April 27, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
03:13:23
4070 Inevitable SJW Victimization - Call In Show - April 22nd, 2018
Question 1: [0:47] – “My girlfriend, Alta, spoke with Stefan recently. My question is very similar to hers: we have met in the middle and compromised all throughout dating to make our relationship great, but we've gradually devolved into mostly talking about work or our own health issues. She wants to wait for marriage to have sex and although I've agreed it’s still a daily struggle for me. I need some clarity on whether to propose or if our differences really are irreconcilable.”Question 2: [1:33:12] - "I am a manager at a large hospital and am finding it difficult to navigate the workplace given the deluge of Social Justice policies and practices being implemented by HR and upper management. The never-ending push for ‘more women in STEM’ has resulted in a nearing 40:60 split between male to female employees, and when this is coupled with the recent MeToo movement, I believe it is becoming increasingly likely that false allegations of misconduct will be leveled against me. As a result of this I have taken extreme precautions and have completely withdrawn from any non-mandatory interaction with female coworkers and ensure to record official interaction with subordinates (i.e. When I conduct an interview for any position I always record the event and make it known to the candidate that this is occurring). This is already compounded with the insane diversity agenda (equipped with an official diversity officer, policies, hiring practices, and seminars). I enjoy the technical aspects of my job, find the work fulfilling, receive good remuneration, and excel at what I do, however I am not sure I can continue much longer as options to combat the bureaucratic overreach are limited and I see no sign of this trend reversing in the near future. How should one proceed in dissenting against the implementation of such policies where even voicing opposition, or raising ‘hate facts’ transforms them into a pariah? How does one protect their reputation in an atmosphere where ‘listen and believe’ is quickly becoming official policy?”Your support is essential to Freedomain Radio, which is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Toni wrote in and said, My girlfriend Alta spoke with Stefan recently.
My question is very similar to hers.
We've met in the middle and compromised all throughout dating to make our relationship great, but we've gradually devolved into mostly talking about work or our own health struggles.
She wants to wait for marriage to have sex and although I've agreed, it's still a daily struggle for me.
I need some clarity on whether to propose or if our differences really are irreconcilable.
That's from Tony, and I believe Alta is there as well.
Are you guys both on at the same time?
Yes, sir. Well, nice to chat with you guys.
Thanks for calling back.
I'm sorry you couldn't make it last time, Tony.
Yeah, it had to work, man.
I was asking forever and ever to have a Wednesday night, and they finally gave it to me, and I didn't want to ask them on the first night to have it off.
Right, right. So, I mean, obviously, I don't know if you listened to the show, Tony, but Alta talked last time.
I guess my question is, from your perspective, what was it that attracted you to her in the first place, and was the spark for the relationship to begin with?
Well, first I have to tell you, man, I'm a huge fan.
I've been listening for years and years, and it's largely because of your work that I've really got my life on track.
I went through school, I got off drugs.
She told you last time I was homeless for a while.
I have no family.
I have very little of anything.
But because of you, I found people like Jordan Peterson and Mike Cernovich.
And I stuck with the weightlifting and I really got my life on track.
So I can't thank you enough for the work you do.
Oh, I appreciate that.
Thank you for your kind words.
And as far as your question, a big part of what attracted me to her is largely the things you've been saying about, you know, good Christian girls, about Waiting until marriage to have sex about conservative values.
She's a very sweet, very compassionate girl.
Highly intelligent, very curious.
And whenever there's a problem, she's eager to solve the problem.
She doesn't blow up.
She doesn't freak out. She's genuinely a curious individual.
Well, that's good. That's good.
And how quick did the spark happen for you?
Well, we went through school all together.
And I'd say we were, you know, there was some traction all through it, but we felt it was wise to wait until we were finished with school to really start dating.
So that was about 18 months before we were going through school, seeing each other for 20 hours a week for 18 months straight before we started dating.
Right, right. Okay. And let's get to the sort of initial attraction stuff.
I mean, I know you've talked about the stuff that has happened since then, but what was the original spark?
I'm not really clear on what you're asking as far as was there one single thing that attracted me to her?
Yeah. I don't think it was a single thing as we were both in this extremely challenging program.
We both had We both understand what it's like to deal with chronic health issues.
We both, I would say, try to live a life that would set an example to others.
We really both do our best to be the best we can be in all areas.
Right, okay, okay.
With the conversation that happened last time, Tony, Alta, I think one of her major concerns was that she felt, or she thought that you thought she was boring, or could be.
I think it's, like I said in the question, the biggest challenge I have is the waiting until marriage.
That's, you know, this is a first for me.
So it's not the nouns.
It's not that we ever run out of things to talk about.
I find that we often don't have anything to do.
It's a lot of nights we're sitting around watching Netflix or playing board games.
I'm a healthy 28-year-old man and there's a lot of nights where it's all I can think about and it drives me crazy.
Oh, you mean sex? Yes, sir.
Right, right. Okay. Right.
Now, It's not so much then that she's boring, it's that you're sexually frustrated.
Is that a fair way to put it?
I would say that nails it, yeah.
Right. And that didn't come up in the last conversation from Alta's standpoint, if I remember rightly.
Alta, you were there? I briefly mentioned it, but it wasn't something that we focused on.
It wasn't a big thing that we delved into at all, but it was mentioned.
Right, right. Yeah, I'm not saying you're sort of hiding anything.
I just wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page.
No, no. And how long have you guys been dating again?
I can't remember the exact number of months.
It's a little over 18 months now.
It's been about 20 months. Yesterday, I believe.
You know, that's a long engagement of waiting.
I just, you know, the no sex before marriage didn't usually come with a 20-month engagement, right?
There's been a lot of interruptions, I feel like, as well.
We kind of had a rough start with her losing her brother, and I feel like that's where a lot of the issues with the parents have come from as well.
But her parents are frequently down here to visit, and they stay with her.
They'll be here every two months, and they'll stay for about two weeks at a time.
So yeah, we've been together for 20 months, but it's been with many, many, many interruptions.
What do you mean? It just feels like we get very little privacy.
And when her mom does come to visit, her mom needs a lot of attention.
Her mom needs to be the center of focus.
She has to be entertained.
And it's, it just, I really feel like it poisons the relationship every, you know, every couple months.
Okay, so that's some pretty heavy stuff to be dropping about the potential mother-in-law, right?
And I do want to say I understand a lot of that.
Was tainted with the recent passing of their son, so they're working through their own grief.
But they've also put an unfair, I feel like, a spotlight on me in the wake of their son's passing and then also on their last remaining child.
Does that make sense? Well, yeah, okay.
But you're talking about the mom-in-law being someone who needs to be the center of attention and it sounds like you almost think she's like narcissistic or something.
Is that right? You cut out there for a second.
It sounds like you thought that she might be narcissistic, like always wants to be the center of attention and all.
Those aren't my words, but I would agree.
Right. So you don't like her?
I like many, many things about her, but I also see that she's a toxic presence.
Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about that.
So why don't you sort of unpack for me what that means in terms of toxicity?
Well, it shows up a lot in her own relationship and her own marriage with her husband.
Her husband is largely non-existent.
He doesn't say much. He keeps his head down.
He's miserable. He drinks.
He hides away, and he kind of just goes along with whatever the mother says.
I wouldn't call him a pushover, but he's just not quite there.
And I see there's a lot of bitterness and resentment on both sides there.
She's also incredibly overweight, super really, really overweight, diabetic.
She's had breast cancer for I don't know how many years now, and she still eats garbage.
She's Drinks soda.
She's eating cheesecake all the time.
It's... And I just see that it's extremely disrespectful to her husband.
And then so she shows up and she brings all these bad habits with her and then it's...
She just...
She's an energy vampire, I feel like.
Right. Is there more that you wanted to say about that?
What do you think, Elsa? Well, obviously I think that's all...
She's pretty strong.
She does tend to need a lot of attention, but she's used to, in our big extended family, most of the people who have started dating, like my extended family, all the cousins, all of that are all very, very close.
Everybody who has basically come into the family has been pretty happy to spend time with the whole family.
She's used to a boyfriend who comes in and Is content to at least hang out with her as well as me at least once in a while.
And Tony doesn't really enjoy that at all.
I mean, she doesn't expect us to spend all of our time with her that we're together, but she would like it if he'd come over and, you know, kind of hang out with her a little bit sometimes, too, and give her the opportunity to get to know him and him the opportunity to get to know her and all of that.
So, you know, it's...
I do have something to add to that.
I really do feel like our relationship between me and the mother was going pretty well for a long time.
We were able to talk about a lot of things.
And that's why it hurt so much when she said that she would never accept a relationship with her daughter and an atheist.
It really stung because I really thought that I had built this relationship and this rapport with her mother.
And then to kind of hear that it doesn't matter, that she would never accept me, that she would never, you know, be supportive of us getting married, it just...
Man, it was...
Big slap in the face, so I've largely disappeared and stopped trying.
So, she would not support the marriage.
Does that mean she wouldn't come to the wedding?
That she wouldn't, like, what does that mean?
I guess maybe, Alter, you'd know more about this, but what does that mean in a practical sense?
I poked at her about that for a long time.
Basically, she just...
Wasn't going to be happy about it.
She was even sending me wedding venues not too long ago, knowing that that was something that we were thinking about.
They've been financially supportive.
They've supported him in a lot of practical ways in an attempt to show that they're not totally against him as well.
So I feel like there's been a lot of misunderstandings on both Both sides.
I'm not taking their side here, honey.
I'm just trying to get across the side of the person who's not here.
Financially supportive? What have you been?
They helped pay a deposit when I moved into a new place.
They helped pay a deposit for you, Tony.
Is that right? Yes, sir.
Well, that's a little surprising for me.
They also allowed him to move in to the spare bedroom in the house for four months.
When he had a mold problem.
So they haven't been totally unsupportive.
They let him live in their home for several months.
Well, Tony, that doesn't quite match up with the portrait you painted just a few minutes earlier.
Well, it's just what I said.
They've been very kind to me, to my face.
And it's when she told me it did not matter how great a person I was or how much she liked me.
It was when she said that no matter what, she would not be happy.
She would not support her daughter marrying an atheist.
Right.
That was the slap in the face because I really thought that we were getting along and I was building this relationship.
That I feel like was the most hurtful aspect.
Well, it's kind of mixed signals, I guess, right?
Like if they're giving you money and putting you up for four months because you have a mold problem, and then they're saying that they don't want to have anything, or she's saying that she doesn't want to have anything to do with your marriage, it seems kind of mixed signal to me.
It is. And I also would say that they didn't really express any issues, any problems, until I said that I would not move up north.
Because of the health issues, I moved south where it was You know, much warmer.
When they found out I would be unwilling to move back to the Midwest, that's when the poison started coming out.
That's when they said they wouldn't support us.
Did I explain that well?
I think so.
I think so. Now, do you think, Tony, do you think that Alta's parents are Social Christians, serious Christians, how closely do you think they follow their values?
The father, not at all.
I think the father probably has no faith to speak of.
The mother, honestly, she only seems to bring it up when it's in order to get other people to conform what she wants.
She doesn't mention it until it's telling other people how they should act.
She doesn't go to church.
She doesn't sing. I've never seen her pray.
She doesn't speak about her faith.
But she's happy to bring it up when it comes to Alta.
And I would say Alta probably has the much stronger faith of any of them.
And what do you think of that, Alta? Fair assessment of my father.
My mom does a lot of reading.
She tends to keep her faith more private.
But he's not wrong.
The The strength of the Christian faith has been something that I sought out on my own more.
I mean, I was raised in the church, but I was the one who sought out the mentorship and the study and the pursual of taking it seriously on my own.
She's had a lot of issues since my brother died.
And her faith has not been as strong as mine pretty much ever.
So he's not totally wrong, but I think she does go to church when she's home.
She'll go with me when I'm here.
Or when she's here. But she's not as big into seeking it out on her own.
Right. Okay.
I think I sort of understand that.
And as far as the obesity and the ill health and all of that goes, what are your perspectives on that?
He was saying, you know, she had breast cancer forever.
She eats a lot of sugar, a lot of cheesecakes.
She's obese. How does that sit with you?
Or is that a fairly accurate description, Alta?
Also, I feel like it's a tad bit harsh.
She's lost about 150 pounds in the last few years.
Um, since I've been going through my health issues, um, there, there was, there was some mold issues for a while that had her piling on a bunch of weight.
And then as soon as we got out of the moldy environment, she dropped about 70 without even trying.
Um, so there was some hormonal and health issues.
Uh, her primary health thing or, uh, eating dietary, she's not big into exercising.
I will give him that. Um, and she doesn't eat perfect, but her biggest thing is that she drinks a lot of pop.
So She goes in phases where she tries to diet and tries to do really well, but she doesn't keep it up very well.
Oh, yeah. Pop is the devil's brew, without a doubt.
I can understand that one.
I'm getting off of that one myself.
I picked up that habit from her, so I'm trying to get off of it before I end up anywhere near that point, too.
I understand the struggle.
And is your father, like Tony's assessment of your father's religiosity, is that fairly accurate?
Yes. So your mother married kind of an atheist, but you shouldn't?
I've talked to her about that.
She says at the time that it wasn't the case.
He grew up in a Lutheran church.
He went through confirmation.
He did all of that.
And he apparently claimed when they got married that there was a profession of faith at the time.
But to my memory...
I don't recall there ever being a real thing from him.
A real thing. That's so ambiguous.
I don't even know what to say.
A real thing. What does that mean?
In my memory, I don't recall him having a faith of his own.
Do you mean sort of when you were a kid growing up?
Yeah. Right.
And so he's not a churchgoer.
He's not a prayer guy.
He's not a Bible study guy?
No. Do you think that he misled your mother with regards to his religiosity?
I've wondered about that.
I think that he just thought that he was a Christian because he was raised in a Christian household.
Didn't really think about adopting it as his own thing.
I don't think he...
I don't know.
I've never really had that conversation with him, or I guess I shouldn't say I haven't tried.
He hasn't been open to having that conversation with me.
How did the mold cause your mother to gain so much weight?
Mold actually, when you're in a very moldy environment, people with a certain genetic type, it's called an HLA-DRBQ genetic mutation.
It actually, when you get excess mold in your system and your body is unable to get rid of it on its own, which with this genetic mutation you're unable to do, your body actually creates excess adipose tissue to store it.
And then when you get the mold out of your system, there are numerous different ways, but that's a whole different conversation.
I got this. I got this.
You can't detox it, so you store it in your fat and it screws your thyroid up.
Alright. So then when you get out of it, you do drop a whole bunch.
If you have that genetic type, which she does.
Okay, okay, I got it.
But how did she, I mean, did people just think the family, the doctors, they just thought that she was like too much pop or not exercising?
I mean, how did it end up that she gained that much weight?
And then how was it diagnosed, just out of curiosity?
It was diagnosed.
It wasn't ever actually diagnosed until I got sick and we started going through different treatment stuff.
And then they started doing some genetic testing and other things.
And she went through some of the treatment with me.
Just, you know, some of the general wellness treatment stuff as I did.
Not that she was actually sick at the time.
And then her body started making some of those changes.
And we started putting the pieces together as the weight started falling off.
And some of her hormones started balancing and things like that.
It's a really, really long story, all of that.
I'd not heard of that connection before, so I appreciate the illumination.
Or was it education? It's a huge, long, long story.
I do understand the illness, and I would never hold her at fault for that.
It's the lifestyle that I don't like.
It's the sodas, it's the cheesecakes, it's going out to eat every night, the potatoes, the starch.
And to me, it just seems...
Every time she's putting a cheesecake in her mouth, it seems like a slap in the face to her husband because she is very, very overweight.
She's not chunky. She's not chubby.
She is morbidly obese.
And do you mean that even after the $1.50 drop, right?
The $150 down? Yeah, she's still very, very overweight.
Well, it's funny.
You know, I'm just sort of reminded of a guy I used to know many years ago who was on medication for Crohn's disease and was gaining a lot of weight.
And he was like, well, it's the medication.
It's the medication. And I'm like, dude, you eat veal parmesan every night.
You know, maybe it's the combination of the medicine and the 2,000 calorie dinners that you're having.
But anyway, I mean, it just sort of strikes me that the weight gain...
Once you get the Crohn's under control, you actually start to absorb what it is you're eating.
So you might have been eating like that his whole life and not absorbed any of it.
Oh, yeah, yeah. I see what you mean.
Yeah, I see what you mean. All right.
And I guess this is more a question for you, Alter.
How is the relationship between your parents?
I'll sort of explain why I'm curious about that in a minute or two.
Between my mother and my father or between me and my parents?
My mother and father? Yes.
Um... They've gotten closer in the last few years since my brother and I have had our health issues and my mother's went through her thing.
But in my memory they've been butting heads pretty much.
I remember a lot of fighting when I was a kid.
They also run a business together and there was an issue with my grandfather, my mother's father, Who kind of helped them start out the business.
There was some...
I'm not even clear on what exactly happened.
But what ended up happening is they got into a fight somehow with...
Or my dad got into a fight with my grandfather.
And pretty much since then, he has cut off my mom's family.
Wait, your father can't stand your mom's family to the point where he has nothing to do with them, right?
Yes, sir. Wow.
Yeah, that's kind of what has been frightening.
Sure, yeah, no, I get it.
I mean, it's not like your father could have any rational complaints if something happened, right?
I think that, yeah, I think that there was some...
