Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Aug. 15, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:55:30

CONFRONT YOUR DARK SIDE! Freedomain Call In

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Well, well. Sorry, a couple of minutes late, but I'm all yours.
	What's on your mind? How can I best help you?
	Thank you. So, like, in the message, like, I'm...
	Well, I'm...
	Yeah, I'm moving, like, my father's selling his home, and we're moving, and it's...
	I'm dragging my feet and one of the things I notice is I'm more paralyzed and motivated by that.
	That's kind of where I want to start.
	What do you think? Totally fine with me.
	Totally fine with me. So, has he lived in this house for a long time?
	We have, yeah. For like...
	My parents actually were together and then divorced.
	I've lived in this house off and on for many years.
	Honestly, I've actually had more of a negative sentimentality to the house because my parents were together and my mom wanted to sell the house and My dad came to an arrangement and then for a while my dad lived elsewhere and this house was just being rented and then eventually I lived here and eventually he came back too actually.
	But yeah, that's where I wanted to stay.
	Let's zoom out a bit from your house as a whole.
	How's your life going? Are you in your 20s?
	How's your life going as a whole?
	I mean, it's been improving, but I would say it's below average.
	Maybe if you can ask me some more questions, I can answer more clearly.
	Okay. What's your dating life like?
	My daily life?
	Sorry, I meant your dating life.
	Oh, dating life. At the moment, I've kind of been avoiding it just because of personal issues.
	For example, pretty much all my life, I've worked for my father.
	He owns a restaurant. It's been very chaotic since my last girlfriend.
	I've just kind of decided over time...
	That I would get my life more sorted before I would go out dating again.
	So I just...
	I have no dating life.
	And what's your dating history?
	I've only had one relationship and it lasted about almost two years and a half.
	And that was in my early 20s.
	And other than that, I guess...
	I had another relationship as a teenager.
	It lasted about two weeks, but I don't know.
	I don't really count that, but that would be pretty much it.
	And how was the relationship that you had for two years?
	Was it good, fun, enjoyable?
	Did you guys get along? I would say so for the most part.
	I found it very enjoyable.
	She was the one that ended the relationship, but it was a It was a positive experience especially.
	I learned... I took it serious and I learned a lot from it.
	And why did she end it?
	Uh...
	She ended it...
	Well, it was a long-distance relationship where we would see each other for like...
	Three to six months because she's actually from Sweden and I'm here on the West Coast.
	So there was that distance aspect and then as well as there's some growing dissatisfaction in a relationship.
	I think that along with other personal issues.
	So you guys were like thousands and thousands of miles apart, right?
	Yeah. And you met online, I assume?
	No, we met in person, yeah.
	And where did you meet? Where I live, here in Southern California.
	You don't need to tell me the exact location.
	So you met in where you live.
	I'll cut that out. So you met in where you live.
	And you both thought, hey, we don't have much dating experience, or at least you don't, so let's try this thousands and thousands of miles apart thing, right?
	Yeah, I guess...
	What's an important detail is at the time she was 17 and I was 19 at the time.
	Okay. But yeah, I mean, it's funny you mention that because like last time I was kind of, I was actually thinking a bit about that.
	So I was like, oh, it was kind of silly.
	And even after the fact, the relationship was like, I'm not going to do something like that again.
	And how often did you guys get to meet up over those two years?
	We would do blocks of three months because of our visas.
	And then there would be, so to speak, a six-month cool-down time, as often as we could.
	So she would come and stay with you, or you would go and stay with her?
	There was both, but we would stay at each other's houses, our homes.
	That's really something.
	Okay, so let me understand this.
	So, you would go to Sweden and stay at her family's house for three months.
	Yeah. And what would you do?
	I mean, I assume, was she in school or working?
	I mean, what did you do?
	Well, that time, it was actually, there was two times where I...
	Sorry, I'm going to need to ask you to do something.
	Sure. So, your speaking style is really drawing me down, and it's going to take us 19 hours to finish the call.
	And I may finish it by throwing myself off a bridge.
	So if I could just ask you to not self-censor, to...
	Every time I hear um with someone, it's because they really don't want to say something or they're checking what they say or something like that.
	Because if it's going to take this long to get, you know, sort of basic information out, I'm not saying you're doing anything negative.
	I'm just saying that for sanity and efficiency, if you can just try and find a way to squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube a little faster, so to speak, I'd really appreciate it.
	No, I agree.
	I'm sorry. No, it's fine.
	I'm the guy who does this.
	You're just bungeeing in, so I get that there's some awkwardness, but let's just talk like we're two dudes talking in a bar or coffee shop or something, right?
	Okay, so what would you do when you were out there, and what would she do?
	Sorry, I just did that.
	You certainly did. Look, I'm not expecting you to cure this probably lifelong habit overnight or over the course of this conversation, but if you could just really try to push it out, I would appreciate it.
	And it'll get easier as you go.
	Okay. Let's see.
	I spent...
	I mean, for me, at the time, I was really depressed.
	In the beginning, I didn't really do much.
	But then after that, I guess I was just lounging around.
	You were really depressed?
	Yeah, at the time. So this conversation style is you being much less depressed, is that right?
	Yeah, and less nervous.
	I was much worse another time with you.
	Right, right. Okay, so what...
	I'm trying to fathom this out, like as a father myself, right?
	So my daughter is going to be 15 soon.
	So a couple of years from now, she wants some guy from the other side of the world to come and stay with us for three months.
	That's utterly incomprehensible to me.
	And then the guy shows up and he's just kind of depressed and moping about.
	Is that a fair way to put how you were?
	Yeah. So, what the hell?
	I mean, are the parents like, yeah, this has a future.
	This depressed guy from the other side of the world is going to be great.
	Come stay with us for a couple of months.
	Interesting. I mean, were you vetted by the parents?
	I mean, I guess she was underage technically at some point.
	I mean, I'm sure you guys didn't have sex, but what were the parents saying?
	Sure, honey, we don't even know this person.
	We don't know his family. We don't know his history.
	We don't know who he is, really.
	But, yeah, go stay at his parents' house for a couple of months.
	Well, they knew me quite well because the way the family structure was, the mother actually remarried.
	And so, like, one of the older siblings actually knew my father.
	Actually, they got married. Wait, I'm sorry.
	What are you talking about? You mean her mothers?
	So, one of her half-sisters.
	Are your two families intermarried?
	So, one of her half-sisters met my father and they got married.
	And then that's how I met her.
	I mean, do you know how insane this sounds?
	Like, I'm sorry, I don't mean that.
	I mean, you're just like, well, yeah, okay, one of her half-sisters met my father and they got married, and that's how we met.
	So, your mother-in-law was your aunt?
	No, wait, your mother-in-law was your cousin?
	I'm sorry. No, so, that girlfriend...
	So my mother-in-law has a half-sister, and I dated her half-sister.
	Right. I get that.
	I get that. Yeah. Okay, that's how you met her.
	Yeah, that's how I met her, and then I had two visits where I went to Europe, and then most of the visits she came to see me in the States.
	Right. And one of the last times, actually, that I... Was it the last time?
	No, the second to last time that we did a visit and we were still together, that time I was depressed.
	The other times, I was not.
	And so your girlfriend at the time, when you first started seeing her, she was 17, you were 19.
	Please tell me there was a big age gap between her and her half-sister?
	Yes. That sister is like a middle sister and she's in her mid-30s or maybe early 30s.
	Okay, so your dad is at that time in his 40s?
	No, he was in his 60s.
	So he was in his 60s and he married the half-sister of your girlfriend who was in her early 30s.
	Yes. Got it.
	And I'm sorry, I've never heard anything quite like this before.
	What do you think about all of this?
	Can you tell me why? Well, what are your thoughts?
	I mean, you understand this is a slightly off the general trend of a family structure.
	I felt worried about it at the time.
	I would never do something like that again.
	No, no. I'm talking about what your dad did.
	Oh, having kids again and all of that?
	Do you mean that? Dating a woman half his age and having a second round of kids when he's in his 60s and so on.
	Well... I mean, it's just kind of in his character.
	I mean, he's kind of one of those people that, like, he takes relation...
	I'm sorry. I'm doing that again.
	I mean, it's just to his character stuff.
	To me, I mean, it was his decision.
	I don't know.
	I didn't think much of it.
	I don't know if that's answering your question.
	Was it your father who met the half-sister and that's how you met your girlfriend?
	And how did he meet this woman?
	My dad met her traveling.
	He let go into Thailand and Southeast Asia a lot.
	And so one of the times they were both visiting the same area and that's how they met.
	And then by then when I met the half-sisters when they already had...
	I think it was their...
	Probably was their second child, but the second one might have not been born yet, my siblings.
	Now, you know the cliché that is attached to older men who like visiting Thailand and Southeast Asia, right?
	Probably, but, you know, do tell.
	Well, sex tourism, and possibly even darker than that.
	Yeah, no, I mean, my dad's, like, yeah, the sex stories, and I can see that as well, but also my dad did, like, my dad has traveled a lot throughout his life, and also, what I mean is, like, my father's from Mexico, Mexicans, or at least culturally, they're not really into traveling, but he really was, and so, I mean, he's seen many countries in Europe, as well as he's been to India, and He always talks about his aspirations to travel every continent,
	including Antarctica. But also, too, he's really into sex.
	I mean, he's told me many times, not about, like, so to speak, like, he has an interest.
	I don't think he's, like, he's kind of more into, you know, so to speak, catchy, not paying for sex.
	I guess that's a weird way to say it.
	He would be like a seducer, is that right?
	Exactly. And so on, right?
	Exactly. So is it the case that your father is Hispanic and what's the ethnicity of your mother?
	She's a European-American.
	I would say more so like an American.
	I have some family heritage from the colonial days.
	Okay, so he's Hispanic and she's, I guess, white.
	Is that right? Yeah.
	Okay. And what happened to your mother over the course of your father's travels and life and second family and so on?
	So when I was six years old, my parents divorced and my mom...
	Both my parents decided to live in the same city so that I could have access to both of them.
	Is there any particular question maybe you're asking?
	I feel like I'm going on a tangent.
	Well, my mom's the one that...
	I'm quite certain my mom's the one that initiated it, but they were just kind of...
	They were very dissatisfied with their marriage.
	I mean, they fought a lot. Also, too, they were promiscuous.
	I'm trying to think if I'm missing anything else.
	Maybe if you ask me a few questions, that might help.
	Bye!
	So, they were both promiscuous, is that right?
	Well, like, my dad was really into...
	He really liked the whole hippie idea and he was really into The Grateful Dead and all of that.
	And so I feel that's relevant to say but So he was a Hispanic hippie who slept around
	round.
	Bye!
	Bye.
	Yeah. Was he very charming?
	Was he very good looking? What was his draw, do you think, for women?
	I think charming. I think he has average to above average looks, but like a seven.
	And so he's just a sweet talker, or I guess what is the quality of the women that he...
	I don't know if you've ever met many of them or whatever, but of course, you know, if he's kind of a hippie, the Grateful Dead, a bunch of deadheads, you assume that this is not the highest quality of women that he's sleeping with.
	Yeah, and... The ones that I had met, I always thought they were kind of strange, a bit annoying, and I would say mildly crazy.
	I never got the impression they were mentally ill, but like...
	But at least you were drug-damaged, right?
	Probably. I mean, they weren't drug addicts, at least the ones that my father...
	Not that you would know, but yeah.
	Yeah, you know, that's a good point.
	But, I mean, they weren't taking drugs in front of me or anything like that.
	Of course, but that's not the definition of a drug addict, is you take drugs in front of children.
	I mean, if they were in a particular culture where, for instance, they smoked weed a lot, then that would be a drug addict.
	Yeah, no, that's a good point.
	Agreed. And what, you don't have to tell me his specific job, but what did your father do for money as a whole?
	He started and owned a restaurant.
	Oh, yeah. Sorry, you mentioned that.
	You mentioned that. Okay. No, don't worry.
	Right. Okay.
	Okay. So, your parents divorced because of dissatisfaction.
	Do you know what else they were I know you don't remember the fights probably from the age of say four or five or six
	But have you heard since from either or both of them what they were fighting about?
	Why I do like I remember the arguments.
	I don't remember the content of the arguments, but I think I'm repeating myself.
	But I've never actually asked specifically what they argued about.
	I just remember and also when I would ask, I remember my father gets very aggravated and And controlling.
	And I just feel like that ate away at the relationship.
	I think that's the best way to describe it.
	What do you mean by controlling?
	What do I mean?
	It's like, um...
	I'm not sure what I mean.
	I mean, the reason I ask is it's become a very subjective phrase.
	It used to mean a guy who wouldn't let his wife out of the house unaccompanied or would tightly control her spending or...
	And now it's kind of morphed a lot of times into a guy who tries to impose any kind of restraint or restriction or standards on his family or on his wife as a whole.
	So I would say that was...
	I would say that would be the wrong word.
	I mean, maybe more like suffocating, kind of restrictive, because at least, like, I'm a bit stuck there.
	Well, and it's important, right?
	So if you say, well, my father was controlling and there's no definition for that word, then you don't have an answer, but you think you have an answer.
	And that's usually the worst thing in life when you think you have an answer, but you don't because you stop looking for answers, right?
	Yeah, I agree.
	And how did your parents get along after the divorce?
	Um... Well, in the beginning, they didn't speak at all.
	Also, too, my mom got into another relationship immediately afterwards.
	Afterwards? Yeah.
	Well, that usually means that there was one already, right?
	Well, my father accused her of that, but also, too, that was kind of the wedge that then kind of initiated the divorce and the separation.
	Oh, so he said she had an affair and that's what initiated the divorce?
	Yeah, probably.
	Thinking about it now, I think my mom mentioned to him that she was having an affair and she didn't want to be with him anymore or something like that.
	Okay, so your mother jumped ship.
	She already had another guy in the wings, is that right?
	Yeah. Okay, so she divorced him?
	Yeah. Okay, got it, got it.
	And did that relationship last?
	No, but they did have a kid as well.
	Excellent, excellent.
	And when you remember your parents when you were little, when you remember your parents having conflicts or having a conflict, how did they...
	Were they like yelling, screaming?
	Were they talking in a tense fashion?
	I mean, what was happening with their conflicts?
	Yelling and screaming, I remember being afraid sometimes.
	And do you know if there was any physical violence in the relationship?
	I'm quite certain there wasn't, but I mean, the yelling...
	It was quite intense.
	I don't think it's a good measure to say that when someone goes to tears over a conversation, especially if it's on my mom's side, I've noticed that at times she'll just kind of go to tears to dampen down the conversation.
	It seemed very intense.
	It was really Tearing the relationship apart, at least from what I remember how I felt about it.
	Especially, I remember a few times listening to it at night.
	It would put me to tears.
	I remember crying to sleep a lot.
