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Oct. 27, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:30:56
"I'm Addicted to a Cheating Woman!" Freedomain Call In
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How are you doing? Very nervous.
Very nervous? Oh, right.
Well, you know, that's good.
That means it's important to you, right?
I suppose, yeah. All right.
Do you want to start off by reading the email and we'll take it from there?
Where is it? Right.
Yes, Stefan. My name's Chris.
I'm 21 and I'm my last year at uni.
I've been listening to your show for a couple of years now, and I thought I was using my brain enough to avoid dumb mistakes.
But here I am, feeling hurt after a one-night stand that I convinced myself it was supposed to be more.
I usually talk to myself about my emotions, but now I recognize I might need some more help.
I let myself sleep with a girl against my better judgment, and now I'm in a fight to win her.
To win a girl who wants to sleep around.
I keep telling myself she's got red flags, that she's not good for me, that she's not interested.
I still want to be with her even after she's been trying to get in the pants of a lot of my friends.
Yeah, that's quite a tale.
I mean, tell me a little bit about how you met her, how the evening went to start.
Did you know her for a while before you slept with us?
Nope, absolutely not.
We sort of just met outside.
It was sort of a party at the...
My God, is my accent thick?
Hey man, I was raised in the UK. I got no problem with the accent.
Go for it. Right.
So it was sort of a student party because I live in student halls.
And we sort of just went outside and met and stuff happened.
Well, I'm not going to give you high points for your storytelling so far.
So you'll have to shake off the nervousness and dig deep and tell me what happened.
Was the drinking involved? How did it play out?
We had a couple of drinks.
Well, I did. And I noticed she was trying to...
She was looking intently at me, and I tried to avoid her a bit.
But then...
Then I thought to myself, what's the worst that could happen?
Maybe it's supposed to be a one-night thing.
And fucking sex practice, you know, what could hurt.
You have a lot of resistance to talking to me at the moment, right?
Thank you.
I feel like I've got a rubber truncheon and I'm trying to get you to tell me where the location of your only child is.
And so we've got to sort of deal with that first because it's not that much fun to have a conversation with someone where it feels like they're pushing toothpaste through a cheese grater.
So why do you...
Do you not want to talk about this?
I mean, what's the resistance here?
Because it's going to drive everyone crazy because your conversation is like, so then...
We had something and I don't know.
And like those kinds of pause, it's just people aren't going to listen and it's going to be tougher for me to listen.
So I just want to deal with that resistance up front so we can get on to the conversation.
I can't really tell where the resistance is from.
I'll try harder, I suppose.
No, so you're already trying a lot.
That's the problem. Conversation should be easy.
We should flow, right? And so trying harder is probably the exact opposite of what needs to happen, if that makes any sense.
Right, right.
And it's not a criticism, you understand.
This is tough stuff to talk about, right?
I mean, this is really putting yourself out there, hot on your sleeve.
You're British. And it's not a criticism.
It's not like, oh, bad, you, or anything like that.
It's just that to facilitate the conversation, we just need to deal up front with...
What's happening? Yeah.
So why do you hate talking about this?
What's the worst case scenario that's going to occur for you in talking about this?
I suppose I'm afraid a bit of wasting your time.
No, that's not it.
No, that's a very polite answer, but I guarantee you.
Because listen, if you're afraid of wasting my time, you wouldn't want the call.
I suppose, yeah.
Thank you.
You suppose what? Oh, you suppose that, yeah, it's not that.
Yeah, I suppose you're right, yeah. So, let's talk about this.
So, I'll try again then.
No, no. See, that's not going to help, right?
Because we need to figure out why it's hard for you to talk about this.
And then we can have a product. Because, you know, if you can't talk about something, you can talk about why you can't talk about it.
But other than that, it's kind of pointless, if that makes sense.
Because you really want to call, and then you call up, and you really don't want to talk.
And I just want to kind of address that up front so we can have a more relaxed and positive conversation.
Okay, then how do I put this into words?
I... That was a problem, this one-night stand thing, because it...
It made it weird for me to talk to my friends.
And why did it make it weird for you to talk to your friends?
Because now she is in a relationship with one of the friends I made this year.
Oh, so she had sex with you, then she had sex with him, and now they're boyfriend-girlfriend?
Yes, yes, that part.
Got it. All right, all right.
So can you give me a timeline on that?
Like, when did you sleep with her?
How long have you been pursuing her?
When did she sleep with and become the girlfriend of a friend?
A couple of weeks ago. Well, that's another thing that...
That's another...
Reason why I think I might not want to talk about it that much.
Because I feel like I mostly got over it, but the...
How do I say this?
That showed me something that I think is another problem that I have.
This is so very vague.
Okay, so we slept and I thought that night I got the impression from her that she wanted this to be a one-night stand as well.
And then we met the next night and I wasn't sure how to react but then she came by and kissed again And that's when I started thinking, thinking, first of all, that maybe she wants something more like a relationship.
And second, that I don't want...
Here we're back to all these pauses again, right?
So you have a huge resistance talking about this, and I can give you some ideas as to why, if you like, or we can continue to try and sort of figure it out.
But these pauses are going to drive me crazy and drive everyone crazy, right?
This is a form of like there's a part of you that doesn't want to talk about it, so you're kind of punishing the listener by putting lots of resistance in and making it appear almost like you're being forced to talk about it.
I don't know. I thought those were mostly...
Well, you know, instead of...
Yeah, no, that's not.
Listen, I've done, I don't know, a thousand or two thousand of these conversations, so I'm afraid you're just going to have to relax and surrender to my expertise.
I mean, at least I think that would be a good thing to do, because I do have some experience in this area.
So, okay, so is this the first girlfriend you, or Flurry, the first woman you slept with?
No. Okay, and how many women have you slept with before?
One. So second, okay.
And what happened with the first?
The first, that was a very long relationship.
It lasted six years.
Holy crap, when you're 21?
I'm 21, yeah.
Okay, tell me a little bit about that.
About that? Well, I lived in Romania for the beginning of my life.
Moved when I was like 13, I think.
So we got together a bit before that, like a year before that.
We spent a year together seeing each other.
And then I moved.
And there were issues, of course, but we sort of managed to make it work for another four years.
The long distance thing.
We'd see each other very rarely.
But it worked until she was in her last year in school, and she had two big things, two big exams at the end.
One was the baccalaureate, and the other was something for med school, like another test for med school.
That sort of made me think I should...
I shouldn't bother her that much over the year.
So that given was my mistake.
And we ended up just barely talking at all when we did talk.
And in the end, we grew apart so much that I... I needed some more support from her at some point, and she answered with, um, I don't have time right now.
And that's when I said, no, you know what, fuck this.
I'm sorry, she answered with what?
With, uh, I don't have time right now.
Okay, so she was not available to support you, right?
Yes. Or didn't want to?
Yeah. Okay. And that's when we broke up That would be two years ago.
Well, no, a year and a half ago.
And that's about the end of that.
Okay, okay. I understand that.
I'm sorry to hear that. And have you heard from her since?
