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June 15, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
03:09:30
4120 My Father Isn’t My Father - Call In Show - June 13th, 2018
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Hey everybody, Stefan Molyneux.
Hope you're doing well. We had two great callers tonight, and a caller.
And the first question...
Is a man in his mid-30s just found out through a DNA test that his father is not actually his biological father.
And what does that mean to his relationship with his family, to whether they told him the truth or not?
Very powerful stuff, very important stuff when it comes to, you know, the family relations that are the furnace in which we are all forged.
The second caller, wow, what a conversation.
What... So originally she was troubled by some of the comments I had made about Bill Cosby and Mr.
Cosby's or Dr. Cosby's preying upon women.
Should women not be free to go and meet men and to get professional advice without fear of being preyed upon or assaulted or even raped in some cases?
And it's a great question.
And I think there is this belief that men have it somehow free and easy, but women are inhibited or restrained in society.
I'm not sure that's entirely true.
But then, as is often the case with these kinds of questions, we talked about the question, and then we talked about why the question was so important to her, and wow, did we ever learn some things about her, her history, and life as a whole.
Now, the third caller...
Well, be patient.
Be patient. That's all I'm going to suggest.
Because it sounds like somebody who just wants to talk about abstract values.
But again, we try to figure out, as we so often do, why this question is important.
And once you get that...
Not only do you learn more about yourself and what motivates you, but often, as was the case here, we actually end up answering the initial question in a much more powerful way.
So, thank you everyone so much for listening, for watching, for supporting.
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Okay, first today we have Brian.
Brian wrote in and said, I am 36 years old, yet just this past year I have discovered, through a DNA test on 23andMe, that my father is not actually my biological father, and that my real father was a student and anonymous sperm donor at a medical university where I was conceived.
My brother was also revealed to be a half-brother.
I had underlying suspicions for years, to which my parents had always misled me, and when the DNA results were finally revealed, their response was, DNA was not really known in 1982, and had we known this, whatever be found out, we would not have lied.
My question is whether or not you would consider the practice of donor conception to be morally viable, and whether or not lying to children about who their biological father is, is akin to child abuse.
That's from Brian. Brian, wow, what a story.
Oh, thank you, Steph. You can hear me okay?
Yeah, yeah, it's great. First, I want to say I'm really honored to talk to you.
I was a big listener of Harry Brown.
He got me into libertarian thought way back around 2003, 2004.
And then when he died, there was a big void.
And you came in.
I said, I've been listening to you since 2007.
Wow.
And that kind of filled that void that I was missing listening to a libertarian thinker.
So, I just- Thanks.
Harry Brown is great.
Did you ever hear him?
This is kind of way going back.
He had a really good show, a great show with a Clinton impersonator that- This would be a Bill Clinton impersonator.
Yes, it was hilarious. Like, what a great sense of humor that man had.
Oh, man. The real libertarian gentleman was a big influence on me.
I loved listening to him.
He also had a couple of people who'd call in regularly on his show.
And what was it, Drivespin?
Or it was like some really esoteric piece of hardware that was his sponsor.
I even remember one of the... I remember one of the jokes from that Bill Clinton show.
He said, yeah, I hear they're over in Afghanistan and they're walking around with no shoes or anything like that, barefoot.
And we got that down here in Arkansas now, you know, no teeth and no shoes.
Yeah, it was hilarious, man.
Yeah, so people should check out Harry Brown.
That's Brown with an E and his books are very good as well.
Alright, so tell me a little bit about what sent you down this road.
And did you get the DNA test for other reasons or to actually find this out?
Well, I found out by interrogating my mother last summer.
And she was at first lying to me, but I caught her on some contradictory statements about why it took her so long to get pregnant.
And then she made the mistake of saying, well, I had some things done to me.
And when she said, I had some things done to me...
That was when she left her husband, who I'd always believed my father, out of that equation by saying I had some things done to me.
That's when the light bulb went off in my head and I'm like, wow, I think this is actually true.
And then my next question was, of course, did you or did you not?
Yes or no. Because she kept dodging my questions.
So I gave her a blanketed yes or no question.
Did you or did you not have an artificial insemination?
She said, I think you better talk to your dad about that and walked in the other room.
Well, then it became even more clear and then I just kept following her in the other room and Finally, she admitted to it.
And then the thing with the DNA testing was actually she still continued lying to me over the next nine months because my very next question was, well, are my brother and I fully biological brothers then?
And she can swore up and down that, yes, we were.
So I had to go through a process of trying to get my brother to test, which he had never been willing to do because I had approached him like seven years ago about doing it.
I told him I had a suspicion.
Finally, he did it and I was confirmed right again.
My brother was actually only my half brother, in spite of what my parents were still telling me.
So they still didn't want to come clean, even after admitting the donor conception.
Wow. And like most of these things, even if we allow that it's a crime, it's not really the crime so much, it's the cover up, right?
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that was the most troubling thing because, well, that's kind of what I wanted to discuss with you.
I mean, is it a crime or is it not a crime?
Now, I definitely feel like the deception aspect of it and lying to me about it is a crime, but the act itself, I haven't necessarily came to the conclusion that that is a crime.
Maybe it is, but like I said, that's one of the things I kind of wanted to talk to you about.
Well, to run it through, since you're a long-time listener, Brian, to run it through the basic equation, does it violate the non-aggression principle to use a sperm donor?
Well, knowing that it's based on force, I would think that...
Wait, wait, what's based on force?
Knowing that the non-aggression principle is based on you don't force people to do things against their will.
And where I'm going with that is that Allowing the freedom to...
I would think that there should be some freedom as far as trying to figure out ways in the medical institutions.
There should be some level of freedom, so I'm not necessarily wanting to restrict the industry.
So it's not a violation of the non-aggression principle to use a sperm donor?
I mean, it's all voluntary, it's all...
Right, right, right.
That's where I was going with that, yep.
Now, the non-aggression principle, though, has the major chord of force and the minor chord of fraud, right?
Now, that is the big challenge when it comes to sperm donors to artificial insemination and so on, is the fraud aspect.
Which is what you say to your kids.
Now, I think it's actually wrong, quite wrong, to not tell your children the biological origins of their life, because there are many traits, there are many illnesses.
That have genetic components and you kind of need...
It's not so much important when you're young unless you have bad luck, but when you get older and you're kind of looking at the second half or the last third of your life, the genetics really come into play with what's going to kill you, right?
I mean, there was an old saying from a nurse I knew who was like, yeah, you want to know how you're going to die?
Look at your parents! That's kind of how it's going to go.
Now, that's probably too far.
That is too far, but the genetics...
And the role that your genetics have in your personality and your strengths and your weaknesses and in particular in your susceptibility to ailments.
That is something that you kind of need to know.
And when you lie to children, that's a big gray area.
You know, do you want to, you know, the first time that your little toddler says, Dada!
Do you want to say, no, no, no, no.
And then you open up the picture of like the sperm donor book.
That's Dada! Right?
I mean, that's probably a bit intense for a kid and they can't really.
It's important not to burden kids with things they can't.
Really process or understand or accommodate within their minds.
Right. To think that there's a biological affinity when there's less of one than you think, because the difference is you don't know where to place them, right?
Sure. Yeah.
I mean, the safe route that people in my situation, and by the way, I've never met one of them personally, but now through the internet I've been researching this thing.
The safe route is they start talking about medical histories and how this is a violation because we're denied our medical history.
But really, I think that's just kind of a front for what they really want to talk about.
And that's the psychological aspect of all that, which you kind of touched on there in the latter part, that thinking that someone you have a bio, growing up under the false illusion that you have a biological connection with somebody that you actually don't can cause all kinds of subconscious distortion, wouldn't you think? Well, this is the thing, right?
So, as you say, you're 36 years old.
So, let's say, for the sake of argument that, you know, 16, 17, 18 is an appropriate time to tell kids about the reality of their origins if it's not traditional, let's say.
So, here's, to me, what I was thinking about this today, right?
And I was thinking, okay, well, what would be the big trouble for me?
So, the big trouble for me, Brian, would be, for 20 years, you now...
Know what your parents look like where they're lying while they're withholding information.
And every time that you've been together, you have trusted them or they've looked you in the eye and told you stuff, and the whole time they're keeping a big secret from you, then I think you have a right to know because it's truthful and it's important and it's relevant.
And so for 20 years, you've had the experience of people looking you in the face and not telling you the truth.
And that's far more damage than anything that could have been done if they told you the truth when you were in your teens.
Sure, sure.
I mean, all credibility goes out the window on that, because then it's like, well, anything that they've told me after that point, I mean, I have to go back and reflect on anything that I've been told now by my parents, because if they lied to me about something that essential, and not only lied about it, I mean, I can now go to points where I was purposely manipulated and steered in a certain direction to keep me from You know, asking questions about that.
You know, I almost have to question everything that I've been told by my parents from the beginning.
So, yeah. Well, and then the big question is, and I don't know if you've had this conversation with them, Brian, but the big question is, why?
Yeah. Why?
Why not tell the truth? Well, I gotta tell you, uh, I've talked to a lot of people about this since finding out, and Stefan, most people just tell me the reply that, oh, they did it because they loved you, and they loved you, and they wanted what's best for you.
They didn't do it for any, you know, to harm you or anything like this.
It's all because they love you.
People say that stuff, they don't know.
I mean, I get innocent until proven guilty, but I don't know why they...
I wouldn't say, well, they just wanted to mess with your head or, you know, they love you.
It's like people just project all this stuff.
They just want an answer that they can walk away from and feel better about.
And it's terrible because, I mean, the people you're just telling this story to, they don't know your family.
They don't know your parents. They don't know why.
That's why I'm asking because I don't know why they misled you for two decades or more.
Yeah, I don't either.
And it's really made me, the people I thought I knew all my life, I really have to question everything, you know, like, and I don't know either.
I could tell you my parents were always the type of people, I mean, if you just look at my name, Brian, I mean, even my mom told me the reason she'd given me that name was because she wanted a common name that, you know, was accepted.
And they've always kind of been Into this thing about wanting, you know, me to fit in, wanting the family to look normal, wanting the family to look, you know, like every other family.
So I think that might be kind of, this is just a guess on my part, but I think that might be the root of it, that they've always wanted to present things in that kind of way, that we're like that, you know, all-American family.
Do you know why they went the donor route to begin with?
Usually it's not to begin with, but why they ended up with the donor root.
Yeah, so my mom's husband, who I guess the term would be my legal father, he was sterile.
This is one of the reasons where I got my mom when I was kind of interrogating her, was that he had been married previously before my mother, and he'd been married for five years and hadn't had any children.
But yet my mom had actually, when she was very young, like 19 years old, she had had a child that she had had to give up for adoption because she was so young and still living with her parents and didn't have any money at the time.
Her parents made her give that child up for adoption at birth.
So I knew my mom had the ability to become pregnant because she had become pregnant at such a young age.
But then yet my dad had been married for five years and had no pregnancy and then married to my mom now for eight, nine years before they finally.
So yeah, it certainly was because of my dad.
That's a little less common.
It's a little less common for the man to have fertility issues because men's reproductive organs are just less complicated and naughty than what goes on with a woman.
Do you have any idea what caused the infertility?
Because that means not one sperm or very, very few.
Do you know what caused that?
For my father, I mean, for my legal father, I tried to ask that question.
And the answer that my mom gave me was like a lot of answers she's been giving me over the last year.
It sounded like she could have been lying to me.
But her reasoning was that, oh, he'd gotten kicked in the balls by a girl when he was a teenager in a fight.
And he thinks that's when it happened.
So I don't know.
Yeah. Very interesting.
Yeah. Very interesting.
Yeah. Yeah.
And how has this affected your relationship?
Because, I mean, there's, I guess, family members, right?
There are your parents who withheld this information from you.
There's your brother, which is kind of an interesting gray area, your half-brother, because he didn't withhold the information from you, but as you were saying seven years ago, he was not that keen on pursuing it, right?
Yeah. No, he's never supported me on this thing up until today.
And it's been very frustrating.
I approached him about seven years ago.
You know, it's a very, I mean, imagine if I'd been wrong.
And let's say I approached my legal father and said, Hey, I'm not sure you're actually my dad.
I want to get a DNA test.
And then imagine if I'd been wrong, like I would have really shamed my father and the family.
So I thought the safe route was just to go to my brother and be like, Hey, you know, I think that something might be going on.
I gave him a few of my reasons, some of my suspicions.
And he wouldn't do it for me.
And so more time passed and more time passed.
And it's kind of just always been on the back burner in my life.
But it got to a point where I resolved last summer that, hey, I'm getting to the bottom of this thing one way or another.
Then after the news came out, I called my brother about it again.
And I told him what happened.
And he said, this is true because you wanted it to be true.
That's what he told me. He said, because some asshole...
Jizzed in a tube 30-some years ago.
You know how much that means to me?
Nothing. That was my brother's response.
And then I went another nine months.
I bought him a kit and everything.
Nine months of trying to convince him to do the test so that we could at least find out if we were half-brothers or not.
He finally did it. And everyone was in shock to find out we were half-brothers except for me because I had always had this underlying intuition.
Your imitation of your brother is quite compelling.
I'm afraid to say.
I'm afraid to say.
What did he mean when he said it's true because you want it to be true?
What does that mean? I don't quite understand that context.
Well, I don't either.
I mean, it seems like a really...
Wacky assertion to make, but where he was going with that was I think that our lives could have gone on just fine.
Everything was hunky-dory.
Our dad was our dad.
Everybody's happy. And I upsetted the apple cart.
Oh, so his sperm was scooped out from the ignorance's bliss fat, right?
That or, you know, my legal dad and I, we did have some issues when I was like around the age of 16 when a lot of kids have issues with their...
With their fathers. And he might have thought that it was some underlying vendetta from my teenage years that I had against him.
And so he could have meant that.
But I don't know what he I don't know why he would say something like that.
And how were your parents? I mean, outside of this issue?
How were they as parents? They were very good parents when I was a child.
I had a good childhood and they took care of me and everything.
But I think when I got to the age, once I started to become a teenager and I started to have deeper issues, like more thoughtful questions for them, like more emotional issues.
They weren't able to connect with me on any kind of emotional or psychological level once I came of age.
I just started distancing myself.
The older I got.
And then it got bad around the time I was 16 because my legal father had a drinking problem.
And he would just like do this thing where he'd kind of interrogate me at the dinner table and wouldn't let me leave the dinner table.
He'd keep grilling me about this thing or that thing.
And it's ironic because I used to go up to my room when I'd finally be able to escape, and I would keep repeating the mantra to myself, I'm never going to be like my father.
I'm never going to drink like my father.
I'm never going to be like my father.
I'm never going to drink like my father.
And I just look at it like, wow, what if somebody would have came down to me at that age, like an angel would have came down to me when I was 16 and said, look, well, whatever your Whatever you're wishing right now, that's granted because he's actually not your biological father.
You're not biologically tied to him.
Now things cooled off after that.
I mean, I became more mature.
Well... Anyway, I became an adult and I had my own life and things like that.
And, you know, we were on good terms and everything.
But yeah, things were pretty heated around the time I was 16.
I really had some really strong aversion.
And I think now I can see that it might have had an underlying root in this donor conception and me being lied to.
How long did the drinking go on for?
Well, I heard you on one of your shows, you said something very interesting.
You were talking about an abusive relationship that this girl had, and she was telling the timeline, and she said it kind of stopped when she turned like 20 or something like that.
And you were like, ooh, are you surprised about that?
Notice you're a little bit bigger, getting a little bit stronger.
Suddenly it stops once you're of age.
Well, that was kind of the case with me.
Once I became an adult...
He kind of backed off on all that type of stuff around the time I became 18, 19.
And then he kind of also started limiting his drinking.
He retired. Did you move out at that time or were you still living at home?
I moved out right after graduation.
I graduated at 18.
I mean, I was 18 years old.
I graduated, went to my senior class trip or whatever.
And after that, I had my own apartment.
So, I mean, one of the reasons why parental improvement occurs, there's sort of two major phases.
One is, well, yeah, let's just keep it down to two.
So one is when you hit puberty and you get bigger and stronger and you are not as easy to physically intimidate.
The second is when you move out.
Your parents will often improve their behavior if they're dysfunctional because you don't have to go back.
Like, you have to come home if they're the only place you can put a roof over your head.
But when you get older, you don't have to come back.
And so what they do is they improve their behavior because it's more voluntary for you to be there.
Oh, sure. And that was even one of the goals when I moved out was that I wanted to have that boundary, that buffer that I would no longer be able to tell myself that, hey, I'm never going to have to put up with this thing from my father again of him grilling me at the dinner table and I can't escape because I always have my apartment to go to.