I don't know the whole story.
I have never been able to get the whole story out of anybody involved.
Doesn't that drive you crazy?
Just by the by? I mean, there's all this intense family stuff that goes on, and doesn't it drive you crazy?
Because you want to know. Because the patterns are still echoing around the gene pool, and you want to know, but the people won't tell you.
It drives me crazy. My whole childhood revolved around this family drama that I was never enlightened about exactly.
So my dad seems to think that my mom took my grandfather's side instead of his side.
There was an uncle involved somehow.
I'm not sure. I just know that my dad always felt like my mom picked my grandfather's side and my mom says that she was just trying to not take sides and my grandfather's a bit more forgiving than my father.
So, Dad thought that Mom took Papa's side, and Papa, after several years, has been making many, many overtures to try to apologize to my father and restore that relationship, and he's been completely unopened to it.
So that has basically poisoned the rest of their marriage since then.
And I mean, this happened when I was young, so this has been, I'm trying to think, it's been probably, I would guess probably 22, 23 years ago.
Wow, so like a quarter century of alienation and people are still trying to patch this together, is that right?
Right. And remind me of the instigating incident.
Was it one thing? Was it a series of things?
I'm sorry if I missed that. Just remind me of what happened.
I don't. You don't know. That's what I've never been clear about.
I have never been able to get anybody to give me a clear answer.
I've talked to my grandfather. I've talked to my dad.
I've talked to my mom. I've even went to my aunt.
And none of them can even tell me what actually happened.
Right. So for you, Tony, because you're focused so much on the exercise and the health and all of that, this is a troubling gene pool or decision matrix to tie your tail to, right?
Yes, sir. Yeah. And that's another question I'd like to talk about you maybe another time is, we both have serious health issues.
What does that look like if we decide to have kids?
That's something we've talked about.
Oh yeah, I mean, that's genetic counselor time though, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah, that's not philosopher time.
Right. Right.
So, if you've got, if your parents are not real tight, you know, your mom and your dad lost a son, you lost a brother, so there's a lot invested into you and grandkids to be, I mean, it's like an inverted pyramid on one kid, right?
Yeah, which is, I mean, my mom, because of my parents' relationship, basically when we were young, my dad decided his responsibility was the business and my mom decided her responsibility was the kids and made her life pretty much all about us.
And I've been trying to get her to let go of some of that and have some life of her own and stuff like that and not put all the pressure on me.
Her and I have been working with a counselor on that as well.
But that's That's something that is hard for her and that's something that drives Tony nuts about her and I. Is that we've always had a very close relationship and then he comes in and it's not as close anymore.
Well, okay, okay.
I mean, I hear this all the time, and I apologize for my skepticism.
But when people say, well, I have a real close relationship with this person or that person, and then they don't seem to have basic facts about family information or conflicts or whatever, I always question what it means to say, well, we have a really close relationship with my mom.
Well, what about this? Well, I don't really know about that.
But what happened with this? Well, she won't really talk about that.
Or what happens when you talk to her about this?
Well, that's a big problem. What does that mean to be close but not get essential information about important things in life?
I guess essentially you're right.
It was more that I always felt like I could go to her with things.
I always felt like I could talk to her about things and her world was about my life.
And so it felt close, but it wasn't reciprocation.
So that's fair. Yeah, and I'm not trying to catch you.
It's always a genuine confusion that I have.
No, it's a fair point. It's a fair point.
All right. So, Tony, it seems like, barring anything extraordinary or unusual happening, that Alta's family is going to kind of be all up in your grill as you guys go moving forward.
And that's probably why she got so upset if you weren't willing to move back north, right?
Because she wants... And this is true, you know, like I'm a parent and, you know, I would like my daughter around as long as it's sort of feasible and reasonable and she enjoys it.
But in particular, if...
There's not much going on.
This is more usually the case in the moms, right?
So if there's not much going on in the mom's life, if the relationship with the husband isn't real tight, if she's not got a lot of hobbies that are engaging, and particularly if she's obese, that's, you know, cheesecake is not much of a hobby, then what happens is there's this kind of waiting for connection with...
The new marriage with the grandchildren and so on, and people are just like waiting for the bus, just waiting for the bus, waiting for the bus, and they don't end up walking.
So my guess is that if you guys get married and have kids, you know, one of the things that could happen is the, you know, Alta's parents move close and want to spend a lot of time.
And it's not necessarily bad, but it's also not necessarily fair if it's not as welcome on both sides, if that makes sense.
It seems a little more intrusive.
And I've mentioned that before. I've mentioned that they're down here anyways.
They come down here every two months anyways.
They have a second home down here.
I don't understand why they don't just move down here.
If we do have kids, that seems to be what makes sense to me.
It's because of the business.
Okay. The business and both of their entire families for generations lives still in that area.
So they have a lot of ties.
And the business is still there.
Yeah, but I mean, if you have grandkids, that becomes sort of a different matter, right?
I don't have a grandkid that lives.
My brother, my brother's widow is still raising his son right there where they're living.
So then they have to go one or the other, right?
One grandkid or the other. But you're the daughter, so it's probably going to be 60-40, right?
I'm the daughter, but the grandson is a connection to the son that they lost.
Yeah, that's true. And my parents have basically said, if your husband doesn't want us around, why would we insist on our prison?
That's not fair. I'm just saying, I'm telling you what they said.
If the husband doesn't want us around, why would we come down and force our presence on you guys when it's not wanted?
I'm not saying I'm trying to be even and balanced.
I'm the one who's in the middle here.
And it sucks, right?
Yes, I'm trying to explain both sides as unemotionally as possible just to get both of your points across.
Sure. I'm not necessarily voicing my opinions on the matter.
Oh, you know what we should do?
I'm cautious, but go ahead.
We should get your opinions on the matter.
Oh, you just opened that gate right up, right?
I did, didn't I? Yeah.
What are your thoughts? On which thing?
We need to narrow it down a bit.
Well, your mom and your boyfriend seem to be the primary friction point, right?
Yes. So, what are your thoughts?
I think that there's not a lot of bend on either side.
And they both seem to think that they've made huge overtures.
That I see small overtures and I feel like there's something else going on.
There's something innately that they're sensing in each other that I don't understand.
There's like a magnetism that's a repelling magnetism that I just don't get.
Because I love both of these people and I can see great things in both of these people.
Why can't they see it in each other?
So just a lot of frustration.
And a lot of absenting of judgment here, right?
I'm trying. That's very diplomatic, right?
Well, they're both great people, and I love them both, but they don't like each other.
But that's not a lot of what you think.
That's a lot of diplomatic absenting yourself from the equation.
I can see both sides.
Yes, but what is your side?
That's my point.
It's like a webcam and two opposing mirrors going off to infinity.
What is your side? I'm not asking you to look at everyone else's side and balance everything.
What is your side? Sorry to interrupt you, but the reason I say this Is that, like, a lot of people, and by people I generally mean women, like, you're balancing, you're balancing these two forces in your life, right?
And the problem is then you end up focusing on these two forces and you kind of absent yourself.
You ghost yourself. Yeah.
And so you're just used to balancing everything and then you're used to, oh, well, this person's upset about this.
You go and talk to them and you try, like, you end up just carrying water back and forth but not...
Digging any wells or having a drink yourself, right?
So that's my sort of question, which is where are you in this?
Now, of course, there's frustration that it's happening, but the appeasement or the go-between stuff won't fix it.
It hasn't, right? No, it hasn't.
Okay, so you need to be more present, in my humble opinion.
You need to be more present in this and not just try and appease everyone or try and find ways to conciliate and so on.
I've said as much to her from the time we started dating, is that she has to put herself first.
I always ask her what she wants, and I always ask her to really speak up.
Now, Tony, you're just jumping in to make yourself look better, okay?
So just hold off for a second.
If I'm allied with you, that's great, but if you point out that I'm allied with you, it's going to annoy the crap out of her, okay?
So just hold off on that, and I just really wanted to get to where Alta is.
- Okay. - Which part of the situation do you wanna know about? - Okay, why don't why don't we start instead of what you think, what you feel about all of this?
Because there's got to be a lot of feelings that are bottled up for the sake of not short-circuiting this fragile relationship, right?
Right. Okay, so what are the feelings that go on for you when you think about this or when it kind of pops into your life?
The stress and anxiety levels just go through the roof whenever my mom's in town because I know that I'm going to end up dealing with his feelings about her being there and her feelings about him.
So it's a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, a lot of frustration.
And you can't win, right?
No. You can't win.
It's an impossible situation, if I understand what you're saying correctly.
That's what it feels like, yeah.
Right. Right.
But go on. I sympathize.
I really, really sympathize.
But go on. Go on for what?
I mean, that's pretty much what it is.
It's anxiety. It's stress.
It's huge amounts of frustration is what I feel about it.
You know...
I can...
I'm sorry.
I agree with both of them on different aspects of what they're saying.
They say the thing that I think.
I think that my mom has been pretty hard on him.
But I think she also sees that he kind of jerks me around a little bit.
Emotionally, there's a lot of up and down, and I get that there's sexual frustration and everything, but there's a lot of up and down.
There's a lot of either stonewalling or punishing, not tirades exactly, but he either won't talk to me or he will tell me everything that he thinks, and my mom sees that, and that's A big part of what she sees as him being not good for me.
Okay, okay. Let's pause there for a sec.
So, Tony, I get we're talking about you like you're not here.
I apologize for that. But for Alter, for your standpoint, there's a stonewalling.
There's sometimes maybe an overshare or whatever it is.
And you say, and your mom sees that, right?
Yes. Okay, how does your mom see that?
Because she sees how I am sometimes when I come home after spending time with him.
You're complaining to your mom about your boyfriend?
I have made a point to not do that.
Then how does she know?
Because she can read me.
I've told her a couple of things when I am at the end of my rope, but anything before that I won't tell.
What have you said to her? I've said that he kind of goes up and down in moods and that he either won't talk to me or basically what I've said to you.
He either won't talk to me or he'll kind of grill me.
So she sees the unhappiness that sometimes happens out of your relationship with Tony, right?
Right. And she's been there at times when He's come through the door at the house and pretended like I wasn't there or acted crabby and frustrated or whatever was going on that he basically ignored me and pretended that I wasn't there in my own home.
She's seen some of these things happen.
All right, what do you say about that?
Is that a reasonable description, not necessarily an explanation?
That's accurate. Sure, that's a big part of why I've been in therapy and why we continue to work on things.
Yeah, I deny none of this.
And I gotta say that it goes both ways.
I'll never forget the time that you come home at 1 in the morning and your mom yells at you and calls you a slut.
That's true. You're a 27-year-old virgin girl and your mom freaks...
Your mom called you a what?!
Yeah, she'll deny that one, but she did.
Because I was out until 5 in the morning with Tony and I came home late and she thought that the only reason I could possibly be out with him until 5 in the morning was because I was being a slut with my boyfriend who I had been in a relationship with at that point for like 9 months.
So yeah, he's not wrong.
She's done her fare of the same thing.
So I've been getting it from both sides.
That's horrible. Yeah.
No, no, don't give me that laugh.
No, no, no, don't invite me into the it's so kooky and funny place because that's horrible.
That is a terrible, terrible thing to say to somebody who's not Stormy Daniels.
That is horrifying.
Now, are you saying that your mom not only has not apologized but won't even acknowledge that she said it?
She has apologized for, if I ever said something like that, I didn't, you know, I didn't mean it and I'm sorry, but I didn't really, you know, obviously that's not really an apology.
BNAP, yeah, yeah.
She apologized for freaking out on me that night, but she still denies that she called me a slut.
She has apologized for the rest of that conversation, but she doesn't believe that she called me a slut.
And that particular thing she hasn't apologized for because she thinks surely she would never say something like that.
Was she a virgin when she got married?
I don't know that for sure, but I don't think so, knowing my dad.
That sounds weird to say, but I doubt it.
A little bit. What do you mean?
From all I've heard about my father as a young man, I guess I should say.
Apparently he was a stud back in his day.
That he wouldn't have waited, right?
Right. Which probably doesn't make Tony feel all too good.
And based on my mom's defensiveness one time when I was talking about, I was being pretty judgmental about a cousin of mine, and she jumped down my throat about it.
And I thought at the time it seemed kind of weird, and then years later I realized, oh, that's probably why.
So like I said, I don't know for sure.
I doubt it. And is it fair to say, Alter, that that is just about the worst thing that someone could say to you?
Is that your slut? Yeah.
I mean, given how much you've sacrificed to remain a virgin before getting married, I mean, that is probably the N-word for you, right?
Right. Right. Because here's the thing.
And this is why I think all of these mechanics are going on.
When you love someone, you can't like someone who hurts them.
You understand? This is a basic equation in human life, right?
If you love someone, you can't also like someone who hurts them.
And Tony, you saw Alta's mom calling her a slut, right?
You heard it. Yes, sir.
Now... No, you told me the very night.
You called me and you told me that night.
I was going to say, but yeah, you didn't hear it.
No, I wasn't there. I told you, but you didn't hear it.
But I've seen this from the time we started dating.
I see these things.
So, it's not Alta's fault, but it's Alta's responsibility.
Because, Alta, you're going to your mom and bitching about Tony, and you're going to Tony and bitching about your mom, and then you're like, I can't believe they don't get along!
Which is why I've quit talking to either of them about the other.
No, no, no. Water under the bridge.
Can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Can't unring the bell. No, that's true. I am responsible.
You have engineered this, young lady.
You have engineered this.
And I mean this with all sympathy, and I'm very, very sorry for what your mom said to you.
But you know, you know.
That if you go to Tony and say, my mom called me a slut, that that's going to turn him against your mom.
And you know that if you go to your mom and complain about Tony, that's going to turn your mom against Tony.
And then you say, well, I just feel so torn and they won't get along.
Right? They're both so great, I can't understand why they don't get along.
You've got to be kidding me, right?
I'm not saying you shouldn't have said all these things, but you're causal in one of the main drivers as to why they're not getting along, right?
So why did you do it?
Please understand, I'm not saying you shouldn't have done it.
I'm just curious why you did it, knowing what the consequences would be.
Lack of forethought? Not much of an answer.
Because that's all after the fact, right?
So the question is, why did you do it in the moment?
I felt like I was able to...
I'm sorry?
I felt like I was...
Able to, I guess it kind of just depended on which one I was feeling closer to at the time.
Yeah. So you're very impulsive when it comes to sharing, right?
In terms of like what dominoes are you setting in motion?
What happens after you start sharing?
That is something, yes, in the beginning, for the first while in our relationship, it took me a while to figure out that I couldn't Do that longer than it should have, admittedly, to figure out that that was partly, no, not partly, that I was contributing.
Okay, here's my annoying, you guys ready to get tiny bit comfortable, here's my annoying lecture about this stuff.
And I really, look, you guys are heroes for bringing this up.
I really want to point that out.
But this is what you need to learn.
This is what everyone needs to learn. If you've got issues with someone, you work it out with that person.
You don't drag other people in.
You don't cry on their shoulder.
You don't run around and complain about that person to other people.
You don't poison their relationship with other people rather than confronting them directly.
You understand? Your mom calls you a slut.
You get in the car. You jump on the plane.
You go and talk it out with her face to face.
And you sort that shit out.
But if you run to Tony...
And you say, well, my mom called me a slut, and you're crying, and you can't breathe, and your heart is breaking, and I mean, of course Tony's going to look at your mom and say, you fat, cheesecake-eating slob of verbal abuse.
You are making my girlfriend the love of my life, the apple of my heart.
You are making her cry.
You are breaking her heart.
That's what happens when you become a black hole and drag everyone into the problem except the person who caused it.
You go and talk to that person directly.
You drag other people in, you create this kind of mess.
Which can't be undone.
Tony has, he's stonewalling you, he's oversharing.
You don't leave and then go and cry on your mom's shoulder.
You sit there and you work it out with Tony.
Now, it doesn't mean you've got to keep everything a secret, right?
But you share after it's worked out and after the emotional heartbreak and the storm has come and gone.
Because if you're like a drowning person just grabbing at everyone around you, because you've been wounded, because you're angry, because you're upset, because you're hurt, you are taking a hammer to everything Jenga block pyramid of respect that's around you.
All of the complicated interwebs, the threats, the tubes, all of the spiderweb of relationships that ties everyone together.
You're just going through there with a flaming sword.
For the momentary emotional satisfaction of dumping on Tony because your mom broke your heart rather than talking to your mom, which is a lot more difficult, and dealing with that heartbreak one-to-one face-to-face right away.
But if you start grabbing and dragging at everyone else, you're gonna smash up all your relationships.
Because everyone's gonna end up disliking everyone else.
You understand? You deal with the person directly!
Have you ever heard me go on destructive gossip about other people?
No! And I love me some gossip.
Don't get me wrong. I do.
I love me some gossip. But I'm not out there sowing seeds.
Lots of people in the world I have problems with.
But you don't run around to everyone, particularly interpersonal stuff, particularly people who cannot escape each other.
You know, if I come home and I Bitch at someone about this mean waitress, whatever, right?
I can't imagine I would, but let's say I did, right?
Come on, oh, this waitress is so mean and vicious and blah, right?
Cold, food was cold, she didn't apologize when she got me, whatever, right?
Okay, well, I just don't go back to that.
It's not a permanent thing.
It's not set in stone. It's not people who can't get away from each other.
But you've got a boyfriend and you've got a mom.