Do you know how her life has gone?
Not really, no.
I thought it would be a very bad idea to stay in touch.
Mostly because my understanding is that when you do that, one of the people involved is going to have hopes of getting back together again.
Oh yeah, no, I mean, I think it's good.
I'm just curious if you've looked her up or anything since.
Oh, no. Okay, got it, got it.
And then, so, sorry, how long ago did you break up?
A year and a bit ago.
I say the year and a half, but it was like July.
Okay, so tell me a little bit more about the girl.
Did you meet her at the party? I can't remember if you said if you'd known her before.
No, we didn't know each other before.
We met there.
She tried coming on to me, I think that's the word.
And I thought, fine.
I thought, what's the worst that could happen, you know?
Right. Right.
And what was it that attracted you to her?
Just the thought that I hadn't had sex in a while and...
I mostly wanted to see how I do, however stupid that sounds.
No, no. Look, I can understand that.
I'm a guy. You're a guy.
I mean, we can all appreciate and understand that situation, I think.
Yeah. Right. Okay.
All right. And so how did it work sort of mechanically?
You met her at a party and then you went to her place or to your place?
So how did that play out? Yeah.
We went to her place, and we all live in the student halls, so it's pretty...
Is this one of these shared bathroom dorm kind of places?
Not exactly.
It's a building with a lot of flats, and every flat has like eight, seven, eight rooms, single rooms, and we only share a kitchen.
Okay, got it. So you went to her place, you had the sex, and it's interesting, for those who haven't had sort of one night stands, I mean, you were a little tipsy, you just met the girl, and how was the sex?
I mean, was it worth it?
Was it enjoyable? Was it satisfactory?
It was nice.
It was nice. Okay, okay.
So it sounds like a solid six out of ten, which, you know, for a guy anything above zero is often pretty good, but that's what we're talking about.
All right. Yeah, yeah.
Listen, I mean, I understand. I understand.
All right. So what happened to you the next day?
Did you sleep over?
Yes. Okay. So the next day you sort of went for breakfast and was it like...
It wasn't like walk of shame, go home stuff.
It was like hang out kind of stuff.
It was sort of...
So I woke up.
We both woke up. And my alarm woke us up.
And I thought that was why she was sort of cold.
And she was like, I should clean my room.
Maybe you should go. Oh boy.
At the same time, I am not the greatest person to...
To read in between the lines.
Well, no, that's not even in between the lines.
Like, I want you to go is...
Well, it's fairly black, I suppose, right?
Obviously, and I did. But I didn't...
I didn't necessarily take it as a...
No, I don't want to see you anymore.
Yeah, okay. But she obviously...
It was like she wanted you out, right?
Yes. Okay. Got it.
Got it. All right. So she wanted you out, and out you went, right?
Out I did. And then how did you end up hooking up that night?
Next night, there was...
It was something organized by the union students, and we were supposed to go visit...
To go visit bars and pubs in town.
Ah, good. Excellent. More drinking.
That should solve things. Of course.
And we met again.
And it went pretty well, but no sex, because we were both...
well no no she she could apparently walk and so she did what She could barely walk, so no sex the second night.
Oh, so she was drunk that night.
Not the first night, but the second.
The second. Okay, got it.
So did you hang out?
Did she seem to be enjoying your company and all that?
Yeah. Okay, got it.
Quite a bit on the way back.
And that was it.
I'm sorry.
I thought that you slept together again the second night, but no.
No, no, no, no. Did you ever sleep again together?
No. Okay, sorry, just once.
My apologies if I misheard that.
All right, so then what happened?
Then came the third night.
We went out again.
And this time...
Because we started kissing on the way back, I wasn't sure anymore if she just wanted the one-night thing.
Right? I thought she wanted more of a relationship.
And I wasn't sure I wanted that.
But then that night I went out drinking again and came back.
And I was having a cigarette on the way back.
And... Her window was really close to the smoking shelter, and I heard her having the funds, I suppose.
So she was having sex with another guy in earshot of you, and this was the third night after you guys had sex?
Yes. Right.
Have you got yourself checked for STDs?
No, I took her word for it, but that's about it.
You used condoms.
Not sure if...
I think that helps, obviously.
It doesn't solve crabs, but you probably would have noticed that by now.
Okay. All right.
All right. And then...
That's when I sort of made myself some tea, sat in front of the window, and started thinking, why am I feeling like this?
Because I felt...
Weird. You know, I felt like I'd lost something, even though...
Well, you felt like shit, right?
I mean, a girl you liked banging another guy.
That's the thing, though, because I didn't want a relationship with her.
She's not the kind of person that I see in my future.
You know what I mean? So then why are we talking?
And why are you bothered by her begging another guy?
I mean, it's a primal thing.
I get all of that. But if you don't want her as a girlfriend, which I can completely understand, obviously, given her character, but then what's...
I've been trying to figure that out for a bit now.
And I got to the point where I thought maybe it wasn't that I liked her particularly.
It's what if it's the...
What if it's just that I liked the feeling of being appreciated?
Maybe that's what I'm...
You mean compared to your last girlfriend who kind of got busy and moved on, right?
Compared to that and compared to the last year, well, two years, where I suppose I missed that.
Okay, I understand.
And I don't know what to add more.
Right, so you're lonely.
Yes. I'm not trying to reduce it to like, oh, it's just this, right?
Because I mean, that's a big, deep and serious issue.
So I'm not trying to minimize it or erase it.
But that sounds like the...
I just always want to try and make sure I get to the essence of what is going on for people like yourself.
And that way, I'll know if the conversation is successful or not, if that makes any sense.
Okay, so you're lonely.
And... Is it fixating on this woman herself in particular?
In other words, is your loneliness attaching itself to this woman as the solution to your loneliness?
It isn't anymore, I think.
It's been two weeks, I think, already, and I've noticed that I don't want to be alone in my room.
I I used to be a smoker.
I stopped for two months during the summer.
And then I came outside and started smoking again, mostly because I wanted to pee out and talk to someone, be around someone.
Right. Social smoker?
Pretty much that, yes.
Right. And this is what bothers me.
That I can't be lonely for too long.
That I can't...
Sorry, what do you mean you can't be lonely for too long?
I'm not sure what that means. I mean, I just get the urge to go outside and talk to someone or...
drink with someone.
And I'm not sure I'm aware.
I'm not a huge fan, obviously, of the smoking and drinking as a means, but isn't that healthy?
I mean, we're social animals.
Aren't you supposed to want to be in the contact of other bipedal mammals with a neofrental cortex?
I mean, that's a good thing, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
But it's stopping me from doing the work that I need to do for university.
to.
Oh, so you're out socializing or attempting to socialize to the point where you aren't doing your work, is that right?
To the point where I'm not doing a lot at all.
The last couple of weeks have been me going to bed at four in the morning, mostly drunk, waking up In the afternoon, thinking, ah, most of the day is gone by.
Let's see who's at the smoking shelter.
And there come the guys with another drink.
Well, what can I do?
