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Feb. 19, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:00:54

2915 The Power of Sexuality - Wednesday Call In Show - February 18th, 2015

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Time	Text
	Well, good evening, everybody.
	Stefan Molyneux from Feed Your Main Radio.
	This joyful evening!
	18th of February, 2015.
	8.06pm!
	06, Mike.
	06.
	Um...
	And, um...
	In our constant goal of tracking solar cycles, we wanted to mention this, that for the past five days, solar activity has been extremely low.
	And one measure of solar activity, its x-ray output, which powers the specs that you find in the back of comic books as long as the sea monkeys, x-ray output has basically flatlined in recent days.
	Not since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots.
	Flat lines.
	We are currently more than six years into solar cycle 24 and today the Sun is virtually spotless.
	Unlike, say, my forehead.
	You know, I watch myself in high def, I'm like, dude, you're a speckled egg.
	Today the Sun is virtually spotless, despite the fact that we are still in what is considered to be its solar maximum phase.
	Solar cycle 24 began after an unusually deep solar minimum that lasted from 2007 to 2009, which included more spotless days on the Sun compared to any minimum in almost a century.
	Why do you care?
	There's reasons that you care.
	So there are some possible consequences to the solar quiet, as it's called.
	The first is a bit counterintuitive.
	By all Earth-based measures of geomagnetic and geo-effective solar activity, this cycle has been extremely quiet.
	However, while a weak solar cycle does suggest strong solar storms will occur less often than during stronger, more active cycles, it does not rule them out entirely.
	So this is important In the global warming question.
	This is a quote.
	If history is a guide, it is safe to say that weak solar activity for a prolonged period of time can have a negative impact on global temperatures in the troposphere, which is the bottom-most layer of Earth's atmosphere.
	And thank you meteorologists for naming the bottom the trop.
	You're the crowning glory.
	There have been two notable historical periods with decades-long episodes of low solar activity.
	The first period is known as the Maunder Minimum, named after the solar astronomer Edward Maunder, and possibly the least edgy name for a punk band in history.
	It lasted from about 1645 to 1715.
	The second one is referred to as the Dalton Minimum, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton, and it lasted from 1790 to 180.
	30, give or take.
	Both of these historical periods coincided with below normal global temperatures in an era now referred to by many as the Little Ice Age.
	In addition, research studies in just the past couple of decades have found a complicated relationship between solar activity, cosmic rays, and clouds on Earth.
	This research suggests that in times of low solar activity, where solar winds are typically weak, more cosmic rays reach the Earth's atmosphere, which in turn has been found to lead to an increase in certain types of clouds that can act to cool the Earth.
	So, I just wanted to mention that as we are, I think, in year 17 of no global warming.
	CO2 is 0.039% of the atmosphere.
	The sun accounts for 99.86% of all of the mass in our entire solar system.
	So, I just wanted to mention that for our Chicago listeners who can't find their cars.
	It's because of...
	It could be because of this lack of solar activity, this flat-lined solar activity that is cooling down the planet to the point where you open your door, pretty much, and you see an imprint of your door in the snow.
	That is the wall that means you can't get out.
	So turn back, put on some hot chocolate, and relax.
	So thanks everyone so much for tuning in to Free Domain Radio.
	Tonight, tonight, tonight, we have an exquisite list of callers who I'm dying to get to.
	Not apparently dying enough so much to get to that I won't ramble on about solar activity, but now that I have got that out of my system, let's get on.
	Alright, well up first is Megan and Drew.
	They wrote in and said, In The Philosophy of Forgiveness, Stefan says that for every bad moment, it takes ten good ones to make up for it.
	If this is true, and if it is universal and not circumstantial, then I see it as nearly impossible, no matter how hard I work, to maintain human perfectionism and not mess up.
	Is it possible to regain trust if this 1 to 10 ratio is universal?
	Is it possible to start over in a relationship using the real-time relationships approach if it did not start out that way?
	Will the fears of these past behaviors reoccurring ever go away?
	What happened to the dumped woman?
	Gabby's up second, though.
	Oh, second.
	Okay, because I'm prepared.
	I'm ready for these things.
	It's all over the map.
	All right.
	Hi, Megan.
	Hi, Drew.
	How are you doing?
	Hi.
	Hi.
	How are you guys doing?
	We're good.
	Do you mind if I just give like two minutes...
	I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry, Drew.
	Go ahead.
	Oh, I said I'm good.
	How are you doing?
	Well, well, thanks.
	I'm just going to give two minutes on this because I would imagine out of the I don't know, 300,000 listeners that we have.
	There may be at least two or three who haven't heard all the podcasts, so I'm going to just mention what that is.
	So, in the philosophy of forgiveness, this is not any scientific rule, but it is, I think, generally accepted that Negative experiences have to outweigh positive experiences considerably for a relationship to remain stable.
	And you can just sort of think about this in terms you go to a restaurant and in your linguine is a rat tail.
	I mean, if you've been going to the restaurant for 10 years and there's one rat tail and you love the restaurant, it's close to home, it's good price and all that, then you may...
	Overlook that little hiccup in your dining experience and you sort of go back.
	However, if one out of every five meals you have has a rat tail in it, you're probably not going to be going back.
	And this is the way that we're hardwired as mammals, as biological.
	You look for the negatives in amongst all the positives, right?
	So When you wake up in the jungle, you wake up, you look, you're not looking for all the leaves in the trees, you're looking for the tiger or the lion or whatever it is that's going to be chomping your face off.
	So we are very specifically wired to really strongly process and remember and retain the negatives.
	And we kind of take the positives for granted.
	Like I remember when I was a kid.
	Chomped into a banana and there was just something foul in the banana.
	And it took me like two years to be able to feel comfortable eating a banana again.
	And of course, this all makes sense.
	You eat a berry and it makes you sick.
	You don't want to be eating that berry again.
	So the negatives stick with us and the positives kind of we take for granted.
	In relationships, I don't know if anyone's done any scientific studies.
	Ten to one is very generous.
	Like if you spend ten hours with someone and they only spend one hour of that beating you up, you're not like, well, you know, nine hours of not being beat up, one hour of being beaten up, I guess it balances out.
	So the ten to one is...
	Something that I've heard sort of bandied about in various Contexts it seems like a very generous and reasonable place to start and the reason for that is that It's really strongly designed to encourage people not to act badly Because if acting badly creates such a deficiency in your relationship if sort of being mean or calling names if it creates such deficiency in your relationship that I
	then they're going to need, according to this sort of 10 to 1 rule of thumb, 50 years of near perfect interactions in order to make up for that.
	And I think that helps us know when to cut our losses.
	Is that a fair summary of what you heard or have I completely drifted from my original thesis?
	No, that's a good summary.
	Okay.
	That's what I remember too.
	Okay, good.
	You know, because I was just thinking today when I was getting ready for this show, that I did a show, when I was hosting the Peter Schiff radio show, I did a show on the LIBOR scandal.
	And I thought, what if someone were to ask you about the LIBOR scandal now?
	I'd be like, I'm really just a pipe that the water goes through.
	I don't retain much water.
	Yeah.
	Okay, so your question is, if you've had a relationship that's had some negative elements to it, what happens then?
	Is that sort of the question?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I guess I'll start because I know we've both been talking about this a lot, just trying to figure out where we go with...
	I know what you said about forgiveness.
	It's obviously not willed.
	It's something that you need to earn, and it's not going to be given.
	Obviously, that other person has to want to forgive you or see that you're worthy of it.
	You have to earn it.
	I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that too.
	If the restaurant that serves you up the Pastor with rat tail, if they say, well, you just have to forgive us.
	You know, things happen.
	That would not be, you owe us forgiveness!
	That would not work very well.
	They'd have to work really, you know, here's 10 free meals, we're so sorry, you know, we're gonna get the inspectors to come in and give us a full report, we're gonna fire whoever, whatever, I don't know what I'd come up with, but something that would make you satisfied.
	And people who are unhappy with a business, it can be a great opportunity to really make that business relationship stronger, but you have to not demand forgiveness.
	If somebody says, well, you owe me forgiveness.
	You've got to forgive me.
	I deserve forgiveness.
	They've just done something else, which they're going to have to ask forgiveness for later.
	It's like me thumping the table and demanding that everyone find me sexy.
	No, that's not a good example because that's probably true.
	But you can't demand forgiveness.
	You show remorse.
	You make amends.
	You try and communicate how it's not going to happen again.
	You go into the roots of how it happened and you take ownership and you don't weasel out.
	And you really try and earn forgiveness.
	And if you do a good job with that and you're sincere and the person is open-hearted, then forgiveness can be granted.
	But there's a lot of...
	There's a lot of voodoo forgiveness.
	And voodoo forgiveness is, you have to forgive your dad or it's going to haunt you for the rest of your life.
	And after he's dead, you will throw your face sobbing and cracked and broken onto his tombstone and hug all the lost opportunities.
	Like, they just basically curse you with this Dantean ninth level of regret that is going to happen if you don't just magically forgive someone.
	And that, I think, is...
	It's got the same amount of validity as a voodoo curse.
	I guess it's true if you believe it, but I don't think it's true in any objective way.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Right.
	Our relationship, I guess, is just I've made a lot of mistakes and lacked self-knowledge a lot.
	And going into it, I knew that there are a lot of things that I needed to continue to work on.
	I had stopped going to therapy because I moved and hadn't gotten back into it.
	I've never witnessed a very healthy relationship, to be honest.
	So I knew that.
	And once we got into the heat of the relationship, I guess I just didn't.
	I was completely lost.
	I started a new job.
	And I would get upset.
	And anyways, after doing, you know, I guess, like, I would say I was verbally abusive or reactive.
	And there were things that were...
	Do what?
	What would you say?
	If I... I would just get really frustrated with whatever was said to me, you know, when we would be talking and I would be really upset about work.
	I have a very stressful job and it's my first job out of college and, you know, it's like kind of, I guess, like wanting to talk to him about You know, how bad it was, but I didn't really...
	I don't know.
	Do you know what that sound is, Megan?
	It's the foghorn, which means that you're not answering the question.
	I need a whole Tom Lycus array, I think, of sound effects or something bad.
	I asked you something specific.
	Do you remember what that was?
	Yeah, what did I say?
	Yeah.
	Not one of the fog excuses, right?
	But...
	You know, what did you say?
	I would just get mad and yell and...
	What would you say?
	Gosh.
	Drew?
	Drew?
	Yes?
	What would she say?
	I'm not saying this because I want to, like, grind negatives into her scalp like cinnamon or anything.
	I just...
	When people say these abstract things, well, I guess I was verbally abused, I don't know what that means, because I don't know what her definition...
	She might have said, well, you're a poopy head.
	Or she might have said, you know, you're the shit of Satan's armpit or something.
	I don't know.
	But what was said?
	The things that come to mind, she would kind of just...
	I would try and do real-time relationships, and she would just yell that I was invalidating her feelings, and I was just bringing everything back to childhood, and it's not about childhood.
	Wait, when she'd yell at you, when you were trying to talk about your feelings, she would yell at you that you were invalidating her feelings?
	Right.
	It was very confusing.
	I'm sorry, I'm just trying to uncross those verbal wires.
	I mean, you get that that's kind of...
	That doesn't make any sense.
	Well, it does with regards to your history, I'm sure, but logically, you know, it's like screaming, you're raising your voice at me!
	That's terrible!
	Okay, so I guess I would talk about my day and just how stressful it was, and then he would say something that I believed was completely irrelevant, and I would just say, like, no, that's not what it is.
	You're completely invalidating my feelings.
	Are you listening to anything that I'm saying?
	And that was kind of what it I would do.
	So it's basically it's support or die.
	It's like, I have a loaded pistol here.
	You better support me or I'm going to wing you.
	And then I would say, no, I don't want you to solve my problem.
	I just want you to listen to me.
	And that's not right either.
	I mean, he's entitled to his opinion.
	I remember telling her, like, I wasn't very satisfied by these conversations because I... I couldn't really add anything to it.
	It was just listening to her kind of complain for an hour and a half.
	And then when I mentioned that...
	You are not allowed to breathe.
	You are not allowed to move.
	Blinking is okay, but no more than once every 10 minutes.
	So it became a bit of a dumping ground.
	Like you, Megan, would it be fair to say you just came home and...
	Yeah.
	Open your mouth, baby bird.
	Mom's got some food.
	Right?
	Yes.
	There's a name for...
	We were listening to your shows together.
	What is the word for it?
	The blurb.
	Yes.
	I'm feeling stressed.
	Let me pass that stress along to you by putting you in impossible situations.
	I want your feedback.
	No, not that feedback.
	Different kind of feedback that we're not going to specify.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	And I know I'm making fun, but I mean, it's a serious stuff, but I just want us to not approach it like it's doom incarnate, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	So you come home, you're stressed, and your brain is fritzing out.
	And to gain some kind of control, I would imagine that a lot of your stress at work, Megan, comes from feeling paralyzed, feeling like you can't win no matter what you do.
	Right.
	I didn't have the proper training coming into my job.
	I learned by doing.
	And that was addressed a couple months later.
	And things that he had told me When I was stressed, my boss ended up telling me later on.
	I guess because it wasn't from someone that was actually there and doing it, I was like, no, you don't know.
	You're not there.
	But it was pretty much the same thing.
	I don't know.
	I really don't know.
	So yeah, you feel paralyzed and overwhelmed.
	Yeah.
	And then you come home and inflict that paralysis and overwhelmedness on Drew.
	Then he's in a situation where he can't do anything right because you've been in a situation where you can't do anything right, right?
	Right.
	And we also are in a distance relationship, which makes it hard too.
	So it was like, yeah, like three hours of FaceTime where I was just the first hour and a half blurbing and then the second...
	Hour and a half, getting upset about how he wasn't reacting properly.
	Yeah, no, I mean, look, FaceTime, Skype video, it's tough because you can't do other things and pretend to be listening.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And you can't play a video game, uh-huh, yeah.
	Oh, terrible.
	That's the worst.
	Yeah, there was times when he would answer, and he'd be staring at his computer, and I'd be like, why did you even answer if you don't want to talk to me?
	You're just looking at the wall.
	You're not even looking at me, and I'd get mad about that, you know?
	Now, see, Drew, Drew, listen.
	Here's what you say.
	I'm looking up some of the things that you're using, like some of the terms that you're using in the environment that you're in, so I can further fully understand your issues.
	And then make sure that the FaceTime camera never touches the screen, right?
	Sees topless Kate Upton or something.
	Okay, so I think I've got that one.
	I think I sort of understand that.
	Andrew, what was your experience of these blarps or these calls?
	It was very confusing because I thought I was doing the right thing.
	I was kind of just asking how she felt and...
	Oh dear.
	Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt you right after I asked you.
	Right.
	Doing the right thing?
	Complete opposite of RTR! Okay, I thought I was...
	You know, your honest thoughts and experience in the moment, doing the right thing is being a slave to some abstraction that is almost always inauthentic, right?
	Because doing the right thing is being sort of honest about what you think and feel in the moment, which includes saying, I feel paralyzed, I feel overwhelmed, I'm not interested in this conversation, I feel threatened, I feel like I can't win, I feel despair, I feel sadness, I feel anger, I feel fear, whatever, right?
	As opposed to, good boyfriend manual says no to go, hmm...
	Right.
	I was saying those kind of things, though.
	That's what I meant.
	Yeah.
	Initially, he'd say, like, I don't want to talk to you.
	Talking to you is just so negative.
	And I was like, okay, that's good.
	I guess you don't want to talk to me, but can't you say it in a nicer way?
	Also, I'm spilling my, like...
	Everything out and you don't want to listen.
	Like, you don't care.
	You know, that sort of...
	Oh, good one, Megan.
	Oh, man.
	You just got, like, every female quiver in that bolt arrow, right?
	Like, but I'm expressing my thoughts and feelings.
	Why don't you care?
	Wow.
	Because we don't know if that's what you were doing.
	You could have been dumping, right?
	Oh, well, I mean, now I know I was dumping.
	So, I mean, after, like...
	I don't even know how long, five or six months, he just decided he didn't really want to even talk to me anymore, which made FaceTime pretty boring or frustrating.
	I don't know how you want to say it.
	Were the problems at work ever solved or helped through a conversation that you had?
	Yes, yes.
	Eventually, they called me in and I actually, they were like, we have been trying.
	It was really...
	No, no, no.
	Through a conversation you had with Drew.
	Oh.
	No, I think we both agreed on one lady that I really didn't like, but I mean...
	So months of dumping and no solution, right?
	Because this is a classic problem that men and women get into, is, you know, the woman says, these are my thoughts and feelings, and she wants validation and acknowledgement and so on.
	Whereas what the man sees is the woman says, I've dropped a brick on my foot.