And you've taken a sledgehammer to their relationship and you're setting them against each other.
But they can't get away.
You understand? They can't avoid each other.
Well, I guess they could if it was an extremity.
You just broke up with everyone or whatever, right?
And you have the lesson in your father's relationship, right?
With the grandparents.
Your grandparents, right? That something catastrophic happened and no one's talking about it.
No one's explained it. No one's learned a damn thing.
I bet you had a lot to do with this shit.
I bet you had had almost everything to do with this kind of stuff.
What really wounds is bad-mouthing.
Bad-mouthing behind the back, the gossip, the rumor, the backstabbing.
You know, Tony used the phrase, it's a slap in the face.
That's honorable. Slap in the face is honorable compared to the whisper campaign and the crying on other people's shoulders and you're wounded and you're angry and you're upset and then you're just building resentment and frustration and hostility between people.
Which you can't fix. You can't ever undo the word slut in Tony's mind.
The moment that passes your lips down the telephone wire into Tony's brain, boom!
It's like a brand.
It's like a brand. Like some smoky Smallville actress floating around.
I mean, it burns and it stays.
It's like a tattoo. And that's the price you pay for not confronting people directly, but rather running to other people to complain about those people.
Is that those people that you complain to don't like the people you're complaining about.
And you say, well, I didn't really say anything with my mom, but she can read me.
She knows. The question is, if you're still upset about what Tony did, why are you spending time with your mom?
You should be spending time with Tony to sort it out.
So that by the time you spend time with your mom, you're happy again.
And you can say, we had a problem, we worked it out, it's great.
We're deeper, we're closer, we're better connected, we did the work, whatever, right?
But if you're still mad at Tony, and then you go and crap at your mom about Tony, what's she gonna think of Tony?
This is engineered.
I'm not saying it's conscious.
And I please understand. I'm not saying you did anything bad or nasty.
It's just...
You don't run to other people when you're upset with someone.
You go to that person and you talk it out.
And if that person refuses to work with you?
I think you know the answer to that as well as I do.
You've listened to this show for a while, right?
What do you do? Ditch them?
I mean, is that... No, you don't take no for an answer.
Because I have spent hours trying to work things out I mean, how many times have we spent hours together and I've been picking and picking and picking and picking and trying to get you to work with me for hours.
I know. And you stonewall me for hours and finally I give up and leave.
Yeah. Yeah.
And this is what I say. It becomes difficult.
We don't have any privacy either.
No, no, no. Let's go back to that, right?
Okay. So, I'll turn.
You kind of given me a victim thing here, right?
I'm begging you, Tony, begging you, please work with me, please listen to me, please let's work this out.
And he just stonewalls me and then you got Teary at the end, right?
Is it not the truth?
She's not wrong. I'm not saying she's wrong.
Okay. But she chose you.
You chose him, right?
Yeah. You eventually talk it out.
No, you chose him.
Now, okay, tell me this.
When was the first time, hang on, hang on.
When was the first time, Alter, that Tony Stonewalled you in the relationship?
Hmm. A couple months in.
Was there any indication that he withheld emotional connection when he was upset before that?
Any indication that he withheld in what way?
I'm not really sure I understand what you're asking.
Shut down emotionally. Yeah, so when he's upset, maybe he punishes or maybe he protects himself or whatever by putting up the force, like shields.
Shield's 100% captain, right?
He stonewalls, he goes blank face, he's emotional distance, and it tortures you.
This is a very common dynamic between men and women that the woman wants to resolve something.
The man is distant. It drives the woman insane, right?
Right. So, what was the indication early on in the relationship that this might be an issue?
I guarantee you it was before a couple of months.
It was all through school.
I mean, we'd been around each other for quite a while and I'd seen that happen, so...
You'd seen what happened.
The stonewalling and how did it happen?
Is it before you dated? Yes.
I mean, just as a friend.
And as a friend, it didn't, you know...
I didn't really care because I'd just walk away.
But you knew, whether you care or not, you knew that this is what he did.
Yes. So you chose him.
Yes. Knowing full well that this is what he did.
Mm-hmm. So what's to complain about?
I don't follow. I genuinely don't understand.
This is who he is.
You knew this before you dated him.
So why am I supposed to wait and keep and sort things out and, you know, stay and do everything with him until he sorts it out if he's not going to talk to me that day, if he's not going to talk about it?
Okay, no, no. You're trying to drag me into your victim land again, which I'm not going.
I'm not going there. Let me rewind so you understand what I'm trying to get across.
All right? Okay. He is Stonewall Jackson, right?
He is Captain Wall.
He is exactly what the Trumpers want along the southern border, right?
He is a Pink Floyd album.
He is another brick in the forever, right?
He is Stonewall guy when there's emotional tension, right?
Not always, but, you know, it happens, right?
You knew that before you even dated him.
100%.
You saw it happen, as you said, when you were in school together, right?
Yes.
So what were you expecting to change?
Where was the magic going to come in wherein he was going to suddenly be a different human being than the one you knew as a friend in school?
This is such an important question, and again, I really, really appreciate you guys talking about this, because this is literally what civilization hangs on.
No pressure, right?
But this is really, really important.
Because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why women date guys and complain about all of the same things that they did, the guys did, before they even started dating them.
You know, it's like... I know this girl, man.
She only speaks Japanese.
So I thought I'd date her.
But you know what happens?
She only speaks Japanese.
We can't even talk.
It drives me crazy. I sit there and I raise my voice and I speak clearly and I bring out hand puppets and I draw on the wall.
All of the English stuff.
And she won't respond to me except in Japanese.
It's insane. It drives me crazy.
What's the matter with her? How do we fix her?
It's like, but you knew she only spoke Japanese before you started dating her.
I don't...
You know, the people are who they are.
They are who they are.
So choosing someone, knowing the good and bad about them, and then spending the next 20 months complaining about everything you knew about them before you even dated them, it's like me going to buy a car.
And the guy says, oh, the transmission's shot and the brakes are wiggly.
You understand? And then I bring it home and I sign the document saying the brakes are, the transmission's shot and the brakes are wiggly.
And I get it home and I'm like driving and it's like, hey man, the transmission's shot and the brakes are wiggly.
This is, oh, I can't believe it.
This is terrible. You knew who he was before you dated him.
What's the complaint here?
He is as advertised, right?
I guess I figured we'd figure out how to interact together.
I figured that we'd learn each other's patterns better and figure out a way to compromise on this stuff.
Well, okay, let me ask you this.
Did you identify this as a problem in Tony before you started dating him and say, well, listen, this is the one thing that's going to be a big problem.
I need to know that you're going to be committed to not stonewalling me when you get upset.
Was that something that you were, or did you like just sail in and start dating and like no, no fine print, no EULA, nothing like that?
I guess so. Don't passive out on me.
Don't rubber bones on me.
Please, I'm begging you. I'm on my knees.
Don't stonewall me. Oh, that's kind of ironic when you think about it, right?
I'm trying to get something from you, and now you're stonewalling me.
Wait, that was you, not Tony, on Helium, right?
Did I get that right? You get that right?
We did talk about some things.
The big thing we talked about early on was committing to not yelling at each other, that if we couldn't have a conversation...
That we would not yell.
We would come back later and have the conversation.
But there would be no yelling and no cursing.
And we did that probably on the first week we started dating because I had seen how her family interacted and I wasn't going to have that in my life.
And stonewalling fulfills that, right?
You're not yelling. Yeah.
So you've kept your end of the bargain.
I think it's a better alternative.
When I grew up, it was...
You know, it was violence. It was chaos.
It was yelling. It was smashing.
And I kind of wish they would just shut the hell up.
It's funny, you know, I mean, I grew up in a bad part of town.
And so a lot of the relationships were dysfunctional.
And, you know, you could hear yelling and throwing and all that.
And I remember as a kid, this fundamental question just rolled through my brain over and over again.
Like, why don't people just get along?
Just be nice. Just be nice.
It's not that complicated. Just be nice.
Don't have to be perfect. Just be nice.
And I could never figure out, like, what's all the yelling for?
Like, what are you, crazy? Oh, I don't know.
But let's get back to Alta.
Listen, don't worry, we'll get to Tony.
Tony, but let's get back to Arthur.
What magic did you expect to occur that the habits he had at a quarter century were going to magically vanish into the relationship?
Like I said, I just really kind of thought that we'd learn how to talk and communicate and work through this stuff as we went along.
And why did you think that?
Because we did it before we started dating.
We had that conversation about not yelling.
We had a conversation about how certain things were going to be handled.
I didn't come right out and say anything about the stonewalling at the time because I saw him doing it, but I hadn't really...
Sought at the time to bring it up.
It wasn't something that...
It was something I'd noticed, but not something that I had really put into words, I guess.
All right, let me ask you this.
About it? Let me ask you this.
With regards to Tony's relationship with your mom, Alter...
Is the stonewalling the bigger problem, or is you running to your mom complaining about Tony the problem, the bigger problem?
Which of those two is a bigger problem in their relationship?
In their relationship between each other, it would be me talking to the other one, which is why I have quit doing that.
Well, as we've talked about, quitting doing it now is not particularly helpful unless it becomes explicit and you apologize and you work to rebuild things.
But, see, this is the funny thing.
This is a self-knowledge thing.
When you listen back to this conversation, you will hear yourself saying, I'm helpless.
I just have to try and manage these two people.
They both disagree. I love them both, like you were just somehow absent.
And then there were just these problems happening, right?
As opposed to saying, I really screwed up because, you know, not with ill intent, and I fully accept that, right?
But not with ill intent. But I bitched to both of these people about each other, and now they don't like each other.
Gosh, I wonder why. I've made a mess.
Yes. And so now you're complaining about...
Tony's stonewalling when the major issue that we were talking about was Tony's relationship with your mom and dad, which is kind of your fault.
Now, when I say your fault, I don't mean beat yourself up or anything, because self-knowledge is supposed to provide you choices, not self-attack, right?
Power. Because you, I said earlier, it sounds like you feel helpless, and you said yes, right?
And now if you recognize that unconsciously or whatever you want to call it, you've engineered this conflict between Tony and your mother-in-law, you're no longer helpless.
I don't know if you can fix things between Tony and your mother-in-law, but at least you know what happened or how it came to be.
Yes. So you're not helpless.
It's not just happening to you.
You're not just a leaf on the stream, right?
Right. Right. Thank you.
And if...
Let's put it to you this way.
It is as easy for Tony to change his stonewalling as it is for you to change your frustration at his stonewalling.
Do you understand what I'm saying? No.
It drives you crazy when he stonewalls, right?
Yes. Like literally half crazy, right?
Like not bunny boiler, but half a bunny boiler, right?
Oh, it drives you like half crazy, seriously, when he stonewalls, right?
Yes.
Now, how difficult would it be for you to not be bothered by his stonewalling?
Pretty tough.
Pretty tough?
Yeah, it would be pretty tough.
Okay, from 1 to 10, how difficult would it be for you to not be bothered by his stonewalling?
And in the sevens, eights, probably.
All right. It is as easy for him to change his stonewalling habit as it is for you to change your reaction to his stonewalling habit.
In other words, when you focus on changing the other person rather than changing yourself, you're doomed.
Because you're saying, it's 100% you, 0% me, you need to change, I'm perfect, you're broken, fix yourself.
You stonewall, that's bad.
None of the problem is me.
In the same way you said, my mother-in-law and Tony, just don't get along.
I'm just trying to balance things.
I'm just trying to find a way to survive in this conflict like you're totally out of the equation, right?
And I want you to be empowered, right?
Have power in your life.
Have choices in your life.
So, if you, instead of being, like, instead of trying to get Tony to change his stonewalling, if you changed your reaction to his stonewalling, that would be something you would have more control over, right?
Yes. Because nagging people, like, please change, change, change, change, you gotta change, you gotta change, you gotta alter what you're doing, you gotta alter what you're doing, it's bad, it's bad, it's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong, right?
It doesn't work!
You understand, right? It doesn't work!
Because you're saying, Tony, you should change, but I can't.
You should alter what you do in this relationship, but I don't have to alter anything.
You should change, I should not change at all.
In other words, you're saying, for me, change is impossible, but you should change.
You understand that if you want people around you to change, you change yourself.
You don't Run around trying to change them.
You change yourself.
And then you model to people, you show to people what it looks like to change for the better.
Right? Because his stonewalling comes up because he feels overwhelmed and doesn't know how to respond, resents the neediness, and is frightened of the neediness.
And so the best way to get him to take his wall down is for you to not be as needy.
Nobody opens the door when it sounds like people are hitting it with a battering ram, you understand?
A soft knock, maybe, but not boom, boom, boom, boom, right?
When they can see teeth through the keyhole, right?
So if you want Tony to change, okay, it's fine.
You say, okay, well, I can't change Tony, so the stonewalling drives me crazy.
Let me work on not being driven crazy by the stonewalling, right?
That way he's got room to change.
Or maybe he will, maybe he won't, but at least I won't be as bothered by the stonewalling.
But if you say, I'm bothered by the stonewalling and the only solution is for him to no longer stonewall, then you have no agency, no responsibility, no ownership, no power, no control, no authority, no effect in your life.
You're just running around begging for people to release you from your own emotional reactions.
Which... You can't change, so you're begging other people to change.
But you're already modeling that you're not going to change.
So why should they change?
It doesn't inspire people to change if you won't work on or addressing change within your own heart, within your own reactions.
Have you shared with your mom 10 to 1 positive versus negative Tony stories?
Probably not 10 to 1, no.
Right. See, she may not be seeing a lot of the fun, she just may be seeing a lot of the problems, right?
And if mostly what she hears about your relationship with Tony is he's making you sad, he's making you angry, he's making you upset, he's making you frustrated, Well.
If you're saying, want to marry into this movie, it has 3% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Won't get a lot of takers on that, right?
What if complaining was no longer an option?
What if? This is a general, not just to you, it's a question to Tony as well.
What if complaining was no longer an option?
Let me tell you a little story.
Would that not be passive?
Just real quick, would that not be the most passive thing to do?
To not complain? To not bring up any issues as you see them, yeah.
Well, bringing up issues and complaining are two not the same things, but let me give you an example.
I am mentally very well organized.
My physical space, not always quite so much.
Right? You know what they say, like clutter desk, clean mind.
But I can be...
I'm not a slob, but I can definitely be disorganized in my environment sometimes.
Now, my wife...
Never complained about it.
She's very organized, very tidy, very like a place for everything and everything in its place.
I used to call her Heidi when we first got married because I put something down and the whirlwind of organization would pick it up and put it someplace useful that I didn't know where it was.
It's like space aliens were beaming up things for experiments and beaming them back in wifely productive ways that I don't know where they are!
And she could.
She could absolutely complain about this.
And I would agree with her.
I'm better. I'm better.
I mean, I recognize, you know, I live in a space with someone else, and it drives her nuts when...
It doesn't drive her nuts. She doesn't like it as much when things are sort of messy, and so I work to, you know, pick out...
Like, I'm better, but I'm not her.
Now, she could...
She could complain about this.
But... Part of what makes me delightful is my creativity, is my verbal skills, my conversational skills.
This is why you guys are calling in, I hope, right?
Sure, yeah. And so the fact that some things in life are just part and parcel.
You know, there is this, you know, the genius with the messy office, right?
I mean, this is not a cliche for no reason.
It's not a stereotype for no reason.
So the light and the dark in the human personality is very often interwoven.
Interwoven. And I know people who are very tiny, and they don't have the geyser of creativity and ideas and arguments that are bubbling up in me constantly, right?
And both are valuable.
Both are important. Both are great.
Both are great. My daughter takes a little bit more after me.
Her space, she's better than me for sure, but she's, you know, not, she's not my wife.
And my wife could complain about this, but she would be complaining about, I love this beautiful statue.
Oh, there's a shadow I hate.
You know, well, I'm like, these two things are the same.
The statue and the shadow are the same thing.
It's like hanging a beautiful picture on your wall and then saying, oh man, now I can't see the wall.
It's the same thing. It's the same action.
The light and the dark, often, not always, and certainly not in, like, abuse and violence and so on, but the light and the dark are intertwined.
I guarantee you that Tony's stonewalling has some very positive aspects to it.
I guarantee you that some of the things that Tony, you don't like about Alta have very positive aspects to them as well.
Now, when you choose someone, it is not a buffet.
It is not a buffet.
This fantasy that we can Frankenstein-style assemble people into everything that's perfect and wonderful and can't be a mirror.
It's narcissistic. This person should be exactly like me.
I love that my wife is organized.
She loves that I'm creative.
I don't get to say, well, I want all this creativity and all this organization and this, that, and the other, and she's got to love video games.
That's just me wanting to date me with boobs.
That's not fair. I'm bringing them along anyway.
So when you choose someone, you choose the package.
You choose the package.
You don't go to the hotel room and say, this hotel room is perfect.
But I want it painted and I want three extra rooms and whatever, right?
People are package deals.
And you can spend your life, if you want, you can spend your entire life, if you want, picking someone and then picking them apart.
Choosing someone and then disassembling them and trying to reassemble them into something that you vaguely prefer.
But all you'll end up with is a life of dissatisfaction, a life of frustration.
So, Alter, you chose Tony.
You knew that he had the stonewalling thing.
Now you can say, well, I chose him, and I chose the stonewalling thing.
Now I want to change him.
That's not right.
Now, does that mean Tony's going to be the same from now until the end of time?