	I'm sorry about that. And how were you treated as a child when your parents disagreed with what you were doing?
	Like, before they divorced or after?
	I'm happy with both answers.
	I say that because after the divorce, sometimes when it came to punishment, I was kind of passed off, and I didn't really like that.
	There was only a few occasions where I would get in a fight with my mom, not a physical fight, and She would just send me to my dad's house.
	Go be with your dad.
	Same thing my dad would do with me.
	Before the divorce, I was very little too.
	I was told about this. I don't remember.
	Once I was spanked.
	After that, my parents told me they felt very bad and never did it again.
	But my mom would do a lot of timeouts and then my father would just get frustrated and angry at me.
	I don't know, does that answer your question?
	Well, so, I mean, but, so if your parents did something, if you did something your parents didn't like or disagreed with or thought was, quote, bad, I mean, they would, was the general pattern they just could get mad at you or lecture you or raise their voice at you or call you names or when you got older, like, how would they handle when you did something they wanted to change?
	Usually they would lecture me.
	When I was younger it was timeouts and when I was older it was lecturing and just being frustrated at me or angry.
	And how much credibility do you think your parents had with you?
	It varied, but that's not really an answer.
	It's kind of difficult for me because with my father, I was very...
	I want to say...
	I think this is the wrong word, but this is coming to mind.
	I felt very enamored with my father.
	I looked at him very positively.
	While with my mother, it was not the same.
	There were times where I had very little credibility and trusted her.
	But other times, she would...
	And then other times she had earned it back and I don't think that really answers the question.
	Well, maybe you can tell me what you admired about your father, what you were enamored of.
	What I was enamored of that Well, I I viewed him very like
	I'm beating very very positively Hopefully.
	um...
	I'm just repeating myself.
	I like to I like to have you.
	I liked his restaurant, and I just...
	I liked the... It was a very successful restaurant.
	I guess I felt like proud about that.
	Is that...
	Um...
	I'm not really sure what else to say.
	Well, I mean, you looked at him positively, and I mean, the restaurant was the result of, I guess, personal traits or characteristics that you admired, and what were those traits and characteristics?
	What did you admire about him as a man, or a father, or a husband, I suppose?
	Yeah. I liked...
	Yeah, I admired his social skills.
	I was... I was able to talk to people, but also, too, he was ballsy and humorous, and I also liked that, too.
	I liked...
	Sorry, he was what, humorous?
	Oh, I said he was...
	I said ballsy, humorous, but I didn't quite get the word.
	Sorry, ballsy and humorous.
	What was the intent?
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I also liked his...
	My father grew up very poor and so he had managed to get basically to the top of the
	mountain from where he started.
	And so I also admired that too.
	His hard work and dedication and grit.
	Right, okay. And did he work, I guess he worked many hours at the restaurant, is that right?
	Yeah. Right, okay.
	Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, I would say he was more like a workaholic.
	Because like noticing, like looking back on overall with him, it's like he definitely was working also as a means of kind of escaping his problems.
	And what were his problems?
	Well, first he had a complex about being Mexican.
	For example, when he came to the States and living in the States, it was like 80s and 90s, and so he kind of felt like he was inferior to being around a bunch of white people, and he was also I'm sorry, around a bunch of who people?
	Sorry, white people. White people, okay.
	Oh, so he felt like some ethnic inferiority, is that right?
	Yeah. And maybe that's why he kept sleeping with white women, I don't know.
	But anyway, go on. Oh, I mean, that was kind of one of the things that he, in particular, was like he...
	Yeah, yeah.
	And... And so he...
	Sorry, I lost my turn of thought for a moment.
	Oh, we were talking about his sort of character as a whole, and you were saying that he had a complex about his ethnicity, and maybe that's...
	Oh, and I was asking you, you said he worked to escape his problems, and I was asking what his problems were.
	Right, right. Yeah, his...
	My dad would speak a lot about his childhood and the disadvantages and the problems he had.
	I had to deal with his father, how he was a lot of times absent at the house.
	And when he was around, he was drunk and causing problems.
	And because he has three other siblings, but he's the oldest male, you really had to step up and just I do a lot of chores, basically be an adult growing up, or at least have a lot of adult responsibilities.
	And so that's something that he would talk a lot about, but then also I noticed a correlation he would work a lot as well.
	Well, so it sounds like your father was upset that his own father was a workaholic, but then your father was a workaholic.
	Well, no, he was an alcoholic.
	I might have slurred that.
	Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said...
	I'm sure I misunderstood, so I want to make sure I get this correct.
	Your father said that his father was away a lot?
	I would say he was absent drinking.
	Oh, drinking. Okay, okay.
	So your grandfather was an alcoholic who was absent, and your father was a workaholic who was absent.
	Yeah. So he didn't really fix that pattern, right?
	No. Plus, he also may have been a sex addict, right?
	I mean, to be frank, right?
	With my dad, yes.
	Yes. Would you agree with that?
	I would agree with that.
	Okay. I mean, do you have any idea how many has he ever bragged or did you ever see or notice how many women a year he might be sleeping with?
	Nowadays, it's a lot less, but I remember...
	Like in his 50s, maybe like two, three times a week.
	Oh, like different girls?
	Or different women? Different women.
	That's so gross. I'm sorry, that's just so gross.
	I mean, it's gross at any time, but it's particularly gross.
	I mean, by the time you're supposed to be getting ready for being a grandfather, trawling these, I guess, fairly...
	Low-status women in the Grateful Dead, half-druggy, hippie community.
	It's like, that's just gross. I just wanted to mention that from the outside.
	Yeah, I can see that, yeah.
	Okay. So, what did you admire?
	You said this infatuation, right?
	Because, I mean, I have a theory, but I don't want to dump the theory on you because I really genuinely, at least yet, Because I do want to know what it is that you admire about your father.
	Because I asked you about credibility, right?
	How credible were your parents?
	And you said, well, you know, my mother kind of came and went, but my father more so, and that's what I sort of want to understand.
	What do you admire, or what did you at the time admire about your father that gave him credibility?
	Because, you know, your parents are telling you how to live.
	Here's how to live. You're doing this wrong.
	You should do this better. This is right.
	This is wrong, and so on, right?
	Now, of course, if you have a very fat father who nags you all the time about how to eat right and exercise and do all of these things, he's not going to have any credibility, right?
	Because he's fat. Or if you have a crazy mother who tells you, you should think this way, not that way, and I'm going to tell you how to organize your mind and you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that, but she's crazy, right?
	Then she has no credibility. So the earlier you process that, the more accurate you'll be and the better off your life will go.
	So, you know, because as a kid in particular, whatever we admire, we will emulate, right?
	I mean, you've seen these videos, you know, the dad walks a particular kind of way and the kid walks the same kind of way.
	It's even to the point where if a guy has a crutch, the dog will favor one leg if the dog's following him or is the owner.
	So we copy, right?
	We copy whoever we admire.
	We emulate whoever.
	We find ideals in.
	So that's what I'm trying to figure out.
	Your life sounds enormously different from your father's, but you claim to admire your father.
	So why don't you do more of what he does if you admire him?
	And this sounds accusatory.
	I don't mean it that way.
	I'm just genuinely... I'm curious if you said, oh, my father studied Japanese and I think Japanese is the most beautiful language and I just admire him so much and it was so good for him and helpful for him and so on.
	And I said, oh, did you ever study Japanese?
	You're like, God, no. It's like, what?
	I mean, there's going to be some emulation somewhere, right?
	So that's why I'm sort of trying to figure out what you admire about your father.
	I see. Well, I thought, so...
	I think part of where the admiration is more so to not be rejected by him is like when my parents divorced, my father was the breadwinner.
	That's the opposite then, right?
	If he was a guy who demanded that you admire him in order to give you any affection, then that's not aberration.
	That's being held hostage.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	I mean, it's kind of a part of my life that I'm still sorting out.
	I'm a bit confused myself, even though that admiration that I had for most of my life until I was 24, 24 was that cutting line when I started really being more objective of my father before that.
	It was these mixed feelings of admiration, but I just want to pause there for a moment, because There's a bit of a contradiction here.
	A bit? Sorry.
	That's a huge contradiction.
	Well, and it's easily unraveled, right?
	So people will say this all the time.
	Oh, I love my father.
	I love my wife.
	I love my husband. I love my sister.
	I'm like, oh, good.
	I mean, love is good. So what do you love about them?
	Right? I mean, if people ask me in my life, you know, what do you love about your wife or your daughter or this friend or that friend?
	I'd be like, oh, ba-ba-ba-ba, all this, right?
	I can go on through. Hours about all the things I admire in those people.
	And that's when I try to get out of cliches with people.
	Oh, I have this feeling towards someone.
	Well, feelings aren't random. They don't just come out of nowhere.
	So if you admire your father, it does not at all sound to me like an admirable man, even remotely.
	Even remotely. Workaholic, sex addict, serial philanderer, can't maintain a relationship, can't maintain a marriage.
	An absent father, right?
	Because he was gone a lot at the restaurant.
	So he was not there for you very much.
	And so, yeah, just to me, not an admirable figure at all.
	But, you know, I don't know him.
	You know him. So that's why I'm sort of asking you, what?
	And this is funny, you know, because I'm an empiricist, right?
	So people can say anything they want.
	I can say, I love Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
	What do you love about them?
	Nothing. I'm an empiricist.
	Show me the proof or show me the causality behind your statements because anyone can say anything.
	I can say the world is banana-shaped and someone could then reasonably ask me for proof.
	I said, well, it's getting browner or whatever.
	Anyone can say anything and you want to unpack the words to find.
	People say stuff, you know, all the time.
	And they don't...
	Right, so they don't keep...
	They don't have any evidence behind it, so it's just a bunch of manipulated words.
	So... What do you...
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	What are a couple of your best memories about the time that you spent one-on-one with your father as a kid?
	one And the memories that come to mind are the
	Times after my parents divorced where my father took me on a few road trips.
	I remember... Sorry, did you say a few road trips?
	Yeah, sorry. A few road trips.
	And he...
	I just remember positively spending time with him and I just...
	I mean, that's...
	And what was fun about the road trips?
	For me at the time, it was spending time with him and having some engagement and talking with him.
	Dude! I mean, my God.
	What was fun about the time you spent with my father?
	Well, it was fun spending time with him.
	You understand? That provides me absolutely zero additional information.
	Yeah. So what specifically did you enjoy?
	And I'm not saying you didn't.
	I just want to know what the facts are, right?
	So what specifically did you enjoy about spending time with your father on the road trips?
	I agree with what you're saying.
	It's just kind of describing those qualities.
	As you're mentioning them, it's like I've realized that with my relationships, that's always been absent, where having specific things I like about, for example, my parents, even sometimes some of my friends I've had in the past.
	So I just want to emphasize that it's...
	It's that... It seems like a fog to me that, like, I really, like...
	Okay, sorry, but how long have you been listening to this show as a whole?
	A while. A couple of years?
	Yes. Because it's always...
	And this is in no way critical of you.
	It's just something that I've sort of noticed, is that...
	Have you ever heard me say, I'm an empiricist?
	Yes, many times. Many times, right?
	And have you ever heard me ask people who make emotional claims about...
	People in their lives. Have you ever heard me ask for evidence for those claims?
	Yes. And yet, you know, after years of hearing this and listening to this, you come on my show.
	I currently own this way.
	You talk to me and you make all of these claims about your father for which there's no empirical evidence.
	Like, I just, I find it interesting that people are like, they view these calls or my arguments or my ideas like something really distant.
	Like, oh my gosh, I can't believe all of these people claim to love X, Y, and Z person in their life and when asked for any positive characteristics, they can't name any, right?
	And then you come on the call and you say, oh no, I admire my father.
	My father has good credibility with me and blah, blah, blah.
	Or I had a good time on these road trips and then I asked for sort of Details and so on, and there's nothing.
	Like, you see all these other people do it, you hear me talking about it, and it doesn't particularly occur to you to do it to yourself, to your thoughts and ideas and feelings and beliefs?
	No, I mean, I do.
	Maybe there's... I think there's a misunderstanding where I'm describing how it was, not how it is, and some of it's just very...
	So you were enamored of your father, but you're not as much anymore, is that right?
	I'm not at all. When I was kind of 24, so to speak, I had an experience with my last girlfriend, the way we broke up.
	It made me realize I had a similar relationship With her as I did with him.
	Well, not similar. The way that she broke up with me was quite cruel.
	And I just was really, I couldn't understand how someone I used to love could be so cruel to me.
	And that correlation, I realized, oh, my father's that way with me too.
	And so that kind of broke the spell, so to speak.
	Well, not hugely though, and I'm not trying to push back too hard, but just so I understand, I said, what were some positive memories you had with your father?
	And you said, oh, these road trips.
	And I said, well, what was positive about these road trips?
	And you didn't really have anything to say, right?
	Yeah, besides, like, my father was very busy where sometimes he wouldn't spend much time with me, or I wouldn't really even have, like, any kind of conversation with him.
	So then when those road trips, I would have those conversations, I would have that engagement.
	To me, just being noticed and valued was what was coming to mind.
	You're saying things that are not true, though, about your father, which paints him in a positive light.
	Well, I'm referring to him in the past.
	Let me finish my thought. So you say, my father was very busy and therefore he didn't spend much time with me?
	Well, he didn't spend much time with me.
	A lot of times when it was being taken care of, it was by my grandmother or I was just alone.
	Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you that he didn't spend much time with you.
	I'm not disagreeing with that at all.
	What I am disagreeing with is the characterization that your father was very busy and therefore he didn't spend much time with you.
	Oh, well, yeah, you're correct.
	No, he chose not to spend time with me and he preferred to keep himself busy.
	Yeah, because you also said that he was a workaholic to avoid his problems, right?
	Yes. So both of those two statements can't be true at the same time.
	No, you're right. In that regard, then I misspoke, yeah.
	Right. I mean, if he's busy, he can hire someone, right?
	He said the restaurant was successful, so I'm sure he could hire someone to do some of the work.
	And if he can't find someone or the restaurant is not making any money, then he sells the restaurant and becomes a parent for the time that he can live off the profits of selling the restaurant because your kids need you and that's what's important, right?
	I agree with that.
	I mean, my father thinks differently, but yeah.
	I get that.
	So on the road trips, I have this image, probably incorrect, maybe not.
	On the road trips, your dad is charming and funny and telling stories and entertaining you and so on, but he's not asking you a lot of questions to get to know you as an individual.
	Yeah, that would be correct.
	Right, right, right.
	Has your father shown much interest in Your life and its challenges in terms of what's going on, what's good, what's bad, what's right, what's wrong, how can I help, and so on.
	No, I would say he has more criticism and he makes a lot of assumptions.
	Right. Now, do you know, in general, what we would call somebody...