	It really, really hurts.
	Now, what does a man say, Drew?
	Put ice on it.
	Take the brick off your foot.
	Take the brick off your foot.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	Take the brick off your foot.
	It hurts.
	Take it off.
	And what does the woman say, Megan?
	Help me.
	No, the woman says, I can't take the brick off my foot.
	I'm not asking for solutions.
	I just want to be visible.
	And the man's like, but you've got a brick on your foot!
	Take it off!
	And the woman's like, the brick was put there by my mother.
	I can't just take it off.
	It's part of my foot.
	I just need validation.
	And this is where women want to be heard.
	And for men, communications are about Got problem.
	Solve problem.
	End of communication.
	Right?
	Right.
	And that was another thing.
	There were some times when he would try to solve the problem.
	In the beginning, I think...
	I bet you that didn't last long.
	No.
	That was the...
	I was like, no, I'm not asking you to solve the problem.
	I'm just trying to find some empathy here, because don't you think I would have come up with that problem if I spend 12 hours at work a day trying to figure it out?
	So, Drew, you sort of experienced it as a kind of dumping that stresses you out, and Megan, you experience it as an insult to your intelligence if he tries to solve the problem, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So you get that can't possibly result in anything satisfying for either of you, right?
	Right.
	Drew, did you ever suggest that perhaps a different job might be better?
	No.
	Did you go that far?
	Did you put your head in the lion's jaws that deep?
	Were you like tonsil deep in the lion more?
	I don't think I went that deep.
	No, he would like...
	Did you think it, but not say it?
	Um...
	I probably said, like, you know, if you hate it so much, get a different job.
	I probably said something like that.
	And Megan, how did you experience that?
	I don't remember that.
	I remember the...
	You know, in the beginning, everyone hates their job.
	It's really hard.
	And then, like, after, you know, the first year, you'll get it.
	It'll keep getting better.
	Because I, like, would start talking about how I just, like, would want to look for a job where he lives.
	And, you know, like, I want to quit my job.
	I hate it.
	And he would always, like, discourage that.
	From my memory.
	Drew, why did you discourage that?
	Well, I mean, I kind of knew she was just, or I thought she was just frustrated and it wouldn't be a wise decision because we really hadn't known each other that long and I didn't want her to pick up and move everything after a few months.
	Wait a minute.
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	So, Megan, when you started blarping all over Drew, so to speak, how long had you known each other?
	I guess like...
	Was it like three or four months?
	Yeah, it was about three months.
	Whoa!
	Whoa!
	That is a heavy truck to drive upon a very new bridge, right?
	Right.
	I don't...
	And I didn't even...
	You must listen!
	I have vagina!
	I mean, it's only three or four months of vagina, but still, that's got to buy me some listening.
	I mean, friends, family, siblings, people who've known you for 10 years or 20 years, why new boy toy?
	For some reason, well, I don't know why I ended up blurbing it all over him, but I think it was just like the closest...
	Oh, yes, you do.
	He's the closest person to me, and I, you know...
	Three months?
	Come on!
	We moved really fast in those three months.
	The closest person in three months in your whole life?
	Yeah, I don't know, because...
	Yeah, he was the closest person to me at the time, like emotionally.
	Three months.
	You have no other friends.
	I mean...
	I'm just going to be tough on you, and I apologize for that, but I just want to give you this perspective, because that's a lot, that's a very heavy burden to put on a new relationship, an hour and a half of complaining every day.
	I mean, maybe not every day, I'm sure, but...
	Right.
	And there's a reason why...
	You felt or thought that this was a fine thing to do with Drew.
	Because he would listen, I guess?
	I don't know.
	Why did he listen?
	Why would he listen?
	Because he wanted to be with me.
	Because vagina.
	I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
	We live six hours away, so he's having a hard time.
	No, it's because he's a boyfriend, and then you bring all of this weight of, well, now he has to be there for me, and now he has to support me because he's my boyfriend.
	We're having sex.
	He has to be there for me, right?
	You have leverage, right?
	Yeah, that's another thing, though, is I really have not made very many friends at all, like, here since I've moved here.
	Well, why do you think that is?
	I haven't pursued any, honestly, like...
	But why do you think that is?
	Uh, because I... I don't know.
	I don't really...
	I'm tired.
	I work like 10 to 12 hours a day, usually.
	All right, let me step you through this.
	If he was just some woman you met at work, would you be blarping on him for an hour and a half and getting angry at him for not supporting you?
	No.
	Okay, so that's important, right?
	Why not?
	Well, because why does she care?
	Okay.
	Why does he care?
	Because he claims he does.
	Because vagina!
	And look, I'm not trying to say that it's only vagina, but once sexuality comes into it, people's expectations go way up, right?
	We didn't really evolve for a while, like, it's been a commitment, sexuality comes with commitment, right?
	So once you start having sex, there's all this stuff that kicks in, which is like, well, we're now committed.
	We're now committed.
	And normally, you have sex after you've known each other for a year or two, and you get married, right?
	Right.
	And so basically we kind of shoot our penises and vaginas up like grappling hooks and then pull ourselves up with that.
	That works better with the penis than vagina.
	And so I would assume that at this point in the relationship, if you don't mind me asking, how long after you met?
	You said you went kind of fast.
	How long after you met did you start having sex?
	It's about a month, right?
	A little more than a month.
	I guess.
	Like...
	Okay.
	Not until we started dating, right?
	Hmm?
	Yes.
	I'm sorry.
	After you started dating, how long after you started dating did you start having...
	Oh, once...
	I mean...
	I don't know.
	You can answer that better.
	Don't hedge with me.
	You're anonymous.
	Just the facts, man.
	It was a month.
	Okay.
	Yeah, probably.
	But after you started dating...
	So you'd known each other for a bit, you went out on a date, and how long after you started dating did you have sex?
	Yeah, it was a month.
	We didn't know each other before we started dating.
	So you started dating, and then a month later you started having sex?
	Yes.
	Right.
	So that's not too fast, right?
	I mean, I've heard faster.
	According to my internet research videos, often it's, you know, as soon as the man with the tube belt comes to fix the photocopier, it's usually a matter of 30 or 45 seconds.
	So a month is, I mean, that's like waiting for sex in Fifty Shades of Grey.
	I think that if it had been his decision, it would have been sooner.
	But I was trying to make sure that the relationship wasn't all about that.
	But I still, I mean, I still think a month was pretty fast.
	Okay, okay.
	Alright.
	So, no, but it's important because if you have wildly opposite standards for what you expect out of a relationship simply due to the presence or absence of sex or sexual opportunity, I'm not sure that's giving you the best or most realistic assessment of what is or isn't possible, right?
	Right.
	In other words, if it's like, well, listen, Drew.
	Drew, I'm telling you.
	I'm putting out.
	And...
	Basically, because I'm putting out, you have to listen.
	And you have to support me.
	Because we are now in a relationship.
	And Pussy Vice has closed, and you are trapped.
	You cannot get out.
	It's like one of those little finger traps that you have as a kid.
	Right?
	And I think that's an unrealistic thing to put on a fairly new relationship.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, it is.
	Yeah.
	I would like to say, though, that...
	Well, I don't want to say this, but I would...
	That's always the best stuff to say.
	Top of my shows.
	Oh, I don't want to say this, but I have to say it.
	My closest girlfriends, like, I was very guilty of that with them, and then, you know, I would, like, apologize afterwards, though, which I don't know, but I would do that, and then I just would go on my rant, and then my rant would be over.
	And so I don't think it has...
	Wait, sorry to interrupt.
	You would blarp on your girlfriends and then apologize?
	Yeah.
	Like, if I was really, really...
	Like, they would ask, you know, like, what's going on?
	You know, like, whatever.
	And then we would, like, talk it out.
	And then I'd, like, apologize for bringing my problems onto them.
	And, you know, like...
	Because I don't like that I do it, but I don't know why if I hold it in, I didn't really know any other way.
	So recently I started journaling, and that's helped a lot.
	But if I just hold it all in, then I don't really...
	No, look, I understand that.
	If you're preoccupied with stuff at work and you're socializing with people, then you are, in a sense, being false for not talking about what's on your mind.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, and I'm like an open book, in a sense, I think.
	I could be wrong about that.
	But it's a fault of mine.
	Like I wear my emotions.
	But the problem, sorry to interrupt, but the problem, as far as I understand it, is not that you are an open book or that you talk about your thoughts and feelings.
	The problem is that you bully with your thoughts and feelings and your needs, right?
	Yeah, with him.
	You control.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	People have to do it a certain way, and if they don't, they just don't love you, don't care about you, aren't good people, aren't being sympathetic, aren't being empathetic, and need to fix that, right?
	Right.
	So, I mean, you're kind of recasting it.
	It's like, well, you know, I'm free spirit.
	I'm an open book.
	I like to share my thoughts and feelings.
	But that's not the problem, Drew, right?
	I mean, the fact that she was sharing thoughts and feelings wasn't the problem.
	The fact that it came with these increasingly fascistic controls and punishments was the problem.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yes.
	Yeah, fair to say.
	Okay, so Megan, I'm guessing...
	I'm going to guess.
	And tell me how...
	Close I am.
	When you grew up, when you were a kid, Megan, were there people around you who, when they were upset, in a kind of way, there couldn't be two people in the same room?
	Oh, yeah.
	In other words, they would be upset and you would just have to conform to whatever would make them feel better and couldn't have any thoughts or feelings or reactions of your own?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Do you want to tell me anything about that or should we just put that in the theory validated so far category?
	We can validate it and then talk about it if you want to after you continue.
	No, that's your choice if you want to talk about it or describe it.
	Yeah, my dad was like, pretty much in listening to a lot of your shows, he is the most awful parent in the world.
	And I know that.
	And I'm aware of it.
	I've been aware of it since I was 13.
	It's caused a lot of health issues for me.
	So...
	He's not someone that I've ever liked.
	And I used to, I mean, to the extent that I used to wish that he would get a terrible disease and pass, because that's just how bad it was.
	I'm so sorry to hear that.
	I mean, that is a horrible and horrifying thing to experience as a child.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	He never hit me as a kid.
	All I remember is like...
	Just yelling, like, so loud.
	And he's a very big, tall, heavy-set man.
	Like, played football for, you know, Division I college.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Don't get into it.
	Don't get into it.
	Yeah, but...
	But anyways, he...
	But, yeah, he was very, very abusive to my mom and verbally...
	And, you know, I have a brother, and once my brother, you know, was being brought up, my dad actually, like, I started seeing things...
	He wasn't as hard on my brother, really.
	Like, it was gang up on the women, and that's the thing, like, it really was.
	My friend's parents noticed or knew what he was doing, and...
	They didn't even want their daughters to go to my house.
	I would always go to other people's houses.
	One of my good friends, as I got older, her mom gave me a key to her place so that I could get away anytime.
	But he made it to where it was almost virtually impossible.
	He didn't want me to have a job.
	He would do anything in his power to get me out of that.
	But I... You know, I like made sure that I was going to take care of myself so I could be independent as soon as possible.
	So, yeah.
	Yeah.
	And I can hear all of that and I could from the beginning and that sort of heaviness of sometimes of your, your speech.
	So I sympathize with that.
	I mean, enormously.
	And when he would, what would it be like?
	So you said he was a yeller, but when he would get upset, that's sort of what I was talking about that you sort of ceased to exist in that moment.
	Because you can be very angry and upset with someone and be very close to that person.
	It sounds like a paradox if we've been raised by these kinds of people, but you can be very angry and upset with someone and have an incredibly close and intimate conversation.
	Anger doesn't need to be this sort of narcissistic, eclipsing, erasing rage that other people have to conform to out of terror.
	Anger can be quite intimate.
	And very helpful.
	Sometimes when people have, like, arguments or disagreements, that doesn't always mean that they're having a fight, right?
	No, I mean, disagreements are healthy.
	It's how you know you're different people.
	I mean, I have disagreements with myself, right?
	Yeah.
	All the time.
	And, you know, it's funny, other people say, well, I don't agree with everything that Steph says.
	It's like, hey...
	Me neither.
	But I mean, if I was saying exactly the same stuff over eight years with no change, no evolution or anything, that would be pretty tragic.
	So no, not at all.
	I mean...
	Disagreement means two people are thinking and growing in different areas.
	And disagreement is how...
	If you're being coached in a sport, the coach disagrees with you almost all the time.
	Because that's what coaching is.
	Don't do it that way.
	Do it this way.
	You were lifting your legs too high here.
	You need to curl over with your serve in the tennis racket.
	You need to...
	Get your skates sharpened, whatever, right?
	The coach is disagreeing with you.
	All coaching, all teaching is disagreeing with something in the moment for the sake of something better in the future.
	So everyone who puts out a product disagrees with the absence of that product from the marketplace or disagrees with every other solution to that product or service in the marketplace.
	They think they have something better.
	Everyone who opens a restaurant thinks that they disagree with the presence of restaurants.
	And progress is disagreement with that which is.
	I mean, the people who created cars disagreed with having to smell horse poop on the streets all the time, right?
	So disagreement is foundational.
	You know, you don't get the end of slavery unless people disagree with slavery.
	You don't get the end of the aristocracy or serfdom or the monarchy unless people disagree with those institutions.
	So disagreement is just a consummation devoutly to be wished.
	This is how you know you're with someone who's not scared of you because they can disagree with you.
	And allowing people to disagree with you and giving yourself the permission to disagree with other people is foundational to mutual respect.
	Right.
	And that was one thing where...
	I had never listened to your show until, like, a few months ago.
	I mean, like, maybe two or three months ago, honestly.
	And it's made me realize so many things about what I was doing.
	But whenever Drew would bring up things, you know, about, like, atheism or, you know, just some sort of...
	Something that I've never, ever once really thought about...
	I would for some reason feel this pressure like if I don't agree with him right now then like he's gonna leave me or he's you know he's gonna think that I'm never gonna come to the solution that he does and and it was just simply like I would get so anxious and it wasn't because it was something I disagreed with because I really didn't have a strong opinion either way about it was more just like For some reason,
	and I don't know if it was the way he was saying it, like that's something we've been trying to figure out.
	Is it something in the way that he was saying it?
	Or did I just react because...
	No, no, because...
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't know.
	I mean, maybe he's a screamer like your dad, although he doesn't sound like that to me.
	But you can't fix the past by tweaking the present.
	I mean, you can't.
	It's like if you're 400 pounds, I mean...
	You know, cutting back on your cookies isn't going to solve all of that history.
	And if you've been a chain smoker, going for a run isn't going to get rid of the damage to your lungs.
	So you cannot fix the past by tweaking the present.
	And our great temptation, when we bring terrible burdens, like you have, of course, Megan, from your history, when we bring terrible burdens and traumas into the present, we are landmines.
	And people are just dancing around, walking around, and they keep stepping on our landmines.
	And we keep getting angry at them and say, don't go here, don't go there.
	These are landmines.
	You keep blowing things up.
	The noise is scaring me, frightening the birds.
	Stop doing this, stop doing that.
	Because we're all these landmines all over our gardens.
	And that's how...
	Our history controls and inhibits our present because you have triggers, right, Megan?
	I mean, you grew up with, you say, with a dad that you wished would get a horrible disease.
	I mean, you didn't even want him hit by a bus.
	You wanted him to suffer, right?
	And that is incredibly sad and incredibly traumatic, and that's years and years and years of fear, loathing, and hatred.
	Now, Expecting that Drew can act in a way that's not going to trigger you, I think is unrealistic.
	It's like if your whole body is covered with burns, nobody can hug you in a way that's not going to hurt.
	So expecting that when you get upset, Drew needs to change.
	Look, maybe he does.
	I don't know.
	I mean, but the reality is that focusing on him rather than your own triggers and your own history, I think is going to do what happens and produce what happens so often in relationships.
	People come in with their traumas.
	And as you said at the beginning of a conversation, Megan, a lack of self-knowledge, which I sympathize with and empathize with as well, come into the relationship with all these traumas and all these triggers and all of these problems.
	And then the other person...
	Makes the inevitable and natural mistakes of adapting to a new person and with their history and with their own histories.
	Right?
	I can't imagine that Drew's childhood was entirely a bouquet of roses, given that he's with you.
	So he comes in with his own issues.
	And then when other people upset us, we get angry at them.
	In other words, our victimization, in a way, can turn us into bullies.
	Right.
	Because we get hurt.
	And the other person isn't doing something that we want, and we get hurt.
	And that way we get to bully that person and tell them, basically, you're a bad person for hurting me.
	But if you're burned all over and I give you a gentle hug and I don't know it, that's not my fault.
	I mean, I'm not hurting you, so to speak, right?
	It's the burns that are hurting you.
	And what happens is there is...
	The sexual bonding, the freedom, the diminishment of anxiety that comes from finding somebody that you're compatible with.
