All Episodes
Previous Next
July 11, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:05:42
THE LOVE OF MY LIFE JUST DIED! Freedomain Call In
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
I'm all ears, man.
Tell me.
Let's get an update.
What's the story?
Okay.
I'm thinking how much detail I should go in first off, because if I'm too specific, it'll give it away.
But long story short, a few weeks ago, a tragic accident occurred and she died.
For more specifics, The listeners, or you can remember, she and I were together when we called in and she called in for an episode of herself.
And yeah, a few weeks ago, she suddenly died right before we were going to meet up and potentially kick things off again.
So it was quite a shock.
And that's the detail of the story that I can think of.
Yeah, so I guess tell me what's been going on since the last time we chatted.
Since the last, was that like two years ago?
Three years ago?
Yeah, it's been a while.
It's been a while, yeah.
Since then I have, I moved out of the area I was before her and started traveling and trying to find a Communities all over the place.
I joined up some, um, man, I don't know how specific to be here, uh, in some places in the Northern States, some of the middle States and, um, just having a good time.
And then two years ago, I moved to a city, um, because of some friends and opportunity.
And that's where I finally found my footing, uh, moved in with some good friends and now, uh, have gotten my career going pretty well.
And it's a funny career.
So, um, I'm a professional poker player now.
And, and, uh, it's been working out, uh, given our last call that my issue was trying to find like financial stability and how to work things out given my status, but that has worked out extremely well for me.
Wow.
How interesting.
Interesting.
Yeah, poker is a great mystery to me.
So you may have heard that the challenging game of war, where you lay down one card, and another person lays down another card, and the higher card wins.
My daughter was very into that until she was about five or six, but I still find it quite challenging.
So poker to me is another planet, and well done, and all of that, and congratulations.
Anything else that we should know before we dive into what happened with the woman?
I don't think they're related to the woman.
I think they're like separate topics, if that makes sense.
So as far as I'm aware, I think we can dive into that.
Go for it.
Oh, no, where should I start?
Well, I suppose.
What happened with the girl of your dreams, the woman of your dreams, before, obviously, her untimely passing?
How did things go with that?
Well, we were good friends, continued to talk, all that.
Met up a few times here and there, just on our travels.
We planned to do that ever since we stopped seeing each other.
But in that timeline, we kept realizing, yeah, it's like, yeah, we're pretty decent for each other.
And we were planning to meet up again, like I was saying.
And right before that, plane crash.
And just all of a sudden, that's all I can say.
So, I mean, You had, I mean, a couple of years, and I'm sort of just trying to figure out what happened with regards to that couple of years and your wooing and all of that.
Oh, the couple of years?
No, that was just... I'm moving on.
We're both moving on.
We're just going to stay long-distance friends because we're in different states.
Um, and there was no significant intent to rekindle things until it slowly I slowly realized Yeah, you should I should definitely try um given Given I couldn't quite Like even even in our commerce conversations through it and my thought process through it.
I still think the main issue was money at the time and since I got that solid it's like, okay, let's confirm it and That's that's about it in between.
There was not a tremendous amount of interaction between us.
Like it was when we were in a relationship, obviously.
But.
That's about it, yeah.
So, again, my massive sympathies.
Is it is it too specific to ask what happened to her?
Plane crash.
Gosh.
And a commercial private, big, small.
Small private.
Yeah.
Wow.
Um, half her family got wiped out.
Was it a business recreation?
Um, recreation.
Thinking details.
Yeah.
Recreation.
Okay.
And she was not your girlfriend.
Do I have that right?
Or she was, but it was long distance?
Or how was that working?
Not at that time.
Three years ago, we were.
And just sort of help, because I'm trying to figure out how things play between you guys.
Yeah.
So how did she, like, how did the relationship arc go from, because, you know, last time we talked you were sort of yearning for her and then what happened since?
Um, the relationship arc was like, we, we broke things off, um, in our separate ways.
I, we essentially said, nah, we're just going to move on, continue.
Um, and, uh, yeah, I just, that's about it really just moving on and saying, yeah, we're long distance friends.
Uh, we'll meet up once in a while.
We'll keep some of the promises we kept even after the breakup.
Um, yeah, not much, um, occurred.
I do remember we actually, we actually had a, another call where I kind of went into detail with it.
Um, Okay, so how much in touch have you been over the last while?
Oh, like, like calling once a, not calling, like texting once a week.
So fairly regularly.
And, um, yeah, we were planning a little, a little trip together, um, in a nearby place cause she was passing through town and that didn't, that didn't go through.
And how did, was somebody she knew told you or you've read about it or how did you find out?