	Who uses other people, and women particularly for sex, who is very...
	A lady's been, right? No, let me finish.
	I'm so sorry, yeah, I'm so sorry.
	Sometimes there's too many pauses, sometimes you don't get me any space to speak.
	So, somebody who's verbally very adept, who's very charming, who has no particularly solid emotional connections, who is not interested...
	In other people particularly, other than how he can use those people.
	Charm, no emotional particular content in the relationships.
	A superficial charm.
	And no connection with those around him.
	And very good at telling stories and very good at engaging and charming people and very good at bedding women and so on.
	My understanding, and again, I'm no professional, so this is just my layman's approach.
	My understanding is that kind of describes a sociopath.
	Interesting. Not a narcissist, would you say?
	Well, the narcissist is more selfish, but the sociopath is more predatory.
	So, I viewed, like, you know, combing through my history and better understanding it, I've always, I mean, I've always, so sorry, I've noticed that I would imagine that with a sociopath, they're more better at controlling people than being controlled themselves.
	Maybe that doesn't make any sense.
	I don't know exactly what that means, or even approximately.
	My bad. But he's good at getting what he wants out of people because, as you said, he pursues women and he charms them and he sleeps with them to the tune of, you said, a couple of women a week, so this is hundreds of women a year.
	Yeah. Or I guess, yeah, so three a week times 50 maybe takes Christmas off, so 150.
	Yeah. I mean, I would say there's a variable.
	So it's like, because my father owns a restaurant and it's not like fine dining restaurant.
	It's more casual.
	It's like he would meet a lot of people in that situation, you know, in which then he would get numbers.
	And so it would be more condensed.
	Like thinking about it, I would be more condensed because I wasn't particularly interested.
	It's like, oh, you know, I don't know.
	It just wasn't something I paid too much attention to.
	I'm sorry. I'm not sure what you're talking about here.
	There were women in the restaurant and you weren't interested.
	I don't know what that means. Can you make it a little more concise for me?
	Because I'm not sure what your point is here.
	Sure. What I'm saying is with my father picking up the ladies and such, it occurred during the summer because that's when a lot of people are around.
	Oh, I'm sorry. Is your argument that it was less than 150 a year?
	Probably. Okay, but that's fine.
	75 a year, 50 a year, it doesn't matter.
	Yeah, I agree.
	It was still a lot of people.
	And do you know why the women had sex with your father?
	No, I didn't. Just for the sake of having sex.
	Well, no, I mean women tend to be a little bit different wired than men in that way, right?
	Yeah, I mean he was a successful man Owned a restaurant. I assume very charming larger-than-life
	Charismatic and so on and and had money, right?
	Yeah So he was kind of like a local rock star in a sense for
	these to some of these women, right?
	Especially if their own lives were not successful Yeah, I agree
	so So, it's entirely possible that he was, to some degree or another, dangling the possibility of a relationship in front of these women.
	Yeah, I can see that.
	I mean, he wasn't making promises or commitments in that regard.
	Sorry, haven't you known that?
	Well, because he would tell them that...
	Well, I suppose the way...
	I suppose factually, he told me that...
	Let me start my thoughts.
	I know that because I had been...
	There had been situations where I had met a girl that...
	A woman that would stay around more than just one night.
	And there was no...
	Like, I was...
	Especially when I was younger, I was a priority.
	My father stuck to that, where...
	If he had a date, he would cancel it if I had some issue.
	When I was younger, when I was older, that changed naturally.
	Because he didn't date around a lot, he got older and so that interest started to wane as well.
	It was pretty strong up into his 50s, right?
	Yeah, it was strong in his 50s.
	He took care of himself pretty well to keep himself healthy and looking good.
	He wasn't overweight or anything like that.
	It was always fit then as well.
	Okay. Sorry, I probably interrupted your train of thought, but we were talking about the promises.
	You knew that your father didn't make any promises or dangle any commitments in front of women.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	And what I'm thinking about in terms of the sociopath, is this jumping?
	Am I going on a tangent?
	No, I was asking you for evidence that you had or didn't have about your father maybe dangling possible relationship in front of the women he slept with.
	Yeah. So the evidence I was saying was because my father had a restaurant, it was very easy to find him because he was always working.
	And so one of the things with the experiences, for example, working with him and also meeting past women that maybe he slept with or dated for a little bit, there was like, rarely was this like resentment of like, oh, you're lying to me, you weren't being straightforward or anything.
	And that was one of the things my father was very, was straight about.
	It's like, oh, you know, my son is a priority and things like that.
	So you said rarely.
	Did that mean that you did see evidence of...
	Women who were angry because they felt deceived by your father?
	I say rarely because, like I said before, I wasn't too interested in the affairs that my father was doing because he stuck to his word through a Part of being a charming guy is to say to the ladies, my children are my world, whatever you want.
	Second to my children, my children are everything to me.
	That's the form of mating display, right?
	To say, look how dedicated I am to my family, and that makes the women want him even more.
	I mean, it's a form of dating display.
	No, that's a very good point.
	Because if you were everything to your father, then he would have worked less, right?
	Yeah. So you weren't, so this would be an example of deception, right?
	Yeah, so your father says to these women my son is everything to me
	I must cancel our date because my son is is everything to me and
	Yet you weren't everything to him, right?
	Okay, so why would he say to the women my son is everything to me when it wasn't true
	Yeah.
	Yeah. That he has loyalty, that he has pair bonding, that he's a good father, he's a good provider.
	That's an indirect...
	In my view, I don't know for sure, right?
	But in my view, that would be an indirect way of dangling a relationship.
	In that regard, yeah.
	I see that, yeah.
	Yeah. Okay, so how did your girlfriend break up with you that was so cruel?
	Oh, um...
	Sorry, I can whip you all over the landscape here.
	No, not to worry.
	She gave me a call and she was just like, we're done, period.
	Well, didn't express it that way, but the conversation was informing me that our relationship is over.
	And I remember talking to her about it and And, you know, I accepted it mainly because it's like I didn't want to be together with someone that staunchly didn't want to be with me anymore.
	Like, she was certain and it's like, period, so to speak.
	And then, like, I remember I called her back the next day and I wanted to talk to her again.
	She's like, you don't understand. We're done.
	And so after that, it was like a back and forth in communication.
	And I was kind of, I'm sorry, I was kind of, I was disappointed because we had plans.
	And what were the plans?
	We were having tension in a relationship.
	I remember I had a few conversations with my mom where I was like, I think I'm going to end my relationship with her.
	But one of the things that had occurred in the beginning of her relationship is she went on...
	A specific kind of birth control.
	And she had a lot of bad side effects, especially psychologically.
	She became more unstable.
	And at the time, I mean, I was being quite irresponsible with sex.
	And so I agreed to it.
	But in the back of my mind, because I had an interest in biology, I knew that messing with your hormones, because it's such a complex system, can actually...
	You can go very badly.
	And so I went along with it, but I started noticing the differences, and so I was insisting on her.
	So did you say you were irresponsible about sex?
	I wasn't sure you said I was quite something about sex.
	Yeah, I was quite irresponsible.
	Oh, so in other words, you wanted her to be on this hormonal birth control so you could have unprotected sex, so to speak, or at least raw target, right?
	I mean, I preferred it, but...
	I don't have any opinion about your preference.
	I just want to know what you mean when you say that you were irresponsible about sex.
	What does that mean? Yeah.
	No, you're right.
	No, you described it correctly.
	Okay, so you wanted sex without a condom, and that meant her going on birth control, which you also knew could have negative effects on her, and it did, right?
	Yeah, it did. And she specifically got an implant, and so that first I was telling her, She really needs to get off of it and try a different form of protective sex because by then I was being more sensible and kind of realizing my flaws at the time.
	This is over months that I came to that conclusion and I was making the case.
	In the end, I was insisting her not using something that's more hormone-based because of the side effects.
	I mean, once she was kind of like...
	Well, once...
	Well...
	I don't know how to describe it.
	Well, like...
	I don't know how to describe it.
	Sorry about that.
	I'm just kind of...
	Are you describing a behavior or a thought that she had?
	I'm... Describing a situation.
	So, I had some time with her before then she had the hormonal implant.
	And she was relatively stable.
	And then over the months with the implant on, she got more needy, a bit more kind of desperate and mentally unstable.
	She was I would have conversations with her, how she felt.
	And I remember this one time, what I was hesitant to describe was the situation, which was she got very upset at me.
	And this situation was in Sweden late in the year, so I guess just before winter.
	So it's very cold, very cold, very cold.
	And so she just leaves without her...
	Without any shoes and basically what she was wearing, like a t-shirt and some sweatpants, it just ran out.
	And I was like, oh shit, I need to go.
	I need to go catch her.
	You can get hypothermia and all of that.
	And she had never done something like that before the hormone IUD implants.
	And so... Those are kind of the really strong indicators where it's like, you know, I need to say something and have the implant be removed and choose something else.
	And so then, so that's one part.
	Do you have any questions? No, I get it.
	So then, I had asked for a certain amount of time to do research, and she didn't give me all the time.
	She decided for herself.
	She didn't stick with the agreement.
	I was more so specifically upset about the agreement that we may not, so much that she chose for herself.
	And she went with a hormone IUD, which had still milder effects, but it still was affecting her emotionally.
	And I know that because then I finally, after about a year and a half, convinced her to get off of that.
	And a lot of her melancholy sometimes and feeling sometimes depressed was uplifted and she felt more active.
	It seems like from what other family members have said, she's done a lot better since.
	Kind of more back to her normal self.
	But that happened just before we broke up.
	And so when we were making their plans, I was kind of like looking forward to it.
	I was like, oh, you know, finally, you know, I'm going to again spend time with her.
	But this time we won't be with, you know, these kind of underlining issues pressing down on our relationship.
	And so that was something that I wanted to mention that to go back to...
	Why I think us breaking up was cruel was she gets off these, let's call them hormone therapies, and then when we're breaking up, I have sometimes questions or inquiring about things, and she's kind of being very Indifferent and kind of sometimes like, why do you still care?
	Like, just get over it.
	Well, it turns out she just traded me in.
	And so two weeks before she broke up with me, she met another guy.
	A, like your mom, and B, yeah, that was completely predictable when the woman says...
	Incontrovertibly, no discussion, it's over, and there hasn't been any big dramatic thing.
	It's because she's met another guy, right?
	Yeah, that's a good point, yeah.
	And was it a guy in Sweden?
	Yeah, it was a guy in Sweden.
	Right, so that makes sense, right?
	I mean, what future is there with you?
	I mean, do I have that wrong?
	Were you guys planning on getting married?
	Did you figure out where you were going to live and how it was going to work or what was going to happen?
	Well, when the relationship started falling apart, I did apply for a residency and it got rejected.
	So there was that.
	And then also, too, I did have a moment where...
	I mean, I didn't have sex with a girl, but I basically cheated on her.
	And that really bothered me.
	I also created a lot of absence for me for a while because I was really distraught about that mistake.
	Sorry, that's a lot in that sentence.
	So, how long into the relationship did you apply for the Swedish residency?
	It was on the second year.
	Okay, and then you said you cheated with another girl, and then you said you had a lot of...
	Was that absence, like you were emotionally distant because you were dealing with the cheating?
	I think so.
	From my perspective, it was...
	From my perspective, I just remember being very consumed and disturbed.
	For me, my sexual urges got the better, or my lust really got the better of me.
	And so I just felt very ashamed and just kind of disturbed.
	And what happened with the cheating thing?
	So it was...
	It was one night.
	It was with this girl that...
	Because in the restaurant I work, there's also other suites where there are...
	There's only actually one other business there, but...
	So there's this girl I would see often and I would talk to and she was quite affectionate.
	And while actually my girlfriend was visiting me and we were having issues, I was staying to work, but my father and other...
	My father... My siblings and my stepmom, they were going on a trip and so my girlfriend was with them because we were having a lot of issues.
	And so in that week and a half amount of time when she was gone, that same girl that I was talking to a lot, and she liked me a lot actually, she just showed more interest and I was kind of starving for affection.
	And so then one night, kind of one thing led to another, and we didn't have sex.
	I stopped myself from that, but we were in the same bed, naked, being intimate.
	Okay. And did you end up telling your girlfriend about this?
	I did after we broke up, and I was going to...
	I was going to before.
	So maybe a little bit more than hormonal stuff.
	What do you mean? Right?
	I don't know what you mean now.
	How long did you spend lying to your girlfriend?
	Well, she didn't know.
	I don't know. You were lying.
	Come on. Don't give me this withholding of information.
	It's not direct lying nonsense, right?
	So how long were you lying to your girlfriend?
	It happened... In August, and we broke up in February, and I mentioned it.
	Oh my gosh, so six or seven months you were lying to her.
	Yeah, I mean, the way you explained it, that was.
	Of course, look, if she had had a naked, quasi-sexual encounter with a guy overnight, you would expect her to tell you, right?
	Yeah. And I was.
	Like I said before, I was very distraught.
	It's kind of like our conversation now.
	Sometimes I'm just quiet.
	I don't have really any answer at all.
	That was the same thing.
	Not only did I not know what to do, especially the first month.
	What are you talking about?
	This is such crap. I'm sorry.
	I love you to death, brother, but this is all nonsense.
	What do you mean you didn't know what to do?
	You told her. You knew exactly what to do, which is you're supposed to tell her, right?
	Yeah, I guess. Come on, of course you do.
	Because you would expect that from her.
	If she had a sexual, or whatever it was, if she cheated on you, you would want her to tell you, right?
	So you knew exactly, that's number one.
	Number one, you knew exactly what to do.
	Number two, what's disturbing about this for me, is that all you're talking about is how distraught and upset and confused you were.
	Now that's your dad.
	That's your dad. Do you know how I know that?
	Because that's what he does?
	Because you're only focusing on your own feelings.
	First of all, you rejected the fact that you lied to her.
	Second of all, you've only talked about your own feelings.
	And then third of all, you said you had no idea what to do.
	All three of those things are false.
	And it's not even like complicated figure out UPB from scratch kind of false.
	This is just obvious, right?
	Yeah. I mean, for me, a lot of what I'm describing to you is like years and years before I even saw your show.
	And I think I'm saying that as an excuse.
	No, I don't care about what you thought at the time.
	I care about what you think now.
	What you think now is your current reassembling of the process in your mind.
	Yeah, then you're right. I'm excusing a lie.
	I agree in that regard.
	I mean, I assume from the August to the February, the six or seven months, that you slept with her without telling her you cheated on her.
	Yeah, I didn't say anything.
	See how you've reframed that?
	You made it a passive action.
	But you slept with the woman while consciously and directly withholding information that she desperately needed in order to trust and love you.
	Oh, I see what you mean.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	So you lied to her so that you could have sex with her.
	What, the other woman? No, your girlfriend.