Let's see what they're doing.
And this was occurring before you slept with the woman, is that right?
What was, sorry? This loneliness or this need to contact people, this was not occurring before you slept with the woman a couple of weeks ago?
I'm not sure.
Well, okay. Were you getting your university work done before you slept with this woman?
Not quite, no.
Are you not interested in your university work?
Not entirely.
All right.
Listen, dude, are we going to have this conversation or not?
Because, I mean, nobody's ever entirely, I mean, this is just such a non-sequitur.
Like, okay, okay, from a scale of 1 to 100, how interested are you in your university work?
I'd say 40, 45.
Oh, that's not so bad, right?
I mean, that's not so bad.
So, did it change before?
did you get less interested in your university work since this woman?
I don't think so, no.
No.
Okay, so do you feel more lonely since you slept with this woman, or is that not...
That didn't trigger anything, right?
I'm not sure anymore.
I think I was like this for a couple of years now.
Alright. So, as far as I understand it, the woman doesn't really matter in the equation because you don't want her as a girlfriend and she didn't trigger any big change.
No. What I think it did was made me think about the fact that I'm I am lonely and I feel lonelier than I'd like to feel.
So it did trigger a change.
I'm not trying to trip you up or catch you or anything.
I'm just trying to map what we're talking about to make sure that I can hopefully focus on the most useful stuff.
It triggered a change, but not in the loneliness, in my awareness of the loneliness, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, okay. That's a distinction without a difference, right?
I mean, okay, so you became more lonely since, or you felt, you feel consciously more lonely since you talked to this woman, right?
Yeah. Okay.
Look at that. We got somewhere.
Don't mean to sound snarky.
I'm not. I mean, it's like, good, right?
We got somewhere, right?
Yeah, yeah. Okay, good.
All right.
So now the issue is, how long do you think you've been lonely for?
I didn't think about that before.
How long?
Well, I've been...
This is my third year in university, so I suppose...
About two years and a bit.
And were you lonely as a child?
What was your childhood like as far as that went?
Childhood? Lonely?
I mean, I had a bunch of friends and we went outside.
This is like Was I lonely?
I wouldn't think I was abnormally lonely, no.
And did you, with your parents and your relationship with your parents, did you have decent conversations with them, reasonable intimacy and all of that?
Did you feel supported and loved and all that good stuff?
Supported, loved. Yeah, I'd say that.
And what do your parents say about your loneliness, if you've talked to them about it?
No, we don't talk about that serious stuff.
Okay, so the next obvious question is, how can you feel loved and supported if you don't talk about serious things?
I mean, ever, right? I mean, or rarely.
I suppose I can't.
Okay.
We've got a point.
Thank you.
So maybe this isolation goes back earlier, right?
Could be. Well, logically it does.
If you haven't had good conversations or deep or meaningful conversations with your parents, then the loneliness would have gone back further in time, right?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Alright, so here's where you're kind of checking out of the conversation.
I'll tell you this, man, I'm not doing the work in this conversation, right?
So this is your life, right?
So if you want to talk to me in an engaged manner, that's great.
But if you're just going to give me, right, then, you know, I got tons of people.
I'm not trying to threaten you. I'm just sort of saying there's tons of people I want to call who are very enthusiastic to get involved in the conversation.
And if you do want to get to the roots of loneliness, I guarantee you it's early on in life, right?
And you just gave me this thing, oh, yes, no, I felt loved and supported.
Well, my parents and I, I haven't told them about my loneliness, and I'm talking to you on the Internet instead, which is a contradiction, right?
Like you can't have support and love from your parents without being able to talk to them about important things, right?
So your knowledge about yourself is quite limited, right?
And maybe that's why you're kind of phasing out in this part of the conversation, if that makes sense.
Because it's...
I just...
I can't have a conversation with people who go rubber bones.
I don't know if you know that phrase when you were a kid.
Rubber bones. If you go rubber bones on me, there's not much to talk about.
And again, I'm being sort of blunt with you and honest.
Because if you want to not feel lonely...
Then you have to talk about things that are important to you, which comes with the possibility of rejection or scorn from other people, right?
So I'm asking you about important things, and you're going rubber bones on me, and that means that this is why you're feeling lonely, because you don't have any experience or training, I think, in talking about important things.
So when important topics come up about you, about your life, about life itself, Then you kind of go limp, right?
Because you don't know how to talk about things that are important to you, and that's why you need a drink or a smoke to have a conversation, because you're not actually having a conversation.
And that's why socializing for you is going to end up making the problem worse rather than better, because what we really want to do is have the capacity to talk about important things in our life.
And if your relationships are sort of surface and shallow and sports and weather and politics and stuff like that, then, you know, you never do actually end up in the situation where you can talk about important things in your life.
And because of that, contact breeds more loneliness, right?
Again, I don't know if this makes any sense to you, but that's sort of my first take on it.
Okay. I don't know how to start from that.
Good. Okay. See, that's more honest rather than going rubber bones, right?
So give me the uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
That's a way of saying that you don't know how to talk about things, but we always have something to talk about, right?
And in other words, if you don't know how to respond, you can say, I don't know how to respond, as opposed to giving a non-response, which takes a sort of psychologically adept person to catch and to sort of fix, if that makes any sense, or address, sort of as I'm doing here.
Yeah. What if I seem that way?
No, you are that way. No, no, no.
I'm sorry. I can't give you the out of seams because that makes it a subjective thing, right?
It's not. I mean, again, I have tons of experience with these conversations.
And I mean, you're doing fine.
Don't get me wrong. It's perfectly fine what you're doing.
I don't have any objection to it.
I just want to be honest about what's happening.
It's not seams, right? Yeah.
So, when I talked to you about your parents, you gave me a story at the beginning, which was a piece of propaganda about, you know, you're close to them and you feel loved and supported.
And then, you know, naturally, if you feel loved and supported by your family, the question would be, well, why are you talking to me?
Right? Well, there must be something missing with regards to your family, right?
And again, it's not a big problem.
It's just a kind of basic...
reality of the situation so then you said to i asked do you talk about these things with your parents and you said no we don't really talk about anything right now what's interesting about that moment and this is sort of conversation 101 about important things is you didn't seem to know did you notice that transition that you went from oh yeah my parents love and support me too we don't talk about anything yeah yeah
Okay, so you noticed that, and what happened?
Like, did you say, gosh, you know what?
I just kind of contradicted myself, or, you know, wow, that really is not exactly the same as what I was saying just a few seconds ago.
So you noticed that, but then what happened within you that you wanted to gloss over it?
I'll pretend it hadn't happened.
Sorry, go ahead. I didn't really hear the last part of what you said, I'm sorry.
Or pretend it didn't happen.
Just gloss over it, right? So you noticed that you'd given me contradictory information.
And what happened within your mind that you wanted to gloss over it?
What happened in my mind?
Well, I was thinking maybe that they didn't hurt me a lot.
They didn't. Give me money to go to university.
It could be worse.
Sure, okay, okay.