	And then what happens is people spontaneously act and trigger each other's issues, trigger each other's defenses.
	And instead of owning that and saying, I feel upset, I'm not saying it's anything you did, but I feel upset because this just happened or you just did this, it's not your fault, but this is what happened to me.
	In other words, owning that.
	Your own pain.
	Owning your own triggers.
	What happens is we say, what you did hurt me and the solution to that is for you to not do that.
	But the problem is that doesn't solve the problem.
	Because there's another trigger and another trigger and another trigger.
	And we then put more and more restrictions and straight jackets on other people.
	And we control them more and more and more.
	And people end up feeling so claustrophobic and so paralyzed and so inhibited and so despairing because they feel they can't do anything right because no matter what they do the other person just gets upset and then there's another rulebook and then they get upset about something else and there's another rulebook and what happens is when the sexual high and the endorphin high of new romance wears off after about six months or so people might drag it out a little longer But
	the joy, the spontaneity, the freedom, the connection all begins to drain, you know, like sand out of the hourglass, out of the relationship.
	And then one day you both wake up and you look at each other and you say, I have no connection with you anymore.
	I'm so inhibited.
	I'm so scared to do anything.
	I've been so controlled.
	I have nothing left to say to you that isn't going to cause a problem.
	And that's when the end is there.
	And I don't want that.
	I mean, if it's avoidable, right?
	For you.
	Right.
	We kind of came to that point and I ended it.
	And when I ended it, I think she kind of realized she had been doing things wrong and she kind of hit rock bottom and she started really looking at herself and started to change.
	And now she's listening to FDR and going to therapy.
	And so we're just wondering how to get back on track, if that's possible.
	After that had happened.
	It's very hard.
	Sorry, go ahead, Megan.
	Sorry.
	I, like, recognize that it wasn't him in everything you just said.
	It was stuff in listening to your shows and everything.
	Just that I realized, like, oh, yeah, like, I'm wrong in this and this and this and this.
	And...
	Uh, whatnot.
	And, and one thing like my therapist recently was like bringing up was, well, was there anything, you know, just, he's just trying to figure things out, I think.
	And he was like, was there any reason that you were triggered in this way?
	And I don't think he's gotten deep enough because this is, I've only gone, this is my, I've been three times, you know, but I've listened to your show at least like three to four hours a day.
	Um, but So I'm a little obsessed and yeah.
	Hey, you're interested and it's helpful.
	I mean, I wouldn't necessarily downgrade your own fascination with...
	This is a unique show, right?
	Right.
	I mean, there's nothing else that's out there that's like this in terms of the breadth and depth of what we talk about.
	So I'm glad that you're finding it this interesting that that's encouraging to me.
	So but I wouldn't say that it's so much about myself.
	So it's great.
	And it's helping, I think, our relationship.
	But at the same time, we're both like, well, we have.
	I feel like it's almost impossible for me to make up if, you know, it's like...
	That was eight months that I just blurbed all over him and yelled at him and didn't listen.
	Pretty much, I saw traits of my dad in myself.
	And that, like...
	I mean, I didn't sleep for, like, two weeks once I realized that I was acting like someone that, you know, like that.
	Like...
	It's awful.
	Yeah, when you wake up in your life, you tend not to sleep.
	Like when you fundamentally wake up about patterns, you tend not to sleep.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, no, I haven't been getting much sleep lately, honestly.
	But, you know, like, I used to cry every day, and I would write him, like, letters of how sorry I am, and recognizing, not just saying sorry, but, like, I realized that I did this, like, giving an example of everything that I did, and, like, this is why I did it, and then, you know, like, to know why you did it so that you know how to prevent it from happening and everything, but I don't know if...
	Drew, if you want to tell him, like, what recently happened, but it just didn't seem like I was honestly getting anywhere with it.
	Rightfully, you know, has a serious defense up, and I don't know if you want to take it from there on why you have such a strong defense up.
	I know why, but I don't want to speak for you.
	Yeah, I just, I found it hard to open up to her again, and I entrust her, and I just feel like I've built this wall around myself, and it's hard to, I know it's hard on both of us, because we want to, there's like this great Brief window when she was her true self and we were just happy for like a week.
	It was like a feeling of euphoria, I guess.
	Do you remember that?
	Yeah.
	And I just...
	I keep thinking about that.
	I think, how do we get back to that?
	Because, like, right after she realized what she was doing, she kind of went back, like, stepped backward.
	And she started kind of saying, you know, I would have listened to all this stuff if you would have just...
	You know, approached me in a better way.
	And that made me really angry.
	And like, I remember when she said I got really mad and I just closed off completely.
	Because you were blamed and shamed, right?
	Yes, yes.
	Yeah, and I mean, I think a lot of...
	I mean, I'm sure women have too, but in sort of personal experience and men that I've talked to, there is this...
	Requirement and in fact, it's really demand and it's a lot of blaming and shaming involved with well If you'd brought it up in the right way, I wouldn't have gotten upset right which is making someone else responsible for Your emotional state which is Kind of claustrophobic right and and also it's a it's a very easy out For for women right because every time they get upset they have the out of saying well, it's your fault Yeah, it really reminded me of my mom.
	I think that's what made me so mad, part of it.
	And how does that tie into your mom?
	Oh, you know, just growing up, every time she had an outburst, it was, I made her do that.
	One time she threw a phone book at me and broke the window and she said, look what you made me do, you know.
	So that brings up some...
	When you get blamed for a woman's negative emotional state, that brings up some pretty heavy stuff for you.
	That's your trigger, right?
	That's why you got so angry.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah, because, I mean, it is...
	I hope it's not too strong a word, but to me it just seems like contemptible behavior to say that other people...
	I mean, when you're not a child.
	When you're a child, you're dependent.
	You can't leave and blah, blah, blah.
	You didn't choose to be there, so it's a different situation.
	But for adults to say, you made me do this, indicates such a terror of self-ownership and such a fear of responsibility that people who have that primal aversion to responsibility are indicates such a terror of self-ownership and such a fear of responsibility that people who have Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And I'm trying to figure out, and I don't think I can, so I'll just tell you what I'm thinking, and I don't think I can figure this out.
	Yeah.
	I'm trying to figure out if you guys are together for a positive or to avoid a negative.
	It's sort of a very fundamental question about relationships.
	That's what I'm trying to figure out.
	Yeah, I mean, you know what I'm saying.
	Yeah, no, it's exactly what I'm trying to figure out because the more I'm learning about myself, the more I'm wondering, like, well, you know, he, like, I'm not going to point fingers, but right now I'm learning a lot about myself and I'm realizing that he has this vision of me that is his mom.
	This defense is up.
	Why am I still here trying to make it happen?
	Is it because I'm afraid to be alone?
	Or is it because I really, really do believe that we can fix things?
	I don't know if it's out of fear or But, I mean, I did the other night.
	I said, like, hey, I just think this is honestly...
	I don't think I can do this because I need to work on myself.
	And I know that you have been trying to help me, and I think that's amazing.
	But we need to help work on...
	I don't know what the answer is or how we can stay together and still, like...
	How can he get the vision of his mom out of his brain?
	Does it take like five years?
	And how can I help with that?
	Or is that not my place?
	I don't really know.
	Right.
	No, I mean, these are the very essential questions.
	And they're questions that are larger than just this relationship.
	And I don't mean to diminish this relationship.
	I'm just that these are very large life questions.
	And I can't answer them.
	Just so you know.
	Don't give answers.
	I can give you some thoughts that I have which are obviously not conclusive or binding or syllogistically proven or anything like that.
	But I can sort of tell you.
	People say that they have a fear of being alone.
	And I'm not sure that that's really what goes on for people.
	I think that people who are in romantic relationships...
	Have power over the other person because of the sexual aspect of the relationship.
	Sexuality is designed to make children.
	Sexuality is designed for pair bonding pretty much for your lifetime because it takes forever to raise kids and we used to have like a dozen of them and that kind of stuff, right?
	And so when we have sex with someone, we gain power over them because the sex is supposed to only come after the lifelong commitment.
	So it's supposed to be, but where there's sex, there is power, which is why I asked you earlier And I wasn't sort of trying to catch you or trap you, Megan, but I asked you earlier, how would you deal with a friend, a female friend?
	And you'd say, well, I'd never do that.
	And that's why I said, because vagina, because sexuality.
	And Drew, because of his sexuality, has his own power, but we were just talking about this.
	So when you have sex with someone, you get into a committed relationship, you have power over them, and your expectations go up enormously.
	And you have, like, way higher expectations, and often irrational.
	Expect, you fixed my past!
	I'm incredibly traumatized, but you act in a way that never traumatizes me.
	Well, that's, these are all wildly unrealistic expectations.
	So when people say, or if you say, I am afraid of being alone, I wonder, I wonder, I don't know, but I wonder if it may be more the case, I'm afraid of having no power.
	Because you were able to bully Drew and And I mean this with sympathy.
	It doesn't make you a bad person.
	It's just lack of self-knowledge and history and all that, right?
	But you were able to bully Drew because the romantic or sexual aspect of your relationship gave you power over him.
	I don't really like that power, though, to be honest.
	At all.
	It makes me really uncomfortable.
	Well, I think...
	I mean, we're kind of...
	I don't want to be all kind of Nietzschean up in your yin-yang, but...
	The will to power is pretty strong in we four-brained mammals, right?
	Because the alternative is powerlessness.
	And how does that make you feel when you have no power?
	How did it make you feel at work?
	How did it make you feel as a child?
	I think it's just something I'm used to being put in that position.
	So when I'm put in a position with power, I get anxiety a little bit.
	I'm not used to that.
	But at the same time, I don't know.
	I feel like work is much different.
	But you exercised power over him.
	I did, yeah.
	So when he didn't give you what you want, you could have just sighed and said, well, I guess I have no power or I can't.
	But you tried to exercise power over him and successfully.
	Is that fair, Drew?
	I mean, you did try to, quote, do the right thing, which is called being inauthentic, right?
	Right.
	You complied because of your mom and your history and all that, right?
	Right.
	Yes, and I listened to some of the podcasts that said if you're confused in a relationship, just be generous and see how you feel.
	And I just kept trying to be generous until I didn't want to be anymore.
	Not generous in terms of compliance, generous in terms of who you are.
	Not like, here's a million dollars, let's find out if this relationship works out.
	I mean, generous in terms of being...
	So that's what I was doing wrong.
	Well, you see, you're sort of the right and wrong guy.
	You're the right and wrong guy, right?
	Give me a map!
	Give me a compass, I'll get to the treasure, right?
	Catholic school, I guess.
	Okay, okay, okay.
	So, give me the catechisms, give me the commandments, and I will get to heaven.
	Yeah, you know, authenticity and Catholicism, or a lot of the particularly...
	Well, Old Testament, New Testament religions is not.
	It's not usually around authenticity.
	It's because authenticity is having doubts and thinking for yourself.
	Anyway, so if it's not...
	What does it mean if it's not the right time for this relationship?
	I mean, if you're both going through these eruptions of self-knowledge and discombobulations and therapy and realizing things and so on, I'm not saying it is the right time, I don't know, but if it's not the right time for this relationship, what does that mean?
	What's on the other side of that decision?
	Well, for me, I just think I know how hard it is to find a woman who's actually willing to look at herself and admit fault to anything, or at least I think it's hard.
	Yeah, I mean, I guess for me, I'm like, am I ever going to find such an amazing man?
	I've been through quite a few terrible, awful, I'm humiliated to say I was ever with you people because of my past with the man that raised me, you know, and I'm aware that I selected those people and this is the first, you know, I believe to be the best person I could possibly find.
	So, letting go of that just, you know, I would like to say that we could Work together and, you know, share things and understand.
	And I've heard you talk about how, like, when you find the right part, you found your wife and how y'all were able to work together and grow together.
	And that's kind of, like, what I was hoping for, but I don't know if that's always healthy.
	I'm not sure.
	Yeah, I mean, we didn't do damage to each other and I was just at the tail end of a couple of years of very intensive therapy, so...
	The timing was a little different.
	How many boyfriends have you had, Megan?
	Oh, God.
	Um.
	Like, officially or just dating?
	Officially means sex?
	Not necessarily.
	I'm not sure what officially means.
	Like, where we have a title...
	Or not.
	Like, you can, I don't know, like, people are just so messed up where, you know, you think that you're officially with them because you're, like, sleeping with them, and then, you know, you find out, oh, you're sleeping with four other people.
	That's nice.
	Okay, good to know.
	And how did I not know that?
	I claimed she was my best friend.
	Well, write her off now.
	So, yeah.
	I don't, I don't know.
	I wouldn't consider any of them to be real boyfriends.
	Alright.
	How many men have you kissed?
	Quite a few frogs.
	Like...
	God...
	Kissed?
	I don't know.
	I want to say like 20 probably.
	That's really high.
	I don't know if we're kissing.
	And Drew?
	How many boyfriends have you had?
	I lost count.
	I'm going to assume that you're not, you know, swinging back from byland.
	But how many girls have you kissed?
	Oh, probably about the same 20 or so?
	25?
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I mean, I'm just estimating it could be more...
	I might be low-volving that, but I'm not.
	20 to 30 range?
	Right.
	And I'm assuming, given the youth in your voices, you're not in your 70s.
	No.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And is this the longest relationship that you guys have had, or have you had longer ones?
	Yeah, it's the longest I've ever had.
	Yeah, the longest, like, consistent one.
	Yes.
	Hmm.
	I mean, I'm guessing...
	That things are going to get more raw before they get more peaceful, especially, I don't, Drew, I don't know if you're going into therapy or not, but Megan in particular for yourself, if you're going to therapy, you're dealing with a lot of history stuff, the wounds are going to get closer to the surface before they heal.
	Right.
	And my, I guess, like one fear is like, you know, this therapist is just trying to bring out questions and whatever, and I just want to like run them across Drew every day afterwards and say, hey, he brought this up.
	What do you think of this?
	What are your thoughts on this?
	And I'm just so afraid it's going to open up a whole new can of arguments rather than, you know, oh, that's actually a good idea.
	And I'm afraid it's just going to say, well, you're just trying to place blame on me again, you know?
	Right.
	Right.
	You can certainly have a conversational relationship without the sexuality, of course, right?
	Without the sort of boyfriend-girlfriend thing.
	And you can explore that self-knowledge stuff without having a sexual relationship.
	Because a sexual relationship is high-stakes poker.
	I mean, it's a great compliment to you, Drew, when Megan says, he's the best guy I'm ever going to find.
	No pressure.
	Right?
	It's my one winning lottery ticket!
	Want to trade it for some toilet paper?
	No!
	So, there is going to be a rawness and a volatility to this, and...
	You know, Drew, if you've got a mom who threw stuff, broke windows and blamed you, I don't mean to sound like a broken record as I always do, but therapy might not be the end of the world for you as well to make sure that you can differentiate a woman who, you know, Megan, to your enormous credit, you are taking ownership for your behavior and you're getting help and you are really committing to dealing with this stuff, right?
	Right.
	But you're right, like, that is my thing.
	I'm like, I want you to be able to identify properly if I'm doing it or not.
	And I need to take ownership.
	I'm not saying that you should take ownership for what I'm doing.
	But, you know, just being able to differentiate, I think, is just so important.
	So, like, you're right about, I mean, you're right about everything, but yeah.
	Well, scarcely, but the speech that I gave to you, Megan, is also applicable to Drew, right?
	So, if she triggers your mom bot, that's not solely her responsibility, right?
	Right.
	Right, because I said, look, if something hurts Megan, she can't blame you solely, right?
	Right.
	And in the same way, If you've got unresolved stuff with your history with your mom, and Megan does stuff that reminds you of her, and it upsets you to that degree, it is not fair to blame Megan for your mom's imprint.
	If that makes sense.
	Otherwise, you know, I get really mad at the guys who made 101 Dalmatians for not including German mom trigger warnings all over the outside of the DVD box.
	Right?
	Right.
	If you are triggered...
	Blaming the person who triggered you.
	I mean, if they're genuine, if she's genuinely like your mom, like if you really believe that, you wouldn't even be on this call, right?
	Right.
	I don't think she is.
	I mean, obviously she's not, because she's working so hard.
	There's some patterns, but she's doing what your mom didn't do, right?
	I assume your mom didn't.
	Three days afterwards say, oh, I can't believe I blamed you for that.
	That was so immature and irresponsible of me and bloody, I'm going to go to therapy or whatever, right?
	No, it's like a joke afterwards.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, like all people who frighten you, they then want to hurt you further by saying you lack a sense of humor.
	So, she's not your mom.
	And that doesn't mean that she's never going to trigger you, but she's not your mom.
	And so...
	If you start putting her into the mom template, you're kind of doing what she was doing to you, right?