	Oh, I see what you mean.
	Yeah. And where did you learn how to lie to women in order to have sex with them?
	That's why I said your dad, right?
	Yeah, through the example of my dad and his preferences.
	So... So then she breaks up with you because she has sensed that you are emotionally unavailable and she probably deep down suspects you of cheating.
	So then she goes to find another man.
	She breaks up with you.
	And here's the incredible thing, my friend.
	You characterize the breakup as mean on her side, right?
	Like 20 minutes ago, Before we had the detour, you said to me, and listen, I'm not trying to catch you out or anything like that.
	I'm just trying to figure out, square this circle, right?
	Yeah. So you said to me, she broke up with me in a very harsh way.
	Because we were talking about how you began to question your relationship with your father and so on.
	And as far as I remember, the inciting incident was your girlfriend breaking up with you in a mean or harsh way.
	Do you remember that? Yes.
	Yes. Right.
	So you were kind of lying to me there, or maybe to yourself, I don't know.
	But you cheated on your girlfriend, you didn't tell her, you had sex with her, and then you claimed to be the victim when she leaves you.
	Yeah. I mean, this is all your debt, right?
	Yeah. I don't know if you ever did say to your dad, why weren't you around more when I was a kid?
	He would say, hey man, I had a restaurant to run.
	I was really busy. What are you getting mad about?
	Putting food on the table. On everyone's table.
	All of this excuse, excuse, excuse.
	So you were portraying yourself to me, or maybe I guess to yourself, as a victim of your girlfriend's meanness when you cheated on her and lied to her.
	I never thought about how instinctually, but also just being emotionally absent, how that It creates the situation for a breakup and that was caused by me.
	Oh, come on, man.
	Please. Look, you're a smart guy.
	Look, everyone I talk to, I put in top 1% of intelligence.
	That's just the way it is. And I've not seen anything to disprove that.
	So you're a very smart guy. So are you telling me, man to man, are you telling me, honestly, I had no idea that cheating on my girlfriend and then lying to her And continuing to have sex with her, I had no idea that that would have any negative effects on our relationship.
	I didn't mean to say that.
	I'm looking back on it as I saw it at the time and then also how I look at it now.
	But you told me that you were the victim and your girlfriend was mean, right?
	I did, yeah. Right.
	And then you told me, gosh, well, now I think of it that way.
	I didn't know that withholding this information could have negative effects on our relationship, right?
	No, at the time, I suppose I thought...
	No, but even now, because you just 20 minutes ago told me that she was mean and you were a victim.
	Again, I'm not trying to catch you out or anything like that.
	I'm trying to tell you that...
	I mean, it's the basic thing.
	You can play dumb with other people if you want, but you can't play dumb with me because you're not dumb.
	Well, I'm not playing dumb.
	Yes, you are. You are absolutely playing dumb.
	But isn't playing dumb with an intent to be manipulative?
	You absolutely are being manipulative.
	And again, we all do it.
	I'm not down on you like some existential thing, right?
	I'm just pointing out the facts, right?
	When you tell me, well, my girlfriend was super mean and I was the victim and so on, right?
	And it was my father's fault and, you know, this is how I learned about my relationship with my father, that's totally manipulative.
	Yeah. No, I – yeah.
	And then if you try – and again, I say this with all great affection and sympathy, so I'm not – I'm just saying that when you tell me, gosh, I had no idea that having sex with my girlfriend repeatedly without telling her I cheated on her and being emotionally distant, I had no idea that would have negative effects on the relationship.
	Or when you tell me I had no idea what I should do, right?
	You know exactly what you should have done.
	First of all, you shouldn't have Yeah, and I agree with that.
	I just want to include a factor that I think is relevant if it's not.
	Yeah, go for it. I want to be fair, obviously.
	So yeah, hit me. Yeah.
	So when that event occurred, about a week later, then she leaves to go to Sweden.
	And then she does come to visit in December.
	Wait, what? Sorry, the quasi-sexual thing you had with the other girl, that was when your girlfriend was over?
	Yeah, why?
	Maybe. What? Wait, your girlfriend is from Sweden, staying with you, and you end up naked in a bed with another girl.
	So, like, I guess you missed a part.
	Was your girlfriend over visiting you when you had this encounter with the other girl?
	She was in the States, but she was in another state.
	She went on a trip with my father and my stepmother and my siblings.
	Okay, but she was visiting you.
	She just happened to be away for that little period of time, right?
	It wasn't happening.
	We were having significant relationship issues.
	No, no, no. Don't jump to the justifications.
	I just want the facts.
	That's what occurred. No, no.
	I just want to have the facts before I get all of the goo, right?
	Just give me the data, right?
	Yeah. So your girlfriend had come to visit you in Sweden.
	No, in the States.
	I'm sorry, your girlfriend had come to visit you from Sweden.
	My mistake, sorry. Your girlfriend had come to visit you, and then she went on a road trip with your stepmother, her half-sister, and your father, and while she was away on this road trip, you had this cheating thing with the other girl, right? Yes, but...
	Yes, but we were fighting, and so they decided to invite her to kind of ease the tension.
	So the trip was to ease the tension, have some space, and then...
	I'm sorry. So you feel that there was some causality between you fighting with your girlfriend and you cheating with the other woman?
	Yeah. So that's what they call an excuse.
	Yeah. Uh-huh.
	But if... Here's the thing, man.
	You don't believe that any more than I do.
	And I know that for an absolute...
	You don't believe...
	I'm listening. That you don't believe that the cheating was somehow justified because your girlfriend and you were fighting, right?
	You don't believe that. I know that without even asking you.
	I know that based on everything you've said.
	You did not believe it was okay.
	How do I know that? Oh, you did not believe that there was any justification.
	Oh, no. No, I don't believe there was a justification.
	I was just kind of describing the temptation.
	No, but you're giving me a justification. I am?
	Okay. Well, you are.
	But we were fighting. It's a justification.
	It's an excuse, right?
	So the reason I know you don't believe that there was any causality is that if you believed that it was justified, you would have told her.
	Yeah. Yeah, I see what you mean.
	You know, if my girlfriend says, go to the store and get me 2% milk, and I come back with 2% milk, and I say, here's your 2% milk, and she said, no, no, no, I told you to get skim milk.
	And then I look at the little note she gave me, and it says, get 2% milk.
	I was justified, right? I'll tell her that.
	No, no, I was justified, because you told me this, right?
	Yeah. So I would just have that conversation.
	But if you hide it, then you feel bad about it.
	So you know it's not justified.
	Yeah, no. I mean, let's say you and your girlfriend had one of those creepy, polyamorous, open relationships, right?
	Let's say you had that, right? And she says, you can sleep with whoever you want, I can sleep with whoever I want, right?
	Then if you go and have this same thing with a girl, you're not cheating, right?
	Yeah. So you would tell her?
	Yeah. Because, right, there was no...
	It was acceptable, right?
	So what you're telling me is that, well, my girlfriend and I were fighting, so I ended up naked in bed with another woman.
	And it's like, no, because if you believe that it was justified or excused or excusable, then you just tell your girlfriend.
	So the fact that you didn't tell your girlfriend means that you knew that you were in the wrong and there was no defense.
	But then when you report it to me, you say, but here's the mitigating factors, right?
	But was it even at all important to say those factors, or was that just part of excusing it?
	No. No.
	What do you mean? You were in a monogamous relationship, right?
	Uh-huh. The reason I'm telling you is not because of the past, but because of the future.
	I'm assuming, yeah. So you had a story...
	How many years ago was this?
	This was in 2017.
	Okay, so we've got six years ago.
	So six years ago, you had a story which says, hey man, if I'm fighting with my girlfriend, I can totally flirt with other women, right?
	To me, I would say that story is like, I have this temptation to do that when things are going bad.
	Okay, however you want to phrase it, You said it's more excusable or permissible or okay to flirt with another girl, end up naked in bed with her if I'm fighting with my girlfriend.
	Well, that's what occurred and that's why I was disturbed because I... No, no.
	That's not what occurred. That's what you invented.
	Yes, that's what it is. You invented a justification for flirting with another girl while my girlfriend and I are fighting.
	So I'm going to flirt with another girl, right?
	So that's why you flirted with the other girl.
	Well, I would say...
	In this situation, how it occurred, and maybe this is me excusing it, so if it is, then it would be good to know.
	From what occurred in this situation, I had...
	I had not seen her for a while, and she was very glad to see me.
	It wasn't like I went and pursued her, but I don't know if that's an excuse.
	I don't even know what quicksand we're in right now, but I'm not staying here.
	No, I know. This is the time where you just have to listen, and you can tell me if I'm wrong when I'm done.
	Is that all right? No problem. You have a thing where you say, my girlfriend has disappointed me.
	My girlfriend is fighting with me.
	I'm upset. I'm angry.
	And therefore, it's more excusable if I flirt with another girl.
	Like, I'm feeling down. This other girl likes me.
	And I want to feel better, so she's going to flirt with me.
	And all of this is because my girlfriend is mad at me, right?
	Yeah. So you gave yourself permission...
	to flirt with another girl because your girlfriend was mad at you, right?
	So the reason why you ended up cheating on your girlfriend was because you gave yourself permission based upon some
	circumstance like your girlfriend being mad at you
	You gave yourself permission to cheat on your girlfriend Because you had an excuse.
	You had, my girlfriend's mad at me, so I'm mad at my girlfriend, and maybe how can I hurt her, or whatever was going on.
	The excuse is not about the past.
	The excuse is about the future.
	You didn't cheat on your girlfriend and then come up with an excuse.
	You had an excuse, therefore you cheated on your girlfriend.
	I'm... If your girlfriend and you had not been fighting, you wouldn't have cheated, right?
	That's your causality.
	No, not to...
	Um...
	Um...
	Yes, because that's what you told me.
	Yeah, no, I...
	I'm not describing an important part which is the situation where
	that girl that I cheated on, how she came into the situation.
	Like I mentioned before, I would talk to her a lot, but then she was gone for a while, and so then She had come back, and it was at that time when my girlfriend had left.
	And so, like, to me, it was a surprise to see her.
	Oh, so your girlfriend, sorry.
	Oh, your girlfriend, but she left not back to Sweden, but on the road trip with your dad.
	Exactly. Okay. And so?
	Well, and so, like...
	I feel like that's an important aspect.
	Like, I wasn't just like, ooh, I'm going to start...
	Flirting with more women since I'm upset or I feel like I've been wronged.
	It was like she hadn't been around for a while and she came.
	Oh, so now she's responsible for your decision.
	Well, I'm not saying she's responsible.
	Hang on. So if you're telling me it's either your girlfriend who's responsible for your decision because she fought with you or it's this other woman who's responsible for your decision because she hadn't been around for a while and she was happy to see you.
	So that's all excusing.
	Of course it is. Who was responsible for your decision?
	I am. You, yourself, alone, and no one else.
	I mean, you've heard me talk about self-ownership, haven't you?
	Yes. Right.
	Who was responsible for your decision?
	I said I am, but I guess I mumbled it.
	Sorry. That's fine.
	So you are. Now, listen, I sympathize, and I'm trying to tell you how you can avoid making these bad decisions in the future.
	That's... Yes, I'm listening.
	So the moment you start giving yourself excuses, you are setting yourself up for betrayal.
	In the future, correct.
	In the future. In the future.
	So... You'll be in a relationship again.
	At some point, you will be not getting along with your girlfriend or your wife, right?
	Right. Now, if you have this principle that says, well, I can be flirty if I'm not getting along with my girlfriend or if my girlfriend is fighting with me, whatever that means.
	And even when you say my girlfriend was fighting with me, that's a victim statement.
	No, you were both fighting.
	It wasn't happening to you.
	You were both fighting. Oh, I... I should be more aware of that language.
	So, when you play the victim, you give yourself excuses to do bad things, right?
	So, if you have a principle in your mind, right?
	So, look, you did something wrong, and it's not the end of the world.
	You didn't murder someone.
	You cheated on your girlfriend.
	And that's not good. We can agree on that, right?
	Absolutely. And then, you lied to her about it for six or seven months, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	Also not good, right? Mm-hmm.
	Okay. It's not a UPP violation, right?
	Because you didn't enforce something on her.
	It's APA. Ethically preferable action is to tell the truth and to not cheat.
	To not break your word and to tell the truth, right?
	You're great, yeah. Okay.
	So, in the future...
	Like the excuses you gave yourself in the past is why it happened.
	If you had said to yourself, it's absolutely unacceptable to flirt with another woman, doesn't matter if my girlfriend and I are getting along or not, doesn't matter if she's being a real witch with a capital B or whatever you want to call it in your head, doesn't matter.
	I don't do that, right? Yeah.
	Then you wouldn't have flirted with this other girl and you wouldn't have ended up in bed with her naked, right?
	Do you follow? Yes, I do.
	So when you say, well, there are these excuses...
	She's fighting with me. We're not getting along.
	Then you go down that path.
	Yeah. Right? I see what you mean.
	It's obviously easier to stop a snowball rolling down a hill than to stop an avalanche at the bottom, right?
	It's easier to stop things at the beginning than at the end, right?
	So principles are all about stopping things at the beginning when the temptation is tiny rather than saying, okay, well, I'm not going to have sex with this woman even though we're both naked in the same bed, right?
	Yeah. So principles is why you don't even go down that road in the first place.
	But when you give yourself excuses, you end up in these situations where temptation escalates to the point where you're just going to screw up in some way.
	And I would do it, everyone does it, right?
	So we have principles so that we don't even go down that path because that path becomes very steep and very slippery very quickly, right?
	It's a prevention, yeah.
	I agree. And I'll go you one further.
	Please do. So excuses are not usually only passive.
	They're active. So what that means is if you have an excuse called, I can flirt with girls, I can get naked in bed with girls if I'm fighting with my girlfriend or my girlfriend is fighting with me.
	If you want to flirt with another girl and you have that excuse, what are you most likely to do?
	Let's say your girlfriend and you are getting along fairly well.
	But you really want to flirt with another girl, but you have an excuse called, well, if we're fighting, I can flirt with her.
	What are you most likely to do?
	I'm going to create a conflict.
	Yeah, yeah. You're going to provoke a fight with your girlfriend, and then you're going to say, oh, well, you know, if I'm fighting with my girlfriend, I can go, okay, and then you go flirt with the other girl, right?
	Right. So that's why I'm pushing hard against this.
	Yeah, and also as you're pushing hard, I kind of realized that I recontextualize excuses as factors or temptations.
	And they're one of the same.
	Well, excuses are permissions.
	Yeah, I agree. I can.
	If the planets align, I can do bad things.
	If I can come up with an excuse to do bad things, I will do bad things.
	Yeah. And then it comes from if the planets align, I can do bad things to I will make the planets align so I can do bad things.