So that was even one of the reasons that I moved out.
If I knew that he was drunk that night, I just would be gone that night.
And so, yeah.
And invasive drunks are the worst, man.
Invasive drunks, the drunks who just won't leave you alone.
They follow you around. They get tense.
They get punchy. They slice and dice you.
They corner you. They grill you.
They cross-examine you.
They look for faults. It really is...
Like fast forward invasive zebra mussel species swarming through a lake.
It's so hard to get any kind of personal boundaries with the invasive drunk.
My mom had a friend who was an invasive drunk and oh man.
They want to make a point and they won't let you escape.
You're trapped with a tiger in a cage.
Yeah, they have some point that they want to make and even if you keep trying to say, okay, yeah, wow, I agree with you.
Wow, that's amazing. I never thought of it that way.
They still just won't let you go.
They keep driving that point in again and again and again.
It's a very frustrating thing.
Where are you going? Come back here.
We're not finished yet. It just goes on and on.
Sure, sure.
Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
Now, What's interesting is that there's sort of two ways of looking at the situation outside of what your parents did immediately, Brian.
There's sort of two ways of looking at it.
One is that, you know, they lied to me and betrayed me and misled me.
I'm not going to try and talk you out of that because that is kind of a fact.
I can't unwish what has been done.
But there is another way of looking at it as well.
Which is to say this, they really, really, really, really, really wanted to be parents.
Yes, yeah.
So you were, you know, it's like the couples who go through in vitro fertilization or who get their FSH levels checked and who take the injections.
I mean, they really, really want to become parents, right?
Right. Right.
And that is something, in a sense, not that you're an accident, not that you were in inevitability, but that you were a prize that they seriously pursued.
Let me tell you a story from when I was a kid.
This is when I lived in England.
In the little apartment building that I lived in, there was a couple upstairs.
Now, at the time, I used to hang out.
I was a very friendly kid, and I used to hang out with a lot of the neighbors, and I really, really enjoyed stories from older people.
The French couple upstairs who had been in the war and who were absolutely terrified when I came up to show them my hamster.
Because I mean, imagine what may have happened to them in the war with rats, but I didn't know that at the time, of course.
I was like five or six years old.
But there was a couple upstairs...
Who had, you know, the kind of sadness that in hindsight I know was to do with infertility.
They wanted kids.
And my mother at one point mentioned they had tried six times or they had six, I don't know, miscarriages.
It was like, it was tough.
It was tough. And they enjoyed my company, but I think it was bittersweet because I was a fun kid and I was a good kid and I was obviously a pretty chatty kid.
And so for them, it was like, oh, we really enjoy the company of that nice little blonde boy downstairs.
But at the same time, I think it kind of reminded them of what they didn't have, which was a child.
So it was kind of bittersweet.
But I was up in their...
What we call the flat, right?
I was up in their apartment and it was raining pretty hard because, well, because it was London.
It was raining pretty hard.
And, you know, the rain kind of sluicing down the windows.
And I was looking at that, and I remember very clearly that game that you play when, before the tablets, I guess, when you were bored in the car, where you pick a raindrop and see which raindrop, who gets to the bottom first.
And we heard some yelling from outside the flat.
And it was a mom who was just pulling.
It was a boy and a girl.
She was on the sidewalk.
There was a lawn and then there was a sidewalk and then there was a road.
And the mom was like wrestling with...
An umbrella at the same time as she was trying to get her kids to go with her.
And this was the kind of, I guess, family structure or situation where as the parent wrestled, the kids resisted.
So she was wrestling, trying to keep her hair dry, which had been nicely coiffed.
She was trying to keep her hair dry.
She was wrestling with...
The brawly, yes, we would call it, or the umbrella in the wind, and her kids were whining and crying, and she was just, you know, pulling them like some very aggressive rower, just pulling them along.
And the kids were crying. And, you know, like when your kids want to get away from you because they're having a terrible time, and there are cars whizzing by, like it just was one of these situations, you could see it escalating, and you could see that there was not going to be a good end to it at all.
And what she did was she just backhanded her son across the face.
And when she did that, the woman, the wife, in the apartment, in the flat that I was in when we were looking out at seeing this happen, she flinched.
And you know, I remember very clearly what she said to her husband.
She said, it hurts me so much that people break what we can't even have.
Wow. It hurts me so much that people can break what we can't even have.
Right. Because when you want to be a parent, I mean, that's sort of what I got.
They thought a lot. I hope they had kids.
I hope they had kids.
I hope They got what they wanted because I think they would have been good parents.
You know what it's kind of like?
This is a goofy sort of parallel example.
Have you ever really been into a girl and her boyfriend is crap?
And you can see that he's crap.
She's kind of into him.
And you know you'd be better for her than he is.
You know that. I remember when I was in graduate school, there was a girl I was interested in.
A woman, I guess, at that point I was interested in.
And we hung out a bit.
We played tennis. And I know she was wavering.
I know she was like one foot on the pier, one foot on the boat.
I know that. And her boyfriend was kind of like an amiable goof.
He was kind of easy to control, and she had him pretty whipped.
And I just remember he used to make goofy jokes.
Like, I'd say, oh, what do you do for a living?
I met him once or twice. And he's like, oh, I ruined my family.
I mean, I run my father's business, you know?
Like, he ruins his snowy minster, they run.
Like, he was just kind of goofy, jovial.
He was like a 62-year-old uncle in plaid shorts trapped in the body of a 27-year-old guy.
And I just... It's like...
And he just, you know, didn't really challenge her.
And he, you know... And there's times, I think, in women's life where they prefer that until they get bored.
But anyway. And I remember thinking, like, I would treat you so much better than he does.
Not that he was, like, mean or abusive or anything like that.
But he just didn't notice.
I mean, he was, like, I don't know, some high school educated guy.
Good-looking guy and all that.
She was doing her master's and smart as a whip and all that.
And I was just like... You'd have a better time with me.
And we've all also had these situations where there's some really great looking girl who seems nice, who's just with a total trash burger, you know, like Mr.
Stormy Daniels or something like that.
Someone who looks like Satan sneezed out of visage through Dave Navarro's armpit.
And you're like, I treat you so much better than he.
Why are you with this idiot?
Why are you with this mean guy?
Why are you with this trashy guy?
Why, why, why? And why, you know, if she's with some abusive mean guy who makes her cry all the time, it's like, why is he breaking what I can't even have?
Why is he breaking what I want?
And so for your parents, they really wanted to become parents, and they really worked hard to become parents, and I would assume that they tried.
I think the rule of thumb is something like you try for two years, a year or two years, and then you can start to look for alternatives, but they really did want you.
And the lying is not good.
The lying is not good at all.
And the drinking was not good, and the invasiveness was not good.
But you'll never wonder if you were wanted.
You'll never wonder if you were something that just happened to your parents.
You'll always know that you were very much pursued and your creation was very much willed.
Yes. It should give you superpowers.
I'm not sure what they are, but it should.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
What do you think?
And how do you feel about the medical industry's role in all this, the...
The fact that they...
The secrecy that's involved, the doctors...
Uh, often giving, you know, convenient information to the parents, like, yeah, sure, we'll get you biological, fully biological brothers, and then not thinking that DNA would ever come out to dis, you know, disprove anything.
Oh, so the, I would assume that your parents wanted full siblings, right?
This is a really, uh, yeah, I can't get honest, I mean, I don't, I don't know what's an honest answer and what's not, uh, So, but yeah, we can assume that they did, and according to my parents, they thought that we were.
I did call the doctors.
He's still in practice, the doctor that conceived me, and he didn't dignify me with any kind of response, but through his nurse, he said that we were.
I mean, if I'm to believe his nurse, his nurse did get back to me, and the nurse said that Yeah, he can't give any information, but he did say that you and your brother are fully biological.
So, I don't know.
Like full biological siblings? Yeah, yeah.
So, that was strange.
And so, there is a case where he...
Of course, according to my mom, that she was just lied to by the doctor and he said that we were...
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, depending on where you are, I'm not sure that information can even be disclosed.
I certainly think that by the time you're an adult...
You should know your origins, so you should have availability to your origins, for sure.
Now, regarding adoption and the parents who gave you up for adoption, that's a whole other question.
But as far as this stuff goes, my guess would be something like this, that From a libertarian perspective, we wouldn't want to enforce any laws, right?
To restrict that industry, the medical industry.
Oh, no. There would be contracts, right? There would be contracts that would be signed.
So, I mean, it wouldn't be law, but it would be certainly, as we understand it now, but it certainly would be enforceable.
So, my guess is that your parents maybe went to...
Are you older or your brother?
My brother's two years older.
Okay. So, they went to get your brother...
And then they went back and said, do you have any of the same donor who put out the brother?
And maybe they said yes, and there was a mistake, or maybe there wasn't, but they said yes anyway.
Or maybe your parents said, well, if that's not available anymore, I don't know if you could reserve these saying you want siblings.
I have no idea. Yeah, that's the strange thing.
That's the answer that would have passed for me.
I mean, if my mom had said, look, we asked from the beginning, we said, please reserve us the same donor.
We want them to be fully biological.
And this was agreed upon.
Well, that would have made sense.
But when I first asked my mom if we were fully biological, she gave me the strangest answer.
She said, first she said, oh, yeah, I wasn't supposed to see the donor, but I saw the back of his head and the back of his head.
Looks like the back of your brother's head, which doesn't make any sense because my brother would have been like, what, one-year-old, two-year-old at the time.
And then she said, and I overheard him talking to the doctor in the other room, and he said, wow, you've been a busy man lately.
And so I know he was coming back a lot.
And I came back to her a lot over the course of the nine months.
And I was like, mom, that story just doesn't check out.
Are you sure we're fully biological?
I mean, you've got to be sure on this.
And then she started saying, oh yeah, I'm sure because the doctor told me.
And I said, well, when did he tell you?
She said, well, afterwards, or she said, well, I asked when I became pregnant with you, is it the same dad?
And he said, yes.
And that just sounded really strange, like for her to ask after the fact.
So then I came back again later and I said, well, mom, that sounds awfully strange for you to ask after the fact.
Are we fully biological?
I mean, wasn't this a thing that was...
Wouldn't you have asked before to, like, have requested this same donor?
She goes, oh, yeah, I did.
So then she gave me that as evidence.
So she's given me different stories on this thing.
She's not particularly confident in lying.
But Brian, how would you rate...
Here's the last pillar of positive feelings I can give you about this.
How would you rate your parents' intelligence?
Uh, well, uh, I mean, my mom has a, has a college degree and my father was, uh, or my father was a, uh, computer programmer, um.
So they're people who, so they have to at least have average to Above average intelligence.
Yeah, like in the 110 neighborhood?
Yeah. And what about yourself?
Well, I don't know that I'm higher than them, like, as far as on the IQ scale, but definitely when it comes to, like, emotional, psychological, kind of existential issues, I mean, they have actually absolutely no...
No ability in those areas.
And I seem to be highly, very interested in such things.
And so, but I think on the whole, I'm probably, I don't know, it's hard to say because if my biological dad, this is another thing, if my biological dad is a doctor, then that would put me at a different, maybe at a different place on the scale of IQ. So that's an interesting question that you asked.
I'm sorry, I probably missed this part.
How do you know he was a doctor? Well, at that time, where my parents had this done, the medical university, at that time, they were using med students.
So probably 120 plus, right?
As far as IQ goes. Yeah, yeah.
If he was, in fact, a med student, I mean, that's what...
I mean, I have no proof of that, but that's what the procedure, the standard procedure was at the medical university where they had this done.
Do you wish that you had more of a mix of your parents' characteristics or not?
I would say no, actually, because I told you about how I was having a disconnect with them when I was in high school.
And... That kind of led me off in a different direction.
And so when I found out that there was something, and I also had this disconnect with my brother too.
And, uh, so when I actually found out that I was, uh, that my bio, I did have something inside of me biologically that was outside of the family.
Uh, I actually felt quite validated and enlightened because I'd had this feeling like when my mom first told me that I was donor conceived, it was like, Whoa, that's what it was.
That's why I've always had a different way of thinking and perceiving things in them.
But then right after that, when she followed up with the lie that my brother and I were fully biological, it was like, suddenly I was pinned back down.
So it was very bittersweet.
And then when I finally got validated once more, nine months later, it really filled in a lot of, a lot of holes for me and in my life and in my way of thinking and in my behavior and So if you, sorry to interrupt, but if you'd had the magic wand of time and omniscience, would you have wanted them to do what they did?
How are you better off, do you think, in some ways at least, because you weren't conceived from your father directly?
Hmm... Wow.
Without knowing my biological father, it's hard to say.
It's hard to answer that, and I think it would be a big disrespect to my legal father to say that I wouldn't have wanted to be of his progeny.
No, no, no. I didn't say wouldn't wanted to have been.
I mean, it can be 51% better versus 49%.
I mean, is there any improvement?
It's not black and white, but is there any improvement, do you think, that has arisen from the outside injection of DNA? Well, yeah, because I've always felt like I had this higher place, this place that I could go mentally, that I didn't feel like my brother or my dad or my mom could sort of reach this space.
And even when I was growing up, my brother used to get bullied in school because he wasn't athletic, or he used to say he wished that he looked like me so that he would have been Maybe he would have had more girls attracted to him.
I mean, he would say that to me.
That's not me saying that.
So I did feel like...
And it was even a girl that lived next door, a best friend growing up, that was the first one that sort of pointed something out to me.
Like she had gotten in a fight with my brother one day and he'd kicked her in the crotch.
And this is when we were like 12 years old or something.
And she was crying and comforting in me.
And she was like, you know what?
You're different than your family.
You know, how is it that your brother is your brother?
There's no way that can be your brother.
You know, you guys are different.
Something is different about you.
And she was crying and emotional.
But it was almost like the utmost...
In a way, it was like such a compliment at the same time.
Like it was saying that whatever it was about my brother...
You're nothing like the guy who just kicked me in the groin.
Yeah, like, it was almost like...
It was like that.
It felt like...
It really...
I don't know. So, it's hard to say, because like I said, I don't want to...
I don't want to...
I'm trying to be careful about not saying anything bad.
No, no, listen. I'm not saying, you know, ditch your legal father or, you know, think that it was all terrible.
I'm trying to sort of point you away from the black hole of betrayal and say...
Right. Not for forgiveness, necessarily, but for a different way of looking at it.
I've actually never been against the donor conception aspect of it.
The fact that I'm donor-conceived What didn't bother me?
Because for all I know, my bio father could be an amazing and extremely intelligent guy.
So I'm not against that.
The part that I was against was the deception and how that could have distorted my reality and how I was sort of living a false illusion.
I mean, my parents have even so much as admitted that we were living an illusion.
We wanted to believe that I was the...
Biological father and we never thought about it.
After it was done, we just moved on for all intents and purposes like he was my biological father.
Right, so you don't share...
That's a huge distortion. You don't share as many genes as you thought with the bad lyris and the invasive drunk.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, I can see some upside to all of that.
I can see some upside to all of that.
And I can certainly understand feeling so different from your brother that you wonder if you might have a different father.
I can crock that.
All right, well, I hope that I've helped.
I really, really appreciate the call.
And of course, I really want to acknowledge and appreciate your long-term listenership.
Feel free to call in any time, but I hope this has been a helpful conversation.
Yeah, it sure has. And it's something I won't forget, the opportunity to speak with you.
And I know how valuable your time is, so I really do appreciate it.
Well, thank you very much, Brian. Great to meet you.
Okay, great to meet you, too. Bye.
Okay, up next we have Afton.
Afton wrote in and said, In the Fall of Bill Cosby episode, Steph talks about women needing to take greater caution when interacting with men.
He equates a woman accepting an older man's invitation to accompany him to private quarters with leaving a Rolex on a park bench in downtown New York.
My interpretation of his argument was that because women are more vulnerable to predation than men, they should limit their freedom more in order to avoid being confronted by evil in our society.
Vulnerability is not only an invitation for evil, but also an opportunity for others to act with moral integrity.
The right to freedom from the initiation of coercion and freedom of movement for women and other vulnerable citizens of a nation whose constitution is based upon those principles are promised defense against those who violate the constitution.
It is through defending our freedom that we protect it from being destroyed by those who wish to enslave us.
How much more of our individual freedom are we expected to sacrifice in order to escape the evil society claims to defend its citizens against?
That's from Afton.
Oh, hey Afton. How are you doing tonight?
I'm very well.