No! But he's not going to change because you're mad at him, and he's not going to change because you're upset with him, and he's not going to change because you're nagging him.
He's going to change because he's inspired by your change, or he's going to change because he wants something different, or he's going to change because he loves you, not because he's pressured, not because he's nagged, not because he's bullied, or you're displeased with him, or you manipulate him, or you withhold from him, right? Or you punish him.
You punish him by running to your mom and complaining about him.
Knowing that that's going to cause trouble in his life.
At least his stonewalling is just the two of you.
You bring other people into the relationship and complain about Tony.
You're bringing another airstrike in on Tony that can't be contained within the relationship.
Running to your mom is more of a betrayal than the stonewalling because the stonewalling was known from before you dated.
Before your first kiss.
You don't buy...
A car. You know, shop for a car and buy a car and test drive a car and then bring it home and say, I'm going to make a boat.
Tony is who Tony is.
You are who you are.
Now, Tony, if you're around there saying, well, Alter is boring.
Okay, I'm not saying you are, but this was one of the issues that she brought up before, right?
She is who she is. You don't get to buffet her.
You don't get to pick and choose.
There's no Franken personality that we can assemble.
The person is who the person is.
If we like the person, if we can take the person, if we accept the person, if we love the person, we take the whole person.
The whole person.
Don't push and pull. Don't say, well, I'll take this part of you.
This part of you is bad. This part of you is good.
I like this part. This part's got to go.
That is a waste of time.
It's exhausting. It's debilitating.
It drains love out of a relationship like you wouldn't believe.
To feel alternatively loved And then rejected because of the petty preferences of someone across the table will grow resentment like weeds in an abandoned lot.
It will grow resentment because it's fundamentally manipulative.
I will give you love when you please me.
I will withhold love when you displease me.
That's not love.
That's potty training.
Oh no, that's not even potty training.
That's pet training. And it is a refusal to simply embrace the entire person.
And the big problem is that when you do this to other people, you do it to yourself.
And you lower your standards for yourself because you're so focused on imposing standards on other people, right, that for you all, you're complaining about Tony's stonewalling while running off to bitch at him about your mom so that no one's going to get along.
You're complaining about him when you're the one acting in the destructive manner in that particular instance.
I'm sure Tony's done his too, but we're just talking about this particular thing.
So the question, if you want to have love, do you want the whole person?
Not the bits you like, not the bits you approve of, not the bits that happen to fit, but do you want the whole person?
Now, does that mean you never try to correct anything?
Of course you do. Of course you do.
But not out of rejection.
Not out of pettiness.
Not out of nagging. Not out of discontentedness.
And certainly not fundamentally.
Certainly not in any fundamental way.
So, if you can't live with the stonewalling, that's who he is.
Imagining that you can somehow disassemble that in him, trust me, the stonewalling occurs because people try to manipulate the living crap out of him.
Because they used their emotions to bribe and bully and reward him.
Guaranteed, that's where the stonewalling is.
It's because there's manipulative people like crazy around Tony when he was growing up and it was not safe to lower his guard because people would use his vulnerabilities and his weakness to control him.
So if you're trying to control Tony and get him to drop his guard, well, that's exactly why the guard is there in the first place.
It will never work. It's like trying to pick a lock by pumping crazy glue into it.
You just make the defenses higher.
You make them stronger.
Because you're doing exactly the kind of manipulative, punishing, withdrawing stuff that is why those defenses are there in the first place.
It won't work. If you can embrace the whole person, there is nothing about my wife that I would change.
Nothing about my wife that I would change.
And there's nothing about me that she would change.
Now, if you can look at your partner and say, you are perfect for me.
We fit together wonderfully.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
If you didn't change a stitch from now until the end of time, I would consider myself a God-blessed person to be with you.
Then the idea that you're going to run and bitch about people and you're going to try and change their fundamental natures and so on.
It's just not part of the equation.
But you have to do that with yourself, too.
I... You know, there's so much light and dark in everything.
So today, I had technical issues.
I'm holding my mic, right?
So I had technical issues. And they drive me a little crazy.
Drive me a little nuts. And I say, well, I should change that about myself.
Why? Why?
Part of the frustration with technical issues is why generally the technology goes very well.
So I can say, well, I don't want to be bothered by technical issues, but then I'd still be talking into a $20 webcam and sounding like an AM beach radio with sand in the grill.
It's all part of the personality.
And if you can look at each other and say, If you don't change a stitch from now till the end of time, I'm a very lucky person to be with you.
If you can't look at the person and say that, I don't know what you build on.
But this fruit ninja slice and dice and carve up and I like this and I don't like this and I'll take this and I'll reject this and I want that and I don't want that and this is good and this is bad.
Dear Lord. Dear Lord above.
It is exhausting. It is debilitating.
What's even worse, it doesn't even work.
So if you guys can get there, more power to you.
If you can't, because if you think the bus is coming, it's real hard to walk, right?
So if you think that there's some buffet change, there's some combination lock, some stethoscope and beeping instrument that you can use to crack the lock of perfection, then you're going to sit there and try and control and change and bully and manipulate and praise and reward and stonewall and, you know, here's some physical affection.
Oh, I'm withdrawing my physical affection.
Or here's a favorite meal because you did something I like.
Or here's some earrings. Like, if you're doing all of this Pavlovian Reward and punishment stuff, in the hopes that you're going to get what you want, then what you're doing is sinking deeper into a relationship that fundamentally isn't going to work because you don't love the other person.
Fundamentally. You know, it's the whole package.
Go big or go home. Take the whole package or take none of it.
But sitting there waiting to will it into existence or make it happen, I mean, that's No.
I think that's exhausting, and that's, I think, the fundamental question.
You don't have to answer it now, but that's the fundamental question that you guys have to look at each other and into your own hearts and say, okay, well, can I be satisfied with who this person is without change?
Right? Can't you?
Without change? Don't you want to get more things done with your life than trying to change someone?
Into what you want. Which is fundamentally a confession that you can't change.
Getting other people to want to change.
Getting other people to change is a confession that you won't change.
I can't change my reaction to you, so you have to change your behavior.
I can't answer your arguments, oh conservatives, so you're not allowed on this campus.
I can't answer Christina Hoffs summons rebuttals of the wage gap, so I'm going to pull fire alarms.
Turn on sprinklers and throw buckets of red.
Do not be a snowflake and do not be a human carver.
Do not be fruit and injuring people.
It has you wait for something that will never arrive, which is the imaginary perfection of brutalizing someone to conform to your often irrational expectations and to project a capacity for change onto others that you are not manifesting yourself.
It causes a cost.
It costs respect. It costs love.
It costs People, you know why people break up?
I'm not saying you guys will or should, I'm just telling you what I think.
People fundamentally break up because they're exhausted.
Because they're exhausted.
And they're exhausted because they're busy trying to change each other rather than getting busy with something important in life.
You know, trying to change other people in their interpersonal relationships is not a substitute for having children or having a great calling or doing good in the world or Building a church or...
Saving souls or whatever it is that's going to leave a real positive impact in the world.
Fussing and pulling at the threads of other people and trying to rearrange them in your own particular...
It's boring.
It's a huge waste of time and energy.
It doesn't work. And I think it really distracts people from their potential.
It certainly will distract your partner from their potential.
Because if you believe in each other and don't waste time trying to reassemble and disassemble and tweak each other...
You can actually achieve the kind of greatness that means that all of these supposed flaws are kind of immaterial, they kind of don't matter.
Yeah, I could be more tidy in my environment sometimes, but I'm helping the world in very powerful ways.
Each of you could, will, or wish into existence some improvement in some particular state or habit.
But what if you were just loved and supported or compelled upwards by respect and love?
You could then achieve the kind of greatness that means all of these supposed flaws don't matter.
They don't matter.
You look at the sun on a bright sunny day.
You know there are sunspots there, right?
But you don't care because it's so damn bright anyway.
What does it matter?
That there are a few sunspots on the sun burn so brightly that all of these flaws, they don't matter.
Because everything great that we have, from engineering to freedom to law, morality, philosophy, self-knowledge, all of this occurred because people were willing to overlook their imperfections, whatever that even means.
And just aim for the very highest they could and inspire other people based upon that.
And I think if you guys listen to this show, all of you out there, I think this is kind of what you want, isn't it?
To do something great and grand and powerful with your life and not spend it bitching about people that you chose to other people and then complaining that they don't get along and she's boring and he's stonewalling and we're playing too many board games and Don't you want your lives to be bigger?
More memorable?
More powerful?
More inspiring?
To pull people up from pettiness like some giant magnet over a half graveyard of robots, pull people up, animate them and bring them to life and get them to shake off their dust and turn their bone marrow into lightning!
And turn their words into hurricanes.
Turn their eyes into lasers.
Turn their thoughts into fireworks.
So people can jump out of their pettiness.
The pettiness that we're all put into like a pet into a pocket.
Just jump out of it.
Or leap it. We can all be Shakespeare, we can all be Dickens, we can all be great, we can all be the half-gods of humanity.
But first we have to forget the littleness with which people try to box us in, make us small, you know, like those cars that they crush into tiny cubes.
I want for you guys, as I want for all of you, Power.
Influence. And it doesn't mean doing what I do.
It can be anything. It can be anything.
But to do that, we have to release ourselves from the tiny, endless, claustrophobic, stoppered-up, airless bottle, the genie bottle that we're stuffed into to be small, to be inoffensive, to be petty, to be running around with little things, with little complaints, with little problems.
To be rebels against littleness is the genesis of greatness.
And what if you didn't have any little complaints but only big inspirations?
And what if you could get behind each other and propel each other up into the stratosphere, like a flare of possibility in the endless night sky of littleness that we're all infected and cursed by, it seems.
What I do is what you can do.
Everyone does it in a different way.
Everyone does it in a Different genre or sphere of influence.
It can be everything from pet rescue to the rescue of a civilization.
But what if you didn't have to worry about who was putting cheesecake in their goddamn mouths and who was what weight and whose conflict with who 25 years ago caused a problem and who you said what to who and who was being quiet or silent or stonewalling or who was not being quite as interesting as you'd like them to be in the moment.
And who knows if people who find other people boring or even complain, they may not even be complaining about boredom.
They may be complaining that they can't Find peace in their own minds.
So they need constant stimulation.
So when other people are relaxed, they're restless and they get bored and they want to then disturb other people's relaxation because they can't relax themselves.
So they walk around saying, oh, you're boring.
I'm so bored. It's so dull.
Because they can't relax.
They can't feel comfortable in their own skin.
Can't enjoy their own company.
Who knows what drives people's petty complaints.
But what if we just don't?
There are big things in the world to complain about.
And the pettiness may very well be the end of a song.
So I hope that helps. I do have to move on to the next caller, but I really do appreciate you guys calling in and let's stay in touch.
I really, really want to know how it shakes out.
I appreciate this so much.
Thank you, Stefan. Thank you. Alright, up next we have Alex.
Alex wrote in and said, As a result of this,
I have taken extreme precautions and have completely withdrawn any non-mandatory interaction with female co-workers and ensure to record official interaction with subordinates, i.e., when I conduct an interview for any position, I always record the event and make it known to the candidate that this is occurring.
This is already compounded with the insane diversity agenda.
Equipped with an official diversity officer, policies, hiring practices, and seminars, I enjoy the technical aspects of my job, find the work fulfilling, receive good remuneration, and excel at what I do.
However, I'm not sure I can continue much longer as options to combat the bureaucratic overreach are limited, and I see no sign of this trend reversing in the near future.
How should one proceed in dissenting against the implementation of such policies, where even voicing opposition or raising hate facts transforms them into a pariah?
How does one protect their reputation in an atmosphere where listen and believe is quickly becoming official policy?
That's from Alex.
Hi, how are you? I think better than you at the moment, which I hate to say, but man, that is quite a tale.
Is there more that you wanted to add to it?
Can I start with two points?
One to sort of maybe give the tone, or rather an insight into the mindset of the upper management in HR, just from the recent event that occurred.
So the institution that I work at is fairly renowned internationally, so they often hold very large conferences where they'll invite various groups to come and present.
So the most recent one was on regenerative medicine.
And so basically the day before the event, they already sent out all the, you know, the social media marketing posters, etc.
And they were tweeted at by an individual that was associated with a group called Mantle Watchers.
So a Mantle is basically, I guess, Derogatory term used by feminist organizations that denote panels that only represent male voices.
So they were tweeted at by someone who was affiliated with this Mantle Watchers group, basically saying, shame on you, next time you need to try better for gender diversity.
So The person that was actually tweeting at them was a nobody, basically.
They probably had less than a thousand Twitter followers.
If you look through their tweets, they have one or two retweets per tweet.
So they could have just easily ignored them.
They could have dunked on them pretty easily, but they folded almost instantaneously.
They had to release an official policy saying, we're sorry that we didn't try hard enough.
Next time, we're going to do better.
And it wasn't even the fact that the conference didn't contain females, it was just that one of the posters that they sent out, it only showed male speakers and that was the main issue.
So I mean it's fairly normal for in response to any type of complaint that the upper management HR will just automatically fold and give into these types of demands.
So that's sort of what I'm working with.
And when I was thinking about this today, even if I were to, I guess, strip away all of the insane policies that they implement, so things like their equity, diversity and inclusion action plan, the sexual harassment policy, you know, there's quotas for upper management, there's washroom inclusivity projects, there's a It's No Big Deal campaign, so it's like surrounding the correct use of gender pronouns.
I think even if all of those were just removed and I thought about what type of workplace would it be if all of those were gone, I still think that for me, I would have a hard time even still in just dealing with, and I do, in dealing with male versus female employees.
And I find it's something that's not really ever discussed as to whether or not having males and females work effectively in the same space, is it efficient?
So I want to share what your thoughts on that were.
Well, there's a lot in what you're saying.
Have you seen any of the MeToo stuff?
You don't have to get into any details, but have you seen or heard even from colleagues and so on about how the MeToo stuff is influencing their interactions with women?
I mean, I've seen it implemented where...
So, for example, this happened, I guess, a few years ago.
It wasn't that long ago.
I mean, it's the story you hear all the time where you have a...
Two people that I mean you generally hear that in the context of university campus but it's sort of the same story where two people went out for drinks they both were intoxicated you know the guy invited her back to this apartment um the next day she decided that she was uh you know sexual impropriety was committed against her and you know there's no way they're validating either of the two viewpoints but I mean they effectively I mean, he's not allowed to be there anymore.
And it's weird because sometimes we get these official newsletters from the institution and they'll often chronicle a spotlight on a particular incentive or project.
And the most recent one was, not the most recent one, but they have dealt with this in the past where they were saying this particular individual who accused the guy of the impropriety, well, she didn't believe that the practices in place acted quickly enough.
And she still felt threatened because she had seen him at the workplace.
And additionally, what was even worse was that there was really never any type of criminal investigation into the issue.
At least I don't think so.
There was never a jury trial.
I don't even think the police were involved, but in the article, they were referring to him as a rapist.
So, I mean, there's that, and I'm pretty sure...
How is that legal?
I don't know.
I mean, they didn't use his name, but they were saying that...
Well, if you could figure out who it is...
That's true.
So, I mean, I don't know how that's legal, and I don't know if he has a pending type of lawsuit against him.
Maybe he should, but you see that type of thing.
It's not common by any means, but...
It makes you do a risk assessment I guess and I have and I think just based upon past experiences I guess I mean I've certainly had at least some near misses that could have gone the wrong direction and I mean that could be me.
So I don't really know how to even begin to fight against this or is it just a matter of Do you just do your due diligence and try to report everything?
Like, am I supposed to wear it? I mean, you can't work against it from, I don't think you can work against it from a sort of corporate standpoint, because the corporation is complying with a variety of laws around proportional representation and diversity.
I mean, I worked in the HR department on diversity issues when I was a Very young.
And there's a lot of legal mandates, there's a lot of PR, there's a lot of, you know, you want to avoid the negative press and so on.
Yeah. So, you can't just sort of up there and say, you know, I think we should get rid of quotas, right?
Because also, if you want to, depending on where you are, if you want to get access to various government programs, various government grants, various set-asides, various government contracts, then you have to prove...
Your commitment to diversity and all that kind of stuff.
So you can't really go to these companies and say, hey, destroy your business plan and access to capital and risk really, really bad PR because, you know, whatever, right?
So I don't think that there's much practical stuff that can be done from that standpoint.
I mean, if you do want to do things like support Initiatives at the state level or the local level or the federal level, I suppose, to push back against quotas.
I mean, there's lawsuits from East Asian students like the Oriental students about being penalized for getting into higher education.
You know, the blacks get marked up and the Hispanics get marked up and the East Asians get marked down.
Yeah. Because the people who are running these things aren't very good with statistics, I suppose.
And so there's not really much you can do internally, I don't think, to sort of say, oh, well, we should hire based on merit only and forget about minorities or forget about women and just hire based on merit.
I don't think there's much you can do regarding that.
Now, if the laws change to the point where you're not forced to hire people, where there's gender and racial equality under the law, which...
Was originally, I thought, sort of the point, but I guess not.
Then you can...
That's sort of a big sort of political thing, but even if you sort of get involved in that kind of stuff and it gets back to your HR department, your days may not be long for the world in that company, so who knows, right?
But you can at least talk about these things in private or support them anonymously or make donations or whatever it is, right?
So that... People aren't forced.
Forced association is a violation of freedom of association.