	Because you can't trust yourself If you have excuses, because excuses are promises of repetition.
	I'm sure you've heard me say this a million times before, right?
	Yeah, and that's why I don't trust myself.
	How did you justify not telling your girlfriend?
	How I justified it?
	At the time, like I mentioned before, from my perspective at the time, it was...
	I was just very shocked and confused and overwhelmed.
	I did have other things going on that were also equally overwhelming, so I just...
	I didn't know what to do.
	I didn't have answers. I was...
	Oh, no, no. No, sorry.
	You knew what to do. You knew what to do.
	Of course, you knew you had to tell her, right?
	You knew you should tell her, right? Yeah, I did.
	Okay, so what are the other factors that you gave yourself the excuse...
	To not tell her. And I'll tell you this as well.
	If you have the excuse of lying, you will also end up doing bad things.
	Because I'll just lie about it.
	Right? Yeah.
	Because if you knew for sure you were going to tell your girlfriend the moment she got back about you ending up naked in bed with another woman, if you knew for sure you would tell your girlfriend about it, you wouldn't have done it, right?
	Yeah, and I also was able to get away with the lie because Another significant event occurred coinciding with that so basically I ran with the assumption that she was assuming that there was this other thing that was affecting me when it really was that decision.
	What was the other thing?
	I had a family member of mine come to visit and honestly I didn't want him to come to visit.
	He even was a Flirting a bit with my girlfriend and I told my father I don't want to come and visit.
	My dad permitted it otherwise.
	He disagreed and let him come visit.
	And so he ended up stealing a bunch of stuff from our house, including my phone.
	And so as he was getting more greedy about it, it became very obvious.
	And so here my father's off on the trip.
	I'm running his business and he's stealing from the business.
	And so Yeah, it turned into this whole mess.
	And so that was my cover-up, where it's like, oh, I'm feeling down and distraught.
	It's like, oh, it has to be because of this crazy mess.
	Oh, so you used this family disaster as a camouflage for you sleeping with the girl?
	Or trying to? I mean, honestly, Steph, it just happened to coincide with...
	No, no, you just told me you used it as a camouflage.
	Because you let your girlfriend believe that the reason you were upset was not because you cheated, but because this guy stole from your family.
	Well, I was upset about that too.
	I get that. But you used it as camouflage to cover up that you cheated.
	Yeah, looking at it now, yeah.
	Well, that's how I quote-unquote didn't lie because I just didn't mention it.
	It didn't seem odd at all because that event occurred.
	Do you see what I mean? Right.
	You used it as camouflage.
	I'm not saying you weren't upset about the other thing, but you explained the way you're upset to your girlfriend as if it was this other thing when it was, to some degree, the fact that you cheated on her, right?
	Exactly, yeah. Right.
	So that you understand you have a great capacity for manipulation.
	Yeah, I've started to realize that a lot more recently.
	And I don't say this with hostility, you understand, at all, right?
	Or just some big moral judgment.
	I'm just saying that given the environment that you grew up in, of course you did.
	I mean, your father manipulated you by demanding your worship in order to have a relationship.
	Yeah, yeah, no, that's a good way of putting it, yeah.
	If I wasn't beloved and loved by him, he didn't want me.
	If you can't tell the truth about it afterwards, probably not a good idea to do it in the first place, right?
	Yeah, very much so, yes.
	I mean, if the doctor fails to save a patient and did everything that the doctor could, they don't have to bury and hide the body.
	They're, oh my god, what are we going to do with the body?
	It's like, well, you sent it to the morgue for the autopsy and it goes and gets better.
	But if you kill a guy, well, you've got to figure out what to do with the body, right?
	Yeah. Because you have to hide that you did it, right?
	So if you have to hide that you did it, if you give yourself permission to hide it after you do it, then you're much more likely to do it.
	I see. Do you see what I mean?
	So this is not about what happened six years ago.
	This is about what's going to happen for you in the future.
	Because if you can't trust yourself, To do the right thing, to have integrity, to be honorable.
	I don't mean perfect. Nobody's perfect, right?
	But if you can't trust yourself, because you're going to give yourself mealy-mouthed excuses to lie and manipulate, right?
	Yeah. And in a sense, in a sense to have sex with someone who, if you told the truth, she wouldn't have sex with you.
	That's stealing sex.
	Do you follow? Right, so if you told your girlfriend, I was naked with another woman in bed, she wouldn't have had sex with you, at least not for a while, right?
	Yeah, no, you're absolutely correct.
	Right, so she had sex with you in a sense against her will because you were withholding information from her, which if you had told her, she wouldn't have sex with you, right?
	Right. Now, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, right?
	You know all of this, right?
	And the reason why you give me the excuses is you don't want to confront your exploitive, manipulative side.
	None of us do. We all have it, right?
	And we all have the angels and the mammals, right?
	We all have the integrity and we have the get what I want when I want it and I don't care about the cost to others, right?
	We all have those two sides of ourselves, right?
	Yeah. That's a good point, yeah.
	Yeah, so I'm not trying to cast you into the depths or anything, like, oh...
	So we all have this side, right?
	And you can't be a good person if you don't stare down the mammal, if you don't stare down the inner ape who just, oh, it's not lying.
	I mean, the purpose is reproduction, right?
	Or for the sake of survival.
	Yeah, I mean, it's just blind, stupid, genetic photocopying shit, right?
	I mean, nature doesn't really think about lying, right?
	I mean, the cuckoo who lays the egg in another bird's nest and has the other bird feed it, there's no court.
	You don't take it to bird court, right?
	You are deceptive.
	You're a con person.
	You're a con bird or something like that, right?
	So nature uses deception and manipulation all the time, and it's called survival, right?
	Yeah. I mean, the lion doesn't say, okay, I'm going to count to ten.
	And if you're a fair warning, the lion creeps up as close as humanly possible and pretends there's no lion there so that he can eat the ass off the zebra, right?
	Yeah. So you have, unfortunately, you were raised without principles.
	You were raised with the mammal, the selfish animal manipulation and deception to get what you want when you want it, as far as I can understand.
	Yeah. Yeah, no, very much so.
	My parents are both non-religious, and they were really opposed to imposing rules on me for the most part.
	Of course, when they were upset at me, I didn't follow some rules.
	I got punished for it, but it was one of those things...
	Apes punish their children too, right?
	Yeah. I mean, they cuff them when they take food they shouldn't, or when they bother the sleeping mother, she'll just whack them or whatever, right?
	So... Yeah, that's not a...
	And the reason they didn't want to impose rules on you is that at some point they knew you would grow up and impose those rules back on them, right?
	That's one of the reasons. Yeah.
	No, I agree. That's...
	I agree with that, yeah.
	Okay, so we just...
	We have to be good people.
	We have to confront the shadow side, the dark side, the animal side, the mammal side, whatever you want to call it, the nature side.
	Would you call it also the...
	Like the side that's temptation and things like that?
	Or is that an excuse I made?
	Temptation arises from the refusal to confront this.
	Because once you confront your capacity for manipulation, then you don't end up in situations where temptation arises.
	Because you avoid them.
	You see them before they come.
	Well, not only do you avoid them, But I guarantee you, this girl who liked you, that you ended up naked in bed with, that you cheated on your girlfriend with, she sniffed those justifications from across the fucking room.
	She knew that she could get you into that situation because of your justifications.
	No, I agree. Problems are so much easier to solve at the beginning, right?
	Right. It's a lot easier to not smoke than to try and cure lung cancer, right?
	It's a lot easier to not gain weight rather than try to lose 100 pounds, right?
	Agreed. So...
	And I'm sorry that you weren't raised with any kind of principles.
	That's tough. If it's any consolation, neither was I. So, you know, I wasn't a perfect boyfriend in my teens...
	At all. So, but we have to sort of confront without judgment and say, look, how are we going to live?
	Are we going to live like a human being or are we going to live like an animal?
	If we're going to live like a human being, we've got to have some principles.
	Yeah. Now, how long have you been living under your parents' roof as an adult?
	So, as an adult, from 18 to now, so...
	That's nine years.
	Nine years. 18 to 27.
	What are you doing? Why are you still living under your parents' roof?
	Why are they still paying your bills?
	Well, it's only my father that pays my bills.
	Okay, you're right.
	But is that really relevant?
	I think it is because...
	It's only been recently, like in the last six months, a year.
	I used to be terrified at the prospect of getting another job.
	And I say that because it's kind of one of those things that my father over the years has massaged into me.
	It's like, why don't you just work for me?
	Why would you want to make someone else rich?
	And so... That's why I mentioned that detail, because it's kind of hard.
	Okay, sorry, I don't understand.
	Okay, so you work for your dad, right?
	Whatever. Okay, that's a little easy.
	It doesn't really define you much, and it's serving his needs.
	I was forced into it as well.
	I'm sorry, go ahead. Well, I was forced into it because I was having massive anxiety issues.
	Well, massive is an exaggeration.
	It was debilitating for me.
	My last year of high school, in which I stopped going to school little by little, and so I didn't finish high school.
	And so, at the time, I was taking it, like, responsibly, where I was like, I'm going to figure this out.
	But I needed the time to start it out.
	My dad's like, nope, you're going to start working for me or leave.
	And I was like, I can't leave.
	Like, I was very much so...
	Sorry, what was happening at the end of high school that you had this anxiety and what did your parents who love and care for you and want the best for you, what did they do about all of this?
	I mean, nothing, nothing much.
	Well, my mom did a lot more, a lot more, but by then she wasn't actually living in the same city she had moved out of state.
	So I would talk to her over the phone.
	I mean, oh my gosh, you are like an excuse generating machine.
	Yeah. I guess I am.
	Well, my mother couldn't help me because apparently there's no such thing as a fucking phone.
	No, no, we were taught, but it's kind of like you were saying, I'm an excuse-making machine, so here I'm pumping out these excuses where I bet if she had stayed, she would have seen more of what was going on and been more...
	No, no, it's her job to know as a mother, as a parent.
	I agree. Oh, no, I agree. There's no excuse called I've moved away or I was in a...
	If you can't be as good a parent...
	When moving away, do you know what you do?
	You stay. You don't move away.
	Yeah. Right? So it doesn't matter whether she was there or not.
	It doesn't matter whether her moving away is any kind of an excuse.
	Spoiler, it's not. She's completely and fully responsible for her failures as a parent.
	I agree. No, you don't.
	In what way do I not agree?
	Because you just told me that your mother couldn't help you as much because she'd moved away.
	Now you're manipulating me by pretending to immediately agree with me about something that's a revelation, right?
	Can you tell me more?
	You said, I said, what did your parents who love and care about you, whatever, do?
	And you said, well, my mother did more, but she couldn't do much because by then she wasn't living in the same city.
	Well, I said that because...
	I said...
	I say that because what you know about my lifestyle, for example, is what I tell you, right?
	But if you were my neighbor, you would have the context of being my neighbor and seeing what's going on, right?
	So you're saying that your mother had a deficiency in her parenting because she didn't live in the same city?
	I'm saying... Yeah, I'm saying that does cause a deficiency when you're separate.
	No, it does not cause a deficiency.
	Because if you know that there's a deficiency, you make up for it.
	Yeah, I agree.
	If I load up my car with 10,000 pounds worth of stuff, right?
	And I say, holy crap, this is way overloaded for this car.
	And I drive and my car cracks into...
	Why did that happen? Was it because I put stuff in the car?
	No, because I didn't get the right vehicle.
	So even if it's true that your mother is like, well, I can't be as good a parent if I move away, so that makes her responsible for correcting that deficiency by staying in even greater contacting, Skyping, video calls, coming to visit more, right?
	It's sort of like if someone's going to eat a lot of sugar and then they say, well, I got cavities because I ate a lot of sugar, it's like, no, you didn't.
	You didn't get cavities because you ate a lot of sugar.
	You got cavities because you didn't brush your teeth more, knowing that you were eating a lot of sugar, or go to the dentist more, or get more cleanings, or something like that.
	Do you see what I mean? I kind of am.
	I'm understanding. You're being clear about the examples, and I understand the examples.
	I'm trying to understand why it's that, not the other.
	Your mother has to parent...
	At 100%. That's the deal.
	That's the deal with having kids, right?
	And you were still a child at this point.
	You hadn't even graduated high school, right?
	So your mother has to parent at 100%.
	Now, let's say that she moves away and that drops her to 75%, right?
	Right. So then she's responsible for getting it back up to 100% because she has to parent at 100%.
	You follow? Yes.
	Like, you have loyalty to your girlfriend is at 100%, but if she fights with you, it goes down to 75%.
	And if you don't have to tell her the truth about flirting with another girl, it goes down to 50%.
	You understand? It erodes.
	But if you know there's a deficiency, you're responsible for filling it.
	So if your mother says, well, parenting goes down to 75% because I moved to another city, then she's got to get it back up to 100%.
	So what does she need to do? Call me more and compensate.
	Call you more and arrange for phone calls with your teachers.
	And if things are going awry, then she has to come back and deal with it.
	Like, you have to parent at 100%.
	And if you say, well, this thing happened that dropped it to 75%, that is no reason why it stays at 75%, right?
	Yeah, you're right.
	I mean, when your car gets low on gas, you just sit there and say, well, that's it, man.
	I guess I'll have to walk.
	You fill it up, right?
	Yeah. And so if your parenting goes down, you fill it up.
	Yeah, she didn't do that at all.
	I mean, even to the point when I remember very clearly when I was doing my documentary on California, I was on the phone with my daughter for like an hour or two every night.
	Right? Mm-hmm.
	So this is what I mean when I say that you're an excuse-making machine.
	Now, what I really want to say is that your parents are excuse-making machines, right?
	Oh, yeah. They're far less honest than I am.
	Wow. Okay.
	Sorry, that was a little snarky.
	I apologize. I mean, you're not particularly dishonest because when I talk about these things, you accept them.
	Unless you're manipulating me by pretending to accept them, but that's an Inception rabbit hole with no bottom, so I'll just take it at face value.
	Okay. Yeah.
	Okay, so what happened at the end of high school that you were bombing out?
	Well, I was...
	For me, like, what was really...
	I was running cross-country, and I was very good.
	I was one of the top athletes sometimes competing for first place.
	Hey, cross-country brothers.
	I was doing that in high school, too. Anyway, go on.
	Yeah. And I... There had been drama.
	There was one kid that really disliked me and would just talk a lot of crap in which I got very defensive about.
	I focused a lot more on that.
	It took away from getting better and better, faster times and things like that.
	And so there was a lot of...
	Was he spreading rumors about you?
	I'm not quite sure I follow him.
	So he was making friends with a lot of the team and being just kind of more desirable to them and then he would just exclude me from things.
	So like, oh, hey, I'm going to go do this and then he just wanted to include me in it because a lot of my teammates liked his company and he was a lot more sociable and better than I was.