Before we start, I'd also like to just take a moment to thank you for everything that you do to share information and Truth and good arguments with anyone who cares to listen to the show because it's helped me a great deal in my life to have some more consistency in my own beliefs and to have an overall better life.
Oh good. I'm very glad to hear that.
Thank you. It's very kind to hear.
So why do you think the women went to Bill Cosby's house?
They may have...
They've been naive and assumed that there would be some benefit in going.
I don't think that they thought they were vulnerable to the kind of abuse that they endured in any serious way.
Otherwise, they probably wouldn't have gone.
Would you agree? I know we're all speculating here, but just for funsies.
Why do you think... They would think that some 65-year-old multi-multi-millionaire famous entertainer would be interested in their young pretty selves.
Well, they obviously may have assumed that he found them attractive, but I think that it would have had something to do with his connections and his Yeah,
but men hang out with each other for the same reasons, don't they?
I mean, don't people kind of find each other and get together?
Wait, what? Okay, let's rewind here for a second.
Let's rewind here for a second.
Men hang out with each other for the same reason.
I'm really open to hearing this, but I just wanted to be honest about my reaction to that, which was, huh?
Okay, go on. Not the same reason that occurred in the circumstance between these women and Bill Cosby, but for the reason of wanting to seek connections and to gain opportunities through socializing.
Well, do men, yeah, but men of equal stature tend to hang out together, right?
Footballers tend to hang out with footballers and movie stars tend to hang out with movie stars, not people of wildly different status, right?
Yes, but then there's the argument or the speculation that like, did, were these women self-aware enough to understand how much of a difference there was between them?
And Bill Cosby or in so many of these situations.
Well, that's pretty easy to figure out.
I mean, did they try to look their best when going to see him?
Well, aren't people expected to groom as a means of presenting?
No. Themselves?
No. When I hang out with friends, I don't go get a haircut and a new outfit and, you know, make sure I'm looking my absolute best.
We just hang out. Well, what if you're going to go hang out with Donald Trump?
Would you not? Try to look your best.
I mean, and maybe, you know, some people might argue like, oh, yeah, like, who would Steph think he is going to hang out with Donald Trump?
Like, he's, you know, just a history scholar and a student of the arts and whatever.
But I would think if I was you that I'd think Donald Trump would have some interest in politics.
My merit as well as possibly my appearance.
Do you think that Donald Trump would be interested in how sexually attractive I was?
No, but he might find you interesting enough that he would invite you to a meeting.
Okay, let's go with that, right?
So let's say Donald Trump would invite me to some meeting.
Why would Donald Trump do that?
Well, we would assume because either he finds you attractive...
No, let's not go with that one.
Although I am. I'm playing around.
No, or we would assume that there's something else valuable enough about you that it would be worth it for him to spend time with you.
Ah, okay. So, valuable to who?
To him. Okay, so...
I mean, an agent, let's say that you're an actress, and you have an agent, then your agent will introduce you to someone.
To what end? Why?
To showcase your talent as an actor.
Okay, why? To collaboratively earn...
Profit? Yeah, to make money.
Because the agent gets 10% of what you make.
So if you make $500,000 for being in a movie, he gets $50,000, right?
And so he would introduce you to someone, not with the goal of furthering your career or helping you along, but with the goal of making money from that, right?
Yes. Okay.
What is the benefit that Bill Cosby would have from helping a young actress?
Can't be money, right?
Yes, I totally understand that.
But I mean, can we really assume that all of these women are so self-aware that they can't...
No, no, no. Come on. Let's not guess their self-awareness here.
Okay. I mean, we can't possibly guess their self-awareness.
Because we're assuming they're stupid.
Well, it's just we're assuming they're stupid, right?
Well, no, but if they're stupid, then they don't know a potential career advancing move if they see it.
And so they're not going to be there to begin with.
Trust me, if they're there, they know the game.
They're able to recognize this guy could be a great benefactor.
They're able to recognize that he finds them attractive or that their attractiveness is important.
And so let's not assume that they don't know how to tie their shoes because they're able to take a cab to Bill Cosby's house for very specific reasons, right?
Which is career advancement of the potential to overleap all the other actresses based upon their connection with Bill Cosby, right?
Yes, but you did mention in the show, the Bill Cosby show, that some of these roles were, you know, 18, 19, and some of them were underage.
So, yeah, I know that some women think it's a good idea to play with fire and to try to...
No, no, I'm sorry, just before we get to all of that, that's kind of windbaggery, if you don't mind me saying so, because we're still trying to analyze the situation here.
Okay, so what is the benefit...
To Bill Cosby to spend time.
Because, you know, he could be out doing a show and making like a million bucks.
But instead, he's home giving acting lessons to pretty young things, right?
So the question is, and this is for women and for men as a whole, right?
Because these predations can go both ways, right?
Right. But the question you have to ask is, what is the benefit to Bill Cosby?
Is it money? No.
Because he's not going to make any money if these women get ahead, right?
Now, is it... Yeah, but I mean, do they know that?
But do they know that?
I mean... Well, yeah, there's no contracts.
They have agents. There's no contracts with Bill Cosby saying, if I get a movie role, I'm paying you 10%.
Okay, very well.
No, and look, the guy can make a million dollars doing a show.
I don't know, I'm just, it's probably something like that.
A guy can make a million dollars doing a show.
So, even if you pay him 10%, in order to, like, even if one of his acting lessons gets you a 10 million dollar movie role as an actress and you give him 10% of that, he's still only made as much as if he did one show.
And trust me, one acting lesson from Bill Cosby ain't gonna make you a 10 million dollar actress, right?
Yeah, but then if they're so unaware to not...
No, no, no. Forget it.
Why do you keep going back to turning them into soap dishes?
Let's just keep analyzing. You keep, like, wanting to rip out their brains and agencies.
Like, no, let's just keep analyzing because this is helpful for other people, right?
Well, you're saying it should be obvious why he would give them an invitation, right?
Okay. No, but this is important.
So when you're young and you're pretty...
Then, the question is, what's in it for the man?
Now, you could say, and I know that this may sound ludicrous, but you could say, well, he just enjoyed nurturing talent, right?
Well, if that's true, then why was it only pretty young girls, right?
Because you say that there aren't plain or ugly women who have talent.
Are you saying that there aren't comedians who are male whose career he couldn't have furthered and so on, right?
So it's not the furtherance of talent.
It's not the making of money.
So why is he doing it?
He's doing it because he wants to kiss the women.
Okay. But how likely is it that one of these women is really going to think that about themselves, is really going to look in the mirror and say, you know what, I really have not much going for me.
I'm just kind of pretty.
And so I'm assuming that if anybody ever offers to collaborate with me or offers me any opportunities, really it's just a trap to lure me into being exploited for my looks.
I see. Here's the thing. You don't have to blame the women.
This is not about making the women blameless at all.
And this is also not about putting 100% of the blame on the women.
What Bill Cosby did was immoral, was wrong, deeply wrong, horrendous, horrendous, and very destructive.
And he's morally responsible, of course, which is why he was found guilty.
At least, I assume that's why he was found guilty.
So the question is, though, as far as wisdom goes, This all used to be very well known.
And it always used to be said to young women, well, this guy's only interested in one thing.
Why? Because you don't have a lot else to offer.
Because you're 18 years old, he's 60, he's world famous, he's like got $300 million, and you're living in a van down by the river, and you got some curves.
So, it's not like, because what the women were trying to do was trying to take the easy route, so to speak, right?
Rather than go out and audition a whole bunch of times, rather than go out and learn a variety of skills and accents and sword fighting and horse riding and all the other things that you want to put on your resume and lie about putting on your resume, usually if you're an actor, they wanted to leapfrog.
They wanted to exploit Bill Cosby.
They wanted to use his connections to leapfrog over all the necessary grunt work that you have to do in order to become, usually, to become a successful actor.
And that's what they were doing.
So saying that they were naive and no, they knew.
They knew that he was interested in them because they knew that they didn't have a whole lot of really great and worldly conversation.
To a guy who was probably banging garden gnomes at Hugh Hefner's house in the 60s, they probably don't have a lot to offer at the tender age of 18 or 19 or 20.
So he's not interested in their worldly conversation and their deep knowledge of Austrian economics.
He's interested in them because they're young and pretty and sexy.
And so they're going over there hoping to exchange some of their physical attractiveness For a leapfrog.
Now, they're not going over there to sleep with the guy, I assume.
They're not going over there to, oh, I hope he gives me a drink so that I can pass out and he can do horrible things to my calf with a fork or something.
They're going over there in the hopes that they can use their sexual market value to exploit him as a rather foolish old man, they would assume, to exploit him, have him promote their careers without having to sleep with him.
And that is a dangerous game.
That is a dangerous game. You know, like, I don't want to go to the bank, I want to go to the loan shark, because there's less paperwork.
It's like, well, you'll get your money, but it's a bit of a dangerous game.
Sorry, go ahead. Oh, sorry.
I can see what you're saying.
Totally. But then you go on to talk about prevention.
And you suggest that the way to prevent this kind of thing from happening is for women to be smarter, About the decisions they make, and if it happens, just like you mentioned, that an older, successful man invites you to a private meeting with him, that rather than hoping that it's going to be a good thing, you should just assume that this person is a predator.
Is that kind of what you...
See as prevention is for people to just assume that an invitation is actually an invitation.
That's an interesting way that you would just have to assume everyone's a predator.
I mean, you've heard of Lyme disease, right?
Yes. So Lyme disease is carried by ticks, I think, for the most part.
And so when you go out into the woods, you know, wear your long pants, put your bug spray on, wear your socks, and then check yourself when you get back so you don't end up like Alec Baldwin face planted into a pillow, which is not enough punishment still for his Saturday Night Live work.
But now, it's sort of like you're saying to me, oh, so now I have to assume that every single tick has Lyme disease that might kill me.
It's like, no, very few ticks have Lyme disease.
But you don't know which ones.
So you take your precautions.
But do you think that...
I mean, I totally understand that.
And I personally take much more precaution now as a 30-year-old than I did when I was 20 or in my adolescent years.
But do you think that by limiting one's freedom of movement and sort of avoiding dangerous situations that there's a certain point...
Where it only appears that the occurrence of evil has been minimized and that, in a way, evil wins.
If we keep giving up our freedoms, eventually we'll be in a position somewhat like women are in the Middle East, where they cover themselves up and where they're not supposed to make eye contact.
It's just this out-of-control expectation of women to avoid other people doing bad things.
Where do you think we should draw the line?
How do you think we should defend our freedoms?
I think the first thing to do is to stop trying to use sexual market value as a shortcut.
Stop trying to exploit men's susceptibility to female attractiveness in order to get ahead.
That's a reasonable thing.
I think most people Are aware of that, but...
And if you are...
Like, I'm not saying... If you want to go and have a meeting with Bill Cosby, by all means, go have a meeting with Bill Cosby.
If you want to have a meeting with Harvey Weinstein, go have a meeting with Harvey Weinstein.
But don't do it in the hotel room at 10 o'clock at night when there's nobody else around.
Say, oh, it'd be fantastic.
Let's go meet in my agent's office.
Oh, that's fantastic. Let's go meet in a restaurant.
Oh, that... It's like the guy who called in recently who was interested in the woman from Venezuela.
And I was like, she's probably just interested in your citizenship for the most part, right?
Right. And there were some comments underneath the video that were very smart.
It wasn't something I thought of while I was talking to him.
But he should have said to the woman, and if you're out there, you can still do this, my friend.
You could have said to the woman, I actually have always really wanted to live in Venezuela.
Right. Or Ecuador or wherever she was.
So I'm going to move out to where you are.
Now, if she kind of cools on that, then she's not really that into you, right?
And we need to test whether people are into us in terms of ourselves or whether they're into us for some other reason.
The me plus, right? Which I talked about in the Truth About Robin Williams.
And so for women...
If the man invites you, if he's a married man, and he invites you to his house when his wife's not around, right?
He invites you over, say, oh, I'd love to meet your wife.
Oh, she's not going to be here.
Oh, is anyone going to be there?
No, it's just going to be you and me.
Come on. That's just silly.
Then you say... I'd rather meet in a restaurant.
I'd rather meet at a park.
I'd rather, whatever. I'd rather meet in a mall.
Well, I guess not a mall if it's Bill Cosby or whatever, but you know what I mean, right?
I'd meet at my agent's office.
Meet at your agent's office. Meet at a jungle gym.
Whatever, right? Yeah, definitely.
And then if the guy says, no, you have to come to my house or there isn't going to be any meeting, well, then he's a creep.
Right? I mean, obviously, that's not complicated, right?
Right. So, the women don't say, let's meet in a public place, because they want to dangle sexual access in front of the old man in order to gain access to his power and his contacts.
Now, if you're saying, well, women should have the freedom to try to exploit old men who are horny, and I'm like...
Is that really the kind of freedom you want to go to the wall to defend?
I mean, of course women should be free to do it, but choices have consequences and there are going to be risks.
And that doesn't mean that whoever violates these women is not immoral.
They should be prosecuted.
They should go to jail in a free society as well as in a status society.
I'm really talking about prevention.
Which is, if someone really seems to like you, and you're a young woman, and they're not in your sphere, right?
Because the big question is, it's the Meghan Markle question, right?
If Prince Harry was the footman, would she marry him?
No. Absolutely not.
If he was the waiter, same personality, right?
But he was the waiter who brought her coffee, let's say that they were younger, would she marry him?
No. He has to come with a throne, right?
He has to come with a crown, potentially.
He has to come with a mansion to get her, right?
Well, what's she getting? I'm sure she's got some money from her role on Suits and all that, but, you know, she's a divorcee in her mid to late 30s, so it's going to be kind of tough to have kids, so what's she bringing?
Well, she's pretty, and she's got some talent.
Never been a great actress, but, you know, She's had some semi-nude scenes on TV, but you know, hey, so has Melania, I'm sure.
So the question is, what are you bringing?
Are people into you for you, or are they into you because of something you have to offer?
Now, when you're a young, pretty woman, it's hard to know who's into you for you, just as if you're a very wealthy man.
It's hard to know who's into you for you.
Absolutely. If you're a wealthy man, assuming that you earn some portion of the wealth yourself, then the wealth indicates usually a kind of intelligence, right?
IQ and income are strongly correlated.
And if you're a woman and you're pretty, well, why are men so drawn to that?
Well, they're drawn to that because it's good genetic markers for IQ, for evenness of features, for lack of possibility of genetic...
Ailments or diseases or deformities or whatever.
So these aren't bad things when it comes to reproductive fitness.
Having money for a man, having beauty for a woman.
These are valuable markers and useful markers, which is why we like them.
Why does Meghan Markle like the guy who ran around naked at parties and went out on Halloween dressed as a Nazi?
That kind of judgment guy.
Food during famine. I'm sorry?
I said food during famine.
Yeah, food during famine. You got it.
You got it. And why did men used to like women who were overweight?
Because food was scarce. And it meant that they had access to resources.
And now why do men like women who are lean?
Because food is plentiful and gyms cost money.
So now it's higher status to be lean before it was higher status to be fat, which is why you get these Rubenesque paintings of rather rotund Pillsbury Doughboy women.
So do these women...
Say to themselves, well, I am a pretty woman.
And he is an old man.
And, you know, do you Google around?
Do you ask around?
Do you follow? Bit of a ledge.
Well, do you put that to the test?
Right? Because evil preys upon you primarily, not exclusively, primarily when you lie to yourself.
Oh, Bill Cosby is interested in me because I'm such a fantastic actress.
Right? When you lie to yourself.
Bill Cosby's interested in me because I'm such a great conversationalist.
He sees my talent, right?
And he just wants to help because he's that kind of guy.
He's just like Cliff Huxtable.
But at the same time, they are dieting, they are exercising, they are looking their best, and they're enhancing their sexual market value.
And so this is what...
Women and men need to know that if you want to have a relationship that lasts, you need to be loved for who you are.
Now, who you are is not completely independent of your externalities.
It's not completely independent on whether you have any money in the bank account, because that's restraint and that's self-discipline and all that, right?
It's not completely dependent upon whether you're overweight or not, but it has some relationship to it in that in general, Kim.com accepted, if you're overweight, usually it's a result of some issues, some lack of self-knowledge, some childhood issue or whatever.
And so you can't say, well, I just want to be loved platonically for my essence without any connection to any...
Tangible material manifestation of who I am, because everything we are is a manifestation of who we are.
I mean, the clothes we wear, the haircut we have, the way in which we present ourselves, our posture, our car, our home, our record collection, the devil take your stereo and your record collection.
And so we can't separate ourselves from our physical manifestations.