Yeah, a close mutual friend of ours told me.
I was like, oh my, he can't be serious.
But yeah, it was.
Wow.
Now, did you have sort of thoughts of the future or plans?
Oh, yes.
Like, you know, for now, we're just hanging out, but maybe someday, that kind of stuff?
No, there was intent for me to start things up again on that meeting.
To be like, yes, look, look how we've changed.
Let's see what's up.
And I still imagine that future together.
The intent was to meet there and continue forward with that, and I'm pretty sure it could have happened.
And what had prevented that from happening before?
I think, well, one heard Schooling and my work.
So I'm just, I'm just grinding.
She's just grinding.
We're just in separate towns.
It could have happened, but the timing there worked out really well because she was just finishing up school.
That was, that was another, yeah.
So, how can I help you?
I mean, I have some thoughts, but I mean, this is your sorrow, and I don't want to sort of impose my thoughts on your sorrow, so what is it that you would like to most talk about?
I've always talked about how grief was something I'm unfamiliar with when I'm with friends who are grieving.
I've never experienced it, I don't know what it's like, and now I experience it for the first time all of a sudden.
And I myself don't know what to do about it, really.
I can logic through it, but I don't know how to emotionally process it at all.
And it took a lot out of me for like, right after it happened, but I've slowly recovered and moved on.
And I'm glad I took that time to do it instead of just jumping in right away and moving on.
And sorry, you don't have to give me the specifics, but it's been weeks since it happened, or what sort of time frame?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, a few weeks.
Sorry, how long?
A few weeks, yeah.
A few weeks, okay.
And tell me what's happened for you emotionally over those couple of weeks.
The first week just...
Devastated, could barely function, can't sleep, can't eat.
Like an area in my stomach died.
That's where it felt and it was just gone and empty.
But then recovered fairly quickly and I had just a tremendous outpouring of support by the people around me and the mutual friend of ours.
So it, I helped recover really fast.
Um, and, um, there's, there's a unique emotion that's coming recently.
And this is part of why I wanted to call you, um, this, this feeling of like, um, not really a feeling it's like, there's no what ifs anymore.
Yeah.
I can't make a decision going forward with like some other woman and be like, no, what if it was her?
No, that's not possible anymore.
So there's this sense of relief, actually, in like a almost dark way.
I'm trying to make that positive, if that makes any sense.
I'm trying to describe emotions.
No, no, I get a vague sense of what you're talking about, but if you could tell me more, that'd be great.
My main thing going forward with any girl that I was dating or pursuing, it was always a what-if scenario.
What if compared to her?
What if I just had the relationship with her?
What if I dropped this girl and pursued her instead?
Because I would always think, yeah, she's the best one for me.
But now that possibility is gone.
I can't do that anymore.
So it just opens things up in a clean way, if that makes any sense.
That's the best I could do.
No, no, I can understand that.
I mean, to put it mildly, she's off the table, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, and what else has been occurring for you?
I think...
Ugh.
That might be it, emotionally.
Just logically.
I'm trying to push it to move on faster.
My move on faster is with that path that I was going to do with pursuing her and go find someone else to pursue.
Just a quick pivot, but I don't know if that's too fast or something, given that we weren't, like, exactly in that relationship at the time, but... Regardless, life's short.
And how long... Yeah, for some, for sure.
So, for how long were you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?
It was... two years.
Okay.
And you're a young man, right?
I'm getting older now.
Twenties, thirties?
Close to thirty.
Close to thirty, okay.
Still twenties.
Okay, and she was your first, I mean, she was your big love, right?
She was my big love.
My first, like, genuine one, yes.
Right.
And, sorry to keep circling back, I just really want to sort of understand what the factors were that kept you apart.
It wasn't a lack of love, right?
It was not.
That wasn't it.
OK, so what were the factors?
You said school and so on, but those are all surmountable, right?
They were surmountable, yes.
I know we're circling back to it, but that's something that I've never been able to have proper closure on.
I've just always thought I just need to be more financially secure.
But I did have this one theory.
Uh, you can call me out on this one, but my woo-woo theory was, um, the fact that it didn't work out was because that this would have been the inevitable result.
Um, so it kept, uh, what?
I'm sorry.
I'm just, I want to make sure I understand what you're saying.
Your woo-woo theory is that if you get together with her, she's going to die.
Now that, and me too, cause I would have been in the plane.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Hang on, hang on.
Okay, well, tell me your woo-woo, and then we'll sort of get to the anti-woo-woo position.
So, go ahead.
That's the woo-woo.
It's like, if we were together... Now, the reason we couldn't figure out why we can't be together properly was because if we were together, we would have both died in the plane.