	Oh, so he was very charming and verbal like your dad.
	Yeah, I just... I definitely fell that class and I was very angry about that because I did it because I really didn't have much social contact with people and so that gave me the opportunity and the justification.
	It pulled the rug under me.
	I enjoyed it. I enjoyed running.
	I didn't think of it as a chore.
	But also, too, I looked at it as a means to the end to have this social contact with people and actually be around people.
	Do you know why he didn't like you?
	I think it was envy and jealous.
	People would describe my running ability as natural and things like that.
	Once his sister told me that he was just angry that I wouldn't train harder.
	I have, so to speak, the capacity.
	Wait, so I understand this is contradictory to my mind.
	So I don't see how he could have been both angry at you for your ability and angry at you for your lack of ability.
	Because he's angry at you because you're a natural runner, but he's also angry at you because you won't train more.
	Yeah, so at times I was not training as hard as the rest of my team.
	And sometimes I had some reasons where I was like, oh, I don't want to train too hard on this day because I kind of had this methodology I developed where it's like I only have – like my body can only take so much strain.
	And so some days I was like, oh, I'm pushing myself too much.
	And I need to put – I need to have that like – Yeah, the downtime.
	Yeah, well, like I viewed it more as like – If I strain myself on Monday more, let's say, over-trained, that's going to affect me on the day that matters most, which is the race day.
	A lot of times I would conserve sometimes.
	Because I was one of the top runners, I could Finishing all the training regimens and everything first place.
	I could definitely do that. But sometimes I wasn't.
	I would be the third one to finish or sometimes the fourth.
	I would never go lower than that, but I wasn't always competing at practice.
	I'm like, no, no, that makes no sense to me.
	You're saving yourself for the race, which is what counts.
	And people disagree with that and just kind of looked at it as if I was being lazy.
	And there were some occasions when I was, but There was kind of this resentment.
	That also too, his resentment spread throughout the whole team where everyone felt like I was being lazy.
	No, but didn't you win the races?
	In the beginning, yeah.
	He was a year older than me and he had come in when I was a sophomore in high school.
	And so I was dealing with him sophomore and junior year where I was keeping up.
	But then by senior year...
	Because he was a year older than me, the first year I was interacting with him and competing with him, I kept up and was beating him.
	The second year, he had borne me down where I was doing a lot worse.
	So over time, I was actually slacking off.
	So it's not true to say that you were training for the race, that you were taking it easy for the race, because by the time you got to your senior year, you were losing races.
	Is that right? I was doing worse than...
	I was on a trajectory and I was starting to go down.
	And if you were losing the races because you weren't training is that right?
	I wouldn't because with races it's just placement so I was So he was placing higher on the race than I was in our team.
	We weren't the best in our area, so the best of us, the top three in my team, we usually placed top 20 in most of the races we competed in.
	Did this young man talk to you about his concerns and his desire for you to train more or better, or how did that go?
	No, he never did.
	If anything, he complained about it.
	I mean, it was his sister that mentioned just off the cuff once and that's kind of where
	it was something I...
	Did your other teammates say that you, you know, you're not doing as well as you used
	to maybe train more?
	Did they do anything like that?
	No, not really, no.
	Really? So everybody just ostracized you and nobody ever expressed any frustration that you weren't doing as well?
	Well, I mean, there was an expression of frustration and indifference, but to me at the time, it just wasn't clear.
	I was just a bit confused.
	Okay, I could give you an alternate history here.
	Sure. You're not a victim.
	I mean, you kind of are by your parents, but not, right?
	So your teammates were frustrated with you, But because you're an excuse-making machine, they got annoyed at you, and then they didn't want to spend time with you.
	No, that's actually, yeah, that's the correct way of putting it.
	Okay, so what are you talking about?
	Some guy came in who hated you and was jealous of you and turned your teammates against you, right?
	Well, I think he exacerbated.
	I mean, that did occur. Like, I remember once one of the teammates got angry.
	He's like, can you stop talking about, like, it's fucking annoying.
	And that was in the beginning.
	You're right, I'm overemphasizing him, and I think that's valid.
	No, my God, you're like a slippery eel here.
	You didn't overemphasize it.
	I said, what was going on in high school?
	You said, this guy was mean to me and turned my teammates against me and they just did stuff without me.
	You didn't overemphasize it.
	You didn't say, well, you know, I wasn't doing well.
	I was making a lot of excuses that I was not willing to train more.
	I was manipulative and so on.
	And so, you know, people got kind of annoyed at me, right?
	You were like, no, no, no, it's all him, right?
	Yeah, so that...
	So you didn't overemphasize it.
	Yeah. You didn't mention the other thing at all until I brought it up, right?
	Yeah. And again, I just...
	You have a narrative, right?
	And in the narrative...
	It's other people's fault.
	Yeah. No, I had a narrative that growing up I felt like the world was against me.
	Well, here's the thing, man.
	I've played a lot of team sports in my day.
	I mean, doubles tennis, doubles pickleball, I guess more recently.
	I've even played doubles squash.
	I've done cross-country.
	I've done swim team.
	I've done water polo.
	I've done soccer. I've done baseball.
	I've done cricket. I've done rugby.
	Like, I have done a lot of team sports, right?
	Now, if some teammate isn't pulling his weight and you say you've got to step it up and you just get a bunch of excuses, how do you feel?
	Upset. Well, you don't like that person.
	Because they're uncoachable.
	Because they're playing on a team, but they're not taking any feedback, which means the team suffers for their immaturity.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	Because if it's everyone else's fault, it's unsolvable, right?
	So I'm just... I mean, nobody wants to take responsibility.
	It's not our natural position, right?
	At least if we're raised in the way that you and I were raised.
	Nobody wants to take responsibility.
	So why do you take responsibility?
	Because if you don't, you're helpless in life.
	Because things are done to you.
	You don't have any choice. You're like...
	You don't say to a leaf, hey, the wind is blowing south.
	Which way do you want to go, right?
	Leaf just says, well, I just...
	I don't have wings. I don't have a jetpack.
	I don't have a plane.
	I just go where the wind takes me, right?
	Right. So you have a story about your life, which is that things are done unto you, and you're the victim.
	And, you know, I cheated because my girlfriend wasn't fighting, and then this other girl had been away, but then she was interested in me, and I got depressed because in high school, a guy was Turning my teammates against me and they just ostracized me.
	Things are done to you.
	They act upon you, right? Yeah.
	And your father was acted upon by his sexual addiction, right?
	And your father was acted on because he used work as a way of avoiding his family.
	And your mother...
	And your mother and your father, they grew progressively more dissatisfied, so they ended up divorcing.
	You see, everyone's just bouncing off hormones.
	Oh, my girlfriend, she got upset because of hormones, right?
	When I think there was an overlap with you lying to her, which also would perhaps have something to do with the upset, right?
	Well, that was at the end of the relationship.
	So the hormones, like the different phases, that was beforehand.
	Okay. Yeah.
	And then, and then, and then...
	You pulled, frankly, a real asshole move with your girlfriend.
	I wanted to mention that, but I forgot.
	At least in my view. I'm not saying I'm right.
	I'm just saying from my perspective.
	No, I consider it the same.
	What was the asshole move?
	I was thinking you were referring to me cheating on her, but it seems like it's something else.
	So you didn't tell her for six or seven months, right?
	I didn't, no.
	And then you told me About half an hour ago, you told me when you told your girlfriend about the affair.
	And when did you tell your girlfriend about your infidelity?
	After we broke up.
	Why? Well, I had intended to tell her.
	And for me, this is probably an excuse, but it's a preference of mine.
	Please don't give me intentions here as another excuse.
	I can't take any more.
	I'm full to the brim. But I know from...
	I mean, it's kind of...
	To me, I'm becoming aware of...
	There's no such thing as an intention to do something.
	There's no excuse called, I intended to.
	Yeah, I know.
	Because if you want to tell her, you pick up the phone and you say, I was unfaithful.
	There's no marks for intention.
	And you can just say that.
	Nobody can prove it. I only care about what you did.
	I don't care about your story about what you did.
	Because I'm an empiricist, as you know, when you called me, right?
	Yes. So you have to...
	I need you to become very concerned that everything you say is a manipulation.
	Because now you're trying to get points for I meant to, I intended to, right?
	Yeah, no, which is...
	Which is a lie. There's no such thing, is it?
	You don't get any points for intending to.
	Oh, I see what you mean by how it's alive because what you just said.
	Because you're saying that somehow what you did is less wrong because you intended to do better.
	I can't measure that.
	It's completely subjective.
	I can't prove any of that.
	All I can do is judge you by your actions.
	Do you see what I mean? Yeah.
	So you saying to me that you intended to is a manipulation.
	You're saying, don't judge me so harshly because I had the right intentions.
	It's like, I don't know. I can only judge what you did.
	I can't judge your intentions. And that would be for the intention of getting sympathy from me, right?
	Or being more sympathetic?
	Well, no. It's a way of blunting my judgment about what you did.
	And it's a way of blunting your judgment about what you did, which means that you're more likely to do it again.
	Yeah. Like, you understand, I'm doing all of this because I want you to have a happy future.
	I'm not doing this because I want you to feel bad.
	I'm not doing this because I want to be right.
	I'm doing this, like, you know, this call ends, I go on with my day, right?
	And I don't cheat on my wife, right?
	But you, with all these excuses, are going to go on to do more bad things because you can excuse them.
	So every time I come across an excuse, I have to point it out because you still don't seem to be aware of how constant a habit this is for you.
	No, no. That was something I was going to say.
	Like, as you were saying, no, that's an excuse.
	That's an excuse. I'm realizing...
	And then what comes out is another excuse.
	Well, I intended to tell her.
	Right? That doesn't mean anything.
	Yeah. Well, I'm reclassified.
	I don't know if it would be considered something like a double-think in that regard.
	But, like, I don't at all classify that as an excuse.
	Obviously, it is an excuse. It's a lie.
	It's a lie. Yeah. Because did you tell her before you broke up?
	No. So saying that you intended to is a lie.
	Because I didn't do it.
	You didn't do it. All I can measure is what you did.
	Yeah, the intending to is inconsequential.
	Well, if it was inconsequential, it wouldn't bother me, right?
	What's inconsequential is you say, I lived in this town, not that town, which is two towns over.
	That's inconsequential. We wouldn't pause on that.
	It'd be like, whatever, it doesn't matter, right?
	It is very consequential.
	Because you give yourself inner moral points for intending to do something, which means you don't have to do it.
	You didn't tell her because you give yourself points for saying, I intend to, I want to, it's my plan, it's my goal.
	So then you get the rewards of being a, quote, good person because of your intention without actually having to be a good person and tell her the truth.
	Do you see what I'm saying? It's a drug.
	Well, in addition to it, it blends the consequences for me and I think I do that more to blunt the consequences.
	So it's not as bad that I cheated and that's how I make it not as bad.
	Right. You make it not as bad as you intended to tell her.
	Okay. So you didn't tell her.
	You didn't tell her. You didn't tell her.
	She breaks up with you.
	You're hurt and angry, right?
	Yeah. And then you tell her.
	Well, it was later on.
	It was part of a conversation.
	It was later on.
	No, so you see, it wasn't so bad, Steph, because it was later on.
	Do you see? Are you aware of this at all?
	This constant flow of self-justification, manipulation, and falsehood?
	But, I mean, yes, I do see it.
	You told her after you broke up because you were hurt and angry and you wanted to hurt her.
	Okay. I will agree to that in a moment.
	I just want to ask, how much time needs to pass by before Before that isn't true, because I had multiple conversations over many months, and a few months later, then I tell her that.
	It was at least a month.
	It's been many years, but I'll just go with it was a month.
	It was not immediate. It was the next week.
	It was a month after you broke up?
	Yeah, when I had that conversation, I brought it up to her because I was mulling it over.
	It's like I wanted to tell her Because I owed her that honesty.
	You owed her that honesty after she broke up with you, but not before.
	No, no. I had intended to do it before.
	No, no. Don't give me intention.
	Don't give me intention. Are you saying that you had a responsibility?
	Because you finally told her, right?
	Yeah, I was trying to work with my responsibility.
	Well, because I had a plan.
	I was going to tell her.
	I did not know we were going to break up when we did.
	And so I was going to tell her.
	Hang on, hang on.
	You're saying that you were going to tell her, but you hadn't told her for six or seven months while continuing to have sex with her, which she wouldn't have had with you if you told her, right?
	Well, like I mentioned before, one of the things was when the event occurred, then about like a week or two, she left to go back to Sweden.
	She did come to visit me in December, and she was with me for, I think, two, three weeks.
	Even the way you describe it, when the event occurred?
	No, when you did what you chose to do.
	When you betrayed her and yourself.
	When I betrayed her, yeah. Okay, go ahead.
	And then in those, like, I could have, like, to me, I felt like that news needed to be told in person, not over the phone.
	I thought that was, maybe that was an excuse, but that was what in my mind was like one of the essentials.
	It's like you tell her in person.
	Sorry, I really feel like I'm going insane here.
	So you had sex with her after you cheated, right?
	Probably, yeah. I'll say yeah.
	No, without, I mean, because we talked earlier before about stealing sex.
	Do you remember? Yes, I do remember.
	Okay, so you're saying, well, I have to tell her in person.
	I assume you were having sex in person.
	Yeah. So, if your standard is, well, I have to tell her in person, well, you were in person enough to have sex.
	So, the excuse that you need to wait until you're in person is completely invalid because you were in person to have sex, which means you were in person, which means the conditions were met to tell her, but you didn't tell her.
	Yeah, one of the times that she came to visit, because we have a long-distance relationship as well.
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	I mean, I know that you have a long-distance relationship.
	That's been the foundation of the whole conversation.
	I'm aware of that. I'm not sure what you bring into something.
	I'm emphasizing what I think is an important point, was I had the opportunity just when the event occurred, I mean, when I cheated on her, When I cheated on her, I could have told her immediately or before she left to go back to Sweden.
	Any of the times you had sex with her before you broke up?
	Yes, exactly. Actually, the last times I had sex with her was in December when she came to visit.
	And then after that, there was no other times where I saw her.
	Okay, so why are you bringing up the thing which is I wanted to do it in person because you saw her in person but didn't tell her?
	Yeah, but I'm just emphasizing it's a shorter amount of time because I had created that excuse and limited myself.
	So you just gave me another excuse?
	Well, I think it's relevant.
	I didn't tell her because I wanted to tell her in person, but then when we were in person, I didn't tell her but had sex with her.
	Yeah, and I didn't think she would break up and the next time we would see her in person...
	Honestly, I can't do any more of these justifications.
	So why don't you tell me why you told her after you broke up, after a month after you
	broke up?
	I was bothered by something that she was accusing me of in our relationship.
	I didn't care for her or love for her.