All the diversity quotas are forced association or bribed association.
But no, I don't think there's much you can do saying, hey, why don't we just relax all of this stuff?
Because you understand that the...
The left is insane on this stuff.
They're literally insane.
And I don't mean that allegorically.
I'll give you an example of how insane they are.
So according to the left, you see, all of these evil capitalists just want to exploit the workers.
They want to pay the workers less.
They just want to exploit all the workers and pillage them and rip them off and make money from them, right?
So why are women underpaid?
Why would Hispanics be underpaid?
It would make no sense. Because if you look at, say, Hispanics or women, there's this huge pool of labor.
You can save 20% just by hiring them, and you're such a greedy capitalist.
You love underpaying your workers.
There's a whole pool of people.
Except all of the combined genius of the free market cannot figure out how to get women to wage parity with men.
Why? Because women don't want wage parity with men.
Fundamentally, women do not want wage parity with men.
Because to get wage parity with men, they'd have to do what men do.
Which is work hard at difficult and dangerous jobs for a long time.
And take courses and take petroleum engineering degrees that they don't really want to take.
On average, in general, lots of exceptions.
This is how they say, well, the market wants to exploit people, and then there's this huge pool of people who are worth 25% more than they're being paid, but nobody wants to exploit them.
To hold those two thoughts in your head simultaneously is insane.
Right, and I think, I mean, to me it's obvious, and I guess I've had maybe the deluded fantasy before that I'm going to march into one of these Gender inclusiveness seminars or diversity seminars and be like, oh, I have the facts and I'm going to point this out to you.
You mean like James DeMortid?
Yeah, exactly. When I saw that, even before I saw that, I know how that would have gone.
I could have made that point when there's a question and answer period during these seminars, but they would have just spun it in a way like, oh, we have a white male.
This is what happens when you try to take away Their power, they lash out.
And, you know, we've got to work harder to kind of, you know, rescind the patriarchy and everyone would cheer.
And it would just, you know, I know it wouldn't work.
But I guess just to clarify.
You don't run into gunfire, right?
I mean, that's just suicide.
I know, but it's just, again, it's just...
Back when I was more naive, I think I held that belief that...
They have incorrect information.
I know. I'm going to ride in on a white horse with correct information and facts and data and arguments and everything will be great because they say that they want information and they say that they believe what they believe because of the information they have.
So as sure as if the wind changes direction, the ship that is a sailing ship has to change direction, I will...
Give them new information.
And when I move the statue, the shadow of the statue moves when they get new information.
I mean, just look at Kathy Newman, right?
Eviscerated by the rationality of Dr.
Peterson. And what happened?
Within a couple of days, she was back to crying victim and learned nothing.
Because, you see, it's about free stuff.
It's about free stuff.
They want free stuff.
The people in HR departments, not really big fans of working.
Not really big fans of hard work.
Not really big fans of failure-based work.
Not really big fans of accountability.
Big fans of ideology.
Big fans of, you can't fire me because I'm a diversity hire.
Big fans of, oh, I'm going to sue you if this happens or that happens.
Big fans of all that stuff.
You understand? Big fans of all that.
Not big fans of facing customers and having to produce value in a highly competitive environment.
That's not their gig.
I've been to these diversity conferences, man.
It's beautiful. It's nice long lunches.
Beautiful expense accounts.
Everyone's sitting around a table, yammering about inclusivity.
I mean, it's beautiful. Can't measure anything.
And of course, it's driven by the law.
It's driven by Incentives, government incentives and government punishments for failing to, or media rewards of praise or media punishments of this company's racist or whatever, or sexist.
And so they're a massive protected class.
It's a whole bunch of unearned crap.
They don't have to work hard.
I mean, you know, you want to see something emptier than the moon, go to an HR department at 4.55 p.m., Echo!
Echo! Echo!
I mean, there's nothing there. Nothing there.
You know, they get attempts to do the work and they go for long lunches and they talk about the joys of diversity.
And of course, the joys of diversity are great for them because they can't be fired.
They don't have to produce anything tangible.
They're never responsible for the consequences of their decisions.
And they can always blame everyone else when things go wrong.
So if they put more women into a particular position, and that position tends to fail, or tends to become unproductive, or the women get pregnant, or the women, whatever, go on stress leave, well, could you say, well, maybe that wasn't a great place to put all those women?
No! Because you have this wonderful magic answer, which is, well, the men were too sexist.
That's why the women didn't succeed.
Like, you never have to be accountable for anything.
And you get, you know, a tidy six-figure salary.
You can't be fired.
You get all these benefits.
People are frightened of you.
You get a lot of power, a lot of control, no accountability, no responsibility.
It's the new aristocracy, man.
I mean, you can't beat it if you have, like, no particular integrity whatsoever.
And anyone who's dependent on the state...
Can neither afford nor look in the mirror with any shred of integrity because they're dependent parasites.
So, no, they are the new aristocracy.
They are the new exploiters, right?
Because when the leftists point at the capitalist exploiters, they're just pointing at themselves, right?
We don't like the capitalist exploiters because they're actually producing value and we're not.
And so they are the actual exploiters.
Just look at the life of Marx. It's really...
Clear to see. The HR department are the actual exploiters that they complain the capitalists are because they don't have to provide value and they don't have to have consequences and power corrupts.
So yeah, the idea that you can walk in there and Change their minds.
The whole thing is a scam. You know, it's like somebody who's really dedicated to running a Ponzi scheme.
It's like you sit down and you say, hey man, according to the math, this is a Ponzi scheme.
And they're like, oh, I'm so sorry.
I didn't know.
Let me make some phone calls and shut this whole thing down.
It's like, the whole point is it's a Ponzi scheme.
You can't change it with data. They know.
They know it's a scam. I mean, I don't think they're even lazy about the methods that they use.
I mean, if you go to any of these types of events, I find, I mean, I haven't been in college for a while, but, you know, they're very convincing and they touch upon, like, emotional issues and they usually start off with, like, if they're talking about, you know, people of color in the workplace or women in the workplace, they'll start off with, like, a historical example where it'll be like, oh, look at how poorly we treated people Women a hundred years ago.
They weren't even allowed to be in these types of jobs.
Oh, you mean like the military?
They weren't allowed to be drafted and be in the military?
And they weren't allowed to be coal miners?
And they weren't allowed to be Navy seamen?
And they weren't allowed to be garbage?
And they weren't allowed to be hydro workers and they weren't allowed to work with heavy machinery and they weren't allowed to jump in front of combine harvesters because they dropped something.
And oh yes, how terrible, terrible women were treated.
They could stay home and spend other people's money while raising kids, which is a lot of fun.
Oh, the horror!
Imagine the average guy being drafted to go to World War I in 1916, maybe even after the Somme, the Battle of the Somme or the Battle of Passchendaele, when they knew what a carnage fest it was going to be and their odds of returning whole, either in mind or body or spirit, was practically zero.
And they say, well, or you can go and raise a couple of kids in the country outside of Shropshire.
Oh, yes, those poor women.
Very, very tough. It's like the wage gap is like, what, I don't know, 75% for some industries or whatever.
It's like, yeah, but 80% of domestic spending is by women.
So let's not talk about who's earning the money, who's earning the money.
Women are less at earning the money, but much greater at spending the money.
Well, that seems like a pretty good deal to me.
I don't have to earn it, but I get to spend it all.
Sorry. I did bring up that point one time about, you know, the world Men away into a meat grinder.
And the response was from a declared feminist was, oh, well, they just expected us to stay home and be bored.
That was just so unfair.
They expected us to stay home what?
And be bored. She's like, oh, if that was me, I wasn't allowed in the military.
It would be unfair that I would have to stay home and be bored.
That was her argument. So it was exciting for the men.
It was like a thrill ride. It was like a roller coaster.
I mean, a roller coaster with shrapnel and mustard gas, which is pretty much the worst Saudi Arabian theme park you could imagine, but only for Christians.
So, yeah, that you'd stay home and be bored.
And this is the fundamental nihilism and sociopathy of a lot of these types of people, which is that the idea that you're just home and raising the next generation and enjoying warm, fun time with your children and teaching them how to spell and how to make jokes.
And I mean, that's just so boring.
So boring. Yeah, so they'll take that and then they'll basically like leap forward to today and they'll say oh well you might you might think that we've made inroads into solving this problem but here are like the statistics and then they'll present the oh there's you know there's not if you look at the the population as a whole they're not reflected in this environment and this is even on top of the fact that like where I work right now as it was alluded to in the question I mean it's nearing a 40 to 60 split in men to women so they're widely overrepresented Maybe not in the upper level positions,
although his quote is now to sort of get around that, I guess.
So they'll do that and say, well, even though we've made many inroads and we've had all these, you know, the heroes of the feminist past have, you know, fought for your rights to be here.
We're still not where we should be.
Yeah, and where we should be, of course, is complete numerical equality.
Which, of course, you know, it's so funny.
I'm sorry. Let me just interrupt for a sec here.
I just wanted to make a quick point and I'll hand it back to you.
But it's so funny when you think about it.
Like, if I knew for sure that there was some stock that was going to double in price in three months, I'd be all in, right?
Anybody with any brains, right?
Yeah. And so if you, as the result of your study of feminist theory and semiotics and critical theory and all that, you know that there's a pool of half the workers that are underpaid but incredibly productive and valuable, why on earth would you join the HR department?
Like, that makes no sense whatsoever.
Because you would be in possession of such...
A business opportunity that it would be like Bitcoin on steroids.
I mean, because you'd sit there and say, oh my gosh, there's these workers that are being underpaid.
I could set up a company that does exactly what this engineering company does, but I can save like 30% on wages and be just as productive.
And then what I can do is I can show people exactly how productive it is to be an engineering company that hires almost all women.
It's gonna be so productive, I'm gonna make so much money that I'm gonna be ending up growing and I'm gonna end up taking over all of these other engineering companies that didn't see this incredibly underutilized resource.
Female workers or minority workers or whatever, right?
I mean, you wouldn't join some company and nag them What you'd do is you'd start your own competing company, you'd snatch up all these women, you'd make a fortune, you'd take over the industry, And you'd make your hundreds of millions of dollars, and you'd donate all of that money to feminist causes.
Like, the idea that you would just join a company when you knew?
It's sort of like, let me give you a sort of example.
It's like, imagine I know of some area, some land.
Let's say it's a hundred square acres.
It's unowned right now.
It's unowned. And in this hundred square acres is the most incredibly rich Vane of gold, or diamonds, or oil, or diamonds.
Amazing resource. And companies know about this, but they don't believe it.
They just think it's not true.
But I know for sure that it's true.
Why on earth would I join some company...
In the HR department and nag them year after year after year to go and drill and get these diamonds.
They're right there below the surface.
You can reach down like the Cullinan diamond.
Some guy dug it up with a stick.
You can reach down, you can pick These diamonds up like shells on the seashore.
And I've joined this company, some mining company, and said, man, it's right here, you've got to go.
And they're like, nah, that's just a bunch of nonsense.
We surveyed it, we assayed it, we did arrest nothing, forget it.
No, no, man, you've got to do it, you know, and just nagging people year after year after year, nagging, nagging, nagging.
That's insane! Wouldn't you just...
Get some friends and go dig up some diamonds and make your fortune?
They don't believe it for a moment.
They don't believe this massive untapped resource of minority and female economic value.
They don't believe it for a moment. They know it's a useful story by which they can gain power and resources and security within a company, but they don't believe it for a moment because if they did, if they genuinely knew that there was gold in their hills or diamonds right underneath that patch of sand over there, they'd go and get it themselves rather than join some company and nag everyone to death.
Well, they would probably, I don't even know if you'd want to call it reason that way, but they would try to offset that by saying, well, oh, we could try, but the The systemic discrimination, we wouldn't be able to get around that.
It would stop us from sort of implementing our plan for this.
Okay, so then they say, but then they'd have to admit that capitalists don't care about profit.
Right? Then they would have to say, okay, well, you could make a fortune if you wanted.
Yeah. But the capitalists, you see, they don't care about profit.
And then they'd have to explain why an engineering company that could charge 25% less for their engineering services, because they're saving so much on their payroll, why an engineering company that could provide exactly the same value but charge 25% less would not get more business?
Well, because everyone would hate the female company, and it's like, so then what you're saying is that people don't care about profit, and they'll spend a lot more Because of their prejudice.
But there's no evidence, no facts around that.
They might not present evidence to that, but I mean, what they usually present at least is, you know, there are a lot of studies, I guess you would call them, that they'll sort of flash the headlines saying, like, diversity proven to increase performance and or, like, companies headed by A woman outperform other companies, you know?
So there's like a whole slew of published, peer-reviewed literature that they'll present, right?
And that is sort of the go-to.
Well, sure, you know, if female-headed companies get extra special loans and grants and job opportunities from the federal government, I don't doubt that.
That they do quite well.
Because they're getting lots of free stuff from the government.
So sure, I get that Lance Armstrong can do quite well if he pumps his blood full of certain substances.
That doesn't necessarily make him a great athlete.
But even with those studies, if it's true, I find a lot of the devils are in the details and the conclusions aren't necessarily warranted by the methodology.
And just as maybe a correlate is the studies you would see on immigration, for example, where they would say They have like a, you know, a study that's been peer-reviewed and published and cited hundreds of times saying, oh, you know, immigrants are like less likely to commit crimes in the native population, but it's sort of the methodology that's a problem, but that the headlines still stand.
So they'll present a lot of things like that.
And I mean, it's hard to refute them on the spot, I guess, when you don't know the details.
So it's kind of like this, oh, well, it's been proven.
So now we know for a fact that diversity works.
So why aren't we there yet?
And then it just sort of proceeds to this type of emboldening of the audience and like, well, you are the next warriors in this battle that need to come forth.
And of course, but no, so I mean, as far as the immigration stuff goes, I can certainly understand some of those data and I can argue that case very convincingly.
So let's say Nigerians come to, Nigerian blacks come to America and they do better than whites when it comes to income and so on, right?
Of course. It's not that complicated because you're taking the top 1% of the top 1% of competent, able, brilliant Nigerian blacks, they're coming to America and they're doing fantastically.
Of course. No question.
So if you look at that subsection of immigrants, I bet you for sure, because we know that crime is correlated.
Like, I'm not talking about white-collar crime like the bank bailout and TARP and stuff like that.
I'm talking about, like, the general crimes, violent crimes.
They're correlated to IQ. So you get the Nigerians who make it all the way from Nigeria to America.
They're the smartest and most entrepreneurial and have the most to gain from participating in the free market, and they have no particular temptation towards criminality, of course.
So they would have lower crime rates than...
Certainly they would have lower crime rates than the native blacks or the native Hispanics or the native whites or whatever.
Of course. I mean, that makes perfect sense because that's not an equal selected group.
On the other hand, if you look at your average Somali who ends up in London...
Well, he's just fruit ninja-ing his way through an entire neighborhood.
And so it depends which kind of immigrants you're looking at, what culture.
And you also have to think about the next generation, too.
Because regression to the means means that the Nigerians with an IQ of 120 are not likely to have kids with an IQ of 120 or 110 or maybe even 100.
So you've got this regression to the mean issue.
So just looking at one generation at the very, very top performance and comparing them to the average population in America, sure, you can make those statistics sing any way you want.
But... It doesn't last, and it's not representative of immigrants as a whole.
I was referring to the legal immigrant studies that would say they take less out than they put in those types of studies.
The headline is really misleading, but I find a lot of the diversity stuff Because when you really go and dig into it, it's what the claims they make when they just flash the headlines nowhere near really.
Well, and of course, if diversity is so valuable, then it comes back to like there's diamonds in that sandbar over there.
Why the hell are you telling me about it?
Go, like, if it's so valuable, go start a company that's hugely diverse.
And go make a fortune and spread your message that way.
Don't run to the government and force people to hire the people you say are so economically valuable at gunpoint, because that doesn't make them seem so economically valuable.
And that's going to promote and provoke racism, of course, right?
Because it's forced association.
It's not to the point where they have, like, for the entry-level position, there's no quotas there yet.
I mean, whenever I post a job application, I have to.
In the actual description, I have to.
Like, they have a mandated paragraph that sort of says, At this institution we are devoted to diversity, inclusion and equity and therefore people of color, women, people with disabilities, First Nations people, Aboriginals,
we care about your application like along those lines so that has to be included in the actual job description and I would envision most likely that so you have two options either you can sort of route through the resumes that you receive yourself and I mean usually for just a normal posting or at work you get about 200 resumes or you can Turn it over to HR, who of course is staffed by the types of people that, I guess, based on what you said, maybe don't believe in these policies, would definitely push them.
So if you do it yourself, you can still, you know, select the best.
But if you were to turn it over to them, they most likely would provide you with a list that most likely isn't based upon merit.
For the higher level positions, they do have hard percentages that they are aiming to adhere to.
So, I think it's something like 34% women, 15% visible and minority, 4% with a disability, and then like 1% First Nations Aboriginal.
So, I can still, at least in my capacity, I'm able to circumvent that aspect at least.
I'm not sure how long that's going to last even, I suppose.
At the output of these types of seminars, it's sort of like they embolden people, like I was saying, to sort of think as though they're these types of Warriors, as I said, that have to go and actively fight for a place for people of color and women.
And I find just even the general attitude towards...
Me or just any other white guy, anytime you make a point, it's just, oh, you're just saying that because I'm a woman type of thing.
