you, right?
	Or asking about you?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I'm sorry.
	Hey, look over there.
	There's Tara.
	She's interesting.
	Leave me alone.
	Yeah, I mean, I don't...
	I don't...
	I've been very, very happy with the relationship recently.
	I've felt really connected to her.
	I'd like you to pretend that you are a movie director.
	Okay.
	Right?
	And I am an actor who wants to play the romantic lead, right?
	Okay.
	And this is my audition.
	I feel really happy about the relationship.
	I'm very excited about where we're heading as a couple.
	Pretty excited about the wedding.
	It's going to be cool.
	It's fun.
	Is that what I sound like?
	Yeah.
	I may be overemphasizing it a tad, but only a tad.
	Sorry.
	Sorry, I'm just...
	I... I'm still trying to rebound from some of what we were talking about earlier about my family.
	I'm still feeling the residual pain from that.
	You could say, Steph, I want to talk about that or I can't concentrate on the new thing, but instead you're kind of complying with the request from me Without being able to comply with...
	So, you know, this is sort of coaching, right, in terms of relationships?
	So if you're still feeling the emotional undertow of what we were talking about before, and I say, can we talk about something new, then what can you say to me?
	I can say to you, you know, I'm still upset about what we were talking about before, and I'd like to...
	Try to resolve that.
	I'd like to come to some kind of conclusion, some understanding about that issue that's still bothering me.
	Right.
	And this is what you need to break the pattern, right?
	You both need to have needs in the relationship, right?
	Because imagine you both have, like, I erase my needs, and then the bottle's up, and then I get angry.
	Like, you said your parents would occasionally fight, but when they did, right, Krakatoa.
	Ground Zero, Nevada tortoise-shredding nuclear strikes.
	Other people can't always guesstimate what you need.
	This assertiveness, which is really honesty, rather than compliance that is empty.
	Compliance that is empty will always cause blowback in relationships.
	Yeah.
	And so that's sort of, I guess, a useful, hopefully a useful tip, which is that if you don't feel ready or you want to stay on a topic, then you need to say that.
	You need to give the other person the honor of expressing your preferences.
	It is a huge amount of respect that you provide to someone when you express your preferences.
	Yeah.
	You know, it's funny because Because like I talk about donations, right?
	Donate to the show.
	Donate to the show.
	We got to eat.
	We got to grow.
	You know, we want to hire employee number three.
	We need the money.
	We need the money!
	Give us the money!
	And I'm expressing preferences.
	And people take that as me bullying or whining or begging.
	It's like, no, I'm expressing a preference.
	If you listen to the show, I want you to donate to the show.
	Mike wants you to donate to the show.
	Person X number three wants you to donate to the show.
	So we can do a better job.
	We get out more true news.
	We get more research.
	We get more PowerPoints.
	We just are able to do...
	I express my preferences.
	And other people react like crazy.
	Pay me the money or don't, but don't waste my time with this emotional bullshit about I'm just expressing my preferences.
	And when you do express your preferences in a lot of relationships, Other people feel bullied, or they feel like you have now put them in a position of huge power and they can become abusive, or you've showed a vulnerability, here's where it hurts, here's what I need, now fuck me up if you please, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And the expression of preferences is the essence of love.
	And this is what I really want to Get across.
	You know, this is the one sort of marriage gift that I can give you.
	That the expression of preferences is the essence of love.
	Because if you're not expressing preferences, you're not really there.
	Right?
	And people can't help you.
	I mean, they can't hurt you if you don't express preferences, so it makes perfect sense not to do that when you're with cruel people.
	But with kind people, they can't help you and they can't actually know you.
	Imagine if you and I are friends and I'm like, you've never ever told me what kind of movies, like we've watched dozens or hundreds of movies, you've never told me what you like or don't like, then how am I supposed to know what to pick up for us to watch tonight, right?
	So you're not there in a very fundamental way if you're not expressing preferences.
	And it is a courageous thing to do to express preferences in a relationship.
	But that is the most essential thing because without that, the person can't know you.
	They can't understand where you are in the moment.
	And they can't help you if that's what you need.
	They can't support you if that's what they need.
	They can't give you feedback, positive or negative, if that's what you need.
	Now, of course, if you grew up in a chaotic and aggressive and abusive family, the expression of preferences is like that, right?
	I'd rather cut my own arm off, thank you very much, right?
	But in a relationship, in a romantic relationship, in a relationship with Tara, expressing preferences is essential.
	Yeah, no, I just want to say that we express our preferences to each other.
	We try to be very on top of that, very honest with each other about how we're feeling and letting the other person know that your feelings are totally fine.
	It's okay.
	I feel like I've realized what my experience, what my childhood has been like and it just totally fucked up my ability to negotiate and my ability to respect Other people's feelings.
	It totally screwed me up.
	I've spent so much time with Tara and it seems like I speak a different language than I did with my family.
	I just remember after being with Tara for a year or so and going back to my parents' house and just the way they talk to each other, it seems insane.
	It seems totally crazy.
	They don't even look at each other in the eye when they're talking to each other.
	They're not even saying anything.
	It's a criticism.
	It's an emotional reaction to something.
	It's horrible.