But we want to be loved for the physical manifestations that we have that are more to do with our inner self than our outer self.
Because that will last.
You know, if you date a woman just because she's pretty, well...
She's going to get old. And it's not like no old women can be pretty, but they're not as pretty as young women.
And you could date a man just because he's wealthy, but he might lose his money.
You could date a man because he's healthy, but he might get sick.
So there has to be something that we connect with that is outside of The material rewards that we can offer people, and Bill Cosby could offer these women connections to get them auditions that otherwise they might have had to spend five years working towards, or three years, or whatever, right?
So they wanted to leapfrog.
They wanted to exploit him based upon his sexual attraction to them.
And they were willing to meet with him alone, in private, in order to flirt with him to get what they want.
Now, Every man alive knows that some women will do this.
And every man alive needs to know when somebody's flirting with you to smile and to nod and to not respond in that way.
I mean, unless you're very much attracted.
But even if you are, if they're flirting with you because you can provide them rewards, then...
Well, there's a word for that.
It rhymes with prostitute, but I can't quite remember what it is.
So yeah, every man knows that women will flirt with a powerful man or a man who can provide them with something.
You know, like the drug dealer when he's got the junky girls around him who are all praising.
I mean, he knows that they're there for the drugs.
He can lie to himself if he wants.
And the women knew that Bill Cosby was there because they were sexy.
And that excuses nothing of what Bill Cosby did.
But the whole purpose of it is to say to women, men want to have sex with you.
Right? Men want to have sex with you.
And every woman knows that.
And every man knows that.
And there's this weird thing where it's just kind of not talked about.
Why do you have a welfare state?
Because men want to have sex with you.
Right? I mean, why is there female privilege?
Because men want to have sex with you.
Why does the government negotiate for women's wages when they claim they want to be equal?
Because men want to have sex with you.
Why is there an HR department? Because men want to have sex with you.
Why are there preferential loans for female entrepreneurs?
Because men want to have sex with you. Like, you understand, this is just deference to female.
Deference to female. Now, I don't agree with the Middle Eastern country solution to the entire problem at all.
But I've always found, and this is one of the plays that I absolutely love, which I should probably do an analysis of at some point, is A Streetcar Named Desire.
In it, an aging but pretty Blanche Dubois is poofing up her hair and spraying on some perfume, and she says to Stanley Kowalski, who's this low-rent...
Testosterone-laced semi-brute.
She turns to him and says, do you ever think that in my youth I was considered attractive?
And he's like, I don't go in for any of that stuff.
And she's like, oh, whatever do you mean?
I don't go into any of that stuff where you praise a woman for her looks.
I've never known one woman alive who didn't know exactly how good-looking she was.
And some of them give themselves more credit than they actually have.
And I just like, he wouldn't play the game.
He wouldn't flirt that way.
He wouldn't play the game. And he wanted to get this neurotic, twisted, feminine monstrosity out of his home before his child was born.
And then he loses in the worst way possible.
But I just like the fact that, okay, it took a gay man to write about the fact that a woman can flirt with a man and pretend, oh, I don't know how attractive I am, Lord sakes.
And he's like, nah, every woman knows how attractive she is.
I'm not playing this silly game.
I love that moment. I love that moment.
And women know that their attractiveness matters.
And women also know that most times a man walks up and chats with her, it's because she's pretty and he wants to date her.
I mean, whether he wants to have sex with her, probably, but even if he just wants to go out on a date with her, he's coming up and talking with her because she's attractive to him in some manner, right?
And it's not because she's a great conversationalist, and it's not because he saw the novel she was reading.
That might be the opening gambit, but...
We have genders because we need babies as a species.
That's kind of how the whole thing works.
So when you say, well, women should be free to exploit men using their sexuality as a man, I'm like, sure, you are absolutely free to do that.
Are you free to do it without any negative consequences?
Well, it's like saying, well, I want to be free to sleep with whoever I want.
Well, STDs, unwanted pregnancies, psycho stalkers, you are free to do it.
But I think we should be aware of the consequences.
That's not a restriction on our freedom.
That is an expansion of our freedom.
Avoiding danger expands our freedom.
You understand, right? I mean, if I go to some really terrible section of town...
And I get beaten up, then I'm confined to a hospital bed for six weeks, right?
And then I got to go to rehab, and I have very few choices in the future because I got beaten up.
Whereas if I say, well, I can go lots of places, go 99.9% of the places in the world, can't go to that place.
Oh, that's restricting my freedom.
Well, maybe, but not nearly as much as going there might restrict my freedom, right?
I should be free to not use bug spray.
Well, you're free to not use bug spray But then you're not free to be without bug bites.
Yes, I totally understand the point you're making.
And in a specific context, it's likely that maybe these people were gambling and they wanted to exploit him just as he wanted to exploit them.
And I really appreciate the perspective you shared, like just about men, maybe not sort of...
Playing that game.
I just think that there's a bit of a difference between going to someone's house for dinner and, you know, going into a dangerous neighborhood.
But I do see exactly where you're coming from in terms of like, okay, this powerful man who has no reason to want to hang out with you.
I mean, I appreciate the pushback, but man alive, Afton, you're really pushing back against this hard.
Do you really think that I'm only talking about, like, I mean, after everything I've explained, you can disagree with me.
Of course. I mean, of course, right?
I don't, though. But then when you're like, oh, are you really saying that going out for dinner is the same as going to a bad neighborhood?
You're just, you're tweaking me there, right?
Like, you're just trolling me a little bit.
No. Because going out for dinner could include going out with his wife, right?
It's going to his house alone in the evening, accepting drinks when no one else is around.
That's a little different from the category called human beings eat dinner, right?
So should a man feel sort of guilty for extending an invitation like that to a young woman?
Like for a man, does he feel that there are the same repercussions for extending an invitation?
If he's married, he should not be doing it.
He should not be meeting young women who aren't even remotely on an even playing field with him, who are desperate for something that he has to offer them?
Come on. As a married man?
Or as a man in a relationship?
No, no, no. You should not be going to meet with hot young things 40 years your junior who are desperate for what you have to offer them alone and giving them drinks.
No, of course you shouldn't be doing that, right?
Yeah, and it should be equally ostracized.
Do you think? I'm sorry? Do you think it should be equally ostracized, like for a man to extend an invitation like that as it is for a woman to accept it?
Oh, it's worse for Bill Cosby to do it because he had 40 years.
He had 40 years to learn better in age 20 and 60 or whatever it was.
It's a wide variety of things, right?
Well, I'm definitely a lot more clear on your idea of prevention and I do agree.
And in my own life experience, Definitely found that it's important to take time to get to know someone, even if they are in the same age range as you or in the same circle of friends, because people are often not who they appear to be.
And it's really easy to find yourself in a vulnerable situation that you don't know exactly how to handle.
Now, you know I'm going to ask you the next question.
You've mentioned twice personal experiences.
You know the next question. Yes.
I mean, I've seen your picture.
You're very pretty. Oh, thank you.
Takes one to know one.
Well, thank you.
Why don't you come over for it? No, no, no.
No, but... Yay!
My life is complete!
So... Have you been in situations where it's been like, things turn dark?
Yes, I have.
Were there any signs or signals ahead of time?
Other than this conversation, of course. Were there any signs or signals leading up ahead of time that you look back and say, hmm, kind of skated past that one?
Yeah, as a matter of fact, there were enough signals that when it was a professor of a philosophy course I took, So what you're saying is he taught an arts degree?
I suppose, yeah. Okay, that's right.
I'm not gay, I'm just British.
All right, go on. But he seemed creepy.
He definitely seemed very superficial, hedonistic, full of himself.
I mean, the guy, I paid $500 for that class, and he couldn't even spell the word three.
Like, he spelled it T-R-E-E. That's probably why the class wasn't $300.
Maybe he could spell the word five.
He couldn't spell the word three?
Oh my... No, for like two or three weeks, everyone in the class thought he was talking about tree philosophies until I asked him to clarify and he was like, no, it's tree, like you want to tree and everyone was just like SMH. I've got a quick question for you.
Yes. Did he suggest a treason?
Just kidding. Go on.
I just enjoyed my own humor there.
That was really good.
Yeah, but he was creepy and he added me on Facebook just before my birthday.
And then asked me to go to dinner and he specifically said, I'll never forget every single thing that happened in the whole interaction because it was just completely dramatic and unexpected and just awful.
But he was like, oh, I want to take you to dinner to talk about philosophy and more important things.
And so, of course, the first thing I think is this guy is wanting to...
Pursue me sexually because what does other more important things mean?
But I kind of come from a rough background and so I consulted a few of my peers who were attending the same university to see what they thought about it because I thought maybe I was just assuming that he was being creepy when really he was just not and it was just my poor experiences that would give me that perception of an invitation like that.
And the friends I consulted all said that it seemed fine and that there's no way he would risk his job just to, you know, pursue me sexually or romantically.
Yeah, because men never take any risks when it comes to sexual matters.
Ever! Yes! Look at Bill Cosby.
Well, exactly. And people were like, oh, maybe he wants to recommend you for some programs.
And if you want to get into graduate school, you'll need people to write you letters of recommendation.
And he could be somebody like that for you.
And so I thought, you know, I'm going to go against my instincts and just go out to dinner with this professor.
And how did you dress? And it was an awful idea.
Wait, wait, wait. How did you dress?
I did go out and buy myself new clothing, but it wasn't provocative clothing.
It was just like new stuff because it was my birthday.
Mistrust any end price that requires the purchase of new clothing.
Yeah, I mean, it was my birthday and I thought it was an exciting opportunity.
Wait, wait, he wanted to take you out on your birthday?
Yeah. Yeah, and I even like changed my plans because I thought it was like an amazing opportunity.
Don't you have better people to spend time with your birthday?
I thought he recognized that I had done all the readings ahead of time and that I was really dedicated to philosophy.
Did you get a haircut? Did you do your hair well?
I was completely naïve. Hang on.
Did you do your hair well? Well, I do my hair every day, but I didn't get my haircut.
No, but I did go and I bought new clothes and I wore new clothes and I To be honest, there was somebody who was in the class with me, a friend of mine who I've been friends with for years, and I was actually into him.
So when I went to class, I probably looked a lot more provocative than I did on the dinner outing.
So wait, you dressed more provocatively going to the class?
Yes. That the professor saw you and who then invited you to dinner?
Yes, the professor who I definitely thought was homosexual.
And again, Steph, I really automatically thought it was odd.
And I made the mistake of not trusting my intuition.
No, you made the mistake of trusting your friends, too.
Exactly. I really, and I look back on that and I understand why I made the decisions I did, but I was in error, absolutely.
And yeah, the dinner went really horribly.
He immediately started talking about, because he was an exchange teacher or whatever, like he was from Italy.
What? Oh, come on.
You just had to leave with he was Italian.
Yeah. Yeah, he was Italian.
He was Italian and sexually aggressive.
Next thing you know, you're going to meet a stubborn Indian man.
Well, I think I've, you know, got enough life experience now to be able to read people a lot better.
And now I certainly wouldn't have gone against my intuition.
I ordered you some oysters.
I hope you don't mind. Hey, I dropped my fork.
You want to check under the tablecloth, see if I'm wearing any pants?
Don't worry, it's a three-course meal.
It was almost like that. He ordered champagne. He ordered champagne?
Yeah. Oh, no.
You're trapped in a dark restaurant with an Italian guy who's ordering champagne?
Time to fire up the laser-powered chastity belt, my friend.
Yeah, it was intense.
I knew it was bad probably before we even got to the restaurant because it was this restaurant that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
It was so bad.
I have this vision of you as Al Pacino.
Let me introduce you to my little friend.
I call her Laser Panties.
No eyebrows for you!
To be honest, at the time, I don't think I knew how beautiful I was, for sure.
I knew I had an effect on people, but I didn't- Had an effect on people?
I really didn't think he found me that attractive that he would do that.
I also thought at the time that he was risking his job by doing that, and I later found out that he really wasn't.
But yeah, he pretty much- Wait, he wasn't risking his job by going out for dinner with a student?
Yeah, he wasn't risking his job by asking me to dinner and then pursuing me, trying to initiate sexual advances during the dinner.
So what did he say? He harassed me for a week.
What were his moves? Sorry to interrupt.
What were his moves? Step me through how...
I guess he didn't...
He didn't say, you know, you dropped something and then try and mount you when you stretched over, right?
So, I mean, there must have been some way in which he gets the moves going.
And what was that like?
What were his guiding missiles, so to speak?
Well, he was really belligerent about it.
I would use that word.
He essentially told me that there are students that he has in Italy that feel obliged to To him, which really pissed me off because I was pretty much doing better than anyone else in the class.
Wait, what? Yep.
Basically, there are students I have in Italy who have to sleep with me.
Hang on. His move is...
I'm sorry I shouldn't laugh, but, you know, I'm British, so we have to have a little sophistication in our moves.
So his move was, hey, Afton, I have students in Italy who will totally sleep with me because they owe me.
So I guess you know how this evening is going to end.
That's the move? Yeah, and then he started telling me that he thought I was really beautiful and he couldn't stop looking at me in class and he couldn't stop thinking about me.
And I was just sitting there like just thinking in my head, fuck, like I really wish I could get out of here right now.
Like this is just awful.
So then what happened?
I mean, so this is how he started out.
Have champagne and you owe me sex for grades?
Or like how did it go from there?
He didn't say I owed him sex.
So essentially he kept saying all this crazy stuff and he was looking at me like...
I was prey, and I can't really explain that to you, but there was just this cold look in his eye, like...
His mind was made up about whatever his plan was.
And so I just kind of didn't say much and I was passive and...
So he had this sort of cold-eyed stare and, you know, most women from Fifty Shades of Grey would be like, I'm sorry, you're going to need more abs and more helicopters other than that.
I'd really like to say it drives me nuts when you talk about how women all really like that because I personally don't and I don't...
I mean, I can't argue with the book sales...
But it's really unfortunate that, you know, that book has made it seem like all women want to be, I don't know, beaten half to death, because I really don't think that's true, but maybe...
No, sorry, just to be fair, it's not that they want to be beaten half to death, it's that they want to be well-paid for being beaten half to death.
I just really want... That would be crazy otherwise, right?
Yeah, exactly. Okay, sorry.
I totally... I missed that, too.
Just things go over my head.
Maybe it's because I'm a woman. The whole billionaire thing.
I don't know. I run a giant corporation.
I never have to show up.
Yeah, because that's exactly how things work in the male world from the female view.
So then what happened in the dinner?
I mean, did this just go on?
Was this a relentless sexual tsunami hitting you across the table?
Um, it wasn't so much like, I don't remember so much of like the rest of the conversation.
I just remember like certain main things that he said.
And then like, when the dinner was ending, I suggested that we go to a restaurant I had previously worked at.
I want you to use this penny as a straw and suck up the sausage.
I mean, this is gross.
So you said let's go to another restaurant?
Why didn't you say like, get out of here, you creep, I'm going home.
No, because I couldn't.
See, the thing is, we were very far away from the city.
I couldn't get home.
I didn't have enough money to get home.
Oh, so this guy, he's really got this planned, right?
Yeah. You're stranded. He really did.
It was really bad.
It was a bad, bad situation.
So I suggested that we go for dessert at a restaurant I had worked at so that people could see me with him.
him.
Like I was so scared of this guy that I started planning just to, for people to be able to find me if he, if he did something, because he just seemed like, wait, wait, wait.
Do you mean you were scared of the relentless sexual advances and having to say no, or you were scared that you'd end up in a garbage bag or something?
Yeah, he just seemed really cold.
It wasn't like a creep.
It was like somebody who was...
Dangerous. Just empty inside.
Yeah, really, really dangerous.
Oh, so that's what you were saying earlier in terms of your phrase, predator, which really struck me.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So he liked that idea because it was one of like the most well reputed Italian restaurants in the city and he had been there once and he liked it.
Who made what? Who paid for dinner.
He paid for it.
But in my defense, he invited me and I didn't have enough money to pay for the champagne and like all of that.
If I did, then I probably would have just used it for a cab home and let him pay anyway.
But it was my birthday.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
So you think it was some sort of friend dinner?
I thought it was him admiring me as a student.
It's a date if he pays, right? I don't know.
On my birthday... If he invites me for- Oh no, listen, I'm sorry, I hate to interrupt you.
If a woman goes out with you on her birthday, she's putting you at a higher priority than friends and family.
Yeah, because he's my professor.
And because I want an academic opportunity- No, that means that she's intimidated by you and you have control over her.
That means that she's intimidated by you and you have control over her, right?