So this is right, if you want to not feel lonely, then what could you say when those thoughts occur to you?
When the thoughts about...
What you just said, like, oh, it could be worse, they gave me money for uni or whatever, right?
What could you say in that moment?
I'm sorry. I don't think I'm following.
Okay. So I'll sort of give you an example, right?
So if you said that to me, right?
If I said to you, oh, my parents and I are close.
And then you said, well, you talked to them about this.
And I said, no, I haven't really talked about anything.
Then I could have said something like, wow, you know what?
I just kind of noticed. I gave you one story.
Then I just gave you another story.
And now, I really, really want to start justifying my parents.
Like, I have this strong urge to just say, well, it could have been worse.
They give you money for university.
They didn't really harm me. And that's happening for me right now.
And that's A very strange sense.
So you know what I mean? That's what I mean in terms of that's having a real conversation, right?
I mean, I've got a whole book about this called Real-Time Relationships, The Logic of Love, which is free.
You can get it at freedomain.com.
But that's, in the moment, being honest about what you're thinking and experiencing, right?
So earlier in the conversation when you were giving me Resistance 101...
I said, you know, I'm feeling kind of frustrated and blah, blah, blah.
And when I was getting impatient at the rubber bones, I'm like, you know, I don't really want to have the conversation if it's just going to go rubber bones.
So that's, again, people always perceive...
Some people perceive that as like, oh, he's going to threaten.
And I have to be clear about that.
I'm just losing motivation in the conversation in that moment.
And I want to be honest about that.
And, you know, I sort of say why I think that's happening, right?
So when you have a thought...
Then you can share the thought.
And you don't share the thought as a conclusion.
You don't share the thought as blame, which is why I was saying to people, like, I'm not blaming you, I'm not criticizing you, I'm just telling you my thoughts and feelings.
That's I'd say it's funny, you know, because that's an intimate conversation, which always sounds like it's bedroom eyes or something like that, right?
But that's having a conversation, and that's kind of easy because we're always full of thoughts and feelings, right?
There's never a time when we're awake or asleep that we're not full of thoughts and feelings.
And what that means, of course...
We never run out of things to say to people.
Never. It's impossible to run out of things to say to people.
It doesn't mean that they'll find you interesting, but you're never short of things to say.
And that's why, at the beginning of this conversation, When it was like pulling teeth to get words out of you, or rather you were pulling teeth to get words out of yourself, I know that this is going to be a resistance conversation, right?
And, you know, I mean, again, I'm experienced and I know what's going on.
And so that's why I wanted to point out that conversations should be easy and do you know what your resistance is?
And you weren't really, really sure, right?
So, I mean, I can tell you what's going on, I think, with regards to your family, right?
That you have a story that you were loved and supported.
But you're lonely, and you don't know, I think, very well, if at all, how to have a relaxed and intimate conversation.
So you then perceive that as a criticism of your parents, as something that they did that was really, really wrong.
Now, in order to compensate for that perceived criticism of your parents, you then start talking to yourself about all the good things that they did, right?
Didn't hurt you, give you money for university, blah, blah, blah, right?
So all of that is occurring and you're not sharing any of it, right?
Now, I know that I'm a trustworthy person to share these kinds of things with, and I'm not going to scream at you and abuse you.
You've listened to these convos before, right?
So all of this is occurring within you, right?
You want to talk to me, but there's resistance about talking to me.
You tell me one thing about your parents turns out to be kind of the opposite, and then you go rubber bones when I point that out because you don't want to criticize your parents.
So all of that is occurring.
Within you, right? But you're not sharing any of it.
And that means that you're not really in the conversation.
And that means that the loneliness won't be solved.
Because look, what's conversation for?
You ever seen a movie where, oh yeah, it was In a Beautiful Mind, right, Russell Crowe?
There's a movie, I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it doesn't really matter.
So you see this all the time in movies.
Some crazy guy sees a woman walking down the street.
And the first thing he does is he says to someone else, if he knows that he's crazy or might be, what's the first thing he does when he's walking down the street with his friend and he sees a woman across the street who's maybe doing something menacing?
What's the first thing the crazy guy says to his friend?
Thank you.
I haven't seen the film, sorry.
No, but just theorize, right?
So you and I are walking down the street.
I think I might be having hallucinations.
I see some crazy woman across the street.
What's the first thing I'm going to say to you?
Do you see that woman too?
Right. Right? Do you see that woman too?
Because if you don't see that woman, it's a hallucination.
And if you do see that woman, then it's not a hallucination unless you're both a hallucination.
You know what I mean? So we have to check with other people about our reality.
We do. I'll tell you a little story.
This is a nonsense story, but I think it illustrates the point very well.
So when I was, I don't know, maybe 20...
I got a job with my then-girlfriend, and the job was working on an island, a hunting and fishing island, kind of in the middle of nowhere.
And the job was supposed to be—it was supposed to be not quite full-time, like not really full-time, because, you know, I said, oh, I want to work on a book.
And the guy was like, oh yeah, you know, it'd be great.
You'll have tons of time to work on a book.
And, you know, we don't need you for more than a couple hours a day.
Here's what we're going to pay you, room and board, and blah, blah, blah.
I got to spend the summer with my girlfriend.
And it seemed great, right?
It seemed really like a good job.
So I took the bus up there, took the boat out to the guy who drove me out.
I remember he was some guy who talked about Woodstock.
You know, it's an interesting thing.
So we get there, to this island.
And, oh my God, there was so much work to do.
It was insane. There were like dozens of cabins that all needed to be spruced up and maintained and fixed and there needed to be repairs on them and then they had to be cooking and so on.
And, you know, I was kind of looking at not much pay and like 14 to 16 hour days.
And the guy who'd said, oh, you'll have tons of time to work on a book.
It'll be great up here. His wife said to me, oh, you're kidding me?
Every year I bring a book up here.
I never get more than two pages into it the whole summer because we're just busy all day and all night.
And I said, well, wait a minute.
I mean, I'm being paid.
I can't remember how much it was, but it really wasn't that much.
I'm being paid this and you want me to work like...
Oh, she's like, oh yeah, it's like minimum 12 hours, probably 14 to 16 hours a day.
So I did the math and it was like pathetic, right?
I mean, and so, you know, I had to say to the guy after a couple of days, I talked it over with my girlfriend and we were like, you know, this is...
This is not good. We're not really going to spend much time together.
Plus, he was one of these bosses who was like, you missed a spot!
You know, like, there's a reason why maids don't often do windows, right?
Because you can always miss a spot on windows.
There's always some angle where you can see a spot.
This is why maids will say, I don't do windows because it's surrendering to usually two kind of...
So, you know, there was like, you've got to set things up in the cabin.
It's like, this pillow wasn't fluffed properly.
You know, that kind of... It's like, I don't think that the guys coming up to hunt and fish up in here in the middle of nowhere really care about how fluffed their pillows are, but, you know, It's not my gig.
So anyway, so it was like, okay, so I get, you know, 12, 14, 16 hours a day for very little pay with kind of a jerk for a boss.