	Which felt bad to you, which was controlling your responses to her blarping.
	Yeah.
	So, you don't want to be doing that.
	I mean, there's an Henri Ibsen play called Ghosts, which is one of these really tragic Northern European Hamlet-style stories about just repetitions.
	And...
	We're all just inhabited by ghosts.
	There's barely anybody alive in our skulls.
	When we lack self-knowledge, we are just a pantomime of ghosts.
	And all we do is react.
	And there's no freedom in that.
	I mean, a billiard ball doesn't have any freedom.
	It just goes where the balls in the cue hit it in the edges.
	So, to peel away The history from the present is a difficult and intense process.
	And it's destabilizing significantly.
	So it seems to me that it would be a fairly sure bet that these kinds of triggerings are going to get worse before they get better.
	If you're really going deep into history.
	Yeah, like if I, I guess we'll have a conversation and I'll be practicing things, you know, for real-time relationships and, you know, whatever.
	And then like, he'll say, I'm almost positive that he thinks that I am like his mom or he'll tell me I'm manipulating him or saying it to be manipulative.
	And I'm not.
	I'm genuinely trying to talk about something and want to know, you know, I can't even think of an example right now, but...
	But that's, I mean, so Drew, you're not so much into the RTR stuff, is that right?
	Yeah, I've been extremely defensive.
	Your manipulative is really a conclusion and an accusation, right?
	Not a feeling.
	Right.
	I'm scared, I'm angry, I'm upset, I'm whatever, right?
	I cry a lot lately.
	I just do because I'm upset that our conversation isn't working and I can't control crying.
	Something obviously is triggering me and I'm feeling bad about whatever and breaking down.
	And he'll say that, like, my crying is manipulative.
	And I'm like, oh my gosh, how sincere can I be?
	I don't know how much more sincere it gets.
	But I'm not forcing...
	But Megan, if...
	Okay, Drew, did your mom cry manipulatively?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So, Megan, you're taking things personally that are about his mom.
	Yeah.
	And I understand that.
	But it's not...
	Factual.
	Right.
	I wasn't allowed to, like, cry.
	If I was crying in my house, they were like, well, if you're not happy, then you can just leave.
	And I was, like, six years old, you know?
	Right, but now you're with a guy who is rejecting you for crying.
	Exactly, just like my parents.
	So it's the same thing.
	Exactly.
	It's part of the pattern, right?
	So you probably chose him partly because he ties into existing patterns within your history.
	Yeah.
	Just as Drew, when your mother would cry and she was being manipulative, that would freeze your heart, right?
	Close your heart, because it's like, I'll be goddamned if I'm going to participate in this bad acting, right?
	Right.
	And so then when Megan cries, you're like, your heart freaks us over, right?
	I think early on my heart was open and recently it's become closed and I've realized what I've been doing.
	I have been really abusive.
	I get a bit of blame there.
	My heart was an open book and then Megan with her six inch flaming stilettos with the Macarena all over it.
	Okay, yeah.
	Right, come on.
	I mean, you're saying your heart was open, but you had 20 to 30 girlfriends.
	That's pretty wide open, brother.
	Right, because you didn't connect with any of them to the point where you stayed in a relationship even eight months, right?
	And you were trying to do the right thing, rather than being honest with Megan earlier on, and you allowed yourself to sort of get bullied and pushed.
	This is not, that's not your heart being open, right?
	You're right.
	And you manipulate her by trying to do the right thing.
	You're trying to control.
	Manipulation is telling lies to control other people's behavior, right?
	And if you're kind of doing the right thing and you're not pushing back if she's trying to bully you and so on, then you are trying to control her by lying or by falsifying things or to manage her.
	And some of that is due to self-protection.
	And of course, I understand all of that.
	But you're trying to manage or control her By not being honest with her, truly, deeply, openly, vulnerably honest, right?
	So I don't see how that's compatible with your thesis that your heart was an open book until Megan and Paul McCartney stopped on it.
	You guys are too young for that musical reference, I'm sure.
	You got it?
	Okay, good.
	Yes, I got it.
	Yeah, that's one thing he's said a lot is, you know, like, it's just, it was open and now it's closed, but I don't know.
	I can feel that knife turning as it goes in, you know?
	I don't know if it was ever completely open because I do know that I would try to, I guess, like, I almost felt like I was prying information at times because I just felt like I didn't really know that much about him at times.
	I feel like, you know, he's never really told me what he thinks of that.
	What would he do?
	Can I ask you a quick question?
	Yes.
	Can I ask you a quick question?
	Yes.
	How good looking is Drew?
	He's attractive.
	Come on.
	Come on!
	Don't make me ask for pictures.
	We've agreed...
	Okay, one to ten.
	What do we got?
	We've agreed we're both eights.
	But I think that...
	You're both eights?
	I think that that's low-balling.
	I think it's more of like nine.
	Right.
	Right.
	I think ten would be movie star material, you know?
	I'm just going to see if you have Skype pictures here.
	What do we got here?
	He's got my glasses.
	Oh yeah, you guys are fine-looking people.
	Those are going to be some even-featured offspring, let me tell you that.
	And you'll never worry about taking them to the dentist.
	When do you get those things done with laser disco lights?
	Anyway.
	And this explains the 2025 to 2030 or whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	Right?
	I mean, I'm guessing he, what, just decided not to audition for Christian Grey?
	Is that?
	Because otherwise...
	He'd be all over that baby oil and whatever the hell they do.
	Okay.
	I don't think it's baby oil, by the way.
	Don't want to sound too square.
	So look, there's that too, which is that there's the genetic drivers, which is that you have found people of equivalent hotness.
	And that has, you're obviously both intelligent, both interested in self-knowledge, and there is the equal hotness stuff and all that, right?
	So I get that there's a lot of gravitational forces keeping you in orbit, right?
	Yeah.
	It's just, we live six hours away, and we're trying to develop trust.
	And I'm sorry, but like, I keep making this excuse.
	I think it might be an excuse.
	Tell me if it is.
	But that you can't, it's just, it's the 10 times thing again.
	Let's just make it times 20 harder, because you're talking through a video camera every day.
	You're trying to develop trust through staring at each other on FaceTime.
	That could be an excuse, though.
	I don't know.
	No, long-distance relationships suck.
	And the success rate for long-distance relationships is, I don't know, it's like Russian roulette, except all the chambers have bullets.
	So long-distance relationships are...
	And is there no way you guys can get closer together?
	Not probably for the near future, I don't think.
	And do you guys feel like a power couple when you're walking around town together?
	We're usually...
	In the past, we used to hate each other when we'd walk around town together, so...
	Powerless couple, right.
	But, no, I mean, we're like...
	I don't know.
	Whenever we do get to see each other, I feel like lately, he said this, we're working on things.
	We don't even have fun.
	We see each other for two days, maybe.
	And then it's time to go.
	And for me, I get really, really sad.
	I miss him a lot.
	Because when we are together...
	I can be myself, my life is completely different, and then I have to leave, and I'm like...
	Wait, you don't have fun when you are together, but you miss them when you're not?
	That's...
	There's some subtle Fifty Shades of Grey going on there, Megan.
	I'll tell you that.
	Like, no, I don't think...
	Nick, how tall are you?
	Drew?
	I'm sorry, Drew.
	I'm sorry about that.
	How tall are you?
	6'1".
	Yeah, because you're cut off in your Skype picture.
	You can't tilt those cameras up.
	Look, I mean, I don't know what you guys should do, but I think that...
	I can tell you what I would do if I were in your shoes.
	First of all, I go play some basketball because your shoes look a lot younger than me.
	So go play some basketball.
	And squash and things that others, now that I'm going to be 49 this year, become a little bit of concern to the ancient joints.
	But, you know, Drew, are you going to do any therapy?
	Are you going to sort of focus on anything like that or journaling?
	I've been looking into IFS and I'm going to try and find an IFS therapist nearby.
	Good to hear.
	So, you know, what I would do if I were in your shoes is I would say, look, we're...
	I would say I hugely care about you, Megan.
	I mean, you are a person that I've met...
	The first person that I've met who is smart and really gets the self-knowledge stuff is into the greatest philosophy show in the world.
	Actually, that should come first.
	What I don't want to do is, as we go through this process of digging into our histories and learning how to uncouple our ghosts from the living people around us, from you and I, I don't want to do any more harm to each other because I'm concerned that if we do more harm to each other through this process, It will become out of our control whether we continue the relationship or not because we'll just be too hurt from each other.
	And so if when we get together we're not having a good time, or at least mostly a good time, I'm concerned that we're kind of sinking into the quicksand every time we get together and at some point we're just gone.
	I think that our best chance, stay in touch, we care about each other, we love each other, let's stay in touch, let's take the pressure off the romantic expectations, the sexual expectations off the table, and let's use our possible future union as the real spur, the real incentive to pursue self-knowledge.
	And to get healthy as quickly as humanly possible.
	You'll be like the golden goddess that's at the top of the mountain of self-knowledge, which will force me or encourage me, incite me to climb faster.
	But I am concerned that if we continue to hurt each other and continue to have negative interactions, at some point we're going to pass the point of no return.
	I don't know where that is.
	I don't think we're there yet.
	But I'm really scared and worried that you who I could see spending a lifetime together with and having kids with and growing old together with that if we just because we can't take that time and that break to get healthy and then reconnect in a way that's really positive and start building Great and positive memories together that we're going to just keep colliding,
	just not out of any meanness, just out of a lack of knowledge, out of a lack of capacity to surmount history, a lack of self-knowledge, which we can't just snap our fingers and get.
	So my concern is that to try and maintain something that's really rocky in the here and now, we might be foregoing a really great and permanent connection in the future.
	What do you guys think of that?
	I mean, does that mean we wouldn't talk or anything?
	No, no, I think we should talk.
	But I think we should talk as long as we can have decent and positive interactions, if we can stay curious.
	Look, I need to figure out where you're, like my mom bot is eclipsing you, which is completely unfair.
	You know, my mom...
	Was really selfish and took no responsibility for it.
	That's not you.
	You are doing the opposite.
	You're doing what I dreamed my mom would do.
	And I, you know, I've got to give you massive amount of cred for that.
	I mean, that's incredible.
	I mean, that's the dream come true.
	I mean, there's no limit to the amount of growth that you can go once you make that fundamental decision to take ownership and change.
	But...
	I am not yet at the point, like I'm like first belt in this jujitsu, I'm not yet at the point where I can say, this is my mom, not you, and separate the two and deal with that.
	I don't have that skill yet.
	I don't have that nimbleness yet.
	And so my concern is that my mom is going to get between us, in my head, and take something really great.
	So I think we should talk.
	I think if we're really raw and feeling really needy, we can say...
	I need some time to process this, but I still want to be in contact.
	If we can have conversations that are great and enjoyable, fantastic.
	But there's a lot of extra pressure because of the romantic relationship and a lot of uncertainty.
	Like, we're already uncertain enough going into this history stuff with a therapist.
	But adding to that the uncertainty of our romantic relationship where we're like, is it going to work?
	Is it not?
	Are we helping each other?
	Are we hurting each other every time we hurt each other?
	Does that make it tougher?
	Where is the point of no return?
	That's all a huge amount of stress and it's gonna be a lot of stress dealing with this history.
	You've got stress at job.
	I got stress at my job.
	Having that additional stress I think is going to introduce our relationship or maintain our relationship as a negative where I don't think it has to be if we can stay committed to having positive interactions with each other.
	I think that the romantic stuff is not is not the right time for us right now.
	I'm not saying never because I mean you're an incredible woman, but I think, you know, that deferral of gratification thing, you know, like if you don't have a marshmallow, you can have two marshmallows in 15 minutes.
	I think that if we work to get ourselves right and stay in contact and let each other know how our journey is going and stay friends, we can see how where we are.
	And if we can peel off the history and deal with each other in the present, you're everything that I want.
	What do you think, Megan?
	Megan?
	Hello?
	Yeah.
	What do you think?
	There's no video, so give her a sec.
	It's a big...
	And this is just my thoughts.
	This has nothing to do with anything you guys should do, obviously.
	It's just my thoughts.
	I don't know if I would be able to just do a friend's thing.
	Do you think that the friends thing is a downgrade from what you have now?
	I'm saying it's an upgrade.
	Because what you have now is not working, because you said you're not having fun together, right?
	I mean, I thought we were starting to, but I could be wrong.
	I'm not sure.
	I think it's valid.
	He needs to be able to differentiate.
	And if the only way that he can differentiate me between his mom is by just being my friend, then I need to respect that.
	No, that's passive.
	No, that's passive, Megan.
	I'm going to be really annoying because it's such a big decision.
	And it's not a decision you need to make on this show, right?
	But if you're saying, well, if this is the only way, then I have to do that.
	Well, that's giving yourself rules, right?
	I can see the compatibility.
	Do the right thing, right?
	Be a good little Catholic, right?
	But no, don't be passive about it.
	It's not that.
	It's not that, well, the only way I aunt his mother, if we're not together and so on.
	It's just that I mean, Drew, is it fair to say that you don't have the skill as yet to differentiate your mom history from Megan in the present?
	I think that's fair.
	I think I'm on my way to it.
	Right, right, right.
	But that takes a lot of skill.
	It's a lot of skill to be able to do that in real time, right?
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	Not like the day later where you're like, oh God, where did I bury the body?
	I mean, to do it in real time is hard.
	In the moment is very difficult.
	In the moment.
	To know when it's coming, to know when it's there, and to be able to talk your way through it and get yourself back to being connected with Megan.
	That's going to take some time to learn that.
	I don't think I'd be able to, like, just call off, like, the relationship part.
	Like, no, I don't need to, like, we don't need to have sex or anything, but I wouldn't be able to just say, like, yeah, he's just my friend, but I, like, love him.
	I mean, I would still need to be talking to him and everything if I'm gonna be with him.
	And I understand, like, talk less, like, whatever, give him time, give him space, but...
	If we're just friends, then what does that even mean?
	Well, it means less power.
	It means that you can't use each other in a way that you wouldn't use friends or acquaintances, right?
	You can't use each other as stand-ins to react and reenact history, right?
	Right.
	I haven't been doing that lately, I don't think, but if that's what he's been doing, then yeah, I need to understand that.
	Okay, well, I mean, obviously, I think it's a conversation that you need to have.
	If you can find ways to have consistently positive interactions with each other, I mean, whatever you can do to achieve that, but my prediction is that if you continue to have these bumpy, rocky, difficult interactions with each other at some point, it's going to break.
	Yeah.
	And the commitment is to just, we've got to have positive.
	Now, if being friends means you have more positive interactions, fantastic.
	If you can find ways to remain lovers and have positive interactions, but that has to be the commitment.
	And it's not just a matter of grit your teeth and do it, right?
	It's not like going to the gym or something.
	I mean, it takes some pretty sophisticated skills to be able to maintain that with the histories that you guys have had.
	And so that would be my idea.
	That's got to be your gauge.
	If you can have the positive interactions on a consistent basis, it doesn't mean perfect, but, you know, generally positive interactions on a consistent basis, whatever you can do to move that forward.
	My guess would be that that would come more out of being close friends at the moment, but if you want to try it with the romantic side.
	But if you find that you're having the negative interactions, you just have to have the strength to recognize that that is going to cause a breakup in the long run no matter what.
	Yeah, and I think that, I don't know, I just see it like, well, if we can't get along now, I mean, I'm just going to continue to work on myself.
	And if it's not meant to, like, that's just, to me, I think I'm...
	You were going to say not meant to be, right?
	But then you heard me nagging you for being passive, right?
	Yeah, I guess it was passive.
	I know!
	But wouldn't, shouldn't, if, like, if we can't work, if we have to be friends right now, shouldn't we just find other people?
	I know that that sounds very...
	Oh, man!
	Oh, man!
	Do you really think another guy is what you need right now?
	No, I'm not, I don't want to go look for other, I'm just saying, like...
	Is it possible that it means that we both have such a terrible history that maybe he needs to find someone that doesn't have such a bad history that doesn't remind him of his mom?
	And, you know?
	No, listen, you guys won't be able to find someone different right now.
	Because you're going to find people at your level of spiritual development.
	Right?
	So, if...
	Megan, if you say, well, maybe he needs to find somebody who's not like me, but if his mombot is driving his relationships, I'm not saying that's the only thing that's happening, and I don't mean to simplify you to one thing, Drew, but just for the sake of this particular point, if the mombot is significantly driving the relationship, then he can't find somebody who's not like you right now.
	It's sort of like saying, well, if...
	If I'm in Japan and I don't speak Japanese and I only speak English, why don't I just go and date some Japanese person?
	It's like, because I don't speak Japanese.
	I can only have a relationship with people who speak English.