You know, it's like if you ask a woman out on Valentine's Day and then you pay for dinner and she's like, what?
I just thought you – I thought we were friends.
It's like, it's Valentine's Day.
I get it. I totally get it.
It sucked. It really – and that made it so much more difficult for me to handle the situation because I realized very quickly that I had got myself into something that – Was going to be difficult to get out of.
And what happened at the restaurant with the dinner?
So we got to the restaurant and I saw everybody and I said hello and I introduced him to everybody and I felt a lot more comfortable at that point.
And, you know, we had an espresso and a dessert and then I felt comfortable enough at the time and And again, you can criticize me for this, whatever.
But I lived still from where that restaurant is like a 40 minute transit ride and the transit was already like done.
And I could have called my dad to come pick me up.
But my dad isn't a very nice guy.
And he probably he just would have been really Aggressive about me needing a ride.
That's like a whole other story.
So I let this professor drop me off at my house.
And then I went inside.
And as soon as I went inside, I just kind of sat and stared at the wall for maybe four hours just trying to figure out what had just happened.
And then for the following week, he sent me over 100 Facebook messages, text messages, harassing my phone, calling me, telling me he wanted to see me.
He just seemed really upset.
The way I interpret it is he was upset that he let me go.
And that might just be my fear or whatever, but he was just really, really adamant about...
Seeing me again, which was insane because I was in a class that he was teaching.
And our primary relationship was that he was teaching me the subject and I was supposed to show him that I knew enough about the subject to get the grade that I needed.
So it was just a conflict of interest.
So it happened at the time I was teaching yoga to one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the city I was living in.
So I spoke to her and And I told her what happened and I told her that ideally I would like to have the money back for the class and to take it with someone else because I didn't feel comfortable going to the class anymore.
And after $5,000 worth of legal fees, the school essentially told me that he didn't do anything wrong because he didn't know he was doing anything wrong.
And I could meet him in his office for an apology if I wanted, but that was pretty much all I could do.
And then the lawyer told me I could press a human rights complaint against him, but that he would need, I think it was five complaints for anyone to look at the matter in a serious way.
And he already had two complaints.
So even with my filing this complaint against him, he would still have to do something a few more times.
So you reported this guy to his university?
To my university, yeah.
For the stalking stuff, right?
For the stalking stuff and for him inviting me to the dinner only to make sexual advances.
He kissed me while I was getting in the car at the restaurant.
He actually kissed me as he opened the door and he kissed me.
It was brief, but it was gross.
I was terrified and disgusted and also just...
I don't know. I felt like it was wrong.
I can see how a lot of people are like, oh, who cares?
He found you attractive.
He wanted to pursue you.
But I felt like what he did was completely unprofessional and appropriate and wrong.
Well, no. Where there's a power disparity, there's a big challenge, right?
Yeah. I mean, you're the student.
He's the teacher. He determines your grade.
He may determine your success or failure.
It's so simple. It's not fair.
Not fair. In other words, he has something you very much want, and that means he has power over you, just as we were talking about with Bill Cosby.
Times a thousand. Yes, but I did not need to sell him my beauty.
I was doing fine in the class.
- Well, no, you said that you dressed up provocatively in the class to attract a male. - Yeah, but I also got 90s in the class and I did all the readings before the classes and I always asked really good questions and got people talking and I felt like I was a really integral part of that class.
And I really did not dawn on me.
First of all, I thought he was homosexual.
This guy really looked and spoke.
Maybe it's the Italian, I don't know, but I really did not think that he was gonna pursue me romantically or sexually.
And I certainly didn't think that I was going to go to dinner with him and I was going to feel like vulnerable prey.
I didn't think he had that aggression whatsoever.
No, he must have given a sign ahead.
He must have given a sign ahead.
These personality structures don't emerge out of nowhere.
He went tanning a lot, and he wore a lot of flashy colors, and he was very vain and into himself.
But I just interpreted that, sorry to anyone who's offended, as just flamboyant homosexuality.
I really didn't see that he had...
Forget about the gay thing.
If he's really vain and into his appearance, and he's supposed to be teaching philosophy, that's insane.
Yes, but... Because philosophy is about wisdom and truth and self-knowledge and courage.
It's not about, do you have a tan?
Do you have the right highlights and are your pants tight enough?
I mean, it's not like philosophy is completely divorced from appearance, but a guy who's that vain, who's supposed to be teaching philosophy, that's kind of a marker, right?
I mean, I can see that now, absolutely.
At the time, if anything, if I would have known concretely that he wasn't homosexual, like let's just say he was married, I still wouldn't have seen his superficiality to be in conflict with philosophy.
At the time, I probably would have just seen it as self-care, that he really valued his appearance.
Unfortunately, that was where I was at in terms of my perception of the world.
So then my question is...
What boundary violations occurred for you as a child that had you end up in this vulnerable situation?
Well, I mean, I could take forever explaining it, or I could just say that both of my parents valued alcohol and cigarettes and their own hedonistic indulgences over my well-being for the most part.
I mean, I didn't really starve, but...
There was, you know, lots of physical abuse and I would be blamed for their inability to afford me and their life and bills.
And, uh, I definitely did not have a good representation of healthy boundaries or healthy relationships.
If anything, it was completely twisted and distorted and, uh, I mean, at the time that this occurred, I had definitely made progress, a great deal of progress, but not enough to see that this person really wasn't anybody I would want to recommend me for a program anyway.
Well, yeah, that's the thing.
I mean, anyone who's going to take this guy's recommendation is equally likely to be a creep.
Absolutely. So, I mean, there were certain vulnerabilities that I had.
And that's, it's unfortunate.
I mean, I really don't see how that situation could have been prevented if, you know, all of the circumstances stayed exactly as they were.
Wait, sorry. What do you mean you don't know how that could have been prevented?
Well, you know, just who I was, who he was, the position of the school.
I mean, I tried to utilize all of the resources I had to confirm whether or not this was a good idea, even though now in retrospect, it's like an alarming note.
It's not that hard. It's not that hard.
If the guy wants to meet you, say, hey, you know, come on over.
My boyfriend's a good cook. He'd love to make us some food.
Easy. I know.
I should have done that, but I was just...
Or I'm a married woman, but I'm happy to meet you in a coffee shop if there's something of value.
Or, you know, if you have something important to say to me, you know, it's the end of class, you know, I'm happy to stick around for 15 minutes, pull up a chair.
But you went out and bought clothes.
I wasn't just for him.
I mean, I wanted to look good.
You went out and bought clothes.
I literally thought that this person- I make friends.
I don't sit there and say, "Oh, I'm gonna go meet a friend.
I better go get a new outfit." Yeah, but he's not just some random friend.
This is what I'm thinking is a professor, somebody who has a good life, taking notice of my ability as a scholar and as a philosopher.
So what benefit, Hafton, this is back to the Bill Cosby question, what benefit does he get from taking you out for dinner?
Well, the only benefit I could see was that if I did well in my program, it would make him look really good.
Yeah, that's not much.
And I know that, you know, it doesn't seem like...
I don't know. I mean, back then, he was like so...
Successful in my eyes.
Like a professor at a university?
Like, wow! Like Bill Cosby?
To me, that was such a jump up.
I mean, gosh, yeah. If I was an actress at that time and Bill Cosby would have asked me out and I would have consulted my friends and my peers who were in the industry and they said I should go because I was just being paranoid and that obviously he wouldn't risk his reputation and And initiate anything sexual or romantic and he obviously wanted to recommend me for a movie, I would probably have gone.
And now I wouldn't.
But back then, absolutely.
I really didn't realize that...
You realized?
Come on, Afton.
I mean, with all due sympathy.
I mean, your childhood, and I'm really, really sympathetic to that.
But the fact that...
You were dressing provocatively in his class.
The fact that he was vain.
The fact that he asked you out for dinner.
There's so many things.
And I don't know if women just don't have these skills anymore.
Or whether...
I think what actually happens is that you were concerned, Afton, that if you said...
You could get someone to play your boyfriend.
You've got male friends, right? So if you'd have said, oh, you know, come over to my house.
My boyfriend would love to cook for you.
Or I'd love to cook for you and my boyfriend or whatever, right?
Because that's what women do.
When they're concerned, if they have a boyfriend, they want to make sure that this is not going to be a date by talking about the boyfriend, right?
And if they don't have a boyfriend, then they'll say they have a boyfriend so that the man doesn't get the wrong impression that they're available, right?
Yeah, but this is assuming that you think that the person is going to pursue you sexually, which I mentioned, I initially, my intuition right away was this is weird.
Right, so you had an intuition.
You had an intuition that it was weird.
You had the impulse which you followed through on to go and buy a new outfit.
He's driving you. Did he tell you where he was going to take you before you went?
He said it was a really nice restaurant that he loves to go to and that I would love it too.
But he didn't say what the name was?
No, he didn't say what the name was.
And he didn't say it was like all the way in the forest.
Yeah, so as a woman, you would say, oh, where is the restaurant?
I'd love to look up the menu, whatever, right?
And then he gives you the name and the address of the restaurant.
You look it up, it's in the middle of nowhere, and it's really expensive.
I know. I didn't do that, though, Steph.
But why? So that you can get these recommendation letters for graduate programs.
And that was really just the beginning of my university experience.
So I really didn't even know what that meant.
I just knew that it seemed to be desirable. Wait, you were right at the beginning of your university experience?
Essentially, yes. Wait, what year were you in?
Well, I did first year psychology and then I switched to philosophy.
You were in a first...
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Oh my god. Okay, so you were in a first year philosophy course.
Sorry, psychology, and then I had switched the following year to philosophy.
So I was about...
Was it an intro to philosophy course?
That was philosophy of mind.
So it was...
Was it your first philosophy course?
No, it was not my first philosophy course.
Okay, but you were in second year.
Yes. So you had three years to go at the beginning, right?
Yeah. So who exactly is he going to recommend you to when you're at the beginning of your second year?
You're right. I should have been more informed, but I wasn't.
I mean, it was already such a huge feat that I was even in university.
I didn't even finish high school.
I just went to university and applied as a special student, like an adult, and got enough grades on courses to get in.
So... I really wasn't as aware of things.
That's why I consulted my friends, which, like we agreed earlier, I really shouldn't have listened to them.
I should have trusted my intuition.
I should have, like you suggested, taken precautions.
So not one of your friends said that there was anything that might be...
Not one of your friends said, oh, just drop that you have a boyfriend.
No, not at all.
Not at all. All of them concurred that I was being paranoid because of my past.
Holy crap. These are like the worst friends ever.
Which is understandable. Are they?
They are the worst friends.
They could have put you in a very dangerous situation.
I don't think they intentionally...
I think... I don't care.
You have this mind-reading intentionality.
Well, who, I don't know.
Well, why would they intentionally do that?
What would they get out of that?
Which now I see exactly why you asked yourself what people are getting out of things.
I don't know.
But everyone knows, at least I think everyone knows, that if you're a young, very attractive woman who's been dressing provocatively in a man's class when he asks you out for dinner, it's just vaguely possible there might be romantic intent behind it.
Absolutely. And I did pick up on that and I should have.
And you know, since then, I really don't consult friends in the way I did that time.
I hope you get better friends. Yeah, I think.
And I hope you help your friends when they say, you know, my boss asked me for a weekend in Rio with him, but I'm sure it's just about shelving.
And again, yeah, now with life experience, like I'm much more aware of people's intentions.
But at the time, I really wasn't.
And that is part of the reason why I can see why some people might not have enough self-awareness to see that they don't have much value.
Or maybe just not realize that other people don't see the value in them.
What do you mean don't have much value?
Being exploited for sexual purposes because you look hot, that's called not having much value.
Yeah. Right? Asking a man, like if a man wants to see you socially, and you mention you have a boyfriend, or you invite him to some public place where no hanky-panky can occur, or you say to him, is this a date?
Right? What's wrong with saying, oh, you're asking me out for dinner?
Is this a date? Are you asking me out on a date?
Yes or no, right? But I didn't want to offend him by revealing that my intuition was immediately that that was his intention, because it seems like it would take a poor character to intend to start a romance with one of your students.
That's just my opinion.
I mean, for non-Italians, I would completely agree with you.
Or non-Mediterraneans, I would completely agree with you.
Was he attractive at all to you prior to you finding his dead shark eyes or whatever?
He's repulsive.
For a gay man, I thought that he must be doing well for himself.
But for a woman, absolutely not.
I mean, he's way too effeminate and flamboyant and superficial and vain.
Well, it also may be the cuttlefish defense, which is where you pretend to be gay in order to lower women's defenses, and then your heterosexual predation comes out, right?
Yeah. I mean, I don't know.
I feel like I hope that something stops him from doing whatever it is that he does.
But in terms of my responsibility, I do acknowledge that I should...
Have gone about things differently.
And it's, you know, you mentioned things before, like, oh, well, if you were lacking in knowledge, it was your responsibility to have that knowledge.
So it's not really an excuse.
If you know, if I say like, I really didn't expect Oh, yeah, you can ask friends for your advice.
But it's like saying to your friends, should I invest in this company?
And they can say yes all they want, but it's your money that you're putting out there, right?
At some point, I mean, it's your responsibility to go, right?
And you know that as a young, very attractive woman, who's a yoga teacher?
Come on. Oh my gosh.
Oh, come on. You say yoga teacher and everyone's picturing the stretch pants, right?
I mean, so you're a young, very attractive yoga teacher and you're in the beginning of second year, but he's totally interested in you for your philosophical acumen.
To be fair, I think I probably...
I was more knowledgeable on the subject he was teaching just from reading the materials that he provided or that he told us to buy than he was.
I really do respect my intellect.
I did a really good job.
You have a lot to offer, for sure.
And that's why I don't want you devaluing what you have to offer.
With sexuality.
And that's why once you're aware of the sexual power that you have over men, then you can work to minimize that sexual power in order to be appreciated of who you are.
Yeah. And I mean, I think it's also an important point that, you know, popular culture really does glorify superficial sexuality and, you I do think that that definitely played a role in the way that I used my sexuality to attract the guy who was my friend who was in the class.
If I was to pursue someone now, I might not Put on the hotness that much.
Not that I really ever thought I looked that hot.
Now looking back, I'm like, wow, I probably really did look that good.
You're the non-hot pretty yoga teacher.
Is that the category you're trying to create now?
I compared myself to Cameron Diaz when she started modeling and stuff.
There's always another mountain to climb.
Oh, so, like, Bill Gates isn't wealthy because there's Jeff Bezos.
Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, if you're Bill Gates, you might think, man, look at Jeff Bezos.
Like, you know, because then you just get bored, I suppose.
I don't know. So, are you going to get married, do you think?
I mean, what's your status at the moment?
Well, I would love to do that.
I don't know if it's going to happen, to be honest.
I mean, it's...
I have a...
I have a knack for attracting poor quality men and I've recently realized I must be pushing the good ones away as well because for a while I thought they just didn't exist and now I realize I must be like repelling them because they must exist but you know now I'm like I just turned 29 a few days ago some kind of older And yeah,
like I dated a guy when I was 17 for seven years and he went into drugs and he recently committed suicide and I dated a guy after him for two years who has a law degree and a degree in politics and,
you know, He plays the guitar and all the things I like, but he's the kind of guy who on one hand supports the forced redistribution of wealth and on the other hand doesn't support any charities independently and doesn't really give a shit about anything.
Oh yeah, if you ever want to find somebody who doesn't give to charity, find for somebody who's for the welfare state.
Yeah, exactly. So now that I'm 29, I'm being a bit more cautious in terms of who I think.
Wait, what was wrong with the lawyer guy, other than the socialist thing?
Well, that was kind of a big thing for me.
And I guess just on a personal level, he kind of has a knack for whenever there's a difficult situation.
Subject that we need to discuss.
His way of dealing with it is to just what they call ghost me, which means to just completely ignore me as though he's like non-existent and I'm non-existent.
And it would last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
And if I questioned it, he would just sort of like...
Walk away from me and do it again.
Holy shit. Yeah, it was awful.
No, and sorry to interrupt you just for those guys who don't.
Ghosting a woman is torture for her.
Yes. You might as well just be growing bamboo shoots up her fingernails.
Ghosting a woman is torture.
Ghosting a woman is like, I don't know, sexual abstinence in a relationship to punish a man.
It is... It's very, very unfair, because it is the one weapon that men are better at than women, that men can stand more than women.
There are other things that women can stand more than men, notably sexual abstinence, but wow, that is rough.
That is harsh.
And a couple of weeks, your boyfriend wouldn't even talk to you for a couple of weeks if there'd been a conflict or a problem?