There's that aspect that it sort of inserts into the work.
Well, they can also, as you mentioned before, they can just wave away any objections or issues you have by saying you're lashing out because your power is threatened.
Like this weird psychological thing where it's like, I don't have to deal with data because I can make up motivation.
And it's like, You're not breaking the stereotypes of how women's brain operates if you think you can substitute some imaginary motivation, some actual data.
I mean, that's just ridiculous.
So listen, man, just get out.
It's my advice. Do what you want, right?
Here's the thing. The men who can and the women who can and the minorities who can or whatever...
If you can, not everyone's built for entrepreneurship, and I get all of that, but if you can, you're obviously a very, very smart young man, go do something entrepreneurial if you can, because these companies are doomed.
They're doomed in this, like, what the family court doth take away Bitcoin doth return, right?
I mean, because women have used the power of the state to strip mine resources from men for the past 60 or 70 years.
And now the money is coming back to men through Bitcoin, because like, now the feminists are complaining, as they are wont to do, that only two or three percent of Bitcoin owners are women.
How they know that, I don't know, but you know, that's sort of the, I think, probably surveys or whatever, right?
So it's like, okay, so now resources are floating to man.
Big companies, big companies are doomed in the Western economy.
They're doomed. Now, of course, you know, they get this artificial substance from the state and they're going to control the state and empower the state and so on.
But come on, we all know.
I mean, it's the blockchain. It's decentralized stuff.
It's stuff on the internet. It's, you know, whatever you can do.
You need to work your entrepreneurial muscle, in my humble opinion, as much as possible.
And if you're a young man, a young woman, and particularly before you have family and all of that kind of stuff, and before you get, I got mortgages and homes, I got stiffness in the bones, as the song says, you want to exercise that muscle as much as possible.
Because the money is going to flow to entrepreneurs.
You know, let them have the big corporations.
I mean, they're going to turn into wastelands.
I mean, go Galt. Get out.
Go Galt. Take your skills somewhere where they're portable, where you can get out of a big city, where you can work where you want, where you can save, where you don't have this political correctness.
And where you don't live under this tyrannical shadow of censorship all the time, where you don't walk around thinking like, man, I hope I don't get accused of something terrible, and now I can't say anything in this meeting, and now I've got to pretend to like that meeting, and now I've got to take the—it violates—doesn't it violate your very soul in a way?
Doesn't it, like, make you feel like you're living in some kind of tyranny?
And I know the pay is decent and good, maybe, and the benefits are decent and good.
But this is a giant signal.
It's a giant signal to say, okay, these companies, they've hit the iceberg.
They've hit the iceberg of political correctness.
They have hit the iceberg of quotas for incompetent people, and by that I simply mean that anyone you're forced to hire is by definition incompetent, because otherwise you wouldn't hire them.
I mean, anybody who you're only hiring because of the law It's less competent.
I don't care what race or what gender you are.
That's just a basic fact.
And these companies are doomed.
Now, maybe you can do a side hustle.
Maybe you can do a transition or whatever.
But my general advice, if people have that capacity or idea at all, is the money is going to flow from Fiat currency to cryptocurrency.
The money is going to flow from big corporations to entrepreneurial setups.
And even if you just end up being subcontracted by a big corporation, because the more the stuff gets clogged up, the more they're going to have to subcontract stuff out.
You know, like how there's a Department of Roads, but they generally don't build any roads.
They just have to subcontract it all out because they're so clogged up with bureaucracy and political correctness.
So, my particular thing is, freedom is really, really key.
And it's not so much the money even, you know, how much would you pay to not have this shadow over your mind and in your heart, in your very balls, every day?
And how much, what's it worth it to you?
So, my particular thought is, you know, the quicker these dinosaurs come down, the better.
The laws will be reformed, but as long as able people are propping up all this crap, it's gonna take a lot longer.
Yeah, that's what I've sort of considered is just transitioning out in the next six months.
I've sort of, I've attempted to make that more of a soft landing.
Unfortunately, What I do is very specialized.
And just because you work for a hospital and that you have access to patient sample a lot more easily.
So it's sort of contingent on that.
So there's not really, in its entirety, there's not like that job exists in a different environment.
However, I have been taking night forces to sort of more...
Generalize on the skill set that I gained from this position.
I mean, this is just my suggestion.
If you stay, that's perfectly fine too.
Just don't stay imagining you can fight or change it.
If you're going to stay, say, okay, I'm paid.
I'm bought and paid for. And listen, this sounds like I'm kind of criticizing you in a passive-aggressive way.
I'm not. I'm not at all.
Because there have been times in my life where I've said, okay, I'm going to take some pay because I'm going to do something else or because this works for me at the moment.
But you need to be really clear-eyed about where you are.
This is the game I have to play.
I got to nod along with the diversity stuff.
I got to record my meetings with women.
I got to, you know, never close the door and never be alone if you can avoid it.
And, you know, don't take lunch meetings and whatever, right?
Whatever. Don't have a woman in your car if there's no one else around or whatever.
So just say, okay, this is the game I have to play.
In order to get where I want to get to in life.
And then what happens is at least you give up the stress of feeling like you should be doing something that's different or better, or you should be saving things, or you should be fighting the good fighter.
Like, don't.
Don't do that. Like, because that's the worst of both worlds.
And it will have you be there longer than perhaps you may productively end up needing to be there or should be there.
So if you're going to stay, you can say, okay, I'll give myself, I don't know, three years, five years, ten, whatever it is, a year.
I'm going to stay. Nothing's going to change because these people are massively self-interested and they are vicious.
They are vicious if crossed.
They don't want to get anywhere close to the free market, you understand.
They don't want to get within 6,000 light years of a paying customer who has a choice.
It's not even just the money.
It's the money, it's the status, it's the virtue signaling, it's the pomposity.
They have become entirely artificial life forms relative to the free market.
Right. And so power is a drug.
Dopamine, as we know, very, very addictive.
And they have a lot of power that they don't have to earn, and they can pretend that they're wonderful, great people involved in these great, noble, heroic quests to make sure that minorities and women get their just and fair representation in this brutal and sexist and racist free market and so on.
So it is a perfect storm of self-deluded motivation.
And... Sorry, not only do they, like you can't get people to change.
It's very hard to get people to change even if they admit there's a problem and they're desperate to change it.
You know, you're trying to talk someone out of being fat.
Try to talk somebody out of drinking too much.
Try to talk someone out of smoking too much.
And if they say, no, this is great for me.
This is good. This is perfect. This is wonderful.
No chance of changing them.
No chance. Society isn't even within 12, I don't know.
I already used my light years thing and I hate using parsecs.
It's one of the things that bugs me about Star Wars.
I made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs or whatever.
It's like, parsec is not a measure of speed.
It's a measure of distance. It's like saying, I went 12 miles.
It's like, in what time?
Anyway, but society isn't even within a stone's throw of admitting that there might be a problem.
It's completely the opposite direction.
This is virtuous. This isn't even a necessary evil.
Like, people say, well, I don't like doing my taxes.
It's bad, and I don't like taxes, but they're a necessary evil.
People don't even say, well, I don't like diversity, but it's a necessary evil.
They love it. They love it.
It's like trying to talk someone out of just, hey, I just won a million dollars in the lottery.
You do realize that that will raise taxes on other people, right?
Forget it. Words can only do so much and do not diffuse the power of words by applying them to a situation they can't possibly win in.
Do not waste the troops of your willpower on battles That you cannot emerge victorious from.
Do not spend your troops like a World War I general in battles that can't be won.
Do not spend your energy, your words, your language, your commitment.
Save it for when you can do the most good.
And so just accept that, okay, I'm going to play the game, I'm going to nod, I'm going to smile, I'm going to take my precautions, but I'm going to try and change a damn thing, because I don't want to make myself feel that virtue and goodness is impotent, right?
And then, so stay, but just don't stay and pretend like there's some big battle you can fight and win.
Do you think even just in the current political climate, that irrespective of where you go, it might not be as bad as this in terms of where it's just so entrenched, but things like you were talking about before where, you know, never have a woman in your office with the door closed, record everything.
Do you think that's just generally a good practice to implement your experience?
Oh yeah, no, absolutely. Oh yeah, no, listen, of course, of course.
I mean, If, you know, if it's legal where you're doing it, and it's fine, and you inform people, obviously, right?
I mean, don't do this, like, one-party thing if it's not legal, and so make sure you're doing something that doesn't get you in even more trouble.
Oh, yeah, no, absolutely.
I mean, and even that may not protect you enough.
Just be aware, because maybe they won't even listen.
Maybe it will be inadmissible. Maybe, you know, like, they don't care what recordings you have.
Maybe they'll say you doctored them.
I don't know, but it may help.
But to me, if you're in a situation where it's like, I have to record everything so I don't get accused of assault or date rape or something even worse, that may be a sign that it's time to get out of Dodge.
Yeah. It's definitely been some near misses in terms of that.
So it's just... I am sort of extra paranoid about that.
Well, and imagine you say, well, being an entrepreneur is too risky, and then, like, something happens.
Wouldn't you just, like, kick yourself and say, oh, man, I knew all of this stuff, and I just didn't act?
Because, I mean, it couldn't destroy your entire life.
Like, this is like a no-fooling, worse-than-General Flynn, like, smoking crater where your life and future was.
Yeah, but just can I just make one last point?
Just in the general direction of...
I always thought that what may have helped and that I don't see happen anymore is just even a baseline discussion of...
I don't see it anywhere in terms of the power that just any type of female employee has over a male.
It took me a long time to realize that The way I would act towards my female employees versus my male employees was entirely different.
I never even began to understand why I'm acting this way.
It was never talked about, not when I was growing up.
It can be. Because women are always victims and men are always oppressors.
You understand? For them to say that the women can be the oppressor and the man can be the victim, you're literally saying men can give birth.
But this used to be common knowledge, wasn't it?
Even from my parents growing up, just discussing at the time when you go through puberty, like, okay, there's going to be women out there that will try to seduce you.
It's just that I never had that mentioned to me anywhere I ever went when I was growing up in school, from my friends, from my parents, never.
Because you pay women for being victims.
Women gain enormous rewards from being victims.
And so asking women to not be victims is again like asking the guy who won the lottery not to cash in his ticket.
I see. I mean, of course.
Now, in the past, you could play the victim, but it would cost you in terms of your profession, your career, and so on, because people would get annoyed at the fact that you were always playing the victim and complaining.
And it would also mean the people who don't play the victim who take ownership.
Ownership is painful. Ownership is difficult.
But it comes with great rewards in terms of you can grow, you can progress, you can learn, you can expand, you can get stronger, and so on, right?
So in the past... Being a victim would give you short-term gain but long-term pain, whereas taking responsibility would give you short-term pain but long-term gain.
Now, being a victim gives you short-term gain and long-term gain.
And being empowered gives you both short-term and long-term losses.
So, I mean, this is what people are paid to do, so they do it.
It's not too shocking, I think.
But it's not even them necessarily playing the victim.
It's more or less like there's a lot of fault on my part in terms of the way I treat them, right?
Like for example, just like I was saying, like the male versus the female employees, I treat them differently.
It's subconscious almost, but I mean, I'm more aware of it now than I used to be.
But I feel like if, for example, if I had a male employee who would be late, right?
And we had a meeting, he didn't show up one time, I would immediately course correct and I'd say, Why were you late?
You know, you gotta be on time, you need to be at a certain time, right?
And then he would, you know, immediately course correct, and then there wouldn't be an issue anymore.
When as a female employee, I'll just have more leniency, and they'll show up late, and I'll be like, oh, don't worry about it.
Next time, why, we just try to be on time, and it's no big deal.
Next time, they'll show up late again, and they'll show up late again, and then it'll get to the point where it's just like, it's not their fault that I didn't correct it, right?
That's my fault, and it wasn't...
What do you mean it's your fault?
Well, it's my fault because I should have said something.
I should have treated them the same way and been fair in the fact.
After just her entire chat.
Yeah. Come on.
You know how much power these women have.
They can go and complain about you.
Right? Right.
He was mean to me. He was rude to me.
He was, you know, he treats me differently than the men and, you know, it's sexist.
And what's going to, is there going to be anything fair?
Well, first of all, this should never be an issue at all, right?
I mean, if you don't like it, go find another job.
Like, whatever, right? I mean, like, or, you know, if some guy's being rude to you, well, you put him in his place as a woman, right?
You know, you cut him down, you whatever, right?
I mean, verbally or whatever.
But these women can run to HR, and they can complain, and then you're not going to get an impartial hearing, right?
Your life is going to be consumed for months with, Lord knows what's going to happen, and then your, you know, stuff's going to go in your file, and you could destroy your entire career, even if you're not fired or anything like that.
Even if the woman recants, it often still sticks around as far as I understand it, right?
So it's like saying, you know, well, I... I do pet domestic cats.
I do pet kitties, but I don't pet tigers.
I guess I'm just inconsistent.
It's like, I don't think you are.
I think you're being quite wise.
But I still don't think it's even that, and I don't think it's me being wise.
It's just me having a natural susceptibility to women versus men, and in terms of I don't want to see them get upset.
I don't think it's me not wanting to...
No, no, but that's... Do you imagine that a man is going to cry if you complain that he's late?
If you sharply rebuke him for being late?
No. Do you think a man is going to get even...
He might get annoyed, he might get a little pissy, but he's not going to get that upset, right?
Women are much higher in neuroticism than men.
Like, you're not all women, obviously.
It's a bell curve.
But aren't you basically recognizing a fundamental fact about one of the differences between men and women?
I mean, listen, I'm sure that there are some women, if there were some women, where you'd have no problem with it.
You know, they're tough, no-nonsense, straight-up shooters, and they'll take it in stride, and, you know, they put off all the signals of, like, yeah, you know, fine.
Like, hey, man, I'm sorry, you know, like, you're right, you know, thanks for treating me like one of the guys, and, you know, that's going to be fine, right?
But you're reading women, and you're reading about whether or not you have some concerns about their volatility or whether they might get manipulative or why they might get too emotional or why they might get vengeful.
You know, there is this old sort of cliché about the difference between boys and girls, that the boys will have a fistfight, shake hands, make up, and go play football, right?
But the girls, if you're a girl and you're upsetting another girl, she won't just come and push you in the mud, you'll have a fistfight, and then you'll part as friends.
She'll, like, destroy your entire reputation by poisoning everyone against you in irrevocable ways.
Yes. And yes, that has happened.
You know, a male bully might give you a black eye, but a female bully will get you ostracized from your entire community, which registers in your brain the same way that physical torture does.
I see. But I just wish like that type of...
I mean, I was even...
I mean, going for the most of my career, I mean, I was even...
Ignorant of that dynamic even existing and what I meant that maybe I'm not articulating is like I just wish like when I was younger that like my parents would have just sat me down and said when you get older and when you're dealing with women you're going to be very susceptible to them right you're going to be susceptible to tears and you're not going to be able to treat them the same way that you're going to treat a guy and you have to be careful I'm saying that type of mentality isn't out there.
No, but I wouldn't say that necessarily, because not all women, right?
Some women are very tough and very competent and very able, and it's the soy boys who are going to cry into their porridge, right?
Yeah. So it's not, you know, you can't say, well, all women, you gotta, like, that would be a sexist statement.
You know, my daughter is quite a tomboy.
She loves rough and tumble, and she doesn't like Disney, and she doesn't like princesses at all, and is very vocal about it.
And so she's going to be, I'm not saying she's going to be a lumberjack, but she's probably not going to be a shoe designer.
No Kardashians in her, no Kardashian in her future, fortunately.
But in general, you could say, okay, well, there is this issue around, you know, some women are going to be a little bit more emotional than men, they're going to be a little bit more volatile.
And the one thing that can be a little alarming about women is...
Boy, they can hold a grudge till it grows a beard and expires like some elderly prehistoric bonsai tree.
And so, you know, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
A woman's temper and coldness and vengefulness has been written about since the dawn of time.
And again, some women are fine with it, but if you have to put odds, maybe it's just 51-49, but these are odds that you do have to play in life because of the...
Of the downside, right?
The issue, you know, if you're dealing with a man, he's not going to run to HR and say that you sexually harassed him, or that you were really, really mean to him, because it's a pride thing, right?
It'd be like, no, I'm going to, yeah, I've got a problem with someone, I'm going to deal with it myself, and I'll run to the girls at HR, you know?
Right? I mean, so, but with women, with a lot of women, it's like the directness isn't going to come back to you.
They're going to be upset, but they're not going to say anything to you, but it's going to come back and haunt you in ways that can range anything from annoying to literal hell on earth, right?
The statement I'm trying to make isn't that all women are like that, but most likely the way that I'm going to respond to women like that is almost a certainty.
For example, the capacity.
I see this often at work where you'll have a very attractive woman who is not necessarily Wearing, like, work-appropriate outfit, like, given that we work with a lot of, like, dangerous chemicals.
And she has... She'll have, like, this...
Wait, you mean, like, estrogen?
No! Boom! Sorry, go on.
And she'll have, like, this, like, fleet that surrounds her of, like, these, like, male minions that are there only to do things for her, irrespective of the fact that they have no...
Chance of ever actually being with her, right?
So that susceptibility, that they're not recognizing the power that exists that she exudes over them, right?
That's what I wish that someone would have talked to me about, I guess, is what I mean.
And it's...
So, just to give you an example, these attractive women will sort of make sure that they give them enough leash that they're still interested and will still do things for them, but never enough that they'll never actually date them.