	I didn't really understand what it was.
	She was over-sensitive.
	I never insulted her.
	I never degraded her.
	I don't think I ever yelled at her either.
	We had her disagreements and her arguments, but I was decent and respectful with her.
	I don't know what we're doing here. Okay, first of all, she's oversensitive and then you never yelled at her.
	Why did you tell her about cheating on her a month after you broke up?
	So I had realized that in our relationship, I had always had the best interest for her.
	And even when it was difficult or would put a lot of strain on the relationship, I was honest with her about things.
	Hang on, hang on. What are you talking about?
	You said in the relationship, you were always honest with her, but you lied to her about cheating.
	You're right. Okay, so maybe you don't tell me about all of this other bullshit, because now I was honest.
	I wanted what was best for her. No, you didn't.
	You cheated on her, and you lied to her about it.
	But that's one thing.
	What about all the other things that I haven't spoken about that I had done for her?
	So you can cheat on her and lie to her about it if you do other nice things.
	I'm not saying that at all. I'm not saying that at all.
	Yes, you are. You're saying, I got this good stuff that I did for her, therefore the bad stuff is less bad.
	No, then how do I emphasize saying...
	I'm being accused in that situation, that conversation, that I was only lustful for her.
	I did not love her. I did not care for her.
	Sorry, so she was saying to you that you didn't love her But you wanted to have sex with her.
	She was just...
	She was recontextualizing my...
	No, no. Hang on. This is a yes or no thing.
	Was she basically saying, you didn't love me, but you had lust for me?
	Yes. Okay.
	And she would be entirely correct about that.
	Because you lied to her and betrayed her, and that allowed you to have sex with her.
	Okay. But that was the last six months of the relationship.
	What about... All the other time before that.
	The year and a half.
	But this is who you were.
	You were willing to lie to her and betray her in order to have sex with her.
	This was the case from the beginning.
	So she doesn't know what else you might have lied to her about.
	Because you revealed at the end that you lied to her and betrayed her.
	In order to have sex with her, or in part, in order to have sex with her.
	So what she's going to do is she's going to say, well, that's who you were at the end.
	I mean, listen, the guy who came and stole from you, right?
	Stole from your family, stole from your father's restaurant and stole your cell phone, that guy, right?
	Yeah, that family member.
	Okay, that guy. So he stole from you.
	Do you look back and say, I'm sure he was honest last year?
	I'm sure he was not a thief last year.
	No, I don't. Do you sit there and say, well, I'm sure it's only the time I've caught them.
	That's the only time they're dishonest.
	I'm sure the rest of the times they were perfectly honest, right?
	You have to assume they've been stealing from you the whole time, right?
	So you betray her and lie to her In part, in order to have sex with her, and then she says, you don't care about me, you care about the sex.
	I'm not sure how it's possible to disagree with her in any rational or empirical way.
	Well, what about keeping the status quo?
	Because like I said before, I was, at the time, I just didn't know what, I mean, I know I'm saying...
	Oh, you see, more excuses.
	I didn't know what to do. I had the best of intentions, like the oldest excuses.
	Yeah. But that's how I felt at the time.
	I mean, she even lied.
	What do you mean? You lied to her.
	You withheld information from her.
	Yeah. Which, if you had told her, you wouldn't have had sex, right?
	I mean, as well. I mean, I wasn't thinking about that in particular.
	But, I mean, yes.
	Well, see, I don't know what you were and weren't thinking about.
	I also know that you make up excuses and But that's not where my mind goes to.
	Listen, dude, I don't have any trust in what you say about your internal state because you're a manipulator at the moment, right?
	So I keep telling you I can only judge on the facts and then you keep telling me about absolutely unverifiable states of minds and intentions.
	So we're talking completely past each other.
	Yeah, I see that.
	You understand? So you have this whole fog and goo that you come up called my intentions and my good positive things and I didn't mean to and I didn't know what to do and so on, right?
	And I keep telling you I don't trust any of that because it's completely in contradiction with your actions.
	So you have all of this fog that you pull out, which again comes from your family, I assume, and I sympathize for that, I really do, but you're pushing 30, so we've got to be blunt, right?
	I want you to be blunt.
	I'm trying to solve this.
	Okay, so...
	Why did you tell your girlfriend a month after you broke up that you had cheated on her?
	Now here's a tip.
	Assume the darkest motive and work up but from there.
	Because that's called confronting your shadow self.
	Assume the darkest motive and then work up from there.
	If the darkest motive doesn't fit, use the next darkest motive, right?
	And then until you get to one that fits.
	So what's the darkest possible motive that you could have for telling her that you cheated on her?
	Well that it was angry and resentful Yeah, that you wanted to hurt her. Yeah.
	Yeah. Does that fit with what was going on at the time?
	Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I don't know, because I wasn't there, and I have to rely on this rather uncertain narrator on the other end of this call, but that's all right.
	Does that fit with what was happening?
	No, it does. I was very angry that I had, like I said before, the different birth controls that We're being used, you know, how it was affecting the relationship, her mental state, and so I had persisted through that instead of just abandoning her, and I'd finally convinced her to get off of it completely, and then my opportunity to have time with her without all these hormones,
	and especially, you know, she got off of it in January, and, like, it felt...
	There was significant differences.
	The whole time she was having these hormonal issues, you were lying to her about cheating?
	No. Only the last, like I said before, the last six months.
	Okay. And sorry, how long before the end of the relationship did you cheat on her?
	I thought it was six to seven months.
	So, that...
	It was August to February, wasn't it?
	Yeah, it was August.
	Yeah, August to February, but I had had a Yeah, two years.
	I remember that. Sorry.
	So it was the last...
	I can't remember exactly the number of months that she was having these hormonal issues, as you say, right?
	No, the whole time. Oh, the whole time.
	Okay. So I had met her before I started the relationship for about two months, and I started a relationship with her.
	And then about two months into the relationship, She decides to get the implant.
	The implant creates a lot of mental instability.
	Okay, sorry. I just wanted to be clear on that.
	Okay, so you were upset that she didn't trust you about the hormones, is that right?
	No, I was upset that she did trust me.
	She got off of it, and then a month later...
	No, no, but she didn't trust you.
	You were trying for some time to get her off the hormones, right?
	I succeeded with the implant, then she got a hormonal IUD, and even in that conflict, I asked her, please give me a month to do some research to find something that's not hormone-based.
	It's an idea, but not hormone-based.
	Okay, sorry. The details are less important to me than the principle.
	I'm sorry for interrupting, but we've been two and a half hours, and I want to make sure that we can finish the call, right?
	All right, sure. Okay, so you're concerned that she didn't listen to you and agree with you about the hormones sooner rather than later.
	Is that right? I'm more upset about that when she did, then...
	And shortly after she breaks up with me.
	How long were you trying to get her off the hormones for?
	Almost about a year, probably like a year and eight months.
	Okay. So you were upset that she didn't trust you enough to get off the hormones, right?
	She also betrayed me, too.
	And how did she betray you?
	Well, that's what I was getting with the hormone IUD is that I asked for a month and she didn't tell me that she didn't tell me the situation that she needed to get it in sooner and so she just decided and then I find out after the fact that she just went with that and didn't say oh you know what like I'm These are the new facts of the situation.
	You don't have a month.
	Now you have two weeks. She said nothing at all, and she's put it in.
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	So she switched birth controls without telling you?
	Yes. So she had an implant, and then she had a hormonal-based IUD, which is...
	And how long before the end, you said, was it a month before the end of the relationship, she switched things?
	No. This was about a...
	Would be in the middle of the relationship.
	Okay, so like a year or so in, she switched birth controls and she didn't tell you?
	It's not that.
	How did she betray you?
	Explain it to me like I'm five years old.
	How did she betray you? That's what I'm saying.
	She needed to switch the birth control.
	I asked for a certain amount of time to find not the one that she...
	Sorry.
	She needed to switch birth controls.
	And I asked her for some time to do a proper research so that we don't get into the same problem that she had with the implant.
	She does the necessary research to get...
	Sorry. The betrayal, so the betrayal was...
	I asked for a month to do research.
	Turns out she doesn't have a month, and instead of telling me, hey, you don't have a month, you have about two weeks, she says nothing at all and just makes a decision on her own about that.
	So she had already decided to switch birth controls and it was going to happen in two weeks?
	I don't understand the two-week deadline.
	Sorry if I'm being dense, I just don't understand it.
	Well, because of the idea how it's inserted into...
	Into the uterus.
	So the amount of time where she couldn't have sex and such and things like that.
	So she wanted to have it before that.
	So then when she came to visit me, which was going to be Okay, it doesn't matter exactly when.
	Yeah, it was going to be soon.
	She was trying to time the switch in birth control so that you could have sex when she came to visit.
	Yeah. Okay. And she said, you said, give me a month.
	She said, okay, but she in fact only had two weeks because she had to switch the birth control so that you could have sex when she came to visit.
	Is that right? Yes.
	Okay. So she betrayed you because you thought you had a month, but you only had two weeks?
	Yes, and do you know why she didn't tell you I'm getting it switched so that we can have sex when I come to visit
	And there's only two weeks I think I know I don't
	I only have a theory. So, I mean, it could have been that she wanted to surprise you, right?
	And also, the IUD doesn't have any particular...
	It's not a hormonal thing, right?
	It's not a physical thing, right? No, she chose the hormonal one.
	Oh, she chose the hormonal one.
	Oh, she got the IUD removed, and then she went on the hormonal one.
	No, so she had a hormonal implant, and then she switched to an IUD that has milder hormones, and that was where our disagreement was.
	I was saying, overall, any kind of synthetic hormone...
	It really throws off her brain chemistry, but I'm not a professional.
	But at least physically, how she would act, there was a distinct difference.
	So you wanted her off the hormones completely, right?
	If you could. Yeah, because she was being very erratic and doing very concerning things.
	You understand that there's a completely obvious question that's just circling around in my brain.
	And what's that? Why don't you wear a fucking condom?
	Yeah, I mean, that was part of the reason.
	That was one of the considerations that I was willing to do, but because she took that choice away from me by just making the decision and not informing me what had changed.
	Because at the time when we had the conversation...
	So you said to her, it's really good for you to get off the hormones.
	Here's all the research. I'll wear a condom.
	And let's not do hormonal birth control.
	I'll wear a condom. And you said that to her, and she's like, no, I want to stay on the hormonal birth control.
	See, not even that interaction happened.
	First was, I was convincing her and telling her, I noticed a difference between when you were off before you had the implant and afterwards.
	A lot of your emotional distress is from the IUD. Right.
	So then you say, let's drop this because it's bad for you.
	I'll wear a condom and we'll be fine.
	Yeah, I should have said that.
	What do you mean you shouldn't have? What do you mean?
	Don't give me shoulds.
	You wanted her off hormonal birth control and the easiest solution is to wear a condom.
	Yeah, and I didn't specifically say that.
	What do you mean specifically is another weasel word, brother.
	No. Did you tell her, I'll wear a condom, get off the birth control?
	I did not offer that, but it was...
	Why did you not offer that?
	Because I wanted to...
	Because at the time in the conversation...
	Because you preferred sex with...
	Come on, brother. Man to man, you preferred sex without a condom.
	Yes. Okay, so that's selfish, right?
	You want her to muck around with various hormones because you want to have sex without a condom.
	You're willing to sacrifice her mood stability, experiment on her, all these weird things, because you want to have sex without a condom.
	And you feel like the victim here.
	But... But that's with the assumption that I knew all that I... No, no, no, no.
	I didn't know all of this information.
	You either tell me the truth or I'm not talking.
	Honestly, come on. Don't bullshit me.
	Like, I've had enough. I've frankly had enough.
	I mean, I'm not... No, no, don't, don't, don't.
	Stop talking. You must stop talking because everything that you come out with is weasel words.
	I don't know how to talk about it.
	Do you want to keep talking over me while I tell you not to?
	Do you want to try that? Because your life, man, if you want the help, take the help.
	If you want to talk over me, I've got a lovely day outside.
	I've got tons of stuff to do.
	I'm listening. You are extremely selfish.
	Because you never even offered to wear a condom so that she didn't have to take hormonal birth control.
	Come on. Let's be real here.
	You've got to stop this tsunami of weasel words and justifications and excuses.
	And I didn't explicitly...
	No. The easiest solution to get her off hormonal birth control was to have non-vaginal sex or to wear a condom.
	Can we agree on that fact?
	Okay. So, when she says, you didn't care about me, it was just about lust, she's also saying, not only did you lie to me and have sex with me, in a sense, against my will, because you weren't telling me the truth about your affair, but also, you're incredibly angry at me.
	And upset and frustrated because I was trying all these various forms of hormonal birth control that you told me to get off, but you wouldn't even wear a condom.
	So you placed your desire for condom-free sex above what you called my health.
	So you weren't willing to sacrifice the pleasure of having sex without a condom.
	You weren't willing to sacrifice that in order for me to be healthy.
	So of course she's going to say you care more about sex than me.
	Of course she did. Of course she would.
	You care more about your own pleasure than my mental and physical health.
	And how could she possibly be wrong about that, given the evidence of what happened?
	See, I'm trying to get you to understand what it is to really care about someone, and I'm really sorry that this was not modeled for you as a kid, that your father used women and hurt women, and he did.
	Men can survive promiscuity better than women.
	And you chose your own selfish sexual pleasure over the physical and mental well-being of your girlfriend.
	And then she says, you are consumed by lust and don't care about me as much.
	I mean, how is she wrong?
	You experiment on yourself, honey, because I want to raw dog it.
	Thank you.
	You do all these things that I say are bad for your physical and mental health
	But I'll be goddamn just I'll never put on a condom See you got a bit of a shadow self here, right
	Thank you.
	Yeah. And then, after you break up, you're angry at her, and then you tell her about having betrayed her.
	And then she gets to look back on all those times that you were together and you had sex and she could smell the stink of another woman on you.
	That's very destructive.
	It doesn't help her, does it?
	It just makes everything horrible about the last six or seven months of your relationship.
	And then looking back even further, she then has to wonder why she didn't see that in you at all.
	And then she has to say, I don't know, did she ever bring up the condom thing herself?
	No. Right.
	So then she has to say, he thinks I betrayed him by not giving him the right timing of the biochemical experimentation on my hormonal system.
	him, he thinks I betrayed him, but he never once brought up wearing a condom as the solution.
	He's a good guy.
	If you want to dare, I admire your courage.
	Give me a but. Give me an excuse.
	Go for it. I just...
	I don't know.
	I'm saying this because, like...
	I take responsibility for not...
	for... For not prioritizing that, immediately noticing what was going on with the implants and guaranteeing her, it's like, whatever you do, let's just use a condom like being upfront and straightforward and insisting on that from the beginning to make sure that she doesn't choose any other option.