Yeah, it was really that bad.
And actually, one time in the beginning of our relationship, about four or five months in, he just decided...
That I guess he was going to end the relationship, but you guessed it, he decided not to tell me.
And so he literally ignored me for like six weeks before he decided he found the time to write me and tell me that he didn't want to see me again.
And then two months later, he messages me and, you know, he wanted to talk.
And recently you said this thing like, oh, those on and off again relationships, like somebody just put it out of its misery.
Yeah. Oh yeah, no, it's like a horse in one of those old westerns, you know?
Yeah, pretty much.
Just injured, not a horse, like a horse that gets injured and you can't fix it.
I just want to be clear about that. Okay, come on.
Yeah, actually, I recently saw him and the poor guy, he seems like he's head over heels in love with me.
I mean, he, you know, tells me that I'm so special to him.
I'm of the highest esteem.
I matter more to him than anyone he's ever been with.
You know, he sends me that I still feel like your man song by John Mayer.
And yet, no, no real interest in a committed relationship.
He's trying to torture you by having you think about him rather than pair bond with someone else.
I suppose. I mean, this is very, very cruel stuff.
Now, Afton, how good looking were these men?
I mean, to be honest, I downgraded on the looks with the last one because I thought it might give me some more points in other areas, but it was really just an overall loss.
No, but the first guy, the seven-year guy, the drug addict who killed himself.
He was, you know, so handsome that even women would stop on the street and compliment him.
Right. Right. Yeah.
Was it like that Jim Morrison druggy look or something else?
No, it was more like an angel, you know?
Right. So you guys looked great together?
We did, yeah. You were the envy of plainer couples.
We were the envy of most people.
Yeah. Because we loved each other a lot as well.
Except you never got married and he killed himself.
Yeah. Other than that, very much a lot to be envied.
Yeah, well, it was good in the beginning, like everyone always says about those things, and then it gradually started to fall apart, and then when he started doing a lot of drugs, that's when it pretty much ended, and I held on for a bit longer because I loved him, but when he started doing heroin...
Wait, you loved him? Yeah.
What did you love about him?
He was, believe it or not, when I met him, the most honest person that I knew...
He had good work ethic when I met him.
He was really, really brilliantly intelligent, self-taught recording engineer and musician and was a great writer and loved to read.
Sorry, I'm getting all emotional, but great, great guy.
No, he had a lot of talents, but what about his virtues?
I mean, the honesty thing, I don't know.
Was he honest about his drug use and stuff?
He was virtuous in the beginning, but yes, I mean, eventually it turned out that he wasn't so consistent, and that's inevitably...
So your theory, Afton, is that people just change.
No. No.
No, because you said, and I'm not trying to catch you out here, like I'm genuinely curious, because maybe you're right, but I have some doubts, but because you said this about, you know, a bunch of, it was good in the beginning, and he was honest, and he was brilliant, and he was, you know, all these positive attributes, and then it just kind of changed over time?
Well, what happened was, like, before I met him...
He had addiction issues.
It was so bad that his mom had to kidnap him and bring him to a rehab in Mexico.
He stayed there for three years.
I met him when he was 18, so this is in his adolescent years.
Oh my god, Afton, are you literally trying to give me an aneurysm here?
Hang on. Are you literally trying to give me an aneurysm here?
I really would rather not.
You know what?
I'm going to have to go full half a yoga and Dan would dog this part because I'm just like, my head is pulsing like a tomato on a jackhammer.
Well, this is why I repel good men, you see.
No! Oh, he was a great guy when I met him!
Okay, well his mother had to kidnap him because he was such an addict and she put him in New Mexico in a rehab facility for three years.
But there were no red flags of any kind.
I mean, what are you, crazy? I didn't say there weren't red flags.
You said at the beginning it was great and he was honest.
Yeah, relative to everybody else in my life, yes.
And actually he did make me, believe it or not, a better person because of the values that he had when we first met.
Um... Yeah.
So the best you could do was the drug addict?
Apparently. But that's not the best that was around, right?
Well, no, actually.
Well, come on. Unless you're currently in rehab, there's got to be someone better than a drug addict around, right?
Yeah, but again, I mean, I was coming out, like my relationship before that, which is my only other serious relationship was...
Wait, didn't you stop this guy when you were 17?
He was 19. Yeah.
So that I dated a somewhat, I now see as an adult as somewhat of a pedophile, I suppose, before him.
Go on. So he was really abusive, like bad.
How old were you when you dated him?
I was 14.
How old was he? And he was 19.
He was 19? Yeah.
Oh, Afton. I'm so sorry.
What a horrible introduction to manhood.
And adulthood. Way too soon.
Because that's when I asked earlier, and I said what boundary violations occurred that had to do with you ending up with this predatory Italian professor.
Oh God, yeah.
And I was certain it had something to do with premature sexual experiences, to put it as nicely as possible.
And this is the one, right?
Was there anything before that?
Well, yes, but it wasn't anything to do with dating.
It was more just being vulnerable and being abused, for sure.
Do you mean sexually abused?
By peers, yeah. By people your own age?
They were older than me, but they were most likely the older brothers of my peers.
So it's complicated.
I grew up in a place where we had accepted a lot of refugees from Somalia.
And I don't mean to sound racist or whatever, but there was a lot of issues with violent crime.
To do...
With a lot of these people.
And so there were a lot of people being assaulted.
And oftentimes, I mean, the first time I lost my virginity is kind of an unspeakable tale.
But every time after that, I was somewhat consensual, but it was more one of those situations.
And I'm sure a lot of the female listeners will understand this on some level.
I just didn't feel comfortable saying no, probably because of my first experience with sexuality.
So I would just kind of go along with it.
And then when I met this guy who was much, much older than me and really an evil person, I had it in my head that he was the first person I ever really wanted to be with.
Which just sounds crazy now.
But at the time, it made sense.
The first penetration sexual experience was being raped by a Somali migrant, is that right?
Yeah, it was actually a group of people who I thought were my friends, yeah.
A group of Somali migrants?
Yeah. I'm so sorry.
My God. Yeah, me too.
That's why I'm hearing this Tommy Robinson thing today.
Sorry to like go on a tangent a little bit, but it's just appalling to me that, you know, he would be arrested for speaking about, um, you know, sexual abuse of children when there are all these people out in society living freely and, uh, Inflicting that kind of evil horror into people's lives.
In British society and other places as well, to me, Afton, it's hard.
I think, okay, well, how many of these damn pedophiles are there in these positions of power?
A lot. Because they sure seem to have trouble prosecuting pedophiles.
They do, don't they?
And that's why, you know, it's good to know where to draw the line as a female.
Some people draw the lines in sort of degenerative places, like they'll gain a bunch of weight to be less attractive or, you know, do other things.
Some people are just smart and they don't, you know, go into dangerous neighborhoods or go to dinner with people like Bill Cosby or whatever.
But it's definitely important for people to be clear on exactly how to prevent Things like that from happening.
And then it's hard for me to put all the eggs in one basket because it's like, you know, how far...
I mean, does limiting freedom really reduce the occurrence of evil?
I mean, I guess it does, technically, because if there's less vulnerable people...
Well, reducing freedom of movement from Somalia...
Would have reduced your rape as a child.
Yes. And also, if you had been told the truth about, say, some of the crimes that certain communities seem to have a little bit more of a tendency towards, if you've been told the truth about that, I definitely would have been more cautious if I would have had any idea what they were coming from.
But then everyone says, you said at the beginning, well, I don't want to sound racist, but it's like, well, numbers are numbers, right?
And if there is a lot of crime in certain communities, not talking about it is getting children raped.
This is the price we pay for ignoring facts.
And it's reinforcing the behavior.
It's pretty... I don't know what the word is.
Oh, it's evil. It's evil.
I just wish there was a word that was more evil than evil, because that's just what it seems like.
Yeah, satanic, perhaps. Satanic, yeah, totally.
And this is the price of mass immigration without facts, without debate, without choice.
Yeah, and now, I mean, people are being caged for talking about this stuff in public.
I mean, how are we supposed to feel comfortable enough to be productive in society when there's all of this defense for predators and people who want to conduct their lives in a completely immoral way?
We see the fertility rates dropping, and we see people drugging themselves more with antidepressants, and we see all these suicides.
My ex, it turned out that he was molested by one of his dad's friends, and that was a big part of his whole thing.
His mom wanted him to shut up about it, and everyone wanted him to shut up about it.
You know, it doesn't only happen to girls, right?
There's so much of this stuff happening, and if we can't talk about it, I don't know what we can do.
Well, if we can't talk about it, then it gets acted out in terrible ways.
Not from you. I mean, I appreciate you are talking about it.
But if we can't talk about it, well, your ex-boyfriend did find a way to finally stop talking about it, right?
Yeah, but it's such a shame because you shouldn't have to kill yourself.
Well, it may have been that his mother and father preferred him to die rather than speak up, and he got that message.
Yeah, well... That is something I thought about a lot.
And, you know, his dad actually passed away a long time ago, but I feel like for his mom, you know, appearances for her are really important and it's easier for her to control appearances than reality.
Well, and of course, the guilt of knowing that there's a pedophile out there who targeted you that you don't do anything about.
Yeah, that too. And that's allowed him to continue to prey on.
That is very tough.
And knowing that your own mother would rather other children be sacrificed to the evil lust of a pedophile rather than bring him to justice.
That is an unbearable existence, I think.
Yeah, and he was definitely intelligent enough to see all of that.
And I think that's...
Part of the reason why it was so painful for him is just because he could understand things in a way that other people either couldn't or just refused to acknowledge.
And it made the world a much more terrible place for him.
You know, I mean, as far as predators preying upon the children of single moms, that wasn't your experience or...
I don't know if it was your ex-boyfriend's experience, but...
I wonder, because you and your ex-boyfriend were both attractive children, physically attractive children just in the same way as you've grown into physically attractive Adults.
And of course, for a pedophile, I would assume that standards of attractiveness matter in children in the way that for normal, healthy people, you can say, oh, that's a handsome boy, or that's a pretty little girl, but there's no sexuality associated with that.
It's just an observation, like tall or short, right?
Right. You would assume the more desirable, generally, the person is, the more Desirable it would be to exploit them.
I assume... It's hard for me to understand how pedophilia is sexual.
I mean, I really do feel like it's more an act of exploitation.
I think it's an act of destruction more than anything else.
Yeah. It's an act of destruction.
And I think it is one of these viruses that replicates through abuse.
It does. Actually, you know, my ex ended up...
Right at the end of his life, he had become a prostitute.
I had a discussion with him maybe two months before he took his own life.
He was talking about how he thought he was gay.
I brought his mind to the fact that his first homosexual experience was when he was 16.
With his father's friend and before that he never even thought about being with men and it was like something clicked in his head and he had forgotten that and he had just created this new distorted picture of himself that involved the normalization of the things that had happened to him and I assume that's because his mother required him to normalize it and so did that guy and other people around him and I'll never forget this sort of this change in the tone of his voice when he kind of remembered who he actually was.
I mean, again, it's hard to read people's minds.
But yeah, I do think that certainly, maybe as a coping mechanism, people wind up just trying to make that abuse a part of their lives.
Make it normal when it's really not.
Right, but it's just, I guess, more difficult for them to acknowledge reality than it is to distort it.
Well, but you're speaking about these things as if they occur in isolation of family and extended family and friendship environments.
I think that if a child is abused, if the child has a strong connection with family, extended family and friends, then the child gets the experience denormalized through the reactions of those around him.
But if the child is surrounded by dysfunctional people, which is the most likely scenario under which a child will get abused, I think, then what happens is it's suppressed, you don't talk about it, it's normalized, it's defended, and that's what the child internalizes.
It's not a choice. Like you sit there and say, well, I want to do this or I want to do that.
You do what you're allowed to do as a kid.
And if you're not allowed to, if you're only allowed to normalize it, well, then that's what you have to do because you have to survive.
And it destroys civilization.
It destroys our ability to have a peaceful society.
Because you just have all these people who are completely distorted and really not out of any, I think for the most part, inherent desire.
It's something that has been created from this satanic...
Hedonistic, immediately gratifying lifestyle.
I mean, I don't really have any words.
We're venturing into a really dark part of the woods and it's just heartbreaking.
Really. It is.
And I hope that you don't end up being one of these low birth rate statistics.
Me too. I mean, you've really helped me understand so much more about myself, and you've given me the opportunity to reflect on beliefs that I had that I may never have questioned otherwise.
And I think that I do still have a chance, even though I'm a little on the older side, I think I do still have a chance to make some changes in my life to make myself more desirable.
And another thing that I'd like to mention that I think is probably the most important aspect in my pursuit of finding a good partner, and I kind of learned this just from listening to your show and listening to everything that you talk about in terms of parenting and finding a partner.
You know, for my whole life, I always just looked for somebody that I found attractive.
And now I realize that I really am looking for somebody who would make a really good parent.
To my children. And just that shift in what I'm looking for in my priorities has definitely made it a lot more likely that I will have a successful lifelong monogamous relationship.
So I thank you, Steph.
Because without you, I don't know where I'd be.
It would probably be somewhere around the weird satanic stuff.
We've been talking about on this call.
Right, right. Well, I mean, you are, of course, very intelligent and very verbally acute.
You have a lot to offer.
And as I said before, my suggestion is to choose your romantic partners as if your children get the deciding vote, your future children.
Yes, absolutely.
As opposed to the immediate attractiveness in the moment, which is probably not going to last.
And it's funny, you know, I was thinking earlier just about how, when I was asking that question, so people just change, do people just change?
I was actually thinking that in a way they do, but it's because we change.
So as you probably know, when you get together with someone romantically, and it doesn't necessarily have to be sexual, but when you get together with someone romantically, then what happens is, You get this dopamine dump.
You get this hit of happy joy juice in your brain, which is supposed to facilitate the pair bonding and so on, right?
That giddy romance and so on.
And what that does is it has you overlook a lot of flaws in yourself and in the other person.
Yes. And so, in a way, because we see the person in such a positive light biochemically, That can't be sustained because unreality is fine for getting together, but it's not great after you have kids.
You can't be unreal when you have kids because kids need...
You can't be in dopamine days when you have kids, right?
They need to be protected and they need to be trained and so on.
So, in a way, people do kind of change because our romantic...
Haze diminishes. It burns away.
And then we see the person, quote, warts and all, right?
And so this is probably one reason why it feels better in the beginning than it does after a while.
Yeah, and it really never occurred to me, believe it or not, that I could love somebody because they are such a good parent to my children.
I mean, I just always had it in my head.
That's really what love is for. It's not for your genitals and it's not for your vanity.
It's for your kids, right?
It's it seems so obvious, you know, and when I realized that it was I realized it was just always right there in front of my eyes.
But for some reason, I just believed what had been popularized in the The culture I grew up in and in my home, which is that the only way you were ever going to find a lifelong relationship is if you married for love.
Yeah. And what that love was, was never defined.
So I assumed it was just like the movies, you know, the passion, you know, like to go do fun things together.
It's all... It's all you, right?
It's all this narcissistic sort of self-indulgence.
Or magic. That was completely wrong.
Chemistry. We clicked together.
Or like in that old movie, When Harry Met Sally, you know.
When we met, it was just magic.
Well, you know, magic isn't real, right?
The sort of slow plotting virtues that actually allow us to...
Grow and continue in the practical business of life, not the between the sheets or, you know, haze of let's do brunch at four o'clock in the afternoon stuff.
I mean, the actual practical business of life requires people who are willing to grit their teeth and do their taxes, as well as people who look great in yoga pants.
So, yeah, I certainly wish you the best from this, and I really appreciate your honesty in sharing.
You know, we started off fairly jovial and jokey, and then...
We went down the well, which is fine.
I mean, the well is there, the well is real.
And I'm very sorry for everything that happened that put you in such a vulnerable position about a society that didn't tell you the truth.
The society that did bring in people who have a higher crime rate and didn't tell you about the danger put you in danger that way.
And it's so weird to me when a social policy has so many negative consequences.
And yet it continues and escalates.
I can't help but think that those negative consequences are actually the point.
Actually. Yes, absolutely.
You know, like, I mean, like the welfare state, the welfare state drives men out of the family.
And men protect children from pedophiles.
And so who would benefit from having men out of the family?
Well, to some degree, pedophiles and child abusers would, because there's no father around.
You know, how do you get access to a child at night?
How do you get access to a child at night?
Project Veritas was doing one of these videos about a teacher who was accused of inappropriateness with a child at night.
How do you get access to a child at night if you're a grown man or grown woman for that matter?