	And if you only speak trauma, you can only have a relationship with people who speak trauma.
	And when you graduate to speaking non-trauma, then you can have relationships with people who...
	But there is no magic person out there who's going to make this history go away.
	These triggers are going to be there with everyone because they're in your head.
	Does that make sense?
	So it's not like someone else is going to solve the problem.
	I should maybe just find someone else.
	No.
	It'd be the same person.
	Yeah.
	That makes sense.
	Okay.
	Well, I guess it's something to think about.
	I don't know.
	Right now?
	I'm just getting a slight tan from your enthusiasm here.
	Let me just turn my head to make sure I didn't get burned on one side or the other.
	Sorry, I'm just a little confused, I guess.
	I'm not sure.
	I don't have...
	No, you don't like what I'm saying.
	No, it's not that.
	I guess I'm just trying to think about...
	With everything we've been working on recently, is that the best decision?
	Obviously, if it's coming from your advice, it must be the best decision.
	No, no, no.
	Don't put me in your head instead of you.
	No, no, no.
	That's no good.
	Kick me right out.
	Don't put me in the driver's seat.
	I'm, for some reason, saying, I don't know.
	Why am I making this decision?
	No, but I'm not asking you to make a decision.
	You know, I'm telling you what I thought.
	And, of course, you can also, I mean, the person to talk about this with his friends and therapist and so on and all, and mull it over, right?
	And talk it back and forth.
	There's no, I mean, you have to make a decision now, right?
	This is your longest relationship.
	You both obviously care about each other a lot.
	You are both nines, which is, you know, good compatibility.
	And...
	Maybe even nine and a half.
	Six-one pushes you up half, right?
	So you have a lot invested and you also have had a lot of extremely failed relationships in the past, right?
	So this is the best that you have had so far.
	I don't mean to diminish that like, oh, this is the best you can do.
	This is good for you guys, right?
	This is a huge step forward.
	You guys are committed.
	You're willing to make changes.
	You're willing to go to therapy.
	I mean, this is gold for your experience, right?
	Right.
	I think if we can...
	And I don't mean that in any cynical way whatsoever.
	I mean, this is really something to work to try and hang on to if possible, if I understand where you guys are correctly.
	My take on it is, like, if we are both willing to self-identify, work on things, and all of that, and continue that.
	And that just obviously depends on if you're able to do it.
	But if, you know, like you are, obviously...
	But if we're both able to do that, then why would we have to change the dynamic if we see all the positives now?
	Hey, if you could learn Japanese that quickly, then you can have a relationship where you speak Japanese.
	I'm just telling you, I think it takes a while to learn, and I don't want you guys hurting each other while you're learning it.
	That's valid.
	But it's tough, you know, particularly for, I mean, let me step into my beautiful woman's shoes, but is it fairly accurate to say, Megan, that you've not been without romantic interest in your life very much?
	Right.
	He met me the day that someone broke up with me.
	So, yes, I would have to say that.
	Because your beauty is a coin that loses value as you age, right?
	I'm not saying you're aging or anything like that, but it's...
	When you're a young, beautiful woman, to be without a boyfriend is like having a billion dollars and living in a car.
	Oh, no.
	I would prefer, honestly, to not...
	I'm sorry.
	I didn't mean to say that like that.
	Like, I've gone...
	I mean...
	Because of my dad's situation, I've made it very, very, like, I don't want to have to depend on, you know, other people, which is another thing in itself, I guess.
	So I don't think a man identifies me, but I would love to be able to have someone I can share my life with that I trust.
	But being with another man, no, I don't.
	That does not define me at all.
	I'm perfectly happy by myself, but I've been happier.
	Well, you know, I'm sorry.
	I think that's a bit of a spiel.
	I've got to call you on that.
	Because when I talked about you guys not dating each other, what was the first thing you said?
	Right.
	I guess we'll have to find other people!
	Other people!
	Need other people!
	I'll find a guy, he'll find other people!
	Even though our relationship has had these serious issues, I have never been happier, and that's kind of the sad thing.
	I don't know if it's sad or if it means...
	No, listen, as I said before, there's some really great stuff in what you guys have together.
	In my opinion, right?
	Yeah.
	I was self-destructive with the other people that were awful, but...
	With him, I just want to make myself better, you know, and that's like something, I think that's good, obviously.
	Right?
	Yes, it is.
	It was a great way of pointing my last point, but nonetheless, it is good to try.
	Sorry, sorry.
	No problem.
	No, and you're kind of...
	Because if you say, well, I've been a long time without boyfriends, then it makes it even more alarming that they've been 20 or 30 with long patches of no boyfriend in there, right?
	It's like, holy crap, you're accordioning...
	Accordioning?
	Accordioning?
	I don't know.
	That's not even a word.
	But yeah, I would stay in conversation with each other.
	Talk to your therapist.
	I mean, I would say, Drew, that...
	I mean, I'm a big fan of IFS therapy and...
	I think it could work wonders and really give you the chance to, you know, we want to access people in the present.
	You know, simply living in the present and talking with someone in the present is something that we're all born with.
	I mean, it's just tragic how this just gets scoured away from us through repetitive negative interactions when we're children.
	But simply just being able to talk with someone in the present to listen and speak With no agenda, with no need to control, with sensitivity, but with firmness, without self-erasure, without erasing the other person, with respect, but with also skepticism, because we all, you know, sometimes we'll say things that aren't really backed up by a lot of evidence.
	But doing all of that, which is totally natural, babies do it, kids do it all the time.
	Getting back to that after a difficult childhood is a glorious and beautiful thing, but it is a challenge and it takes time.
	It takes time.
	And I just want to make sure that, you know, the residual love and affection that you guys have for each other is not further whittled away through negative interactions just because haste makes waste.
	You know what I mean?
	Right.
	Yes.
	Makes sense.
	Alright, do you mind if I leave you guys to chat?
	Will you also let us know how it goes?
	Yes.
	Thank you so much for all of your help.
	How was the call for you guys?
	I mean, we kind of wandered around quite a bit.
	Hopefully we came to someplace useful.
	I feel better after it.
	I think it was helpful.
	I feel like I've opened up more.
	Megan?
	I think it was good.
	It was good.
	It answered our question and gave us some good insight.
	So I always benefit from your conversations, even if they're not with me.
	So thank you.
	I appreciate it.
	And thanks.
	And just remember, don't let me in the driver's seat in your head.
	Okay.
	Make that decision.
	Okay.
	Thanks so much, guys.
	I appreciate that wonderfully honest conversation.
	And thanks for opening up so much.
	Mikey Mike.
	Alright, up next is Gabby.
	Gabby wrote in and said, I was recently dumped by my boyfriend of two years after two years of dating while living abroad and who, upon turning to the U.S., decided to reconnect with one of his exes and then subsequently fell back in love.
	A girl who was seemingly less attractive and, in his own words, less of a logical choice of a mate for him than I am and who initially broke his heart.
	Is it possible that men who feel inadequate or unworthy in a relationship will downgrade or sabotage relationships with ideal mates in order to feel more adequate or powerful with weaker and or more dependent women?
	Very interesting.
	Are you with us?
	Yeah.
	Hello.
	How long ago was the breakup?
	I think it was about three weeks ago.
	Two or three weeks ago.
	And how are you doing?
	Better.
	I feel like since I wrote the question, I've done some reflections and things, and now the question sounds a little, not silly, but it's a lot of the things I've kind of answered on my own, but I still would like some input on it.
	Oh no, listen, I mean, give me your answers.
	It's your life and your thoughts.
	I mean, they're going to be way more accurate than anything I can come up with, puff up like a hairball of tiny listening.
	No, not like that.
	Not that I'm just, I don't know.
	I still am very confused about certain issues, and I guess it's me trying to rationalize something that may be irrational.
	I don't know.
	I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous.
	But hello, nice to meet you.
	Oh, no, no, don't worry about it.
	Look, I appreciate you calling in.
	And it is a very, very great question, and I've given it some thought.
	Of the day, which means I'll get even more wrong than usual.
	But it is a great question.
	Can you give me a little bit more details about your two-year relationship, but you were overseas?
	Did you meet overseas?
	Yeah, I moved to Taiwan right after I graduated, or a few months after I graduated college.
	And we met there.
	So we met about basically the first week that I was in Taiwan.
	And is he Taiwanese?
	No, no, no.
	He's actually American as well.
	We were both there going to teach and we were at the same company.
	So we met at our training.
	So basically we met and maybe a few weeks or a couple of weeks after we met, we started to hang out together.
	We kind of exchanged numbers and emails at training with other teachers, but we kind of latched on to each other.
	And we started to hang out.
	And so the rest is kind of a blur somehow, but we just got really close and just ended up doing everything together.
	Hang on.
	I feel this is the fade-out part of the Harlequin novel.
	But what do you mean the rest is kind of a blur?
	Like how you became boyfriend and girlfriend?
	Is it a blur?
	Kind of.
	Kind of like where the line was.
	Like we did...
	We were...
	Kind of starting out, we were close.
	Like we'd kind of hang out.
	Often, like, go to each other's homes and, like, watch movies.
	And, but at the same time...
	And was there a sexual tension, sorry to interrupt, was there a sexual tension?
	Or were you, like, were you both just like, you're a great friend?
	No, no, no.
	No, I think, like, going into it, I had, like, ulterior motives.
	Not necessarily, like, wanting a boyfriend or anything, but kind of having just a guy or a friend around, I guess.
	I think the technical term is a succubus, which is a demon seductress who turns into something ghastly that towers over Arnold Schwarzenegger.
	That's what happened, yeah.
	Yeah, okay.
	It took him two years to find that out, I guess.
	You're not the most efficient succubus in the known universe.
	No, but we kind of...
	Wait, sorry.
	When you said you had alternative motives, you wanted him as a friend or you wanted him as friend plus?
	I think maybe friend plus.
	I think both of us kind of had that in the back of our minds.
	Like later on, he talked to me as well, saying when he saw me, he wanted to...
	The first sign is usually not in the back of your mind.
	Well, kind of like keeping the options open or whatever.
	Because, I don't know, in the US, I was never really interested in people in my city.
	And so I never really dated, like I had a boyfriend or dated very much.
	Sounds kind of funny.
	It sounds like...
	I don't know.
	We tripped.
	We fell into each other.
	We thought, eh, we're here.
	So...
	No, it was weird.
	When we first started getting to know each other, it seemed kind of like that.
	We were like, oh, let's have fun.
	We'll just not get too serious.
	We're both going to leave in a year.
	We thought we would leave in a year.
	And we basically knew that would be the end of it.
	So it was like a fling?
	Kind of.
	In the beginning, that was our mindset.
	I mean, do people in their 20s even use that word anymore?
	Some people I've seen have used it.
	I don't use it.
	I've seen it in like 60 movies.
	In the old person's channel.
	Yeah, okay.
	Got it.
	So you went out without a chaperone in your horseless carriage.
	Right, okay.
	I'm not taking dating advice from Major General Blah Blah.
	But anyway.
	Yeah.
	And so there was no great passion in this?
	No, like we...
	Fairly quickly, we kind of got physical, but not like...
	Like we didn't have sex until like months.
	Months in, maybe four months in, but we would maybe make out or kiss or something when we would hang out.
	But it wasn't instantaneous.
	It just sounds like the blandest beginning to a relationship.
	You know, we'd kiss, you know, I mean, sometimes he was just low on chapstick, and he's like, here, and I'm like, okay, fine, I'll rub my lips, and next thing you know.
	I guess I'm trying to, like, put the picture back together when everything happened, like, when all of the stuff happened.
	No, and the reason is that you're, like, really upset that he broke up with you, but you didn't seem to want him that much in the beginning.
	That's kind of the thing, like, it kind of grew into that, and that's what, like, I've been on the forums kind of discussing it with people.
	And I don't think people really get the idea either.
	And maybe I'm just being completely irrational and really wasn't great.
	But it seems like...
	No, no.
	I'm trying to understand.
	I'm not saying there's anything wrong with what you're saying.
	I'm just...
	And the reason is that I'm not a guy with small passions.
	And I'm not saying that this is small passion or there's something missing from you or anything like that.
	But, you know, when I... I would, like, ache for a woman I wanted to go out with that I... You know, whatever, right?
	I mean...
	Uh-oh.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	No, I mean...
	Maybe if you ask him...
	These are the sounds I would make in her shower when she was not home.
	No, I'm kidding.
	But...
	I don't know.
	Maybe he did that.
	Maybe that's a guy thing.
	I'm not sure.
	I don't know if yogaling in an empty shower is necessarily a guy thing.
	I think it's an illegal thing.
	I think I caught him once, actually.
	But I don't think that's...
	That's right.
	No, I'm just kidding.
	But...
	Okay, so you kind of ambled together like you're both walking in the woods, let's walk together for a while, right?
	Kind of, yeah.
	And like the beginning of our relationship was kind of strange in that he was going through a really rough time in his life.
	And that's kind of why I started thinking about this deeper and wanted to kind of talk about it because I, at the time, I was very into like object, like objectivism and like trying to be like a rationally selfish person and like trying to apply things to my life.
	A woman's loins are basically set on fire by heroism.
	Kind of, yeah.
	And he was not that.
	He wasn't like that hero.
	No, I get it.
	So when you say you were into objectivism, but your vagina was not, right?
	Kind of, I guess so.
	In the onset, I kind of saw Well, he's not really, like, John Galt, but, you know, nobody is.
	That's kind of what I thought.
	Like, nobody is, and so...
	Why not, kind of?
	Like, why not?
	Okay.
	But, like, I don't know.
	I almost got an itch.
	It ain't the best scratching post around, but it'll do, right?
	Yeah, kind of.
	But, um, kind of in the beginning of the relationship, it was kind of like, um...
	The callers you called before were a little interesting because the girl kind of reminded me of what he was like.
	Wait a minute.
	So you were a little interested in this guy.
	The last callers were what?
	What?
	A little interesting.
	No, I don't mean that.
	I just mean as far as relating to my situation, I found it interesting that the way she described her Personality and the way she expressed her emotions was very similar to what he was like, and I guess I was more like her boyfriend.
	In the beginning, a lot of the times he would meet, and we'd come to my house, and when we first met, he almost instantly had problems with his job.
	And so he would complain for maybe hours.
	He would just be talking about what's wrong, and he would be kind of dumping on me, I guess.
	This sounds bad, but I think that's what you call it here.
	Right.
	Kind of like dumping his problems and his emotions.
	And I would just listen.
	I would just sit and listen for hours.
	And I would give my little input and he would express his appreciation for that.
	Like, oh, well, thanks for listening and thanks for giving me your input.
	And he was actually going to leave Taiwan because of his job, like maybe three months into his contract.
	And I was like, do you really want to leave?
	In the end, he ended up staying in like another year and a half.
	Well, you're putting your seriously slow motion succubus moves on him.
	I mean, three months, you're just getting warmed up, right?
	Well, I guess.
	Got no time to consummate!
	No, like it wasn't like that so much, but it was like we were already at the point where we were bonded and we were like, you know what, we're kind of in this together.
	And so I was like, we're just having fun.
	We just got here.
	It's fun.
	And he was considering leaving because he kind of had anxiety and everything was like, the world was over.
	But he ended up staying and saying, you know what, I'm just going to stay.
	And he got a new job.
	And then everything was different.
	He had a different...
	He didn't complain as much.
	And I started talking to him about philosophy and stuff.
	And he seemed interested, but he was always kind of apprehensive to what I was talking about.
	So you're basically like, now that you're not anxious about your job, let me make you anxious about philosophy, because apparently anxiety really gets me going.
	Not really.
	After a while, he would talk so much.
	This is one thing that in the beginning made me kind of hesitant about everything, is that he would talk so much and for so long and so loudly that I almost felt like he didn't really care about what I was saying, or what I would have to say if he gave me a chance.
	So I would just sit there and kind of just blink and go, huh?
	And so at some point, he just kind of looked at me and was like, so what about you?
	And it was maybe like a month into this whole thing, and I was in a state of shock, like, what?
	What about me?
	Wow.
	You realize, of course, I can't help but point out the obvious irony that he's the talkative one, but your name is Gabby.
	I wanted to get that out of my system so that we can continue with the conversation.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	It's fine.
	But that's kind of what happened.
	But after that, he kind of seemed to want to apply certain things to his life.
	I don't know, he didn't have everything together.
	And I realize most of my friends, other people I know, have never quite had their things together.
	for their lives together and I was kind of that level-headed person and so I just kind of stepped into that role.
	Right.
	But after a while he seemed like he appreciated it and I could see that he was growing and like I don't know he wasn't as anxious things like that but there are still times where I kind of like there are certain things that kind of put me off a little but it was still fun we still traveled around we still like had...
	What put you off?