So after, I think I lasted, I don't know, four or five days.
Maybe I thought things would change.
I thought, okay, well, maybe at the beginning, there's just more work.
And the other guy was like, ah, you got to clear this brush.
And now you got to dig this well. And after this, oh my God, like I'm not doing this for 250 an hour.
Like there's no way. So I quit my girlfriend and I quit.
And the guy, of course, was really sucky and mad.
And I said to him, I said, look, you know, I said I wanted to work on a book.
Well, you can work on a book. It's like, yeah, but I got to sleep.
It's like, I don't know, maybe you sleep two hours a night.
Maybe you can work on the book then.
Anyway, so he kind of lured us up with false pretenses and we quit.
But I felt bad about it because, well, first of all, I was young and all of that.
And the guy was the total jerk about it, you know, like, well, I brought you people up here and I went and got you and there's other people I said no to and you've made it really inconvenient for me and I don't know how I'm going to do it, right?
So it kind of ladened on the sort of the guilt and heavy garbage that people do when they have power sometimes.
And anyway, so...
I had a particular view of that experience, which I haven't thought of in forever, but I think it's relevant.
I had a particular view of that experience, which was, you know, this jerk kind of lured me up into false pretenses.
He underpaid me. He was going to overwork me.
He was a jerk. He was an asshole boss.
So I just didn't want to work there, right?
That was my view of it.
Now, his view of it, of course, was that...
I had promised to come up and work, and he'd let other people not take the job because I'd made a commitment, and then I broke my commitment.
So I was looking at him like he was the jerk, and of course, he was looking at me like I was the jerk.
Now, I mean, I guess it's theoretically possible that we could both be jerks, but I'm a good, solid worker and always have been since I got my first job at the age of 10.
I'm a good, solid worker and Oh, I think I've been fired once in my life.
So, you know, after having, I don't even know how many jobs, it'd be kind of silly to count them up at this point.
But that's the, that was sort of a reality.
Now, when I came back, of course, people were like, hey, man, what, like my friends, family, hey, man, what happened?
I thought you were going to be gone all summer.
Like you had this great job where you're only going to work like four to six hours a day and you're going to enjoy the countryside and you were going to enjoy swimming and fishing and you were going to work on your book and hang with your girlfriend and all that.
And so I had to sort of say what happened and I'll tell you this straight up, you know, not going to lie to you.
I really, really needed people to see it my way, right?
Because I looked across the street and I saw a particular situation.
And if other people didn't see that situation, in other words, if other people had said, oh man, you know, I've got to be frank with you, Steph.
I think you kind of really hosed this guy.
Like, how on earth is he going to run his whole business up there now that you flaked on him?
You quit, right? You're a quitter. You're a quitter.
Whatever, right? And I was nervous to tell people, because you don't want to sound too desperate, like people have to affirm what it is that you're saying, right?
But at the same time, You don't want people to side with a douchebag boss who kind of lied to you to get you up there working for him.
And so it's...
I needed people to see it.
Now, you could say, oh, you know, you should be a completely self-contained person with your own judgment and you shouldn't need other people.
It's like, yeah, but we're not psychos.
You know, we're not narcissists and sociopaths who never need anyone else's input.
You know, we're a social creature, right?
We're social organisms. So I really did need people to see it, not just my way, but to see it in the way that I thought it actually was.
And that's important.
We can't get to reality entirely on our own, right?
I mean, this Howard Rourke-style fountainhead or John Galt, that's fiction, right?
And that's good to have your own judgment, particularly when you're young, right?
So the reason I'm telling you this story is because it happened within about a year of where you are.
So your reality needs people.
You can't get to reality without people.
And this is why free speech is so important.
This is why debate is so important.
Disagreements, arguments, the things that people hate to hear need to be said.
You cannot get to the truth without a social discourse.
I mean, good heavens, we've been a species for 150,000 years, give or take, and there's still so much bullshit we believe in, it's ridiculous, right?
Even though we've been hammering at this stuff for tens of thousands of years, right?
So, you need people to get to the truth.
You need people to understand the world.
I mean, you need the right people.
You don't need propagandists and liars and manipulators.
You need the right people.
So, you just had a very isolating moment.
Which is where you had a whole bunch of intense thoughts go right through your brain, and you kept them completely hidden inside your mind, and then you punished me, in a sense, for bringing up those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings by going rubber bones on me in a conversation, right? And if you want to solve loneliness...
You've got to open up your heart and mind.
Now, you've got to do it sensibly, and you've got to do it according to people you can trust.
But you called me because you trust me.
I mean, I hope. I hope you didn't call me as a masochist who was hoping to get verbally abused or something.
That would be pretty terrible, right?
But you called me because you could trust me to tell you the truth, at least as I saw it.
So in this situation, I'm trying to tell you what I think was going on in the conversation.
I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just telling you this is what...
You know, based on some pretty significant experience, right?
And three decades more.
I mean, this doesn't prove, just in my thoughts, right?
But I think you called me because you wanted to get a view of yourself that could give you some leverage over yourself.
Because you can't solve a problem you don't know exists.
So if you have a problem called, I have...
Thoughts that I never would share with people, and in some ways I'll actually punish people for bringing up those thoughts, like, hey, maybe things weren't so perfect with your parents or whatever.
Okay, if you know that, then you can solve a problem.
And if you don't know that, you can't.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, I'm not sure what happened there, because as you were talking, I thought, I remembered to...
Two important things about my parents, the first being that I... How do I put this?
I got to the point where I just started despising my parents, my dad for being so cold and my mum for letting him be this cold.
And the second one was...
Ah! Ah!
Sorry. Go ahead with your second.
I'll hold my thought. Go ahead. Okay.
And the second one was about loneliness.
I couldn't think of something on the spot.
But then I remember...
I probably have earlier childhood memories, but a very early childhood memory was...
I can't remember what age I was, but I know my parents were both going to work for the first time.
They were leaving me alone at home.
And I was in kindergarten like four or five, maybe?
And I remember they left me a gigantic bowl of cookies to sort of...
And they were hoping that I wouldn't freak out when they left me alone.
But then I just...
I remember I just played on my computer the entire day until they came back, and I had no idea what the fuss was about.
And then I remembered that later, during school years, like first, second, third grade, I would be alone at home after coming from school, Probably not first grade, but second grade and onwards.
And I remember I was alone at home and I wouldn't do my homework, God no.
I'd go watch a film on TV or play games again.
And it sort of hit me that I might have been alone, but somehow I didn't feel that alone or I Made myself think I wasn't alone?
Well, I'll go you one better.
I bet that you felt relieved.
How so? Well, I mean, if your father's cold and your mother is useless regarding helping with that coldness or whatever, if they're kind of intrusive and they're telling you to do things you don't want to do, like homework and stuff, then my guess is that you actually...
I felt better with them not around often.
It was easier, right?
Like, they weren't nagging you, they weren't distracting you, they weren't being cold and not connecting with you.
They, you know, just, okay, now I can do my own thing.