Well, the way you get access to a child at night is through single mothers because they're lonely and they want you to come over and they want you to sleep over.
Now, of course, The vast majority of people who date single mothers aren't pedophiles, but just in terms of the fact that children are 30 times plus more likely to be abused in a single mother household, single mother households have been not just facilitated, but generated by the welfare state.
I mean, if I were a long, ploddy kind of guy, that would be something...
If someone were a long, ploddy kind of pedophile, you'd initiate the welfare state knowing that it would drive out the father and give you access to children at night.
It does seem that clear.
Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Will you keep me posted about how things go?
Yes, and thank you so much again for everything that you do to share really great arguments and truth and ideas with people, because if it's helping anyone as much as it's helped me, then you really are making the world a better place.
Thank you, and if you start dating a guy, bring me his vital statistics on a show.
I do this with my friends too.
I'll give him the stink eye and see if he passes the grade.
Okay, thank you so much, Doug.
All right, thanks, Afton. Pleasure to meet you.
Pleasure to chat. Alright, well up next we have Gregory.
Gregory wrote in and said, I'm either somebody who's being enslaved or somebody who signed on the dotted line and needs to get over my regrets.
The difference between that decides whether I need to chase my own dreams versus learning to be happy with the options I have.
Thus, the reasoning behind that right to pursue happiness becomes the fine line from which I gain critical introspection which I need to move on to my next career.
My undergraduate degree is in math.
Everyone knows that 1 times 1 equals 1, but proving it...
By the underlying definitions, wasn't something I did until senior level coursework.
Thus, I figure coming up with a proof for basic things that most people accept as axioms is left to specialists.
Thus, I'm calling a philosopher to prove why freedom is a right.
That's from Gregory. Well, hey Gregory, how you doing?
I'm doing good. Thank you.
Good. So, how are you being enslaved?
Well, yeah, I joined the Army, and well, I mean, it is an indentured servitude contract by definition, and they keep adding on to the policy unilaterally.
Right, right.
And do you regret that? Well, yes, at this point, yes.
And why is that? Well, I... I thought I'd be, you know, I thought I'd be fighting and trying.
I mean, I was just listening to that last woman's call and I thought I'd be fighting to stop that sort of thing from happening.
But I, you know, signed up, got to my union.
They just wanted me to do paperwork and bureaucratic stuff and I didn't.
I enjoy that very much.
And then, you know, from there, I mean, my career wasn't able to go anywhere, either in the military or on the civilian side.
And when did you get out of the military?
About five years ago.
Right. And what have you been up to since?
Well, a bunch of low-level, low-wage jobs.
I mean, right now I'm working in retail.
Right. Why do you think that is?
Well, because I didn't get any good valuable experience while I was in there because all I was doing was clerical work.
Well, okay.
But they put you in clerical work, I would assume, because you're smart, right?
Well, I think it was more of an individual thing.
And, you know, basically it was my commander just wanted his paperwork done and he didn't really care about the greater good of the institution.
Right, right. And what would you like to be doing most with your life?
I mean, right now, I'd rather be doing civil engineering than Right.
And is there a reason why you wouldn't pursue that?
I don't mean...
I don't mean my...
Well, I don't...
It's like, yeah, I don't really have the technical degree right now.
And, you know, first thing I tried doing when I got out of the Army was trying to go back to college.
But, I mean, I can't...
I couldn't tolerate any more college.
I mean, I spent long enough time getting my first degree.
I just didn't have the patience for a second time.
And what was your first degree in?
Math. Oh, sorry, sorry.
Yeah, you mentioned that. Right.
And is there no opportunities in terms of math for what you have?
I haven't been able to find any.
I mean, it's just like, I mean, it's...
I mean, yeah, when I was 18, some salesman from Siam, Society for the Industrial and Applied Mathematics, he persuaded me to go into this math degree,
and then I find out later, yeah, I mean, the jobs for mathematicians require master's degrees and PhDs and people who are a little bit smarter than I am, and Other than that, I mean, yeah, mathematicians, people with bachelors in math can, I guess, become teachers if we want a little bit more education and, by the way, had good enough GPAs for them.
Right. So, what would it mean to have freedom in your life?
Because freedom seems to be the main concern in your question.
Yeah. Well, I mean...
I guess being able to, you know, being able to get stable employment and I guess...
Well, you have a relatively normal lifestyle.
I mean... Sorry, were you in the middle of a thought there?
Not really, no. Do you feel that you've been betrayed in your life?
Yes. That's the sense that I'm getting.
So, how have you been betrayed? Well, I mean...
I mean, yes, this...
Dang, I don't want to go into the...
I don't want to go into the details about my military career, because that's just all about me, and I really...
But, yeah, I mean, I was...
I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, it was...
I needed a specific duty position in order to stay in the military and accomplish things that way.
And my boss just didn't...
He just wanted to give it to me, and he kept giving it to...
People were, you know, new soldiers who just showed up.
Right. And why do you think he did that?
Well, I asked him.
He said personality.
And it's just like, that is vague.
And the fact, you know...
The fact that it's vague causes me to question it.
The fact that they follow it up with, oh, by the way, you won't need that duty position.
The next promotion is going to be automatic for you, which was an outright lie.
I can't even explain this without going into a 30-minute tangent on how my career progression was supposed to work.
It's all... I mean, yeah, the military has an organized career progression plan that everyone's supposed to follow along with, like high school.
I mean, yeah, I read the manual, and he was saying the exact opposite of what the manual said.
Plus, there was a few other cases where I've caught him lying, so it's just like, yeah, I don't know what he was thinking.
I know he's just lying to me.
And also the guy who suggested you take the math degree?
No, this was on the arm of the guy.
No, no, I know that, but did you feel that that was good advice or bad advice for you to get?
That was bad advice.
Right. And was there anyone when you were growing up as a child that you felt didn't have your back?
Or may have led you in a wrong direction or wrong path?
Well... I mean, there was...
I didn't have any I didn't have any friends Growing up Yeah that's pretty much it I mean...
I mean, I guess I had a few...
I tried to have a few friends in elementary school, but yeah, they ended up Yeah, they ended up screwing me.
Well, I mean, they ended up joining the social crowd and bullying me afterwards.
And did your parents know that you were trying to make these friendships?
Yes. And what happened with that?
Did they help you at all and figure out how to get and keep friends?
No. They were...
Yeah, my mother was picking fights with all the neighbors, so...
And yeah, she sort of...
She sort of made the social alienation worse at the end.
And so your mom was not exactly working and playing well with others?
No. And how would that show up?
Well... Well, I mean, we moved to town.
Well, yeah, we moved down the street.
And then pretty soon, we meet one of the neighbors.
A few weeks later, yeah, I mean, we're hating the neighbors.
And then another group of neighbors shows up, and we're hating those neighbors.
And, you know, I mean...
I mean, yeah, pretty soon, yeah, we don't have a, you know, our family doesn't have any other close friends in the neighborhood.
I mean, we have, I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I mean, we had, there were some family friends, you know, from the previous neighborhood, so, I mean, yeah, I mean, mom was a little, she was a little antisocial, and I mean, yeah, and it ended with her hating dad and getting a nasty divorce.
And I mean, you know, I mean, it's it's weird.
It's like it's like the rest of our family unit has, you know, completely moved on from her and she's like off doing her own thing in another state right now.
And how old were you when your parents got divorced?
About 23.
And how long have they been not getting along?
I don't remember them.
Well... I don't...
Yeah, I don't remember them ever getting along and by them I mean mom because dad was...
I mean, yeah, he was putting up with her.
And what would you say is objectionable about your mom's behavior or choices?
Yeah, she was just too emotional and too negative all the time.
So it's like, it's a sunny day?
Well, that means sunburn. Is it that kind of stuff?
No, I wouldn't say that.
I'd say that every time somebody around her made one mistake, you know, or Yeah, it had one negative quality, you know, she, you know, latched onto it to find their whole character, you know, their whole character by that person,
by that trait, and, you know, completely, like, you know, like, you know, I mean, like, like, I mean, yeah, dad called her a bad word one time, and she never let him forget it for decades on end.
I mean, I know that's a little typical.
I guess that's a typical thing in a relationship, but she did that with a neighbor.
No, no, it's not.
No, I mean, I don't agree, obviously, with calling your spouse a bad name, but no.
I mean, I think sane people have the capacity to move on from things if there's, you know, forgiveness and apology and blah, blah, blah, right?
Right. Right. So that must have been quite a lot of pressure for you, right, Gregory?
A little bit, I mean...
A little bit?
What do you mean? Was she not like that with you?
No, she was like that with all of us.
But yeah, I mean, I have four siblings.
They grew up under the same mother I did.
I mean, well, I guess we all turned out fine.
Do you feel fine? Mostly.
I don't agree. Which is terribly presumptuous, and I apologize for that, but you don't sound fine.
To me. I don't think that your job is very satisfying.
I don't think that you feel like you're reaching your potential.
Are you dating?
Are you married? Are you a father?
No, I've never dated.
Do you want to date? Yes, I want to get a career.
I mean, I want to get a job going first because, I mean, right now, I mean, I'm in my 30s and making $10 an hour.
I mean, I know myself.
Okay, so Gregory, are you going to be honest with me or not?
Because I ask you if you're doing fine, and you're kind of bitter, you're kind of frustrated, you're working a dead-end job, you've never gone on a date, how's that fine?
Well, I'm not, my health's good.
I'm living in a first-world country.
Okay, are we going to talk at this level?
Because if we are, I've got other people who are going to be more honest with me waiting to talk.
Okay, I'll be honest.
Yeah, I'm not living up to my...
You're not living the deep, right? No, I'm not.
Okay, and I'm not trying to make you feel bad at all, right?
I mean, but it's like, you know, if you go to the doctor and you say, I'm fine.
Well, there are other people that are bleeding out in the waiting room, right?
Right. Okay, so you're not getting what you want out of life, right?
Right. And I think that you're not getting what you want out of life because you haven't differentiated the damage your mom did in your life.
Didn't she make your childhood difficult?
Didn't she destroy the family?
Didn't she destroy relations you could have with neighbors, which meant that you couldn't have friends?
Well... Well, yes, she did.
She did make things more difficult.
Yes, she did. Well, you said you didn't really have any friends as a child, right?
And part of that would, I assume, be because their parents didn't want to go to your house because of your mom.
Yes, that was part of it.
I mean, I guess the other half of it was, yeah, I mean, this was like This was a backwards community somewhat, and a lot of the families had been there a long time, and we were outsiders, so...
No, no, no, Gregory, you said that your mom turned on the neighbors, right?
Yes. So don't stop blaming we were outsiders.
If your mom was a wonderful person who got along with people, who delighted people, you'd be fine.
Okay. Right.
Because you described to me how she would deal with the neighbors, that she'd turn and make them enemies, and then she'd turn to the next one and make them enemies, and then new neighbors would move in and make them enemies.
And then you say, well, it's because we were new.
It's like, well, she was mean to the new people, too.
Newer than you, right? Yes.
All right. And so, what do you think of your mom?
I don't know. Well, I mean, I don't think of her right now.
I mean, I thought she was emotionally unstable.
I mean, I know that my grandfather on her side died when she was like 14, and she never recovered from that.
So it's just like, well, you know, she never dealt with her own issues, and they became everyone else's issues.
Wait, so she was mean because her father died?
Well, I think that.
Well, I don't know why she was mean.
Listen, you just gave me a theory which removes agency from her, right?
Well, you see, she had no choice.
She ended up being mean because her father died.
It's like, I can think of people whose fathers died who were wonderful people.
True. I'm sure you can as well, right?
Yeah. Yes, I can.
I mean, I guess my next excuse in line was, well, technically she did have some sort of like cancer, you know, I think like some sort of issue with her brain.
That cropped up shortly after the divorce.
But, no, think about it.
Yeah, that was probably just... That was probably all the stress from her keeping her...
You know, she kept herself in a nice, you know, steady stream of rage for about 20 years straight.
So, yeah, I mean, I figured, yeah, you know, those levels of cortisol probably caused her problem rather than, you know...
They were the effect of her problem rather than the cause of it.
Yeah, she was just a mean person.
Yeah, and it wasn't like she...
Was nice before the brain issue, right?
No. Right.
And nah, but saying she was just a mean person is again taking away agency.
Like she was just a tall person or she was just a redhead or whatever, right?
I would assume that she had agency and she made choices in her life, right?
Because you understand, Gregory, you don't have control over your own life.
You don't have the job you want.
You don't have the dating life you want.
You don't have the family life you want.
You feel not in control of your own life.
Now, my concern is, Gregory, that the more excuses you make for your mom, although she was just a mean person, she doesn't have control over her life.
Do you see the pattern? If you take agency away from your mom, you take agency away from yourself.
She made choices.
She continues to make choices.
Right. Now, the bad news about that is she's responsible.
And that's difficult for kids to put moral responsibility on bad parents.
It's a hard thing to do. So why would we do it?
Because that gives us the power to change our lives.
If you give full self-ownership to your mom, you get self-ownership for yourself.
If you make excuses for your mom, you make excuses for yourself.
And what you did earlier, Gregory, as I was listening very carefully, with regards to your military and with regards to other things, it was everyone else's fault.
Who does that sound like?
Why couldn't your mom get along with the neighbors?
Did she ever say, I guess I'm just a cantankerous person.
I'm going to have to learn how to be nicer?
Or did she say, it's their fault.
They did it. See, I've yet to talk to Gregory himself at the moment.
I'm mostly just talking to your mom.
Yes. Well, I mean, that's...
Dang it.
I mean, it's...
Well, it's... Was your mom free to be a better person anytime she chose?
Yes. Right.
She was, because your big question here was about freedom.
But in order to be a better person, I mean, it's complicated because I used to sort of believe, well, stop blaming other people.
And it's like, no, that's not fair because sometimes other people are to blame, right?
I mean, other people are to blame.
And what happens if you just say, well, I'm never going to blame anyone else.
It's all me. What happens is then you don't change your social circle because it's all you, right?
And therefore, you can fix it magically with the narcissism of the universe is me and I am the universe and I can fix everything and I can will everything and so on.
So you can't sort of sit there and say, well...
I'm never going to blame anyone else for the trouble in my life.
I think that's a false dichotomy.
Or you don't want to be on the other extreme.
And maybe it's an Aristotelian mean, right?
You don't want to be the other extreme and say, I blame everyone else for every problem in my life because then you're powerless, right?
In both situations, you're kind of powerless.
Right? And so you have to find a balance.
Yeah. Your mom sounds like a pretty horrible person.
And I'm really sorry that you had that as a mom.
And I'm really sorry that your mom, that your father chose that woman to be your mom.
I'm really sorry that that's how you were raised without friends.
That's terrible. Friends are important.
Friends, I mean, friends are so important, you probably don't even feel that lonely.
No, I don't. But you are, I would assume.
I mean, we are a social species, right?
Yes. I mean, I'm sure it's doing a lot of damage that I don't even realize.
Well, it's a lost opportunity, right?
I mean, you would like to feel comfortable and feel that you have value to bring to people, right?
Because if we're solitary...
Either it's because people are terrible and we're too good for them, or people are good and we're not worthy of them.
Now, sometimes it's both.
Maybe we flip between the two or whatever.
Right. But we have to explain to ourselves our own isolation.
I mean, you walk through the world, Gregory, right?
You see people sitting all together.
You see families laughing and cussing at each other over dinner.
You see boyfriends and girlfriends.
You see group picnics of people in the park.
I mean, you see people together and you're not.
How do you explain that to yourself?
How does that make sense to you?
Well, I mean, very simple.
I think everyone's terrible.
Right. Okay, so you take the I'm too good for the world and I won't lower myself to blend with the sheeple, right?
Exactly. That's your defense mechanism is that no one's good enough for you.
Yes, pretty much. Now, where did you learn that from?
I'm going to give you a hint.
It comes with two boobs.
I'm not blaming my mom for this whole thing.
I mean, I was bullied a lot in elementary school too.
And why were you bullied? Because you didn't have parental support.
I have never known someone who has a close and positive relationship with their parents who gets bullied.
I'm not saying it's absolute.
I'm just telling you I've never known anyone and I can't even imagine how it would work.
Because bullies fear humiliation almost worse than anything.
They fear, like for them, they exist in a state of humiliation, so they constantly need to dominate other people in the same way a drug addict constantly needs cocaine to raise his dopamine levels, right?
They exist in a constant state of humiliation.
And so if a bully picks on a kid who's got a good, positive, and tight relationship with his parents, what does the kid do?