	Because I almost guarantee you that's why the breakup happened, but you're like, oh, let's keep moving.
	That's where we stop.
	Okay, well, I guess the first one is that when we did kind of talk about philosophy and how we view life, the first thing that I thought that, of course, for me was kind of a red flag was that he didn't really appreciate the value of being rational.
	He would downplay the The significance of it.
	And he would say, well, I think with my heart.
	My heart tells me...
	I listen to my emotions.
	My emotions are what I use to make my decisions.
	I think with my heart.
	So I'm hoping that he wasn't teaching biology.
	I... No, he wasn't.
	English, was it?
	Even though it's just complicated.
	I think with my heart, and my head is where that thumping noise comes from that pushes my blood around my thinking parts.
	Well, kind of like his emotions.
	Like, he was stressing, like, his emotions are very, very important to him.
	And so, like, sometimes...
	Oh, so, sorry, sorry, he's got the Spock-Kirk dichotomy, right?
	So he's got the reason...
	You don't know what that means.
	But, so he's got the reason, like, if you're rational, you can't be emotional.
	Kind of, yeah.
	And so...
	For me, I would...
	Which is bullshit.
	I find that emotional, hyper-emotional people, or I shouldn't say, that's an argument by adjective, sorry.
	People who are like, oh, I think with my heart and so on, they tend to be kind of random.
	And I also find that without the structure of philosophy, emotions tend to drain away over time.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And so, like, for me, after this happened, after I sent the question and I started thinking on, like, little things that were, like, red flags to me, I realized, oh, well, that's probably something that I should have kind of listened to at the time.
	Yeah, he's saying that he's not interested in philosophy.
	In fact, he considers philosophy confining to his emotional self-expression.
	Kind of, but at the same time...
	And what that means, sorry, what that means, Gabby, is welcome to randomness!
	I think with my heart!
	No, you don't!
	What you don't want is any structure that's going to deny you emotional self-indulgence.
	Not you, the guy.
	Right, right.
	I'm going to be incomprehensible!
	Decisions I make will make no sense.
	I will never explain them.
	You will never understand them.
	Welcome to the ride called me.
	Right.
	But I guess all of that was like tempered with Him still being slightly open to my ideas.
	And he would say things like, I kind of want to be more like you.
	I want to try to use my mind more than my heart.
	It wasn't just like, no, you're stupid.
	I don't accept philosophy.
	But did he do those things?
	Or did he say, I want to be like you?
	Does that make sense?
	I want to say, I want to be like you.
	Yeah, that's kind of when I started to kind of become more attracted to him.
	In a way, not that I'm making it this way or not, but there were points where he really did try to apply certain things as far as being more rational and maybe being more of a go-getter in his life.
	Instead of just waiting for things to come, I would be like, oh, you should try to find another job.
	Or, oh, you should go try to make new friends.
	You should try to go study.
	Or things like that.
	I tell you, Gabby, he's like, He's like the antichrist of objectivism.
	Proudly anti-rational.
	Inert.
	Anxious.
	He's like, okay, I've taken Ayn Rand and I've converted her into opposite demonic energy.
	I've released her into Gabby's life and she's turned on.
	Was he that pretty?
	Gabby?
	That's what the thing was.
	He really wasn't...
	When I first met him, I wasn't physically attracted to him.
	I mean, he was like Kind of normal, like he was tall, but like kind of lacking.
	But as time went on, he also was like, I want to kind of dress like you.
	And so he kind of changed his style and asked me to give him a haircut and he kind of got a little more confidence and everything.
	So it was like, it was kind of strange in that he kind of morphed into a different person, which I thought was like, ah, that's a good, a good person.
	Or a better person, a more rational person, and more confident.
	So you didn't find him physically very attractive, and he was, not only didn't share your values, but in some ways was quite opposed to them and considered his proudly anti-rational stance of virtue.
	So I gotta ask, what the F were you doing, young lady?
	That's what I'm asking myself.
	Because, I don't know.
	I talked to other people and they said, oh, you just didn't want to be alone.
	Oh, you just wanted someone there.
	But there were other people there as well, I guess.
	That's one of these answers that's not an answer.
	I know.
	How does that help you?
	Is it true?
	What's the evidence, right?
	Right.
	I don't know.
	Do you want to get married and have kids?
	Before I met him, I never actually really wanted that.
	And then...
	Like, recently.
	Like, this is where the whole, like, weird, dramatic part has come in.
	Like, around the breakup time is when we actually started getting serious.
	Like, about, like, oh, maybe we do want to, like, marry each other and maybe have a family together.
	Like, that was, like, everything I just told you was, like, literally, like, nearly two years ago.
	And so, between that time, we're, like, totally different people.
	And both of us are.
	And so...
	Now, I think, yeah, I think I would like to get married and have kids, but it's still not incredibly important to me.
	And I guess what just happened is kind of like taking the fire out of that as well, because it's like, oh, yeah.
	So what happened?
	Was there anything that gave you evidence that the relationship was going well, or did it kind of come out of the blue?
	No, what happened was is last year was like the end of our contracts, like our second, so we stayed there for two years.
	Instead of just one.
	And so we were like, we love this.
	It's great here.
	So we'll stay another year.
	And so last year, his contract ended before mine.
	And so he left maybe a couple of months before I did.
	And we were like, hey, we don't know if this is going to work, but let's meet up in the US. And then we'll try to see if this is just a Taiwan thing or if this is actually something that could work in America.
	Because by the time we left, we were still very Like, more than ever, we were really feeling each other.
	We were very kind of interested.
	You were in love?
	Yeah, I guess.
	I don't know if you'd call it love or not.
	I don't know if that was actually love.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	What do you mean?
	You're thinking of marrying the guy having his kids to find out if you loved him or not?
	No, no, no.
	I just mean, like, now that I look back at it, I'm questioning what it really was.
	No, but at the time, it felt.
	Right, right.
	At the time, yeah.
	Okay, okay.
	And so he moved back, and then I traveled around For like a month.
	And then I stopped where he lived.
	And I visited him for like a week.
	And I met his mom, his dad.
	And in my mind, I was like, wow, this is really awesome.
	And we were both like really happy.
	We were like, wow, this can really work in the U.S. And so that's when we really started talking about getting married.
	Or like, first of all, moving in together.
	And if that worked out, we were saying, then we would maybe get married.
	And then whatever, have a family together.
	And so we're like, okay, so after like a week, I was like, I had to go back to my city.
	And I did.
	And at that point, we talked, like we tried to like talk to each other, we like message each other.
	And then it came to a point where he just kind of turned into like the same kind of anxious person that was like at the beginning of Taiwan.
	Because he had been there for a few months, and he couldn't find a job.
	And so it kind of turned back into dumping.
	So we would talk and the whole conversation would be him complaining about his life, just feeling like everything was falling apart.
	And him saying, I wish you were here.
	You always make things better.
	Why can't you be here?
	And so we're like, oh, I'll try to move there.
	I'll try to find a way to move there and we'll try to make it work.
	But he kind of just turned really strange and he would kind of I don't know.
	He would kind of downplay our conversations after a while.
	He would say, oh, it doesn't feel really good.
	I don't know what that means.
	Maybe we would talk on the phone or read Skype.
	As we started, he would say, I don't know.
	I don't like this Skype thing.
	It's not real.
	It just feels so forced.
	I just don't like the way it feels.
	It would be like the beginning of a conversation.
	It would just ruin the entire conversation.
	It almost seemed like he was trying to I don't know, shut me down or something.
	I don't know.
	It just felt really strange and kind of suspicious.
	But at the time, I thought he was just having a hard time.
	Wait, wait.
	Okay, suspicious.
	Just in that, we talked about how important it would be for us to keep our communication strong and keep talking to each other just so we didn't drift apart or anything because we live really far away.
	So the fact that he would be, I don't know, Almost seemed to be purposefully sabotaging our conversations.
	Or he would just complain so much that it would leave nothing for me to say.
	Kind of like in the beginning, I guess, of the relationship.
	Now you get the two connections, right?
	Right, right.
	Yeah, now I do.
	No, no, but do you know why?
	I don't know.
	Well...
	He, I assume, had spent a fair amount of time with his family growing up, and then he's in Taiwan, and the effects of his family are with him, and then after he spends time away from his family, they diminish, right?
	And then he moves back in.
	Does he move back in with his family?
	Yeah.
	And then those character traits begin to come back, right?
	Right.
	Does that make sense?
	So you think it was his family?
	What do you think?
	You know, you met them.
	Well, yeah, I met them.
	I never thought of a connection as his family.
	I just thought of...
	I don't know.
	I couldn't really think of...
	I thought it was like stress or something with him not being able to find a job.
	Well, that makes sense, I guess.
	Well, I mean, the two dumping things happened with proximity to his family, right?
	One when he left and then the other when he got back.
	And that means that the emotional connection with the family is not strong enough to help him to solve problems emotionally, but he then has to go outside the familial relationship to dump, right?
	Right, right, yeah.
	Because he has some issues with his family, like his dad's kind of, I don't know, out there when I met him.
	And that makes sense.
	Does his dad think with his heart too?
	I don't How do I say it nice?
	His dad drinks a lot and I think he's very irrational as well.
	It seems like his family's on edge around his father and so everyone kind of tiptoes around the way his father feels and what the father does.
	So yeah, I think that is it.
	Is he like an alcoholic or just drinks too much?
	I would say he's an alcoholic.
	I think everyone would think that.
	When I went there, the first time I met him, it was cool, but I think on the same day that I met him, he just took maybe a quarter bottle of vodka to the head and he was just drunk.
	And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
	Nice to meet you.
	Wait a minute, wait a minute.
	Now, you're being too glib about this.
	That would be a potential father-in-law.
	That would be the potential grandparent of your children, right?
	Right.
	And he's drunk the first time he meets his daughter's...
	When I met him or like a few hours later?
	It was something strange.
	Doesn't matter.
	The few hours are not the relevant part.
	Yeah.
	So he gets drunk the first time, probably the first time his son brings a girl over, right?
	Right.
	To meet the parents.
	Well, I stayed with them for like a week, so...
	Okay, to live, right, so that is a very important week.
	Right, yeah.
	Right, I mean, because had you, I guess at this point you at least had had some discussions about getting married and settling down together, right?
	Right, and it was never so serious, like we didn't just say, let's do it.
	No!
	Stop it, stop it, stop it!
	Don't dilute this one with your dilution mechanism.
	Okay.
	Right?
	Right.
	So this is an audition for joining the family.
	Right.
	Right?
	Because the boyfriend must say, this is a girl we've talked about getting married.
	You've never met her.
	Here she comes.
	Right?
	Right.
	Staying sober could be considered a positive behavior in that situation.
	Right.
	But he couldn't do it, right?
	He couldn't stay sober when meeting his potential daughter-in-law, the mother of his grandchildren.
	Welcome to the family!
	Right?
	Do you have any shoes I can Ralph into?
	That is very disturbed.
	And I guess the strange thing with this is that I didn't listen to your show before I came home, so I just started listening to your show.
	And I've always downplayed the importance of family.
	And I didn't realize actually how important it was until kind of after all of that.
	Did you know about his alcoholic father before you went over?
	Yeah.
	I feel like he told me about it.
	I feel like he told me maybe Are you thinking with your toes or feeling with your ears?
	Yeah, I can't really remember if he was saying like his father was an alcoholic or if there were instances in which his father had gotten drunk around him or something.
	And what was your boyfriend's emotional attitude towards this compulsive drinking?
	He was repulsed.
	You mean like in that instance or when he told me before I even met his father?
	No, when he was talking about his alcoholic father in Taiwan.
	Right, yeah.
	So basically he saw that as a very unhealthy thing.
	But when I first met him, he also had a drinking problem.
	And he basically asked me to help him kind of counteract that.
	And so he was saying that a lot of things about his personality were like his father's and he didn't like that.
	And so, like, that was one thing that, I don't know, kind of, I don't know, made me feel like he was trying to do better for himself, was that he saw something wrong in his family or in his history, and he wanted to change it.
	And so, like, he would say things like, could you make sure I don't drink too much, or could you, could we try to do other activities, you know, like, not focus around drinking?
	Because that was kind of an issue in the beginning of me, like, dragging him home after I don't know, he just got hammered somewhere.
	Yeah, so it wasn't like he was accepting of it, but I do feel like when I visited him that he's...
	I don't know, they weren't...
	I feel like they were almost desensitized.
	He and his mother were almost desensitized to what was going on because it happened all the time.
	But he would do like...
	Okay.
	Yeah, Gabby, Gabby, Gabby.
	I'm trying to pick my jaw up off the floor here.
	Okay.
	Do you know what blew my mind?
	That he was kind of drank too much and I still was with him.
	He's anti-rational.
	Didn't find him physically attractive.
	He's kind of like an alcoholic.
	Comes from an alcoholic family.
	I can't compute.
	I can't compute this.
	You know, it sounds so stupid now.
	No, but why are we talking for like an hour and then you mentioned that he was an alcoholic when you first met?
	And that he needed your help to stop drinking and you got to police his drinking.
	Yeah.
	I don't know how much of an alcoholic was.
	It would just be on like the weekends and everyone would go.
	It wouldn't be like every day he's just drinking somewhere.
	But when he did drink, it would be too much.
	And so kind of like...
	Dragging him home, right?
	I can't say that I hadn't done similar things at some point, but I was just saying that was an indicator.
	But it wasn't like he would just drink in the middle of the day like I saw his father do and just fall over.
	I'd be like, oh, on the weekend.
	And so I wouldn't call him an alcoholic, but it was something that he didn't like about himself, and that's why I thought it was...
	Did you have...
	An under-functioning parent.
	Maybe.
	Could you describe that?
	I'd like to define that.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Let me tell you what I see.
	Okay.
	Before I try and tease you down some garden path.
	Let me tell you what I see.
	Okay.
	You're a fixer.
	This guy is anxious, and you help him.
	He's dumping on you, and you listen, and you give him feedback, and he needs help to stop drinking, so you help him stop drinking.
	And then he comes back, and you help him get a new job out there, or tell him to get a new job, to be proactive.
	So you are a fixer, which means that you find people who are under-functioning, and you rush in with your obvious intelligence and energy, and prop them up, and make them work.
	You're a fixer.
	Now, children are not supposed to be fixers, right?
	Right.
	So my question is, did you have a parent who was under-functioning, who needed you to make things happen, prop them up, get them moving?
	I can't say I did.
	I don't know.
	I felt like My childhood was a little strange in that I was in a very religious family and I was homeschooled until college, basically.
	But my parents were completely functional.
	I mean, they weren't the greatest parents in the world, but I've never seen my father drink or my mother.
	My mom would apologize if she ever said shit or something.
	I don't know.
	It was over-functioning.
	I don't know.
	I can't really say that that's the case.
	I don't know if it's my parents.
	But I would agree that I do like that.
	That is kind of my personality.
	I like to see people do well and people being happy.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	That's not what I'm talking about.
	A fixer is not somebody who likes to see people doing well.
	Because if you like to see people doing well, you know what you do?
	You find someone who's doing well and you enjoy that sight, right?
	Right.
	You don't find somebody who's, you know, anxious, semi-employable, has a drinking problem, and so on, right?
	And, you know, he became your fixer-upper Ken doll, right?
	He dressed like you.
	You got him haircuts, right?
	You fixed him up.
	Yeah.
	So it's the complete opposite of what you're saying.
	You don't like to see people doing well in a weird way.
	Not that you're weird.
	In a way of looking at it that's unusual.
	You don't like to see people doing well, Gabby, because then you don't have anything to offer them.
	Can't fix it.
	You know, you're like somebody who wants to fix up a house.
	You don't buy a new house that works, right?
	You've got to buy a broken house and fix it, right?
	I guess so.
	I don't...
	I guess it kind of comes down to like, in my life I've never really, I mean my parents were functioning and everything, but I, my family never really just, like we were kind of like the very Christian people who thought the world was broken and torn and everyone needs fixing.
	Yeah, it's not the world that's broken in Christian theology.
	And I don't mean to lecture you about Christian theology.
	You probably could kick my ass up and down the pew with that one.
	But it's not the world that's broken in Christian theology, right?
	It's people.
	Well, yeah, that's what we call the people of the world.
	I mean, they...
	Okay, so people are broken, and you are broken.
	You are broken in the theology.
	You're born with original sin, and you are born, you know, pointed with your pointy...
	Red shoes aimed straight at Hell's mouth, and you gotta be, you know, airlifted out by Jesus, right?
	Right.
	So, born broken needs fixing.
	It's more like the planet than your parents, right?
	Yeah.
	And I guess, like, I'm an atheist now, but I feel like, still in the back of my mind, I just have this hopelessness that there really isn't anyone Who doesn't need fixing?
	And I'm not really sure.