That's kind of like a relief. Yeah, I can't remember a time when I just wanted them to come home sooner.
Right. Or, you know, the question is, and I sort of talk about this in my book, right?
The question is, the caller ID or the key in the door, right?
The key in the door. So you're home.
Oh, you can tell me this, right? I mean, again, I'm not saying it's 100%, but in general, right?
So you're home. And, you know, lo and behold, you hear your parents' key in the door coming home.
And what do you feel? Panic for multiple reasons.
mostly because I would have to close the TV or the computer and pretend I was doing the work.
And I suppose I was a bit afraid of them nagging at me again because I wasted the entire day.
Right. So your experience of your parents coming home was not positive, right?
Yeah. Right.
I'm sorry about that. Like, that's very sad.
I mean, you should be relatively content with your own company when necessary, but you shouldn't feel, oh, it's a negative thing that my parents are coming home, I think.
I mean, I don't think in a...
You know, like, when I come down the stairs in the morning, if my daughter's up, she'll, like, run up the stairs and give me a hug on the stairs, and I'm like, careful, because she's getting big enough, right?
They'll knock me down the stairs, right?
So she's happy when I'm awake, right?
And happy when I come down, and that's always the case.
Now, I mean, we have a particularly, I think, positive relationship, but it shouldn't, you know, you understand, like, it shouldn't be the case.
it's that rough for you to spend time with your parents and for your parents to come home yeah you had a thought or was it the key into door thing yeah Oh, shit, that's right. I did.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, I got it.
So, your father's cold, right?
Yes. Okay. So, I mean, I don't know if I'm a kind of father figure.
I know I am for some people. Maybe it is to you as well, right?
So, for you to talk about difficult personal things with me, if there's sort of a father transference, right, then...
You're going to be very hesitant to talk about these things with me because your father is the way that he is, and it's kind of going against conditioning, in a sense, or going against programming for you to be that sort of frank and honest about things that are difficult in your life, given the kind of dad that you have.
So he was kind of in control at the beginning, and he was basically saying, oh yeah, you can try and talk to this guy if you want, but I'm going to interfere the hell out of it.
Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah. He was and is pretty oppressive, I suppose.
Right, right. So listen, and this is why I wasn't mad at you.
I mean, I can get impatient not so much with you but with the dynamics, but I'm not mad at you at all.
I mean, that's perfectly understandable.
And that's why what you're doing is so bloody courageous and admirable, that you're stepping up and breaking the programming of, hey, man, you don't talk about I see,
yeah. But yeah, my dad is...
How do I say this?
He can get very loud when there is disagreement to be had.
Right. Like how loud?
What are we talking? As in shouting, swearing, that kind of loud.
Okay, so what kind of stuff would he say if he was displeased?
Along the lines of...
Are you dumb?
Are you an idiot? For, I don't know, breaking something or dropping something.
Mistakes, mostly. Right, right.
And were you supposed...
I mean, did he ever...
I guess not. With that kind of attitude, it's hard to imagine that he would ever be particularly chatty about things in life.
So that's sort of where that comes from, this reticence to talk about this kind of stuff.
Yeah. He's...
To be honest, we...
I think we had a longer chat...
Last year, I think.
And I thought I felt a bit of a connection there.
But I think it was just about politics.
And we were agreeing.
So, never mind that.
Yeah, that's a little fucking tragic.
I mean, politics, of course, is a big distraction from personal things.
And, yeah, politics is important and all of that.
But... Yeah, it can be a real distraction from things, right?
And you said that your mom was kind of frustrating around this stuff too, is that right?
Yeah, my mom is...
My dad was harsh.
When I said cold, that's kind of what I meant.
I wanted to say harsh instead of cold.
Harsh is a slightly more coachy word than verbally abusive douchebag or something like that, right?
Yeah, I suppose, but...
Harsh, I think, has part of the attitude towards life, as in just fucking man up and do stuff.
Right, right. So, yeah, I get all of that.
And that's, you know, I guess not unknown in Romanian culture, right?
Yeah, I suppose. Yeah, yeah.
That's the norm there.
As for my mum, I remember she was a lot more...
by far not as harsh as my dad, but she was strict.
That's a good word. She wouldn't shout.
Well, she would shout, but she wouldn't swear at me.
She'd look and act disappointed if I, say, didn't do homework or got a bad grade or something.
Um... But what I was thinking earlier was, from what I understand, my dad was a lot nicer when he was younger.
A monster, did you say?
More calm. More calm.
Sorry, okay. Got that completely backwards.
It was just a bit of a crackle there, but okay.
So your dad was more calm when he was younger and got more volatile.
It's probably because I'm walking around.
I'm a bit stressed and walking around.
No, no, walk around. That's totally fine with me.
Totally fine. Right.
So yeah, I sort of put a bunch of blame on her for him becoming this way.
Because she let him get this way?
Yeah, blaming her for becoming this way versus her letting him come this way, they're not quite the same thing, and it's an interesting distinction.
So tell me more about that.
I don't know.
I suppose on the one part, he shouts at my mum almost daily.
Because a lot of stupid things, like making mistakes, basically.
But I don't...
I suppose maybe she could have done something to how do I say this to to not let him swear and shout in the house Maybe. Hopefully.
That's what I was getting at.
Well, I think if I understand what you're saying, when you say in the house, you mean at you, right?
At me, at her, just around us.
Well, okay. So, but I mean, with regards to her being a mom, I mean, look, let's say that she's just a wife and she doesn't have any kids and she lets her husband yell at her, right?
Okay. I mean, I don't think that's healthy, but it's a choice she can make for herself, right?
Maybe she likes that kind of dominance.
Maybe it turns her on.
Sorry about talking to mom this way, but you know what I mean, right?
Maybe she just finds it exciting and it means he cares.
So it's one thing if it's your mom making these choices with regards to herself, right?
But you don't get those choices when you become a parent.
Those choices evaporate.
So, if you like being yelled at, or you find it's okay, or you put up with it, that's, you know, that's your choice as a wife or as a husband, right?
But the moment you bring kids into the equation, you know, it's sort of like if you choose not to go to the dentist, you know, it's not particularly wise, but, you know, assuming that no taxpayers are going to end up on the hook for it, at least, not the case these days anymore, I suppose.
But, you know, Your choice, right?
But if you don't take your kid to the dentist, well, that's a whole other thing, right?
Yeah. So, with regards to your mom, I would imagine that your major complaint, which I would share, by the way, is, you know, like, don't let people, don't let guys yell at your kids, right?
Like, that's wrong. Right?
It wasn't your choice. It wasn't your preference, right?
Or anything like that. And, you know, you can't fix it.
You can't solve it, right? You're not the parent.
Yeah. If that makes sense.
Because you needed her to protect you, right?
You needed her to protect you.
And she didn't. And it is kind of her job, right?
I mean, it's your dad's job, too.
But, you know, just sort of focusing.
It's easy to see your dad's wrongdoing because he's, you know, yelling and stomping and screaming, right?