Do you know what I mean? Oh, of course everybody knows what you mean.
They have their beta phalanx, right?
They have their orbiters. Yeah, they have their Praetorian guard of beta losers that they're never going to date, but they dangle just enough smile and cleavage in front of them that they can get these men to do whatever they want.
Maybe so they go into the spank bank for later, I don't know.
But, oh yeah, no, this is not, you know, it's not unknown in the world as a whole, and it is quite a power that does not exist if it's a male-only workforce.
Again, unless it's a lot of gays, I guess, but yeah.
That is certainly a reality.
And, you know, I mean, a lot of women are, you know, they don't want that.
They consider it manipulative, they consider it exploitive, which of course it is.
And, you know, too much self-respect and pride to want to do anything like that.
But yeah, there are certainly some women who will glory in that and will use it.
To get ahead, to get, you know, it's the old thing, like the pretty girl comes up and says, you know, will you do my homework for me?
Bat, bat, wink, wink. And the guys, you know, I mean, we've all, I mean, most of us have been there.
Like at one time, I told this story.
I still remember the girl's name.
Girl in my junior high school class.
A test was coming. I had one.
I shouldn't laugh, it's sad.
The test's coming, being handed out.
I have one pen.
No, one pen.
And she turns to me and she says, oh, can I have a pen?
I forgot my pen. Can I use a pen of yours?
And I'm like, sure.
Here's my pen. I'm like, what am I going to do?
Chew my fingertip off and write the answers in blood?
I mean, it's sad.
I can't say no, because then she'll realize I am without pen, which means without penis, which means I will never reproduce.
But did anybody ever talk to you?
I mean, like before, like when you were kids?
I was raised by a single mom.
You think she's going to tell me about the dangers of women?
Oh my god. Sorry, it's just like going to Tony Soprano for diet advice.
No, single moms aren't going to tell you about the dangers of women.
Oh my god. Some of the most dangerous women around, you know?
The thief isn't going to tell you where the thieves are.
That's sort of the whole point.
But I mean, I didn't get that talk either.
My parents are married, and I didn't...
Again, that's what I think an aspect of the problem is that type of discussion doesn't exist.
Well, no, that means that your mom is dangerous.
That my mom is dangerous?
Yeah. Yeah, if she doesn't have the talk with you about women, you're not going to understand what it's like to be a woman because you're a man.
So you need your mom to tell you some of the dangerous elements of female nature.
I mean, there are certainly dangerous elements of male nature, and we've talked about that ad infinitum for the past hundred years.
But the question is, why would your mom send you out into a world where there are dangerous women without telling you about dangerous women?
Why? The most likely answer is because if she tells you about dangerous women, She's going to be revealing some aspect of her personality that is dangerous.
So she's not going to tell you, so you don't see her.
Because when she says, oh, here are the characteristics of dangerous women, and you're like, huh, wait a minute.
I always thought it was more my dad's.
Well, at least I would have expected him to talk about it, considering he would be the one that would have experienced that type of...
And why would your dad not talk about dangerous women?
Well, I don't know. Because he married one.
I see. I never looked at it from that angle.
Now, don't let me tell you, of course, I don't need to tell you this, but don't let me tell you at all about your family.
I'm just telling you that these would be the most likely explanations that would pop into my mind.
I mean, your dad has no experience being a woman.
So if you want to learn about female nature...
You would want to hear it from your mom.
Now, when I say female nature, I don't mean all women, you understand, right?
But female power, power corrupts.
And young women, young attractive women in particular, and women who are willing to nag men half to death, they have a lot of power.
And it's the tipping point, right?
So the typical female journey for the dysfunctional woman is that you are a verbal bully when you're younger.
And that's how you get what you want, is by frightening people into, you know, you'll hurt them, you're verbally abused, and you'll spread lies about them, and that's how you get your power.
And then when you get older, you get into your teenage years, then you get your sexual attraction, and then you use that as your power, and then when you hit the wall, you become a bully, and you become a political activist, and you wear a pussy hat, and then you manipulate through nagging and through being a horrible human being that people will just give resources to so that they'll go away and stop talking,
you know, Big Red style. And then, of course, when you get older, you don't care because you've got the government to take care of your health care and your retirement, and so you don't need to be nice to anyone, but you don't need to be an activist because it's kind of written into the...
The kind of spending that Congress doesn't have any control over.
So that's sort of the typical, you know, maiden mother crone stuff that happens with women.
But, you know, I mean, your dad can't tell you about how female nature can become corrupted and be dangerous.
I mean, he's a man, right?
But he certainly had it exerted over him.
Well, has he? I don't know.
That's the basic question. You're still not telling me anything about your mom.
Don't think I haven't noticed.
Well, when I was trying to look at it from what you said in terms of that she's a dangerous woman, I'd have to think about that one.
You know, nothing comes immediately to mind, but...
Okay, let me ask you this.
What in your family does your father have authority over?
Yeah, nothing really.
Well, there's your answer.
Okay, I see. Men should have authority in a marriage over certain aspects, and women should have authority in a marriage over certain aspects, and they can be as varied as the marriage itself.
So my wife has authority over certain aspects of our life.
I mean, it doesn't mean I don't have a say, but that's her gig, and she's really great at it, and I have authority over other areas.
You know, she runs the household, I run the relationship in many ways, right?
And that works really well for us.
It could be very different for other couples and so on.
So that was my question, which is, what does your father have authority?
Now, if your father doesn't have authority over anything, the question is why?
Is he retarded?
Is he incompetent?
Is he a drunk? If not, well, if he is, then your mother is dangerous because she chose a dysfunctional man.
But if not, the question is why?
Why doesn't he have any authority?
Well, I find that he is very susceptible to when she gets upset about About everything, basically.
I mean, she has clear psychological issues that I've been trying to get her to deal with for some time.
And what other issues? She has extreme anxiety.
And she is very...
She's sort of stuck in this...
And a 12-year-old's mindset in the way that she thinks and acts.
For example, she'll often speak in a baby voice.
She'll collect dolls and things like that.
It's very odd.
She has a hard time taking criticism.
She cries a lot.
So she has a hard time dealing with social issues in general.
If her friends are coming over that she'll invite, for days and days and days, she'll demand about, like, I don't know what I'm going to do with them.
I just don't know what we're going to do when they come over here.
We're going to be so busy, and I'm not sure I have everything set up, and I'm not sure the house is clean enough, and I'm not sure the cats are going to be fed, and all these issues just...
They're very, very small issues that are easily dealt with.
Overwhelmed. Yeah, exactly.
That's a female-centric, overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed. Definitely overwhelmed with very, very small, stupid things that you can take care of in 10 seconds.
It just completely shuts her down.
So your relationship to HR is the same as your dad's relationship to your mom?
In terms of like the histrionics, that will shut him down if he tries to change it.
Deference and fear and concern and some self-attack, like I treat women differently.
But I'm just, you know, if you wanted to sort of understand why you may be trapped, if you are trapped in the bigger corporation in the hospital, it's probably because your relationship to HR and to the women in your organization is probably very similar to the relationship your father has to your mom.
I see. I never, I never even thought about looking at it from that angle.
And your father probably takes the approach that if she's upset, if she's stressed, if she's overwhelmed, that what I should do is try and shut down the stimuli and help her to calm down, right?
Exactly. Which is entirely the wrong thing to do, as far as I understand it.
Yeah. Right, because we, by being bubble wrapped, we get weak, right?
Yes. I mean, he'll often come to me and say, like, I really need you to talk to your mom about her concerns.
I don't know how to approach her. Wait, wait, you need to talk to your...
You need to deal with your dad's wife like you're the husband?
Yes, and I've recognized that problem before.
I mean, I told him that.
I said, well, you were married to her.
Why is it that you can't talk to her?
He's enlisting you to talk to him?
To his wife? Why?
I mean, if he can't talk to her, what the hell are you supposed to do?
You didn't choose her, he did.
He chose her.
It's his job. Why the hell is it your job?
I don't understand. You're the son, not the husband.
She thinks that she's more receptive to my request than to his.
Why did he choose such an infant?
I don't, like, what's up with your dad that this would be like, was she that pretty?
She was when she was younger, yes.
Ah, yes. So now she's flailing around after hitting the wall, and the lack of robustness that she, well, I guess, the robustness she failed to develop as a young woman because she was pretty is now catching up with her, rendering her somewhat unable to deal with basic life skills like having people over.
Well, I mean, she's in her 60s now, so it's not as though, like...
Ah, okay. It's like a new thing.
It's just been this...
That's pretty much been...
And I know I said it, you know, 10 minutes ago that, oh, she's not dangerous, but I mean, it's just...
Now that I think about it, it's just, you know, it's so obvious, but...
Well, no, she's controlling.
She's dominating through victimhood.
Through being overwhelmed. Like, why are women overwhelmed?
Because, listen, man, you ever get overwhelmed at work?
I know I do. How many people rush to our aid?
Not many. How many, exactly?
Zero. That's right.
A man gets overwhelmed, it's like, suck it up, buttercup!
Right? Your mother gets overwhelmed, and it's like, how can we rush in and help you, and what can we do, and maybe we can outsource this, and we'll get a bouncy castle for your friends, and we'll get someone to cater so you don't have to cook too much, and we'll get a clown and a magician, and everything will be fine, because you're upset. Right?
Those are things that he's done, actually.
Well, not the clown, the magician, maybe.
No, I get it. I get it.
I get it. No, it's like, oh, you're upset.
Let me fix it for you.
That's the real sexism.
You understand? And you understand, affirmative action is the same bullshit.
Oh, you're upset that women are underrepresented?
Let me force the government to hire women.
You know, that's the real sexism.
The real sexism is responding to women's emotional upsets with violent violations of the non-aggression principle.
Right? I mean, that is the real sexism.
The real sexism is in, what is it, in the early 1960s in a lot of places.
There were these laws that were passed that said women have to be paid exactly the same as a man for work of equal value or whatever, right?
Whoever knows what that means.
You know what equal value is?
What you negotiate for.
It's like, well, women are upset that they're being paid less.
Well, women want to have the votes.
They want to be immune from the draft.
They want to be equal. Okay, be equal.
Go negotiate the way that men do.
Men will be happy to train you how to do it and all of that.
But no, women didn't want that.
What they wanted was for the government to force men to hire them.
Well, no, you say no to that.
Of course not. No.
You want to be an equal.
Okay, be an equal. You want to be like men, then be like men.
You think the patriarchy is so easy?
Go be the patriarchy. Go join us in the patriarchy called responsibility and nobody riding in to solve your shit when you can't handle it.
Because you get overwhelmed, people don't help you, and then you figure it out.
And that's how you gain self-respect and strength of character.
But when the government runs in and says, we're going to negotiate on your behalf, little lady, because you clearly can't do it yourself, and the male politicians, and we're going to give money taken from men to you to make you feel better, honey, and if anybody disobeys all of this stuff, the patriarchy called the police will go and holla like...
It infantilizes women.
And we see the result of this infantilization now, with all these ridiculous movements and pussy hats.
I mean, this is the result of not treating women like adults.
You want equality?
Great! You know, I'm a huge fan of female equality.
Huge fan, because, of course, if you actually believe in female equality, you're somehow a misogynist.
It's just the way it works. I think that women should be equal to men, and I think that women and men should be equal under the law, and I strongly disavow any race or gender-based laws in the same way that I disavow laws favoring one particular religion over another, whether it is promoting laws or excluding certain religions from...
Criticism through blasphemy laws.
Yeah, yeah. You all know who I'm looking at right now.
So, no, your father has not done your mother any favors, and you're not doing your mother any favors?
I mean, doesn't she want to grow up before she dies?
Well, I've spoken to her directly about it.
The last time I visited, she was going on about, like, oh, the cats aren't eating their...
It just sounds so stupid. The cats aren't eating their dinner, and when I put the food down, they're not eating the food, and then I have to pick the food up, and then I have to wait for them to come back, and I just said to her, this is so stupid.
If you don't want the cats, just get rid of the cats, and if they're causing you all these problems, then just get rid of them.
No, no, no. That's not helping your mom.
Because what you're doing is you're saying, here, let me come and solve your problem for you and give you clear choices.
So then what would be helping her to say, we'll figure it out?
No. That sounds like a challenging problem.
What? Imagine she was a man!
But it isn't a challenging problem.
It is for her. And, you know, if she has the mental age of a 12-year-old, if there was a 12-year-old boy who was wrestling with you, like, wow, that's a challenging problem.
What do you think you might do?
Oh, that's an interesting problem.
Or, wow, this problem is really upsetting you.
What are you going to do? Well, I don't know.
Well, do you plan to do anything?
Because if you're not going to do anything, I'd rather you didn't complain about it, because I'm not a big fan of hearing endless complaints about things that you're not going to change, right?
Just, you know, consequences, reality.
Just being honest, right? Assume you don't like it when she keeps complaining about things she's not going to change, right?
No, I don't. Right, so just be honest.
It's called honesty. Be honest with women.
Be honest with everyone.
Just be honest. That is a challenging problem.
I'm happy to hear if you want to chew through some solutions, but don't rush in and, well, you've got to do this, or you've got to do that, or why don't you do this, or just do this or that.
That's just elbowing her potential adulthood aside.
I see. But even the fact that I... I mean, I do tell her that it annoys me, but it shouldn't be...
No, but telling her it annoys you without consequences, right?
Let's say you ask some woman out and she says no.
Okay. And you show up anyway, right?
Okay. You know, but you find out she's going bowling or something and you show up bowling, right?
And she says, I don't, I said no to the date.
And you say, well, I thought we'd hang out anyway.
Right? And she's like, no, like, that's a little, I feel a little creeped out here, like, I'm so sorry, like, if there was a misunderstanding or something, but when I said no to the date, I also meant no for, like, hanging out and stuff.
And you're like, no, you know, just, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna hang out here, and I'm gonna come bowling with you anyway, right?
Like, at some point, isn't she gonna say, you have to leave?
And if you don't leave, isn't she gonna complain to the manager of the bowling alley, say, this guy's bothering me, this guy's harassing me, and then what's he gonna do?
He's going to ask you to leave, and if you don't leave, assuming you're not post-last-week Starbucks store, he's going to call the cops.
And then the cops are going to say, she doesn't want you here, so you're going to have to leave.
And if you don't leave, you get arrested.
See, this is consequences for men, right?
Yeah. And so if your mom, if you say to your mom, I don't want to hear, you know, we've talked about this before, you don't have any solutions, I don't want to hear complaints.
Because fundamentally, my belief is that you're just complaining so that somebody else will try and solve the problem for you.
And so if she then talks about it, continues to talk about it, what do you do?
I guess you leave. You leave.
I see. I never tried that.
If people don't listen to reason, you have to train them like a puppy.
Bad mom. No complaining about the cats.
Bad mom. No.
No mom. No complaining about the kitties.
No. No proposing complaints without accepting solutions.
No. Bad mama.
I'm going to leave. I'm going to put myself in the naughty corner called not here.
And off you go. Yeah, I see.
No, I've never tried that.
I've never threatened to.
Not over the cats at least, but I mean, I've never threatened.
They're starting to leave, but not over the cats.
It's not a threat. It's consequences.
If you frame it as a threat, you're going to sound mean to yourself, right?
Yeah. Or what you could do is get a little plant sprayer.
Right? And she complains like she just complains without accepting anything.
Bad mama! No complaining.
No complaining without solutions.
And then if she does something good, you can give her a kibble, some catnip, you can play with a laser pen while she chases it around the bouncy castle, lots of shit you can do.
People either listen to reason, like, this is the breakdown.
You either don't have a relationship with people or you do.
Now, if you do have a relationship with people, you have to be able to have preferences, and so do they.
And so if they don't listen to your preferences, you either reason with them and say, it's kind of important to listen to my preferences because, you know, otherwise I feel like I'm not here and I'm just being used and so on, right?
So that's not even my preference.
It's sort of a requirement. So then they'll listen to that or they won't.
Now, if they won't listen to preferences and you want to still have a relationship, you have to train them like a puppy, which means that you give them positive reinforcement for doing what you want and you give them negative reinforcement for not doing what you want or for doing what you don't want and vice versa.
And if they won't listen to reason and they won't respond to positive and negative reinforcement, then you either...
Don't have a relationship with them explicitly or you don't have a relationship with them implicitly.
Explicitly means you don't see them and implicitly means you go there but you're just not there because they're never going to listen.
I see. But in terms of even just requesting to her, maybe you should go talk to somebody, even that type of approach is not...
A good one? What do you mean?
Maybe you should go talk to a therapist or something?
Yeah, exactly. Just to try to solve...
I mean, is that me trying to solve her issue in that sense?
Like, oh, I think this is out of control.
Maybe you should go address the underlying...
She's 62 years old. Does she not know that there's such a thing as a therapist?
She does. So you don't need to tell her?
I mean, would you tell her...
If she's complaining of a toothache, would you suggest she goes to see a dentist?
Well, I mean, I would, yes.
Really? You wouldn't need to tell your 62-year-old mother to go see a dentist if her tooth hurt?
I wouldn't need to tell her to go see a dentist in response to a toothache, but I would say, well, maybe you should go see a dentist in response to a toothache.
Do you know what I mean? Oh, no, come on.
You're trawling me now. No, come on.
I think you may have taken this troll fest too far.
Your mom is 62 years old.