	I don't know.
	I don't feel like I just search these people out.
	Like, oh, let's go find people who are just broken and terrible.
	I just feel like...
	Look, you don't have to explain to me what unconscious motivations are, right?
	Of course, I'm not saying that.
	Too functional!
	Yeah, I just...
	No.
	I don't know where these people are, I guess.
	I don't know.
	Like, I've been around so many...
	They're in your room, and they're telling you, I'm under-functioning.
	I'm broken.
	And they're telling you for hours, right?
	And they're not even asking you about you for the first month, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And did you end up fixing him?
	No.
	Oh, you did not?
	No.
	Did he end up falling back down to the level which he was accustomed to prior to you fixing him up?
	Yeah, exactly there.
	Well, but he still had the haircut, I guess.
	I don't know.
	He might have grown that out too over time, right?
	No, it's absolutely true.
	He basically fell back in love with the girl that basically crushed him right before he went into Taiwan.
	Okay, so you don't know if you were in love with him, but you're sure to use the word love to the girl who crushed him, right?
	I don't know.
	He...
	That's kind of the strange part about it.
	I don't know, around the time where we were trying to plan moving there and everything, he was supposed to come visit for my sister's wedding.
	And a couple of days before he came, I messaged him, I drank a little too much.
	And I messaged him, I was like, because he told me that she was going to go to New York and he was going to show her around.
	And I was like, oh, okay.
	His ex-girlfriend?
	Yeah.
	What?
	Yeah, like...
	What?
	No going to New York with ex-girlfriends?
	No, no, no, no, no!
	No, well, he's from there, so...
	I don't care where he's from.
	I know, I know, I know.
	That's why, in the back of my mind...
	He could be the Statue of Liberty himself.
	No going on trips with ex-girlfriends.
	Does not happen in a romantic relationship.
	Right.
	Bad, bad, bad.
	This is not a Friends episode.
	Right.
	But he didn't ask.
	He just kind of told me what was going on.
	And, like, I don't know.
	In the back of my mind, I knew something was going to happen.
	And so I guess my...
	You mean with him and the ex-girlfriend?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	I guess that kind of showed I didn't really trust him anyway.
	But I kind of drank a little too much, like, one night.
	And I was like, I know you're probably just sleeping with your ex-girlfriend.
	But I miss you.
	Or something like that.
	And...
	Of course you're expecting, no, we just blah, blah, blah.
	But no, it turned out he was like, yeah, she kissed me.
	Nothing happened.
	It meant nothing.
	I told her that I don't...
	She kissed me, nothing happened?
	Yeah, like she kissed me.
	It was just a brush on the lips or whatever.
	Like some very guilty, very rapid text messages.
	And I was like, oh, okay.
	Of course, I couldn't really think straight.
	So I was like, whatever.
	Whatever.
	And so he was literally coming like three days later.
	He's gonna come visit me.
	And so the day before he comes, like literally like six hours before he flew to my city, he called me like crying like, I don't know if I love you anymore.
	I have feelings for her.
	I don't know what happened, like what's going on.
	If you don't want me to come visit you, it's okay.
	I understand.
	And I was like, what?
	Because in my mind, she just came to visit, and then this was, like, two days later.
	So I didn't have, like, this background that she was someone.
	And so I was like, you know what?
	Just come.
	You have your ticket.
	Wait, you didn't...
	Sorry.
	I didn't understand that, Gabby.
	I don't get the...
	So step me through the ex-girlfriend coming back in.
	So he says...
	How did you first find out about the ex-girlfriend?
	Um...
	So he told me maybe he was supposed to come visit me right before Christmas, and he told me she was going to visit him maybe a week and a half before that.
	And then...
	And what was your response to that?
	I kind of...
	Like, she was so far from my mind that I didn't really think about it.
	Okay.
	The first time.
	Let me help you.
	Yeah.
	To think about it.
	No!
	No!
	Yeah.
	No, you are not having your ex-girlfriend come over.
	I mean, you can have her come over, but we're not together then.
	Okay.
	Right?
	You don't have ex-girlfriends come to visit.
	Right.
	But he claimed that she's going.
	Because they're ex-girlfriends, and that relationship is done, it didn't work out, and you don't get to downgrade lovers to just, oh, they're friends now, and we just hang.
	I mean, that's all Seinfeld and friends.
	That's nonsense, right?
	It's corrosive.
	I'm helping you for the future.
	Right, right.
	The guy says, my ex-girlfriend is coming to visit.
	You'd be like, no, she's not.
	And I can't even believe you'd bring that up.
	You call her up right now and you tell her, get lost.
	Yeah.
	Because I'm supposed to be the woman for you.
	And if you want to hang out with your ex-girlfriend, then you're telling me that I'm not enough for you.
	And you want something from her that you're not getting from me.
	Well, if you want something from her, I'm not sharing whatever you get from her with my vagina, so no thanks.
	You keep those bacteria to yourself.
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	I don't know why.
	I've never been a jealous type of person, and I never thought of her I don't know.
	I just never thought of her because...
	It's not jealous.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I guess that's...
	It's not a jealousy thing.
	It's not a jealousy thing.
	Like, oh, I'm keeping you all, lock you in the basement.
	Ah, you can't look at other women.
	No, that's not.
	This is just wrong.
	Okay.
	I mean, Mike's just telling me I've got to clarify something.
	Damn it!
	Fine.
	Okay.
	So when you're lovers, you are, you know, you're united and you're one and you're intimate and you share everything, right?
	Right.
	And you can't then downgrade that kind of relationship to friendship.
	The reason being, because you've been lovers, you can't talk about any of your current romantic relationships with your ex-lovers.
	Which means there's a huge chunk of non-intimacy in what was formerly the most intimate relationship that you have.
	So trying to be friends with your ex-lovers is like starting in the mailroom, working you all the way up to CEO, and then applying for a job in the mailroom again.
	No!
	Yeah.
	No!
	Can't downgrade it.
	You can't go from we talk about everything to now I can't talk about most of the things going on in my life because you're an ex.
	Right.
	I mean, you don't want this guy calling you up and saying, hey, you know, I'm having trouble with my girl.
	I don't know.
	Maybe you do.
	You're a fixer.
	I don't know.
	But you don't want this.
	You're dating some new guy and then this guy calls you and he's like, I'm having trouble at my job.
	I need you for a couple of hours for a couple of weeks every day.
	What are you going to say?
	No!
	No!
	Go talk to your girlfriend.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I'm sorry.
	I know that we're all supposed to be this big Borg intertangled limbs and everything's supposed to be fine.
	It's considered cool to be friends with the ex and all that.
	No!
	It doesn't work.
	It does not work.
	I wasn't like fine with it.
	And I don't know.
	I guess he never really offered this like choice to me.
	And now that I know, it was because they had been talking...
	Gabby!
	He didn't offer me a choice?
	This guy has seriously infected your objectivism.
	He didn't deliver my choice to me on a silver platter so that I could exercise my free will.
	Maybe it got lost in the mail.
	He tried to send me my choice and my free will, but it just didn't arrive, so clearly I didn't have any.
	Well, I don't know.
	Like, I... I feel like if he wanted to be with someone else, why would he just continue to be with me?
	If I said no, so he wouldn't do it, then why would we be together, I guess?
	If that makes sense.
	I don't know.
	No, no, no.
	I get what you're saying.
	You want the empirical evidence of whether he wants to be with you or not.
	I get that.
	I get that.
	But to be honest with the guy, you didn't want him hanging out with his ex-girlfriend, did you?
	The one who broke his heart?
	I can't say.
	At the time, I can't say I cared that much.
	It made me a little uneasy.
	But she broke his heart!
	Don't you care about him enough to not have him want to hang out with someone who broke his heart?
	She hurt him, right?
	Well yeah, yeah.
	So if you love a man and someone's hanging around who really hurt him, don't you want to protect him from her?
	Nah, she's the succubus, right?
	Yeah.
	This is what I mean by loyalty and standing up for people.
	Be the ring of fire around people you care about.
	Protect them from the bad guys and the bad girls, right?
	Right.
	Say, no!
	No, you can't see him.
	She's the devil.
	She broke your heart.
	She stomped on you.
	She will seduce you.
	She'll fuck you up.
	Don't do it.
	Don't do it.
	You told me to not let you drink because it was bad for you.
	I'm telling you, you cannot go with this woman.
	Now, of course, he can tell you to fuck off and he can go and do whatever he wants, but you at least have taken a stand, right?
	And I don't know, none of that, like, at the time, at the time, it didn't cross my mind that way.
	But after he came and kind of told me, like, well, he thinks he's, like, falling in love with her, Like, I don't know why.
	She just wasn't so important in my mind.
	I guess I should have thought more about it.
	But she was just...
	I don't know.
	It's kind of like in, like, Fountainhead, where somebody asked, like, Howard Rourke, what do you think about me?
	And I just literally didn't think about her.
	Like, she wasn't in my radar.
	Yeah, but that said about Ellsworth Toohey, the ultimate villain.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, that's what I mean.
	And so, like, I should have...
	Now that I think about it, like at that time, I realized a lot of it had to do with my timing.
	I just didn't think about it.
	I'm sure his father had affairs too.
	Maybe.
	I don't know.
	Like his parents...
	I mean, drinkers often have that, right?
	Yeah.
	Anyway.
	But that's the other thing.
	So he ended up coming for my sister's wedding and...
	What?
	What?
	Hang on, hang on.
	Hang on.
	Oh my God.
	Yeah.
	So he goes, and did he sleep with this?
	He just said he kissed her, right?
	Yeah, this is what kind of pisses me off, is that he told me that she kissed him.
	It didn't mean anything.
	But then six hours before his flight, he told me that he wasn't sure if he loved me anymore because...
	He's starting to feel things for her.
	And I was just like, your ticket is locked.
	Because this vagina is closer.
	I think with my heart.
	That's the thing.
	She doesn't live there either.
	She lives even farther away than I do.
	She was visiting from somewhere overseas or something.
	But he came for a weekend.
	We were having a great time the first day because we hadn't seen each other in three months.
	I felt like it was great.
	He kissed another woman, his ex-girlfriend, and you were having a great time.
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Have you completely given up on the idea of sin?
	No, it's all relative now.
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	I didn't think so much of the kiss because he didn't lead on that it meant anything.
	He said it didn't mean anything.
	It was a mistake.
	I'm sorry.
	And I know this sounds like a stupid Maury episode where they're just making excuses.
	But for me, I just didn't think that much of her at the time.
	And then he just said that it meant nothing.
	And he felt gross.
	Blah, blah, blah.
	So we went to my sister's wedding.
	After the wedding, we met my brothers.
	I wanted him to see my family.
	My family was like, oh, he's a great guy.
	He's really nice.
	And that night after the wedding, after we met my brothers, we're driving back home.
	And he's like, I have to tell you something else.
	Yeah, we did more than kiss.
	I was like...
	Okay, you've got to stop laughing at this, right?
	I know.
	I just...
	Yeah.
	Because that's sad, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, he lied to you.
	Yeah, he lied.
	Had you had sex with him after he had sex with her?
	Yes.
	So he could have passed you a disease, right?
	Right.
	He didn't...
	He didn't have sex with her.
	He just...
	She, like, gave him...
	Like...
	Oral sex.
	Oh, because now we're trusting him.
	No, no.
	I'm just saying, like, he did say that.
	No, no.
	Now we believe him after the third or fourth lie in a row, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, no.
	So we don't know.
	Yeah, we don't know.
	That's what he said.
	And there are STDs that can be transferred through oral sex, yeah?
	Yeah, yeah.
	So...
	So he came to your wedding.
	And this selfish son of a bitch, this selfish son of a bitch, decides to drop the bomb on you.
	After the wedding, after he met my brothers.
	After your sister's wedding, thus coloring your entire experience for the rest of your life.
	Yeah.
	Of your sister's wedding.
	Is this your only sister?
	No, no, no.
	Okay.
	Jesus.
	Fertile parents.
	Anyway.
	Yeah, I've got a lot of trouble.
	Yeah, I got it.
	But this selfish son of a bitch decides to drop this on you right around the time of your sister's wedding.
	Yeah.
	That's really shitty behavior.
	I'm just telling you.
	you that's this incredibly selfish shitty behavior ugly Mean.
	And entirely, entirely self-absorbed.
	I need to tell you, I'll feel better.
	It's like, it's the same thing as, I tell you man, you think about this guy at the very beginning.
	He dumped on you, didn't care about your feelings, right?
	Didn't care about your feedback.
	Same thing happened right at the end.
	He dumps on you with no sense of how it's going to affect you.
	Yeah.
	And I don't know, it's kind of like The way he does things as far as, like, when he did the shitty things, it would be like, I'm doing this because I don't want to hurt you, or I'm doing this because I don't want to hide things from you, kind of.
	Oh, listen, I know these kinds of slime buckets.
	I do.
	I had a woman once tell me with a straight face that her boyfriend cheated on her.
	Because he loved her too much.
	Yeah.
	Don't fall for that.
	I know.
	And I did.
	And after that, I just lost myself.
	After that, I behaved in ways that were just shameful, looking back at it.
	It's not funny, sorry.
	But I don't know.
	Looking back at it, I don't know why going through it, I couldn't, I didn't get so much feedback from the people around me that it was such a shitty thing happening.
	And so even until now...
	Did you talk to your...
	Well, hang on.
	Did you have any friends you could talk to about this kind of behavior?
	Yeah, I have friends, and one of my friends was like, wow, this guy's an asshole.
	And I don't know, I still kept defending him.
	Like, well, we were far apart and...
	Oh, I don't know.
	It's just, now I'm looking at it, I feel like such an idiot, but...
	I'm still torn because I still, like, feel hurt about it and I still, like, think about him all the time.
	Yeah.
	You should.
	I mean, of course you're hurt about it and, of course, it makes perfect sense to think about him all the time.
	Right.
	This is a very dangerous man.
	I mean, this guy...
	God, imagine if you were married.
	I know.
	Imagine if you were pregnant.
	Yeah, and that's when it came in to where it was, like, everything that...
	Every red flag I had in the beginning just came up.
	It's like...
	Well, I think I love her because my heart, when I saw her, before she came, I told myself, I'm not going to do anything.
	And then I saw her, and my heart was pounding, and so we ended up doing stuff.
	I think with my heart, right?
	Right, and so that was...
	When people tell you about themselves, they're not kidding.
	I know, I know.
	I guess I didn't understand the severity of what that meant, because I've never really applied I'm as guilty as anyone and with much less excuse of treating philosophy like a parlor game and not living the values in my own life as consistently as I should.
	So I sympathize with that.
	You know, we read these books, we listen to these podcasts, we take these arguments and in some ways we kind of look at the world and say, well, yeah, but it's not really that serious, right?
	But...
	It is.
	It is.
	And I can trace back in my life the times when I was not applying my philosophical values was the times when things went bad and haywire.
	Yeah.
	And you gave up a lot of philosophical falsehood by becoming an atheist, but I would recommend that you revisit some of those good old Christian values, right?
	Yeah.
	Because there was a lot of hard-earned wisdom in some of that stuff.
	Like, what parts would you mean?
	I don't know.
	Just, like, not dealing with a cheater or something?
	Well, no.
	Compatibility of values.
	Oh, I see.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Compatibility of values.
	Thou shalt not bear false witness.
	He's a sinner.
	I mean, I'm sorry to say that.
	I'm like the atheist philosopher or an atheist philosopher.
	But he sins.
	He lies.
	He manipulates.
	He cheats.
	He falsifies.
	I mean, he's kind of honest in ways that help you to not listen to his honesty.
	Like, I'll be random and I'm going to follow my heart and don't expect predictability.
	And I, you know, people who say, I think with my heart or I follow my gut, it's like, I can't be trusted.
	I'm never going to be predictable.
	You can't box me in with any standards that I have to conform to.
	But if you look at the infidelities to virtue that he performed, it's not good, right?
	And if your parents knew the truth about him, Well, just now, if anyone treated my daughter like that.
	Ooh.
	I know.
	I guess this was weird.
	Like, my father is dead now, but my mom is around.
	And I told her, like, the night that he, like, kissed her and told me about it, I was with my mom, and I was, like, just telling her everything.
	And her response was, yeah, when we were dating, my dad did that, your dad did that to me.
	And...
	I told them.
	They were teenagers, they were in high school or something, but that was her response.
	What was her response?
	Basically that when they were dating, my dad was with some other girl and she found out.
	She said, I told him, you're going to have to choose between me or her.
	It kind of downplayed, I guess, how big it was.
	If your mom isn't really saying What an asshole, you know?
	She didn't say that.
	I mean, she knew this was a two-year relationship, and you were thinking of getting married, and the guy had sex with another woman, and then came to your wedding.
	Not the sex part, not the sex part.