It can be a little bit tougher to see what's going on with your mom, right?
Because it's more of a silent partner.
But if your dad was out of control and your mom was more in control, then for sure it would be more your mom's responsibility to make sure that you're not getting yelled at and abused, right?
Yeah. And did she ever intervene to your sort of knowledge or memory?
I would like to think that she did, but I can't remember any case.
So that's a no, right?
Yeah, that's a big no.
Well, I'm really sorry for that.
I really am sorry for that.
It is, you know, it is a parent's job to make sure that the child is not scared and abused and yelled at and called terrible names for simple mistakes.
Because, you know, childhood is just a whole bloody series of mistakes.
Hell, I still make mistakes.
I've been doing my audio video for 15 years, and every now and then I'll just screw something up.
You know, it happens, right?
Life is, you know, you hope to bat 90 if you can, right?
That's pretty damn good, right?
But, yeah, life is a whole series of massive mistakes, and people, especially childhood, that is the whole point, right?
Because the whole point of childhood is you're supposed to make mistakes, because when you start making those kinds of mistakes, hey, guess what?
You're an adult, right? Cool.
So, you know, an adult who pees in your face is guilty of assault.
A baby who does it is just expressing themselves, right?
So, childhood is supposed to be about mistakes.
And it's easy to forget that.
It's easy to forget that.
But of course, you know, children have youthful, immature brains.
Not immature relative to children, but immature relative to adults.
And that's the whole point, right? That really is the point.
And so, yeah, it really bothers me when people yell at kids for making mistakes.
Because it's like, you know, that's why you're the parent, right?
You know, that's the deal.
That your kids are going to be making lots of mistakes.
And hopefully you can train them to the point where they make few enough mistakes that they can go out and be an adult.
And in particular, what were you calling to talk to me about?
A mistake. This is the courage, right?
This is the courage, which is you're calling, you know, you had a dad yield at you for making mistakes, you're calling perhaps a father figure up to say, hey man, I think I made a big mistake, right?
And so that's why the conversation was so difficult, right?
I suppose. Hey, hey, hey!
Don't rub her bones me! You're doing well, man!
Don't give me these supposes!
Tell me I'm right or tell me I'm wrong!
You can do that, right? I'm not saying it's the only thing that was happening, but it certainly fits your childhood, right?
Wait, did you just... Yes.
Okay, so what are you feeling at this moment when I bring this up?
When you bring this up, I feel that I thought about having a talk to him, a serious talk with him about how he is and how I'd like him to stop being.
But There are a bunch of reasons.
There are a bunch of problems with that.
First, I kind of...
I rely on him.
Oh, this is the money thing.
This is why the money thing came up when the criticism came up earlier, right?
Of course. Yes.
First of all, he works a lot, like...
10-hour days...
And I thought about talking to him and recommending maybe he should go see a therapist.
But then I told myself that costs money first of all and that's a lot of time.
And the second reason why I'm not It's because that might get confrontational and I can't walk out and go live on my own quite yet.
You know? And what do you think is prompting the desire to have this conversation with him at this point?
That is an entirely different can of worms, Stefan.
You know, can of worms is the only thing on the menu in these conversations.
It's not the most imaginative restaurant around.
I'm just thinking that's another couple hours.
I got a baby sister.
She's like tall.
And it really bothers me that he shouts and is this angry around her.
And how old is she?
Two. Holy, she's not just two, she's like round two.
Yeah, pretty much.
Right.
I'm thinking maybe they thought, all right, this one's going away.
Let's try again. Make it proper this time.
Well, except, of course, he's not going to make it proper.
He's just going to do the same damn thing, but probably even worse at this point.
You said he was more mellow when he was younger.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, you're a very, very good person, man.
Just kind of want to point that out.
No, seriously, you're a very, very good person.
I mean, you are caring about your baby sister, right?
Yeah.
It's a very, very nice thing to do.
I'm not entirely sure why, though.
Why do you care about her?
Because you're a nice person.
What do you mean, why? You care about a two-year-old getting yelled at.
That's good, right?
And now, of course, it's, you know, also it would be provoking memories within you that are tough, but, you know, it's a good thing.
I mean, I don't think she's got a lot of other people in her corner, and, of course, you're trying to do what your mom didn't, right?
I'm not quite succeeding at it yet.
Well, that's because it shouldn't be your damn job, right?
You shouldn't have to parent your parent.
I don't know what else to say.
Well, what do you think is going to happen?
Okay, tell me the speech you'd like to give to your dad, and feel free to go as long as you want, right?
But just tell me, if you could, like, find a way that your dad would sort of magically listen and you'd get everything out that you wanted to say, what would you say?
Oh. Well, uh...
How do I start?
I suppose...
There's a big problem.
I think you've noticed it as well.
You're shouting and swearing around a two-year-old mate.
I suppose it's because of me.
It could as well...
I feel like it's also because of me, because you have to work a lot to pay for me going to uni and for the baby.
But I don't think there's...
I don't like who you are now.
And I'd like to help you change.
I'd like to see you change.
And I'd like to try to help you with that.
Maybe you can see a therapist.
Maybe you can...
Well...
Let's start with seeing a therapist is the first thing that comes to mind.
Go on. Because this is not good.
It's not good for you and it's especially not good for her.
Because you were an arsehole when I was a kid and look how I turned out.
And you were great before compared to now.
I'm not sure this exercise works without responses.
Well, Well, tell me, your energy was when you said you're an asshole when I was a kid.
so tell me more about that like again just pretend he's listening and and absorbing as best he can what you're saying i'm not sure what to say again
so It can be helpful to bring up a specific example that's the most vivid of it and then talk about how it's affected you since.
Can I talk to Stefan now?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No problem. All right.
There's one thing that keeps popping up.
I don't think it's...
I don't think it's very impactful.
It's been very impactful on me, but there was this time when...
I can't remember if I skipped a class.
It was something...
Similarly benign.
He got home and he was really angry, and I ran to my room and he came after me and whacked me over the head.
And I remember I was curled up on my bed then.
It was just one slap, but that keeps coming up in my memory.
But what do you think it's done to your capacity to have easy conversations, having this kind of tension in your life growing up?
I don't think there was much capacity to have easy conversations with him before, but I'm not sure.
Well, look at how hard it is to chat about this stuff with me, right?
And I'm pretty good at these conversations, right?
I mean, it's made you pretty tense about being honest about things.
To be honest, a couple of times I'm just trying to find my words.
Yeah, no, I get that. But that's also part of the resistance, right?
Because you're trying to find a way to say things that don't sound some way, right?
In other words, if you said things wrong around your dad, I bet you things went pretty bad.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I didn't think before I had issues opening up to people.
But mostly it was close friends my age and...
That's who I talked to when I talked about stuff like relationship issues, for example.
I don't know.
Maybe that moment I mentioned earlier ruined my relationship with him.
Maybe there wasn't much to ruin in the first place.
Alright, so let's move on.
We can do this one relatively quickly.
So let's move on to chapter two in The Story of Your Life.