She doesn't have Alzheimer's.
She's not retarded, right?
And you would feel the need to tell her to go see a dentist if she has a sore tooth?
No, I would say instead of complaining about your tooth, maybe you should go see a dentist.
No, really? What has your father done?
To me or to her?
To her! Oh my god!
Well, he's allowed for the infantilization.
No, he's not allowed her!
Has she ever had a job?
No. Has she raised eight children?
No. Well, she raised four children.
Okay, that's pretty good.
That's a big challenge, right?
Well, I mean, we still went to public school, so I mean, a lot of it was...
Some of it, at least, was offered to the government.
Was she better when she was younger, in terms of being remotely robust, or has she been a snowflake forever?
She was... When she was...
Well, I think I know what your reply to this is going to be, but when we were smaller and couldn't really do anything about it, she was much more like a...
I like it when people have listened to enough shows that I don't need to do that.
You already got the loop going, right?
I recognize that.
Is she getting worse?
Yes, she's getting worse.
Has she been checked out physically?
When you say physically, just in terms of disease...
I don't know. Is her brain working well?
Well, I mean, she's still able to, you know, function...
I don't want to say properly, but I mean, she's able to do tasks such as, you know, maintaining the house to an extent.
She has friends that she sees.
She goes out to, like, clogging and things like that, so...
She's not like, you know, babbling in a chair all day.
I am so sorry though, man.
Like, I am so sorry for you.
I'm not sorry for your dad because, I mean, he chose her and he obviously facilitated this to some degree, but I'm so sorry for you that you don't have a mom to look up to in this way.
That you don't have a mom who's gonna Help you and teach you and give you wisdom and knowledge and insights and just help you in the world.
Like, I'm really sorry. I mean, that is a really...
It's a very sad thing if you don't respect your mom.
Yeah, I would say that I don't respect Reefs.
That's true. I don't respect Reefs.
That is very sad. I'm very sad about that.
I'm just telling you, I mean, I know what it's like, although I'm not saying it's exactly the same, but I am just, I am sorry about that.
And therefore your dad, right?
Because your dad's roping you into the shit, like, you've got to go talk to your mom.
Well, he's not always explicit about it.
No, no, I get it. It's even worse.
I'm like, oh, I just really wish you'd come and visit and your mom would really love to see you and you haven't gone by in a while, but it's implicit and there is the explicit words.
Can you talk to your dad about, like, dude, what are you doing?
You've got another 20 years on this planet.
Is this how you're going to spend it?
Appeasing and manipulating and...
Well, I mean, I have tried to talk to him, and I have said to him, you know, why are you asking me about this?
You two are married. You're supposed to be able to discuss these things, right?
Because they sometimes will talk through me, as in, she'll, like, say something about, oh, your dad is doing this, and he'll say to me, like, oh, your mom is doing this, and it's kind of, like, implied, like, maybe you can try to fix it type of thing.
Does that make any sense? Oh, no.
I'm with you, man. 150%.
It makes total sense. So there's a lot of that, as in talking through me.
But they don't really talk to each other about their problems at all.
And sometimes it feels like they don't even know each other.
It's bizarre to me.
So to have him deal with it, his dad was exactly the same way with His grandmother.
Right. So he has every reason to not do it.
Yeah, exactly. No, seriously.
I mean, I just want to make that point because people make this excuse, right?
Like, well, his father was an alcoholic and it was terrible.
And it's like, so yeah, so he should not have drunk or not have drunk much, right?
He should have pulled a full Donald Trump versus his brother who died of alcoholism, right?
So if he saw his father doing this and knew how bad it was, he's got no excuse at all.
Well, but he wouldn't...
I don't even...
Well, he would never admit that that was a bad thing to do.
He would just go along the lines of, oh, well, that's just the way that we have to sacrifice for our life.
Right, so he justifies it, and therefore he perpetuates it.
But the justification is a choice.
He didn't have to justify it.
He didn't have to say, well, it's just the noble and good thing to do.
We all, I mean, we can all believe that, right?
We can all believe everything that our parents do is golden and wonderful and perfect, and we never have to define anything different at all.
But the price for that is repetition.
Whatever you worship, you become.
Whatever you praise, you inhabit.
Whatever you justify, you repeat.
So no, I don't think I, well...
Usually, if I ask him about it, he'll just shut off instantly, and he'll change the topic.
He's very emotionally unavailable for anything.
So is your mother. No, to be honest, because manipulative emotions is exactly the same as being emotionally unavailable.
Okay. No, I'm serious, right?
Think back to the conversation between the couple.
I don't know if you heard it at the beginning of the show.
I heard some of it, yes.
So she complained that he was stonewalling her, that he would emotionally shut down when she was confronting him about something.
And then she did exactly the same thing, which is that she got very emotional, which is a form of stonewalling, because it was manipulative emotion, it wasn't real.
I know when somebody's being real with me emotionally because I feel the emotion.
When somebody's being manipulative with me emotionally, I just feel annoyed.
Okay. And so your father is...
Stonewalling, and your mother is stonewalling.
So your father stonewalls by shutting down, and your mother stonewalls by turning on the waterworks.
Neither one of them lets a single coherent sentence get through the fog, right?
That's true, that's true.
But I'm just trying to think of which of the two would be more receptive to start with, you know?
Wait, wait, to start with what?
Your plan to change them when they're in their 60s?
What do you mean? Well, just to try to get them to acknowledge there's a problem that exists.
Why? Because it becomes a problem for me.
Why? Because I choose for it to be.
There you go. See?
When you're not free for yourself, you have to control others, right?
When you can't set boundaries, you end up having to control others.
All thirst for control stems from a lack of boundaries.
It's why we lose freedoms in the West when we don't have borders.
All first control stems from a lack of boundaries.
Yeah. Okay. So if you have boundaries and you say, sorry, I don't want to interact like this way.
Like we either have conversations or we don't.
You know, that did work.
I have to say, like, I didn't try, I would say explicitly, but one time I got so, like, frustrated with them.
That I said, like, I can't deal with you anymore, and if it continues this way, I'm leaving.
And that's when I found that they were more receptive.
So it's almost like just having, like, rescinding myself.
Because I guess from their perspective, they think, like, it's this familial bond that will never be broken, and therefore, no matter how much of an issue we come to them, he's always going to be there for us.
But I think if I make them see...
And see, just like HR, they can't be fired.
That's the way they see it, yes.
Yes, but when I got frustrated with both of them, at the same time, when I was talking to both of them, I did see that they were responsive to me threatening to leave.
Yes, that did work. I have a question for you.
Yes. How's your dating life?
It's non-existent.
Do you know why? Well, I'm guessing that this is...
Dealing with this problem, and I'm probably, I'm gonna go along the lines of that if I subconsciously think that if I would ever bring anyone into this, into this dynamic, they would just immediately leave, if they're of any quality.
Now, I know you probably often have done this, but just imagine that I was a hot chick.
Yep. You're there, right?
Like, like there. Absolutely, I understand.
Okay. I'm hearing this about your parents, and then you ask me out.
I wouldn't do it in that order, I hope.
Okay, so you ask me out, and then you tell me about your parents.
Probably happened in that order, most likely.
No, because listen, if I'm a smart woman, I'm going to ask you about your family.
Because I don't want to waste time, and I need to understand where your level of evolution is, where your consciousness is, where your self-knowledge is, right?
Because people who have self-knowledge are safe to be around because they can manage themselves, so they don't need to control you.
So I'm going to ask you about your family.
Yes. And I'm going to hear all this shit, right?
Well, eventually, yes.
No, no, no, no. Listen, if I'm a smart woman, I know I started off with hot.
Now I'm going to go with the hot crazy matrix top right quadrant, right?
That's why I was confused a bit.
Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Oh, I hear you.
I hear you. All right. Let's just say smart and hot.
Okay. I'm a smart.
Not a thought. I'm a smart.
Smart and hot. Yeah, I'm a smart guy.
And I'm going to want to find out about your family, so I'm going to get it out of you the first date, or first, second date.
No problem. Okay.
Right? Because I'm going to ask you the questions, and either you're going to tell me the truth, in which case I'm going to be horrified, or you're going to lie to me, in which case I'm going to know that you're lying, and I'm going to be horrified, right?
So they'd be gone in a snap.
Yes, okay. Yeah, because she'd be like, okay, so I need a husband who's going to be available to me.
I need a guy who's going to provide to my children.
Now, the fact that you have parents can be a wonderful thing.
If your parents are loving and supportive and they're as great-grandparents and they're going to be available and helping out and good sources of wisdom and so on, fantastic, you know?
But if your parents are going to be massive emotional and financial and existential drains upon you and they're going to pick up the phone and say jump and you're going to say how high and you're going to race off to deal with them and obsess about their issues and their problems, which you can't solve, how does that look for a woman who's trying to figure out how many resources are going to be available for her offspring?
Yeah, I guess I haven't yet acknowledged to myself that I can't solve their problem, so that's probably the first.
Well, okay, that's part of it.
But the real question is, why haven't you acknowledged the cost of trying?
That, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know. I've never...
Well, it's clearly there, and I clearly know it exists, but I've never...
You know the cost though, like when I explain it to you, the costs are pretty clear, right?
Yes, that is true.
And why haven't your parents thought about your needs and what helps or hurts you with dating?
This is monstrously selfish, the fact that they're taking resources from you and being needy to you and talking through you and running their entire fucking marriage through you.
They know what that does to your dating possibilities, even if they only know unconsciously.
So why are they cock-blocking you from smots?
Because they don't want to deal with each other.
How selfish, isn't it?
Yes. I mean, you're right in that they're cock-blocking me from quality, but they do push more for, like, just whoever you bring home is going to be fantastic, and they're going to be great.
I mean, I have asked them before, but, like, oh, you know, there's this person at work, and there's some red flags.
Like, what do you think? It's usually...
You know, it's just, oh, well, why don't you just give her a try?
Or, you know, to the worst of the extent, maybe it's just...
Wait, why did you just give her a try?
This is the sum total of wisdom that they're bringing in their seventh decade on the planet?
This is the sum total of their advices?
Yeah, roll the dice!
Sure. Even like the red flags I would describe to them just in retrospect are just so...
She has a space alien chewing its way out of her cleavage.
Well, son, you could just think of it as a third green tit.
So go for it. I've always had a clink that way.
Yeah, but I mean, they see it more.
You're right. They're selfish in the sense that they want grandkids, right?
So they're going to just obviously push me into whatever.
No, no, no. If they wanted grandkids, they'd stop having you try to run their damn marriage.
That's true. Right, because women aren't going to want to get together with you if you're running mommy and daddy's marriage.
And they're going to look at your mom, and they're going to say, oh, this is his template for womanhood, and he's not differentiated how dysfunctional it is.
Yeah. Ooh, I'm not sure I want to get involved in all of that.
Thank you very much. I don't know why smarts sound like Clint Eastwood, but apparently in this universe they do.
I see. Yeah, that's true, but I don't think I've ever gotten well.
And what was your first question to me about work?
It was, how can I change it?
Yeah, I guess it's impossible.
It's the same thing. But you understand, that's the price of how do I fix my parents' marriage, is how do I fix my work?
You cannot fix your parents' marriage.
The odds of them changing Or zero, pretty much.
You know, as close to zero as, you know, like all the air in this room, all the oxygen in this room could randomly Brownian motion its way to the top and I could asphyxiate.
Never say never, but I wouldn't put a lot of money on it.
Well, certainly, listen, I'll tell you this.
While you're running around trying to solve their marriage, it's not going to change.
You are the major impediment to change because you're the only one with choice at the moment, at least after this conversation, I hope.
So you are the major impediment to them changing.
Oh, so you would say that I'm a problem for them even solving a solution.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Because you are allowing them to bypass talking to each other by being the go-between messenger boy.
Ah, yeah. Right, so you stop doing that, they're gonna have to start talking to each other, right?
Now, it's gonna make them anxious, and it's gonna make them upset, right?
Of course, right? Because they want you to run their marriage for them, or whatever creepy stuff is going on.
So yeah, it's gonna make them upset, and so what?
I mean, it's the whole point of life to never be upset.
I've never understood that.
We want to live in this amniotic sack of perfect equanimity?
That's not healthy. It's not healthy.
We are meant to strengthen.
We're meant to resist. We carved an entire civilization out of swamp.
You know? Yeah, and unfortunately, I would say my dad transmits that a lot to my sisters as well.
So he's sort of like the same...
All this sort of, as opposed to asking you to change, they'll just provide you with the means to keep the insanity going type of thing.
Oh, when your siblings are all doubtless, try and wrestle you back into the family role as well, right?
Yes. You try and break this family system, or you try and break out of this family dynamic, and everyone is going to try and stuff you back in right quick, right?
Yes, that is true.
And they were very, well...
Someone's getting away!
Quick, release the hounds!
Yeah, no, that's true.
They definitely took a big issue with me.
They took a big issue with me making an issue of family dynamics.
Why are you upsetting mom?
She's old. She's not going to change.
Just help her a little bit. It's like, why can't you just get along with your siblings?
Like that type of thing. It's just, why can't you just do it for us?
Do it for us. Yeah.
Oh, I shouldn't laugh, man, because it's your family.
It's your life. But, you know, you're not that young a man.
I mean, don't you want to sort of plan for your own life and your own future and your family and, you know, like this circling the drain of the past?
I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm older or older, but, I mean, just, like, what my mom thinks and, you know, like, it's like, that's all the past.
Like, my mom's in her 70s now, probably 80.
Yeah. 80. And it's like, well, she had her life.
She made her choices. She made her decisions.
Now it's my life, my job, my decisions.
Like, why I would sort of chase after her and not make my own choices and my own decisions.
I don't know. I see.
Yeah, it's going to take, at least on my part, a lot more effort not to fix them, but to sort of rescind myself from them.
Well, to grow, to become your own adult, and to, I'm sure this dynamic of trying to fix their marriage and trying to deal with the crap, I mean, this goes way back, right?
This is not a new thing, right?
Them trying to get me to fix their marriage.
Or, you know, emotional manipulation or distance or being overwhelmed or like this is not new, right?
No, it's not. Right.
No, it's not. And this is why you're stuck in your career and this is why your love life is not happening.
This is the price we pay for conforming to other people's neediness is that we kind of cease to exist, right?
Yes. And to be an entrepreneur, you need to exist.
To be an entrepreneur, you need to be very willing to upset people.
Because people don't want what you have to offer.
And if you are persistent, they'll be bothered.
And other people want to sell to the customer that you're trying to sell to, and if you win, they'll be very bothered.
Like being an entrepreneur, being alive, breathing, means to annoy people.
And if you're like, well, I just can't upset people.
Well, you get trapped under the thumb of HR and become a dateless wanderer.
And you have so much to offer.
Dude, this is what's so crazy about it.
You have so much to offer.
You're smart. You're professional.
You're attractive. You're young.
You're educated. You're brilliant.
You have so much to offer.
Circling the drain of old neurotics is a pretty pitiful way to spend your 20s, man.
Well, now into my 30s.
Now would be a great time to panic.
I know. At least I guess I don't have the biological clock.
You kind of do. You kind of do.
No, no. Listen, sperm quality also declines with age.
And let's say you get to be 40 and you're marrying a woman who's 30.
Well, she's got a clock now.
And also you have a 10-year age gap.
Yes. Which is not always super easy to navigate, different cultural references, different histories, and so on, right?
Particularly how quickly the generations change these days.
I mean, imagine being, like, you grow up without tablets, and then your next generation grows up with tablets.
That's a hugely different childhood, no matter which way you slice it.
Yeah. So, no, you got a clock.
I mean, everyone has a clock. Yeah, I mean, I know you're right.
Plus you could die at 50.
That's true. You want to have your kids?
You know, have your kids. You don't know, right?
I got cancer at like 47 or whatever out of nowhere.
Like, I'm healthy as a horse.
Boom. Facing mortality.
And I got a little baby girl.
But I have thought about sort of making that trade-off.
Like, do I just, do I date?
What's left over of the women in their 30s, or do you date someone younger?
That's also difficult.
No, fuck all of that. Clean up your family shit.
Don't worry about the demographics right now.
Worry about the possibility.
And be in a situation where a great woman is going to be very impressed by who you are.
Don't give her any reason to doubt on the first or second date.
That's the key. All right.
Okay. All right.
All right. All right.
Let me know how it goes, man.
And thank you very much for a chat.
Thanks, everyone, so much for these great conversations.
Such a joy, such a pleasure, such an honor and a privilege.
I really, really appreciate the trust and openness that people bring to these conversations.
Please don't forget to help out the show at freedomainradio.com.
Donate. You can give us your crypto.
You can give us, if you've got a PayPal account, you don't need PayPal.
You can use a credit card or a bank card or anything like that.
Really appreciate it. If you can set up a monthly, you know, 10 bucks, 20 bucks, whatever, more, that's hugely helpful because it lets us plan more.
We're upgrading a bunch of equipment.
And so really, really appreciate your help.
I could have an exciting announcement in a little while.
Ooh, stay tuned.
Could be juicy.
And you can follow me on Twitter.
It's Stefan Mollen.
You can use the affiliate link fdrurl.com forward slash amazon.com.
Don't forget to pick up your copy of The Art of the Argument at TheArtOfTheArgument.com.
Last but not least, FreeDomainRadio.com to sign up for a newsletter because, hey, you just don't know what's happening in these crazy times.