	So you're saying, hang on, you thought about it but rejected it.
	Well, I mean, like you're saying, it's an obvious...
	No, no, did you think about it?
	In the year and a half that you wanted to get her off hormonal birth control, you thought about using a condom as the solution, right?
	Is that right? No, so the part where...
	No, just a yes or no, dude.
	Just answer the question. No, there's an essential...
	No. No, did you think in the 18 months that you wanted her off hormonal birth control?
	It was not 18 months.
	No, no. It was first six months with the implant, which is stronger hormones.
	And then the other year and a half was with the IUD. So these are two separate events.
	I agreed to and accepted with the implant.
	I realized it was wrong.
	And then eventually I convinced her to get rid of that implant, which provided an opportunity for a different kind of treatment.
	A different kind of contraceptive.
	Okay, so you wanted her to be off female birth control for quite some time.
	Yeah, I was coming to the conclusion that it's overall bad, not even a little bit.
	I was understanding the situation because I only knew generalities.
	Like, I did not know specifics.
	Like, okay, how is this bad for her?
	How is this going to affect her?
	To what degree? Like, more actionable information.
	I just knew generalities from what I learned in biology, at school, and things like that.
	And so, as I'm kind of sorting out and understanding the situation, and I'm having these conversations with her, and I'm asking her, give me time while she was going to change from the implant.
	She was getting rid of the...
	Honestly, my fucking life is dripping away, sand by sand here.
	I'm sorry. Did you say...
	You did not offer to her to wear a condom as a solution to birth control?
	It was not the primary thing.
	Did you offer to her to wear a condom as the solution to birth control?
	You didn't. You already told me you didn't.
	No, I didn't. Listen, that's selfish, right?
	That is. I agree with that.
	And it was selfish to tell her you cheated after you broke up.
	And I agree with that too, yeah.
	Okay. So, you're going to pay a price for that if you don't admit it.
	If you admit it, you pay a short-term price, which is realizing that you, like me, like everyone, has a bad side.
	So you confront that.
	Instead of making all of this bullshit excuses and crap, right?
	You can just say, look, yes, I used her.
	I manipulated her. I was selfish.
	I hurt her. I lashed out.
	I did some bad things, right?
	And so knowing that you have that capacity, you can begin to work with it and deal with it, right?
	But if you make all these excuses, like here's partly what I've been doing, sort of just as we end up here.
	This is partly what I've been doing over the course of this conversation.
	So I assume that one of your primary issues is at some point you might like to date, you might like to get married, you might like to become a father, these kinds of things.
	Is that right? Yeah.
	Right. So partly what I'm listening for, I'm listening as the character called a quality woman listening to you talk.
	Because you want to marry a quality woman, right?
	You want to marry a woman with intelligence and virtue, integrity, compassion, and honesty and directness, all of these things.
	You want that in a wife, right?
	I do. Okay.
	So, when you listen back to this call, try listening as I was listening, which is, I'm a quality woman, and I'm listening to you talk about your life.
	Now, when a quality woman listens to you, blame other people, Make endless excuses, fog, prevaricate, gaslight, refuse to answer questions.
	Is she going to want to marry you?
	No. So that's the price of refusing to confront your dark side is you can't be loved.
	You follow? You can neither love nor be loved.
	Because your dark side is in control because it generates this bullshit and camouflage called excuses.
	And excuses are promises of repetition.
	Unfortunately, you were raised by what I view as some pretty selfish people.
	And so you have...
	I mean, we have it by nature, but we also...
	You have it, I think, by conditioning, which is...
	Yeah, your own pleasure is really what matters, and other people have to do what...
	You want, and if they don't, they're betraying you.
	And you can choose whether to tell people the truth.
	And if you're fighting with your girlfriend, you can flirt and end up naked in bed with another woman.
	And if you have an intention that's just as good as doing it, and you don't tell the truth when it's convenient to you, because you are full of lust for your girlfriend, so you won't tell her about cheating on her so you can have sex with her.
	But then when you're angry at her, you will then tell her because it's convenient to discharge your anger because you want to hurt her.
	Like, it's all about your convenience and what's pleasurable for you in the moment and what's good for you in the moment and what satisfies you in the moment.
	I'm not saying that's all you are, but you understand that there's an element of that in your personality, right?
	Yeah, I agree.
	So, now that you know you have these capacities, you have to figure out how to challenge them.
	Yeah, I agree. Now, since a lot of them, would you say a fair number of them, particularly in your relationships with women, would you say a fair number of them came from your father?
	I don't understand the question.
	Can you repeat? Well, since a lot of the dysfunctions that you have or the way that your dark side manifests is in your relationships with women, with your girlfriend, right?
	I'm sorry. I'm a bit lost.
	I... Well, so some of the bad stuff that we've been talking about, most of the bad stuff we've been talking about had to do with your ex-girlfriend, is that right?
	Yeah, that's, yeah, well, yeah.
	Okay, so if you continue to work with your father, to live under his roof, and to take his paycheck, that's the situation right now, is that right?
	I'm not taking his paycheck.
	So I'm actually in between jobs.
	I made a few steps, but I think that's an excuse.
	No, that's fine. So you quit the restaurant, right?
	I did, yeah. Okay, so how are you paying your bills?
	You have savings? I have savings, but also, too, what ended up happening was my grandmother was dying since I didn't leave early enough so that someone else could take care of her.
	I stayed to take care of her until she passed away, and so I asked for compensation for that.
	And it was very, like, beforehand my dad was just milking that for me, and that was straightforward because I told him about a year ago, I was like, I'm not working in the restaurant anymore, like, I'm done.
	And so then he started paying me to take care of my grandmother, and then I asked for more when she was dying, and she needed more attention.
	Wait, sorry, you were profiting from your grandmother's Dying?
	Well, nobody else was...
	So my father's agreement with his siblings because three of them live in Mexico because they're from there.
	And so they weren't there for my grandmother.
	So my grandmother was quite immobile that...
	And this is even before we suspected...
	Well, it's before...
	I'm so sorry.
	I'm complicating things.
	Yeah. They were not fulfilling the responsibilities in which my grandmother was being neglected.
	So if I didn't do something, then she would not be fed.
	She also was a dialysis patient, so she wouldn't make it to dialysis.
	So I kind of slowly got pulled into that responsibility for many years, and then I started asking to be compensated for that, especially when I stopped working.
	Because I'm like, I'm getting a job or I'm doing this enough to be paid for.
	I'm not doing one or the other.
	This is not my responsibility.
	I was also very angry about that too.
	Does that answer your question?
	Okay, I get it.
	How long did you take care of your grandmother for?
	When did you get the pay bump?
	In February is when I started asking to be paid for.
	No. Like this February?
	This February. And then I asked for more when she was actually dying.
	She passed away in June.
	But really, we started noticing that she wasn't going to make it in May.
	And that's when I asked for more because I was doing more for her.
	I even had to start carrying her and things like that.
	Okay. Got it. I understand.
	I understand. All right. Okay.
	And is there anything else that you would like to mention?
	This sort of confrontation of the dark side is probably a useful thing to be doing.
	So you got paid for that and that's part of how your bills are being paid or is that how you're paying your bills?
	Is your dad charging you rent or groceries?
	My dad's not charging me rent.
	I pay for my own groceries and insurance and things like that.
	Yeah, with that money, I had some savings before that, and I was using that to get by, just being on a budget.
	And how long till you run out of money?
	Well, a few more weeks, actually.
	Right, okay. And so, as you said at the beginning, your dad is selling the house, right?
	Yeah. So, is your concern that you don't have the money to live on your own?
	No, I just don't have that trust.
	Trust in what? In myself.
	Well, you haven't confronted your dark side.
	How can you trust yourself? This is the price of excuses.
	The price of excuses is you can't trust yourself.
	Because if something uncomfortable happens, you can just make up an excuse.
	Yeah, exactly.
	But if you're about to run out of money in a few weeks, even with your father paying your rent, Then where are you going to live?
	He's got a new place, I assume, right?
	Are you going to live at the new place?
	No, not at all.
	So what are you going to do?
	Get a job and start renting.
	Okay, so it's actually a pretty good thing, isn't it, then, that your dad is selling the place?
	It kind of kicks you in the butt and gets you moving?
	Yeah, I'm...
	I mean, I'm indifferent about that, personally, but...
	Well, you brought it up as the first issue at the beginning of this rather epic call, so I assume you're not completely indifferent about it.
	Yeah, I mean... It helped you when you brought up, well, my dad's selling the place and moving, and I assumed that was the big issue.
	It is the big issue because it goes back to not trusting myself in that dark state.
	I'm sorry, is it the big issue or are you indifferent to it?
	I'm... I'm indifferent to the cause, but it's the big issue, the effect.
	What? What do you mean?
	I don't know what...
	The selling of the house...
	I said it could be a good thing because it kicks you out in your butt and you said I'm indifferent to it.
	Yeah, I mean, I've been making small steps and very little progress with leaving my father's home for, I would say, the last past five years.
	Ah, but it's okay because you've had good intentions, right?
	No, that's just been a mess.
	Little by little, I've just been clawing myself out.
	Not very well at all.
	Well, no, you haven't been leaving.
	Again, I'm sort of trying to remind you of the language, right?
	Like, empirically, you've stayed on your dad's paycheck, right?
	Or you've stayed on your dad's income, you've stayed on your dad's mortgage, you've stayed on your dad's income, right?
	Yeah, exactly. I mean, so this clawing yourself out bit by bit or whatever, like, I don't even know what that means.
	Like, just judge your life empirically.
	And don't give yourself the excuse of intentions, right?
	So you've stayed home.
	You stayed with your dad. You've had him pay you most of your bills, right?
	Exactly. Well, I guess you got paid at the restaurant though, right?
	Yeah, I did in the beginning.
	I mean in the end, actually not the beginning.
	Oh, so for how long did you work for free at the restaurant?
	Many years.
	It was only the last two years.
	Your dad wouldn't give you a paycheck. I'm sorry, don't mean to laugh, but your dad, who's running a very successful restaurant, wouldn't give you a paycheck for the work you did?
	Well, since 2008, it's been declining.
	Okay, so he basically got free labor from you for the restaurant.
	I mean, he paid for the mortgage, but he was going to pay that either way, right?
	Yeah, including various other bills that he claims that I owe him money for.
	Oh, so he didn't pay you at the restaurant, and he claims that you owe him money for various bills?
	No, he's saying I don't need to pay you as much because most of the time he would give me some money under the table, so to speak.
	And so he just kind of took advantage of this very nebulous agreement that we had.
	So is it fair to say you were somewhat exploited by your father?
	I was completely exploited.
	Even at one point where I was keeping track of my hours, because my father was low in cash, there was probably very low in cash, and so I said, okay, just pay me this amount because this is what I need, and then I'll just treat you like a bank, and I'll just get the rest of my money later.
	And then I got sick, and I was asking for more money, and at one point he's just like, no, I don't have to.
	I'm like, what do you mean you don't have to?
	Like, you owe me this money, and I got the money, but like...
	I mean, that's one example of a few other ones where he...
	And of course, I'm really sorry about that, but that's sort of part I'm saying.
	Your capacity to exploit others is well-modeled by your father's capacity to exploit you and women and whoever, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, so you've got to watch out for that, right?
	I mean, because if that's your modeling, right?
	That you just exploit people to get what you want and then just gaslight them when they ask for...
	Some fairness. That's not totally unknown in your relationship with your Swedish girlfriend, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.
	Okay. Well, listen, obviously, I'm really sorry for what happened to you as a kid.
	This is really, really...
	I appreciate your patience as I try and thwack through some of this, at least for me, confusing undergrowth, and I'm sorry if I missed some obvious stuff, and I wish you the very best.
	Personally, I think you'll probably look back at your father selling the house as being like, okay, got to get your life going.
	You're pushing 30. You might want to...
	Have some independence and some income and so on.
	And, you know, stand on your own two feet.
	It's not like he's kicking you out of the nest at the age of 14 or something.
	So it probably will end up being a good thing, but I completely understand that it's nerve-wracking in the moment, if that makes sense.
	But to me, it's more paralyzing.
	And, like, consistently getting, like, facing and acting on my want to get away from my father is, it's like, Walking, well, like what you said, through some very slippery quicksand, especially emotionally.
	Well, but you're not going to starve to death on a street corner.
	You're a smart young man.
	You'll find a place to land.
	It's a fine time to panic.
	There's nothing wrong with panicking in life.
	Some great stuff can happen from panicking, right?
	Like a woman can panic about her closing fertility window and decide to settle down and have a family.
	I remember running out of money.
	I was a little younger than you, but I remember running out of money and just completely panicking and finally getting my first real job.
	Panic is fine.
	It's a good thing.
	If your life is kind of stagnant, the panic can get you moving.
	It probably would have been better if you decided to do it for yourself rather than, in a sense, being kicked out because your dad is selling and moving.
	But, I mean, you'll be fine.
	I mean, our ancestors survived...
	Famines, plagues, wars, terrible weather, shortages of crops, predators, saber-toothed tigers, right?
	Our further back ancestors managed to outlive dinosaurs 10,000 times their size, right?
	So, life finds a way, you'll be fine.
	And the reason you don't trust yourself, that's the price you pay for having your dad pay your bills to a large degree for the past 10 or so years, 9 years, right?
	Your lack of...
	It's like saying, well, I can't lift any weights because I haven't lifted any weights.
	And it's like, well, you know, you start off and then you get stronger and you'll be fine.
	So you will go out into the world pushing 30 and you will get a job and you will get a place and you'll be fine.
	I mean, you're not just going to curl up at a ball and starve to death under a bridge, right?
	So you'll be fine.
	And through that process...
	You will recognize that you can trust yourself.
	And also not creating fogs and excuses for past bad behavior.
	Yeah, you did some bad stuff.
	It's called being a dude.
	It's called being human. We've all done some bad stuff.
	And confronting that and not making excuses is the best way to avoid it, if that makes any sense.
	But yeah, I mean, you'll be fine.
	You're smart.
	Your language skills are excellent.
	You obviously have a good work ethic.
	I mean, you've done some difficult stuff.
	Working in restaurants is tough.
	Taking care of Dying relatives is tough, so you've got some willpower, you've got intelligence, you've got verbal skills, and you'll be fine.
	I mean, you will have a great place to land, and your life will be better.
	I'm completely certain of that.
	I know that my certainty doesn't mean much to you, because I'm not you, but I mean, I've talked to a lot of people, and I've heard a lot of dire stories, but you'll land on your feet, and you'll be much stronger thereby, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. All right, will you keep me posted about how things go?
	I will, yeah. Yes, I will.
	All right. Thanks, man. I really, really appreciate it and have yourself a great afternoon.
	You too. I also really, really appreciate it.
	My pleasure. Bye. All right.

▲