	I feel like Tara and I have both really, really worked on trying to communicate effectively and negotiate and That's why we listen to your show.
	I've listened to every podcast you've done and it's so helpful in reinforcing good behavior.
	It's like we hear all the time.
	It's like, yeah, we need to be honest with our feelings.
	We need to be expressive.
	We need to negotiate.
	We need to have win-win negotiations.
	We can't just react defensively to each other.
	We have to Keep the lines open, so to speak.
	I didn't mean to earlier sound so grim about my relationship with Tara.
	I'm extremely lucky to be with her.
	She is fantastic.
	I love her so much.
	We've both changed so much since we've met.
	She introduced me to your show and it just clicked.
	It's like, why did I normalize these things with my family?
	It's so fucked up.
	It's just shocking to me.
	It's horrifying to realize how much you've normalized something that is just insane.
	Yeah, I mean, that is, of course, the great danger of a dysfunctional history, is the degree to which it just becomes like gravity.
	You just don't really think about it.
	Or posture!
	You slowly age and turn into a question mark, right?
	I mean, it is just one of these things that is so easy to forget about.
	And look, if you guys had a beginning that was fusion-based or lack of boundaries-based and so on, with the right values, I think a lot of stuff can really be corrected, right?
	With the right...
	With philosophy, with a commitment to win-win, with a commitment to ruthless and relentless honesty in your relationships, I think that could be fine.
	You can learn to fly a plane in midair.
	It's a little bit more exciting to do that, but you can, I guess, figure it out as you can move forward.
	I guess the key thing is, and we don't have to do this now, but the questions like, what is our absolute ironclad constitutional commitment in our relationship?
	We're never going to raise our voices.
	We're never going to call each other names.
	We're never going to hit.
	If we're going to have kids, here's how we're going to raise them.
	Who's going to stay home?
	You just need to go through some of the practical stuff.
	But you need to have, in any relationship, an ironclad commitment.
	It doesn't have to be explicit, but it's usually a good idea, which is This is how we're going to treat each other.
	And if anybody crosses that line, you say, no, no, no, no.
	This is the law of our land.
	And the person then is bound to.
	This is what a commitment is.
	The commitment is not to the other person.
	The commitment is to the highest standards of behavior.
	And through that, you get the highest quality of person.
	But I'm sure you have that kind of stuff.
	But that, to me, is the real foundation of a good relationship is...
	I will never do these things.
	If I'm ever tempted or ever get close, you can give me the, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
	That's not how we're doing things.
	You know, we had enough of that shit when we were growing up.
	That's not how we're doing things here.
	And then you just have to back down and you have to find another way.
	And that ruthless commitment to the highest standards of integrity and compassion and empathy in relationships is, I think, can overcome...
	Almost every challenge in the origin of the relationship, if that helps.
	Oh yeah, that does definitely help.
	I mean, yeah, it definitely helps.
	It's just been a pretty serious source of confusion for me, I guess, thinking about the way the relationship began and habits that Yeah, habits that I fell into especially.
	One of the reasons that I fell in love with Jeff was because of the way that he lives his life.
	He exercises a lot.
	He doesn't touch alcohol or drugs.
	He's never done any of that stuff.
	He just did not have this complicated, awful relationship history that I did.
	I've been with two other women.
	I just felt like he was such a solid person in a lot of ways, despite the fact that Despite the fact that he had trouble communicating his emotions, which, I mean, in a sense, I guess I just really understand where he's coming from.
	I mean, I know that if I had been a boy in my dad's household, I would have had it a lot worse in some ways.
	I would have been beaten, I'm sure of it.
	Right.
	Well, okay.
	So we've had a long chat.
	I hugely appreciate you guys sharing.
	Fantastic.
	And hopefully keep us posted about how it's going.
	And I certainly wouldn't mind a couple of wedding photos.
	And a massive slice of cake delivered by a golden camel.
	Well, we can talk about that off camera.
	But thanks again for the call in, guys.
	I hugely appreciate it.
	And very, very best of luck to you both.
	Thank you so much, Stefan.
	Thanks a lot, Seth.
	All right.
	Detroit!
	Detroit Motor City.
	Thank you very much.
	Yeah, you're welcome.
	Anything else that we wanted to add to the end?
	Oh, fdrurl.com slash donate.
	I really, really appreciate donations.
	We have myself, we have Mike, and now we have another hungry mouth to feed.
	We are trying to get employee number three.
	On board, and we're going to talk about what that person's bringing to the table, maybe not right now, but in the next show.
	No show on Saturday, because I'm going to be out of town.
	Anything else?
	Yeah, pick up the schedule on July 2nd, next Wednesday at 8 p.m., normal call-in show time.
	But yeah, looking forward to the Men's Issues Conference in Detroit.
	Yes, Men's Issues, it never stops being itchy.
	Actually, neither have you...
	And I genuinely believe the next time I go into my nose, I'm getting a diamond.
	I absolutely, strongly and totally believe that.
	And that is my main issue to deal with.
	All right.
	And I guess that's it.
	Have yourselves a great, great week, everyone.
	Thanks for the callers.
	I'm sorry to the couple who didn't call in.
	We will absolutely schedule you as soon as we can.

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