	Just like the kissing part.
	Oh, you didn't tell her the sex part?
	Yeah, because he told me that after the wedding.
	Either way, I don't know what she would have said, but I don't know.
	I feel kind of weird saying that to my mom.
	I don't know.
	All right.
	Give me some feedback.
	Yeah, if you could.
	All right.
	Are your legs crossed?
	Yeah.
	Good.
	Okay.
	Good.
	Keep them that way.
	Oh, no.
	No, I'm afraid your vagina is dragging you off a cliff into the land of low-rent scumbags.
	And you need to be more careful with where you put your heart.
	Very careful.
	You need to listen to people.
	They're not kidding when they tell you who they are.
	And you need to really live your values.
	And that's an annoying and naggy thing to say, and I apologize for that up front.
	But I sure wish people had told me this when I was 24.
	Your values are not novels.
	They're not playthings.
	They're not hobbies.
	They need to deeply and foundationally inform your decisions.
	It's the only way you're going to find out if your values are worth living, is to really live them.
	Like, we like to have philosophy, and I do too.
	I like to have philosophy like, oh, I'm good at this.
	Like, I'm good at tennis.
	And I have made mistakes, significant mistakes, by failing to follow philosophical principles that weren't even that hard to see, as you can see in hindsight with this, right?
	So I'm just telling you the annoying things that I wish had been told to me, that this is the primal stuff of human physics values.
	The primal stuff of human physics, it's what makes the world work or fail.
	And you can no more build A bridge to someone else while ignoring the primal physics of human relationships, then you can build a bridge in Alaska while ignoring the fact that the water gets cold.
	Just can't.
	Won't work.
	This guy did not share your values.
	In fact, he opposed your values quite considerably.
	He was weak-willed.
	He allowed himself to be dominated by you.
	And then what happened?
	Ex-girlfriend comes into his life and he's dominated by her.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	There is...
	In your question, your initial question, Gabby, was something about do guys basically go to a woman they can feel superior to rather than be with a strong woman, right?
	Yeah.
	Do...
	Do you think that in your actions with this man you were a strong woman?
	Looking back on it, I'd probably not know.
	No.
	And this doesn't mean you're not a strong woman.
	It just means with regards to this man and relative to your values, no.
	You betrayed your values.
	You betrayed that which you consider honorable and noble and right.
	You got together with an under-functioning neurotic fixer-upper and you steadfastly avoided comparing him to that which you treasure and value, right?
	Yeah.
	And you did not listen to him when he said, I'm anti-rational.
	Maybe he wasn't hiding it and pretend that he was an objectivist, right?
	Sometimes he did, like to some extent, but not all the time.
	Gabby.
	I don't know.
	Can you pretend to be an objectivist and say, I think with my heart?
	No.
	No, you can't.
	It was a good try, though, I must say.
	See, now, now you're getting this fine.
	Good!
	Good.
	I don't know, I guess...
	You really need to save yourself for someone who's worthy of your values.
	I know.
	Right?
	I mean, you know, save yourself for someone who's worth you.
	Look, you are an incredibly positive, engaging, intelligent person.
	Woman, who unfortunately has lost some values without finding values to replace them, right?
	In terms of love.
	And your heart did not respond to this guy that much either.
	You didn't find him that attractive, and you just, you know, you kind of hung out, you had some sex, and you know.
	But your heart follows where you throw your vagina.
	I hate to say it, but it's kind of true.
	And if you don't judge someone before having sex with them, it doesn't mean you can only ever have sex with the guy you're going to have kids with.
	I mean, I'm not saying any of that.
	But what I am saying is that you have a brain.
	You have philosophy.
	Evaluate.
	Look for the signs.
	Listen to what people say.
	They're incredibly honest with you.
	They'll tell you exactly how this relationship is going to go.
	They will be very forthright and very frank about what is going to happen in your relationship.
	And this guy was as honest as they come in his forwardness about his deficiencies.
	So look at and evaluate the people before you start having sex with them.
	And again, you have to save yourself for only one guy.
	I mean, if you can, or if that works, so much the better.
	Statistically, that gives your marriage a much better chance of surviving.
	But don't be an acrophiliac.
	laughs Right?
	Don't bone the dead.
	Don't bone the bones.
	Don't bone people who are diametrically opposed to your values.
	And expect it to work out.
	You know that from objectivism, right?
	Right, yeah.
	I'm not telling you anything that Ayn Rand wouldn't say, but probably slightly more harshly, right?
	Yeah.
	And guard your heart.
	Guard your loins.
	And evaluate people.
	There was a, he's there, let's go ahead kind of stuff, right?
	He needs me, that'll do kind of stuff.
	I provide value to him.
	But what about the value he provides to you?
	Right.
	And that's kind of what I, that was always something that I was thinking about.
	He would say things like, why are you with me?
	Why would you choose to be with me?
	And that's kind of a huge indicator, I guess.
	You think?
	He saw he was sufficient.
	I don't know.
	In the beginning, it would have been easier to just let it go.
	Even before he came, I was like, this probably isn't going to work.
	He's being strange.
	But in the end, there was this added element of someone else.
	And now I'm like, now I'm going to fight over him for this because there's somebody else.
	Even though I would have I don't know.
	I feel like I would have just let him go more easily were it not for him finding someone else.
	And that's probably something about my personality or something about my childhood in that someone is in my territory and so I have to defend myself for something that wasn't worth it.
	The whole time I was like, why am I doing this?
	What am I fighting for?
	Why do I want to keep him in my life?
	Even after I knew all of those things, I was still battling that.
	And then it turned out he ended up having to dump me.
	Yes.
	And there is a this-will-do coasting passivity, right?
	Kind of.
	I mean, look.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	I just felt...
	I don't know.
	That's kind of why I never was really into marriage or thought it was interesting because it always just seemed like that's what everyone did.
	It was like, this will do.
	It just seemed like, well, this is what you do.
	Is that how your parents' marriage was?
	I don't know.
	I guess they were happy, but for me, it never really looked so romantic or so just over-the-top loving and everything.
	It wasn't dysfunctional.
	It was just kind of bland.
	Well, that explains all the jokes I was making at the beginning, right?
	Which ones?
	Oh yeah, which ones?
	There were so many.
	No, the ones at the beginning where I was sort of making fun of your sort of lack of passion.
	Oh, right.
	With this guy.
	Yeah.
	And then I started getting really, I don't know, conscious about that because he would say things like, well, she's very emotional and we speak the same emotional language and you're never really emotional.
	And I'm like, well, I could be emotional.
	I can be random.
	I can make bad decisions and blame my heart.
	And that's what he said.
	He said, but I don't know if that's you.
	I don't think that's you.
	You can't be that way.
	And I was like, I guess not.
	So like the day he broke up with me, he asked me, what if I need a codependent relationship?
	And I was like, What if you need a codependent relationship?
	Basically, we were still talking about...
	What if he needs a codependent relationship?
	I don't know.
	We were still kind of thinking about whether we should be together or not after all of that.
	That shows the degree of my desperation.
	But desperate for what?
	Desperate for what?
	This is what I don't understand.
	The relationship.
	It wasn't even for him.
	What about the relationship?
	Did you want to get married to the guy after he got a blowjob from another woman and lied about it?
	No.
	Okay, so this is what I mean when I say you've got to step up and start inhabiting your own life more directly, right?
	The only thing worse than dating a jerk is being dumped by a jerk.
	Right, yeah.
	Right, because then it's just like, oh man, I didn't even get to dump him after he was a jerk, right?
	I know, yeah.
	So that kind of passivity is a problem.
	Right.
	Did you talk to your mother while you were in Taiwan about this guy?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And what does she say?
	Well, she actually met him.
	She met him maybe like two years ago.
	Well, like a year and a half ago.
	And what does she say?
	She's like, he's not so interesting.
	Basically, she was saying he was obnoxious.
	And he could do better.
	And how long did you talk about this with her?
	You say what?
	How long did you talk about this topic with her?
	Kind of off and on.
	She would just ask about him.
	Because like, My life was so separate from America when I was there that I didn't really talk to my family very much, but I did talk to my mom, but...
	Well, parents, if you're out there, remember that ring of fire I was talking about?
	You need to do that for your kids.
	Yeah.
	My mom almost let me get married to the wrong woman.
	Oh, so much the wrong woman.
	Yeah.
	She knew about it.
	She knew about the problems in the relationship.
	She knew I was getting a ring.
	My whole family was like, yeah, go for it.
	I'm like...
	Ah, damn.
	I know.
	Do you really hate me that much?
	Holy crap.
	My brother helped me go out and pick the ring.
	Really?
	Ah.
	It would have been like a life-wrecking disaster for both of us.
	Yeah.
	And be the ring of fire.
	Help your friends.
	Help your family.
	Help your children.
	I know.
	And after this, that's what I've been coming to realize.
	It's just like being open with not just the person you're with, the people around you.
	Because...
	They see things you can't.
	Yeah.
	But they don't have the same amount of sexual romantic time investment, right?
	They know.
	Hey, bus isn't coming, honey.
	You got to walk.
	I'd be waiting for an hour.
	I don't care.
	Bus shut down three years ago.
	You got to walk.
	Yeah.
	But maybe they get a new bus coming.
	Nope.
	Stop walking.
	Right.
	Yeah, your mother basically should have been haranguing you until you broke up with the guy.
	And then she should have sat down with you and tried to figure out how you ended up with a guy like that to begin with.
	Yeah.
	My family is kind of passive.
	There are a lot of kids.
	There's like five of us, but we're not really in each other's lives.
	Well, maybe you can set a different example.
	Yeah.
	Well, I'm the only one that's without a family now, so it's just me.
	So they can just give me all their advice.
	Well, no.
	I mean, you can be more proactive in helping them understand better parenting and stuff like that.
	Yeah.
	I'm trying.
	Alright.
	So, does that help at all?
	I mean, our chat?
	I know we ranged again over some pretty wide territory.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I guess over the past few weeks I've been thinking about things, but I I almost felt like, should I even call?
	Because I thought about this and it seems like I understand.
	But you've still illuminated some things that I didn't think about before.
	Guard your eggs, young woman.
	Yeah, I guard my eggs.
	I know they're only 24, but they age quicker than you'll know.
	Don't waste another two years.
	Yeah.
	And I don't know, just the fact that you...
	I think you're the only person who really just called him a scumbag.
	No one else has come to that point and I was still kind of in this limbo place.
	Like, is he a nice guy?
	And he just didn't like me?
	No, listen, I'm working hard.
	Oh, he's eccentric.
	Oh, he's a feeling robot.
	But then it's like, you know, ew!
	And then all the things you're telling me, I mean, just listen to people.
	If people say, why are you with me?
	They've got a point.
	They're not just flapping their gums for the sake of making pretty noises.
	They've got serious and real questions.
	And really listen to people and don't think you're going to live forever.
	Don't cross your fingers and hope.
	Evaluate with a very cold, critical and rational eye.
	If you need a third party to help you out with that, just go through the list.
	He feels, he doesn't think, he doesn't, he gets anxious around philosophy.
	I love philosophy.
	He doesn't know why I'm with him.
	Him, he, you know, whenever he's around his family, he didn't really seem to be bothered by that much by his dad's drinking and, oh my God, do I really want to marry into a family where there's alcoholism right in the center and, like, all of these things, all of these things.
	They add up to a pretty clear decision and don't fog.
	You know, I wasted years of my life in relationships like that.
	I'm just, word to the wise, you know, learn from my battery scars.
	Yeah, I mean, don't, you know, make decisions and make decisions based upon your values.
	Doesn't mean your values can't change or can't be flexible, but make decisions based on your values or just give up your values and drift like most people do, but that's just going to lead you to a bad place.
	You've got the values and Evaluate people relative to reason, to evidence, to a commitment to self-knowledge, to reasonable competence in life.
	Doesn't mean you never fail, but reasonable competence in life.
	It's so, so important.
	People who are not fundamentally competent at living, they will give you short-term gains because you'll feel like, oh, you're really helping them and you're really making a difference in someone's life.
	But in the long run, it's the sexy vampire who ends up just draining you dry.
	And that's kind of what I feel like.
	I kind of, I don't know, I feel used.
	Even though, like, I felt like it was, like, being helpful and giving and caring.
	Like, after someone just kind of turns on you, it just feels like they were using you.
	Even if you didn't think about it at the time.
	You were being altruistic in the Randian definition.
	I know, and I was being, like, that's the worst.
	Like, that's what I hate.
	And that's exactly...
	She wasn't kidding.
	She was right about that stuff, I think.
	That's true.
	Will you keep us posted about how you're doing?
	Yeah.
	I... I guess I have one small question before I go.
	But you said that I'm a fixer, and so that's a problem.
	And do you have advice on how to try to counteract that?
	Is that just staying away from people who aren't virtuous or without values?
	What is a way to...
	Okay, so Gabby, what's your me plus, right?
	I don't know if you've seen the Robin Williams videos or other places where I've talked about that.
	So is it you plus, you've got to help people, you've got to fix them.
	Is that you plus?
	Probably.
	Maybe me plus listening or me plus.
	I'm not really sure.
	Well, you figure that out.
	Figure out what extra mojo you need to bring to be worth people's attention.
	Hmm.
	And then stop doing that, right?
	Eliminate that, right?
	Do you have to be you plus sexy?
	Do you have to be you plus witty?
	Do you have to be you plus helpful?
	Do you have to be whatever it is?
	Because that's this big giant red button that draws exploiters into your orbit to drain your planet dry of liquids, right?
	Because the me plus is just, hey, here's how you can exploit me.
	Yeah.
	Oh, I really need to be funny.
	So if you laugh at my jokes, I'll buy you dinner.
	Right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	I really need to be helpful.
	So if you're under-functioning, I'm going to be really interested.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	So figure out what your me plus is.
	And, you know, if we have more time, I'm a little tired, too.
	No, no.
	Sorry.
	My daughter's got a cold.
	So if we had more time, we could dig into it.
	And if you don't have any luck, listen, I mean, it was a delightful conversation and you're a delightful woman.
	And, you know, if you're having trouble with it, just call back in and we'll go through it.
	I think that should help.
	Like, I just didn't really know what, like, you kind of just left it.
	Me plus, it's just anxiety management.
	It's like, okay, well, it's...
	Am I interesting without that?
	Extra.
	Pizazz or whatever it is.
	And everyone has this.
	And I have mine.
	You have yours.
	It's can I... Can people find me worthwhile if I'm not...
	If I'm just who I am?
	Which may include being funny and may include helping people and may include...
	Hopefully it will include those things.
	But I'm not doing those things because...
	I'm afraid I won't be interesting if I don't.
	But they just arise spontaneously and naturally as part of my self-expression in the world.
	And if you hadn't wanted to fix this guy, he wouldn't have had value to you.
	In other words, his value to you was his lack of value.
	And that's a paradox that's resolved by blowjobs in New York, sadly, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Well, thank you.
	All right.
	Thank you.
	You are very welcome.
	And I'm sorry for the last caller.
	I was thinking about your question all day.
	Hopefully you can join us on Saturday.
	And just please remember, again, I hate to nag you all, but it needs to be done for the sake of philosophy and for the sake of food for the Freedom Aid Radio crew.
	Freedomainradio.com to help us out.
	February is the cruelest month.
	It's short.
	It's post-Christmas and everyone has their visa bills.
	But if you could...
	Send a little bit of money our way.
	It's very necessary.
	I know there are hundreds of thousands, if not more, of you out there listening.
	And we do not have hundreds of thousands of donators.
	So don't let other people carry the burden of the values that you consume.
	Step up.
	Do the right thing.
	You know what it is.
	It's freedommainradio.com slash donate.
	Have yourselves a wonderful week.
	Oh, Steph, Steph, Steph, Steph, Steph, before you go.
	No!
	Show's over!
	All over!
	A quick thing, to save me from getting emails where people want clarification, could you just tease out a bit more with the first call where we talked about holding back on the romantic side of things potentially and being more friends and removing the romantic element from the relationship for the time being versus when you said you can't be just friends in the second call with someone that you've been dating with.
	Oh yeah, so you can't be just friends because In fact, I think I quite expressly was not a big fan of them going out to date other people.
	Absolutely.
	And so if you've taken the relationship down because you want to not hurt each other but you're still interested in a romantic future together, they're not really exes at that point.
	You know, they're just taking a pause from the romantic side of things to get their head straight so that they can, if they want to, move forward.
	But if you've broken up with someone, the relationship is over, particularly then when you start dating other people can't work.
	So hopefully that helps.
	I knew that's what it was.
	I just wanted it to be there so I don't get emails.
	So don't email me.
	You will get emails.
	But I appreciate your optimism in hoping that you won't.
	All right.
	Thanks, everybody.

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