And this chapter is called Female Betrayal.
Are you ready? Okay, so three examples of female betrayal you've given me.
The first is that your mother not protecting you against your father.
The second is your girlfriend flaking out in the long-distance thing when she was in med school.
And the third is this woman kind of flaking on you and audibly banging a friend of yours in your vicinity, right?
And if you can get a handle on this challenge of female betrayal, then you will get a great girlfriend and you won't be lonely anymore.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah. This is your mom.
And your mom, unfortunately, has programmed you to have an affinity for women who are going to fuck you over, frankly.
Who are going to betray you, right?
And if you understand that, so one of the reasons that she's done that is so that you don't end up with a good woman to compare her to and find her wanting, right?
Are we getting bouncy bones again?
Okay, so just tell me if that resonates with you.
Tell me what you think.
it seems weird to think of it that way could make sense Transizer.
You see, I never thought about I thought about my mum not stepping in, but I never thought of it as betrayal.
But it is. It is betrayal.
It's betrayal of her fundamental duty to protect you as a mother.
She chose a violent guy, emotionally violent, I guess physically violent sometimes too, so she chose the guy who was violent, And then she had children with the guy who was violent, and she then failed to protect the children from that violence.
So she engineered a violent situation for her children, right?
Chose a violent guy, had children with a violent guy, and then did not protect her children from the violent guy, and now it's happening with your sister as well.
Yeah, yeah.
Did the mic go off again?
Thank you.
I'm not sure if I can hear you.
No, no, I can still hear you.
I'm just waiting for your thoughts on it.
Yeah, it makes sense.
Thank you.
Right. So then, of course, the grave danger is that you're going to end up using unreliable women to reaffirm a narrative regarding your mom and your life and so on, right?
And then what's going to happen is you're going to get so pissed off at women that you're going to be in grave or danger of turning into your dad.
Oh, yeah. I can see that already.
Tell me more. No, multiple times I... Well, it's either I get angry at video games, but that's, I suppose, not uncommon.
But I've noticed myself recently getting very, very annoyed and angry at my mum for almost nothing.
Almost no reason at all.
And I thought to myself, Jesus, fuck am I turning into my dad?
Well, yeah. I mean, your dad, to make him out to be a victim, which is not an accurate statement, but your dad was probably looking for your mom to restrain the worst devils of his behavior, and she simply refused to do so.
And she may have even encouraged him or egged him on.
It's not uncommon for women to use men to act out their own anger because men are bigger and stronger.
So maybe your mom was angry at you, and maybe she even engineered some of your father's abuse, which doesn't excuse him at all.
I'm just looking at the mechanics, right?
Yeah, sure. And that's a pretty rough situation to be stuck in as a kid, right?
Two people with unconscious, violent motives and intentions getting you trapped in this sort of hellscape of unrelenting Kind of destruction.
Yeah, I see that. And so, you know, my guess is that deep, deep, deep down, you knew that you weren't having much impact on your first girlfriend, and then the woman that you had sex with, you, I think, probably had sex with her so that you could bond with a woman who would betray you, because that's kind of what happened with your mom.
Hmm. I mean, she's obviously a very low-quality woman, right?
I mean, this is obvious, right?
I mean, this is nothing I need to tell you, right?
She's just banging everything. She's drunk.
She's like, this is just terrible, right?
This is terrible, terrible behavior.
Yep. And you know all of that, right?
So I get this.
You're horny. You're a guy. You know, any port in a storm, so to speak, like I understand all of that.
Right. But this has also triggered something I think that's much deeper and obviously more important than one flyby with a thought, right?
Which is all of this stuff around your mom and betrayal and yeah, there's a very important thing here.
It's going to be tough for you to find a reliable woman because your inner mom is going to fight you every step of the way.
But, man, you've got to. I mean, because otherwise this is just going to continually provoke you until it's going to be very hard to restrain your temper.
You know, if you've had a bad past, aim for the opposite.
Aim for the opposite. And that is the best conceivable thing that you can get out of a bad past.
And sometimes the only thing.
I never thought about that.
And does that, I've got another call, but does that sort of give you a place to head towards and work with?
I'm not sure I know what to do, Stefan.
Ah, well, you need to feel the betrayal.
You know, you recommend therapy for your dad.
If you're in university, I'm sure you can get a therapist.
Hopefully you can find a decent one.
But yeah, talk about this stuff.
The pain of this kind of betrayal is very, very harsh.
And if you can work through that pain, deal with that pain, then it opens you up to find women who are trustworthy, right?
Because right now, by avoiding trustworthy women, you're avoiding the pain of betrayal, right?
Because you simply repeat it.
You numb yourself to that particular situation, right?
I don't know if you've ever had, like, there's a background noise.
You ever try and concentrate on something and there's someone's jackhammering on the street or something?
And you know what happens. Like, after a while, you just stop hearing it, right?
Right. So we numb ourselves in this kind of repetition.
And there's actually studies, like if there's a noise, like your brain actually stops transmitting it after a while, right?
And if the noise stops and then starts again, then you hear it again, right?
So we put ourselves in repetition to numb ourselves to particular sensations.
And in this case, I think the sensation is anger and frustration and contempt for this sort of betrayal, right?
And you probably are more aware of what's going on with your dad than with your mom, because again, it's the seen versus the unseen.
It's as important in self-knowledge as it is In economics.
So I would say, you know, break the conditioning in this way and just say, you know, yeah, I mean, you were betrayed by your mother, you were betrayed by your father, and in these ways, I'm sure there's good stuff there too, but in these ways, it's very important.
And that sucks.
That's very painful. And when you deal with that pain, you can choose something different.
You don't need to numb yourself through repetition of betrayal, if that makes sense.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Will you let me know how it goes?
I'll try, sure.
You'll try or you will?
The try was about the trying to feel the betrayal because I'm not even sure where to start with that.
Well, again, I sort of recommend these before.
John Gray has workbooks. Nathaniel Brandon has workbooks.
You can do sentence completion.
I mean, there's stuff that you can do to sort of figure out, you know, when the phone rings and it's my mom, what do I feel?
You know, and if you feel sort of irritation and frustration and anger and so on, then you've got to just let those feelings happen.
They're here to help you. They're here to change things.
Repetition is despair, right?
It means I can never break out, right?
So your feelings of frustration and anger are there to break you out of this cycle and have you launched towards a much better life.
So when you have those feelings, let yourself just have those feelings.
They're very, very important.
They're actually lifesaving, so...
Don't repress. Don't erase the feelings.
Don't wish them away.
Don't try and talk them away.
You know, like when something negative came up about your parents and you're like, well, they didn't actually harm me and they paid for my university.
That's just an attempt to make the feelings go away.
Don't make the feelings go away.
They're really here to help you.
And that process will be, I think, the beginning of a great life.
All right. All right.
Thanks, man. I appreciate it.
I really do apologize I got a boogie, but I hope you'll let me know how it goes, and I really do appreciate the conversation.
And as do I. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, man. Bye. Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest Free Domain show on philosophy.
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