He goes home and he says, this kid bullied me.
And then those parents go over to the bully's house and talk about it with their parents.
And then what happens to the bully?
Well, the bully's parents then humiliate the bully.
And the bully's parents or the kid's parents may make the bully publicly apologize to the kid he bullied.
All of it extremely humiliating.
So bullies avoid kids with a strong bond.
Because it ends up humiliating them.
Because their parents won't stand for it.
I mean, my parents wouldn't stand for it, but, you know, yeah, I mean, because they cut off all relationships with the community, they didn't really have that option.
So, yeah, just sort of...
Well, they certainly didn't do anything that might cause the bully to have a negative experience, right?
Right. So, there's...
Not proof, but something, at least one anecdote that supports the theory, right?
I guess so, yes.
So, when you were a kid, it was mostly your parents' fault.
I'm just telling you the way it is.
Because you didn't choose to get born into this family.
You didn't get choose to born to this mom or to this dad.
And they were in control.
They were in charge. They ran the ship.
Right. Right? So...
You know, when you're in the army and you take orders, you may disagree, but particularly in combat, it's do or die, right?
Right. You obey the orders or you get court-martialed.
Yes, that is why I am blaming my commander, because it was this thing.
Now, the problem is, what I'm blaming myself is, you know, the second I got out, I mean, I was responsible for my life, you know, from that point forward, and I haven't done anything.
No, no, no, Gregory, you've got to back up.
So, you were in the army, but this was not a combat take order situation, right?
I'm not saying you would have directly disobeyed your commanding officer.
Of course not. But what I'm saying is that when you're not currently under enemy fire, there's room for negotiation.
But the problem is that you had never seen negotiation modeled by your mom with the neighbor.
So maybe even I assume that your mom didn't negotiate much with your dad either, but just bullied him, right?
Oh, right. So, you didn't learn the language.
It's like dumping you in Japan and expecting you to speak Japanese.
You don't know the language called negotiation because your mom and your dad, they didn't teach it to you.
Yeah, I only understood hierarchies.
Right. You understand bully or be bullied, right?
So, given that you don't have the desire to be a bully, then you end up being bullied, right?
And then you feel helpless and then you get frustrated and then you get angry and then you leave.
Yes. Which is perfectly natural.
I remember once when I was an entrepreneur.
No, I wasn't. Actually, I wasn't an entrepreneur.
I was working for a company and they sent me to Paris for a human resources conference.
And while I was in Paris, my neighbor at the time had a friend.
And I won't get into the whole story.
I think I've told it before about she just she was gonna show me around Paris and she ended up she just bought a condo and then she was desperate for me to help her get out of buying the condo because it was too dark and it was whatever right?
And then so I helped her and that was my day in Paris was helping her with legal and paperwork and stuff and then she's like oh I must cook you dinner to say thank you.
Her English was somewhat okay.
And I was like, ah, you know, I haven't really seen much of Paris, so I think I'll, you know, I appreciate that, but I think I'll go and toodle around and see the sights.
And she's like, no, no, no, I insist, you know, I must...
And I'm like, I bet your friends are coming over.
Do they speak English? She says, oh, they speak English.
Not too badly, not too badly.
And so I was kind of skeptical, like, I don't want to just sit here while people speak rapid-style Parisian French.
This is back before it was Somali.
And... But I was like, she was very insistent, really, really wanted to thank me.
Although, yeah, I was kind of sure it wasn't going to be much of a thanks.
But anyway, so it was a nice dinner.
And of course, her friends come over and after about five minutes of halting English, they all switched to fluent French.
And they were discussing a friend of theirs named Stéphane.
So every now and then I thought I was part of the conversation, but I wasn't.
And I sat there for about an hour and a half.
And then I just said, well, I appreciate the dinner.
You guys are speaking a lot of French.
My French is not good enough to keep up.
But I appreciate it. And I just went out.
And I went and saw the sights and had a delightful evening roaming around.
And I ended up chatting with some other people.
And it was really nice.
But there was a situation.
Like, I'm sitting there, and I can't participate in the conversation.
I don't speak French well enough to participate in rapid fire Parisian, right?
I can get by in restaurants. I can get by other places.
I can't do that, right? Right.
And the whole world is out there negotiating, right?
The whole world is out there negotiating and trying to find ways to accommodate each other and get along and win-win.
Now, a lot of people are failing, but they're still...
That's the language.
The language of adulthood is negotiation.
And the whole point of being a parent is to teach your children how to negotiate.
How to negotiate. So, back in the day, I won't get into the details again, but back in the day, there were a bunch of kids I was around, and the kids were trying to convince their parents to allow for a sleepover.
And these kids were probably ranging from sort of 8 and 10.
I think there were three of them, right? And the kids were, what were they doing?
They were whining. Oh, please!
Oh, come on! You never let us have a sleepover.
They were escalating. They were, you know, trying to shame, humiliate.
And they were trying to escalate to the point where the parents were just going to give in.
And then the parents would say, oh, you know, I don't want to get up too early in the morning.
No, we'll be quiet, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Right. And I had to interrupt the kids.
And I said, kids, you're not going to get what you want this way.
I'm telling you right now. You're not going to get what you want this way.
And they're like, oh, that means we can't have the sleepover.
And I said, no, it doesn't mean you can't have a sleepover.
It means you have to start...
Talking about this like you're adults, not like you're children.
Because what do children do? They whine, they complain, they promise, then, you know, nobody believes them, right?
You know, that's what kids do, right?
What kids do. Or they just say, oh, fine, you know, and then they're resentful and sad and upset and pouty and whatever, right?
But I said, no, here's how you do it.
If you want to have a sleepover, you have to make it.
Everyone knows it's beneficial.
You guys want the sleepover, right?
You want to chat and stay up late and giggle and write.
It's fantastic. Sleepovers are great, right?
Especially if you can build a tent, a fort in the living room.
But I said, if you want to...
If you want to get the sleepover, then what you have to do is you have to sell it to your parents.
And I just got these thousand-yard stairs, right?
Like somebody wrapped the back of a doll's head with a bowling ball.
And they're like, well, what are you talking about?
I said, you have to make it so that the sleepover is beneficial to your parents.
Because what you're trying now is we'll whine until you let us have a sleepover.
But they're not going to respond very well to that because that's just like, I'm going to make an annoying noise until you give me what?
I want is not a very good way to get what you want in the long run.
It's fine when you're five, but you guys are close to double digits or whatever, right?
Right. And so you have to find a way to make it beneficial for your parents to have the sleepover.
How will your parents' lives be better?
If you have the sleepover.
And they got it like that.
You know, they conferred themselves quickly.
They wrote down a bunch of points.
And then they gave a presentation.
They got up and they said, well, there's this benefit.
And there's this benefit. And we'll do this.
And we'll do that. And it was great.
It was really a very positive thing.
And the parents pushed back. And then they pushed back a little bit more.
And, you know, like one 10-minute conversation changes the course of a family life.
Because I'm like, kids, this is not just for sleepovers.
This is for life. This is your big life thing here, right?
Which is try and find a way.
That it's beneficial for your parents to give you the sleepover.
And if you can find that way, then you get the sleepover and your parents get something.
But if you get the sleepover and your parents are negative, then you win and they lose.
And you don't like it when your parents win and you lose, right?
Because if they win, you don't have the sleepover.
You lose, you don't get the sleepover.
If you win, you get the sleepover.
They lose, they don't get the sleepover.
But if you can find a way for you both to get what you want...
Ah, now we're talking, right?
And so, in about literally five, maybe seven minutes, it was all done and dusted.
They had the sleepover, they made their commitments, and it worked out well.
But see, that's not much of what happens, because you kind of have to be home with your family for the negotiation stuff to happen.
It doesn't happen with teachers, really.
It doesn't happen with daycare workers.
It doesn't happen with principals, right?
You just do or die, right?
And so, you don't have the language of adulthood, I think, called negotiation.
Where you try and find something that is beneficial to the other person and is also without giving up your own virtues and values so that if the deal is made, it's better for both people, right?
And so because you don't know how to negotiate, you feel bullied.
And because you don't know how to negotiate, you're working retail because there's not a lot of negotiation in retail, right?
Does that make any sense? Yes.
So your mom would have conflicts.
And what would she do?
Scream like a mad woman, really.
Right. So she would be a vicious bully, right?
Yes. Or she would withdraw, as she did with the community, right?
Yes. Right. Right.
And as a result, you have no relationship to your community.
You have no community, right?
Right. Right. Because they're speaking a language you don't speak.
Like, I didn't have a community when I was sitting around that table in Paris 20 years ago, because I couldn't speak the language.
Okay. But if you recognize, it's not that you're superior, it's not that you're inferior.
Like, if I don't understand, I didn't understand these people who were speaking rapid-fire French.
But that's not because they were inferior, and it's not because I was inferior.
I just didn't speak the language.
So if I wanted to stay in Paris and have dinner, conversations with Parisians, then I would need to go and learn French better, right?
Improve my French. But it's not right or wrong, good or bad.
So if you want to have a community, then you need to find a way to negotiate.
Because if you can't negotiate, you're not there.
You're either bullying, which you don't want to do, which I appreciate.
I'm glad that you don't.
Or you're being bullied.
But you're kind of not there.
If that makes any sense.
Because there's no you to negotiate with.
In the same way that I wasn't there at that dinner table 20 years ago in Paris.
I was just eating and listening and vaguely giving up on trying to follow.
I wasn't there because I don't speak the language.
Okay, so I guess the question is, how do I develop these negotiation skills?
It's not really late in life, but it's later than most people develop them.
No, and there's advantages to that, too.
Which means that you don't end up with...
Like, a lot of people learn bad negotiation skills in a weird way.
Your mom did, right? How do I negotiate?
I scream until people give me what I want, right?
That's kind of a negotiation, I suppose, in the same way that...
Robbery is charity, but you know, it's a transfer of wealth, I suppose.
So, how do you learn negotiation?
Let me tell you about a book I read when I was a kid.
It's a little bit cheesy, and many, many years ago, I mentioned it on this show before.
Why do I think the gay's name?
Let me just check here. I think it was called...
You can negotiate anything.
Let me just check this out.
Negotiate anything. I read this when I was in my early teens, I think.
Herb Cohen. Yeah, okay.
So, let's see.
There was a little bit of stuff in here that's kind of sleazy about like, well, how do you get a good deal at a...
At an appliance store.
Well, you can scratch the fridge and then say, hey, this fridge is scratched.
So there's kind of some amoral stuff in there.
But, let's see, it came out, oh yeah, 1982.
Sorry, I wasn't in my early teens.
I was in my...
So, 1982.
Yeah, okay. So I was 16 and I read it.
It spent nine months on the New York Times bestseller list.
And I actually re-read it.
Probably 10 or 15 years ago, just because I was kind of curious about what it was.
I don't know. Can you get it?
Can you still get it? Maybe out of print.
Oh, there's an audiobook.
Let's see. View all available formats and editions.
Of course, you can get it through fdrurail.com forward slash Amazon.
Okay, yeah, out of stock.
But yeah, it looks like the audio book.
Yeah, you can get the audio book. Two cassettes.
Wow, that is... But yeah, I... Again, the art of the deal is good, but just books on negotiation can be pretty cool.
But yeah, I think that was a pretty important book for me, along with...
Oh, yeah, something I read when I was even younger called Made in Heaven Settled in Court about divorce, which was kind of an eye opener.
But yeah, this guy was quite the negotiator.
And this was, I guess, a fairly big book.
He's got a bunch of books now, I guess some of them are more.
Yeah, he's got a bunch of books.
Oh, well, yeah, he's still writing away.
Cool. So, I mean, I thought that was a pretty good book to get started with.
Again, it's a little bit on the amoral side, but we can all theorize as to why.
But yeah, I mean, that's not – some stuff by Herb Cohen was pretty good.
Donald Trump, of course, is very good.
And all of that. And aim for those win-win negotiations and be creative and recognize that most people want to find some decent way that they can get what they want.
And negotiation is great because when you can negotiate with people, it's a plus.
And when you can't negotiate with people, it's a plus because you don't have to waste time with them.
Anyone you can't negotiate with, you can't have a relationship with.
I'll tell you that straight up. Anyone you can't be honest with, anyone you can't negotiate with, you can't have a relationship.
Relationship is just another word for negotiation.
And it sounds like, you know, like if people think, oh, you know, well, what if you just want to share your dreams?
It's like, well, yeah, you've got to share your dreams for sure.
Share your hopes, your fears, whatever.
But... But you have to have negotiated that it's safe to do that ahead of time, right?
I mean, that you're not getting humiliated or betrayed, you know?
Are people going to say, oh, yeah, no, I want you to send me your biggest fears in email, and then, hey, look, I published them on the web.
You know what I mean? Like, you have to have negotiated with them ahead of time to know that they're trustworthy to share your secrets with or whatever, right?
So, a lot of it is...
Negotiation is life.
Negotiation is life as an adult.
And when you sort of stop and think about it, then...
You spend a lot of your day negotiating or being plowed under.
You spend a lot of your day negotiating or being plowed under.
Always ask for more.
It doesn't hurt to ask. If you are an enjoyable person to chat with, people will be likely to give you stuff.
I mean, I'm not kidding.
It actually works.
Like, if you're calling up and you want to complain, then make a joke.
Say something positive. Say, I'm really glad I got through to you.
I really hope that you can help me.
And try and get the person to like you, to be on your side, to want to help you solve a problem, to identify with you.
There's so many things that you can do.
I should probably just do a whole series of podcasts on all of this.
But even just as simple as, like, I'm calling up, I've got a problem with this, that, and the other.
For me, it's generally, look, I know you didn't cause this problem and I'm not going to get mad at you because you had nothing to do with it, but this happened and I really, really need your help because I have a big problem with this right now.
And again, I know it's not your fault, but you know, and trust that they're going to be on your side and it's kind of weird that they're on your side.
And people have sort of gone above and beyond to solve things for me when you're just kind of honest and And open and be willing to be vulnerable, be willing to need something.
I mean, I've mentioned this before, but my entire professional career started because I called up a woman, Marnie.
I still remember her last name.
I will till my dying day.
I called up a woman. Who had given me office temp work like Excel and FoxPro back in the day and all that.
I called up this woman because I was really out of money.
I was out of money and I was like, I need a job.
I need a job and I need a job now and I will do anything.
I want to work with computers.
I'm really good at programming.
My life is in your hands.
I can't take another low-rent job.
I have to have a good job.
I'm a smart guy. I'm well-educated.
I've been programming since I was 11.
I'm desperate to do something.
That really uses my brain.
And please, please, I'm like, help me, help me, help me, right?
And she was great.
You know, just one of these people who kind of bungees in and out of your life and leaves it looking completely different.
And she got me my very first job where I got to work with COBOL in a professional environment on a trading floor.
And it's a great job.
I took it way too seriously.
I remember a friend of mine, actually, through that job, I met my wife because a guy I became friends with at that job invited me to come and play volleyball.
On that volleyball team was my wife.
So, thanks, Marnie.
My daughter thanks you, too.
But that was my first job.
I remember I got the job and I was making $40,000 a year, which was like all the money in the world back then.
Well, it was until you get your first paycheck.
And then you're like, oh, that's where my free education came from.
So... I'll do some series on these, but it's great.
You try to negotiate with people, either they negotiate back with you positively, or they start manipulating, or they're just sadists, in which case you get the hell away from them.
But negotiation is this one cleansing fire that everyone who's left standing is worth being in your life.
I can't believe I was reading books on negotiation when I was a teenager.
I just think looking back, that's kind of funny.
I don't think I've ever seen a 16-year-old or 15-year-old kid reading a book on how to get a dented fridge at a good price.
Oh, gosh.
No, this is good because this gives you something to do, right?
Which can change the rather barren course of your life, right?
Well, I got a lot of things to do already, but yeah, I'll add it to the list.
I'd put this one on the top.
Myself. I'd put this one on the top.
All right. Well, I'm going to close it off here.
I really, really thank everyone so much for your time, your thoughts, your attention, your praise, your criticism, and all kinds of great stuff.
This is... One of the most wonderful experiences of my life, having these conversations with y'all.
And I am humbled and grateful and appreciative and affectionate to everything that goes on in the show.
So thank you everyone so much.
Please don't forget. Hey, look at me negotiating.
Please, please, Marnie, don't forget.
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Last but not least, the most excellent book, The Art of The Argument, available at theartoftheargument.com.
And a new one is coming along.
It's coming along, and I'm really, really excited with it.
So I will keep you posted about that.
Have yourself a wonderful, wonderful night, everybody.
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