But it's just woo-woo, and I can throw that out immediately.
Well, no, but it was a thought, right?
And a fairly significant thought, right?
I mean, certainly if you love someone and you feel like the ending of your romance or your love or your passion is going to be some Romeo and Juliet fiery crash, I can see that causing hesitation, but where would the thought... Because obviously you didn't know about the plane crash in the past, so where did the thought come from?
It came after the fact, as a way that...
It like explains the quote unexplained.
Oh, so sorry.
So this thought of the fiery, the thought of loving is dying came after the crash?
Yes.
Oh, okay.
No, no.
I was asking what kept you apart before.
Oh.
And that, that was, um, that was the woo-woo thought.
No, but that's after.
I know, but there was like a premonition, like the, We can drop it because this is not something I seriously believe.
Okay, so we can drop it, but then what was it that kept you guys apart before the crash?
I still say money.
Well, money is just a passive record, right?
So money doesn't keep you apart.
It's not like a bouncer or a bodyguard or a dad with a shotgun chasing you off the property.
So what was it about money that kept you apart?
Um, well, I barely had any and it was very difficult to make it.
Um, and then with poker, it takes a while to get things rolling.
If you get up, if you don't ride the variance train properly, but I got it rolling and so I was ready to fix that.
And that's, I guess that's all I can think of.
And was that her perspective as well?
That money was the issue?
Um, it was not her perspective, but she did not know.
Even when she talked to you, she just said, I don't know.
Right.
So she said, I don't, do you remember the title of our show?
Uh, I don't know them now.
Okay.
Yeah.
If you can remember afterwards, the one I, uh, I think I know the one I did with you.
I can't remember the one I did with her.
Mm-hmm.
I'm in love with an illegal immigrant.
Ah, OK.
Well, that would certainly be it.
OK.
Now, so she was OK with the money issue, right?
She said so, yeah.
OK.
And, of course, most of her ancestors got together and raised families on incomes we would consider, like, equivalent to homelessness, right?
No, she was a very wealthy upbringing.
No, no, I mean an ancestress, I say, not her.
Like, you know, you talk about the Middle Ages, the people made the equivalent of like 40 cents a day or something like that.
Sure, yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, if money was the issue, none of us would be here, right?
Yeah, I agree.
So, it was not the money thing in particular, but it was your perception of the money thing that you had to have enough money.
And then you said when the poker stuff got rolling, how long ago was that, where you started to make some decent coin?
Oh, that was like six months ago.
Okay.
Okay.
And then you were hoping to be able to get together with her in the upcoming trip when she was coming through town and make a play for her heart, right?
Yes.
Okay.
And the breakup, after the two years together, the breakup was on your side, is that right?
Her side.
Her side.
And her argument was, uh, what?
Um, we weren't happy.
We should be happy, but we aren't happy.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
Well, now the, we did, did she mean herself or did, or both of you?
Both.
Cause we were unhappy.
Okay.
So what does it mean when you say to process the grief or to process the pain?
What does that mean to you?
Uh, Oh, even, I don't know what that means.
It's like what, what to do with it.
I don't know.
The point being is if I just get stuck there in the grief, I don't function.
Lay in bed, don't eat, can't sleep.
You can't live like that.
Your heart is broken, right?
Yeah.
It doesn't mean forever, but it certainly is heartbreaking that the great sort of passion of your relatively young life just died, right?
Yep.
Okay.
So, and your fear is that you get stuck in the grief and you kind of waste away or can't function and things just get awful, like worse and worse, right?
That was my initial fear, like the day or two after it happened.
The more long-term fear would be potentially sabotaging future relationships with the comparison or like a ghost of her.
That makes any sense.
Yeah, no, I get that.
I mean, she's perfect in a way, right?
Yeah.
I mean, because the imperfections that creep up in everyday relationships are never going to materialize, right?
Correct.
Okay.
So I'm floundering a little bit because I'm trying to figure out how I can help you, but I'm not sure what the issues are.
I mean, I can certainly talk with you about grief.
I've certainly had my share over the years, but I feel, my sort of experience of the call is, I say, how can I help you?
And you say this.
I say, okay, well, like this.
And you say, no, that's not really an issue, right?
So you say, how can I help you process in grief?
Well, I, you know, I have a concern that I'm going to lie in bed and I say, okay, well, we can talk about that.
And you say, well, that's not really an issue.
And so on, right?
So I'm not sure how I can help.
I'm certainly happy to listen, but I'm not sure how I can help because I'm not sure What your major concern is, if that makes sense.
And you may have explained it and I missed it, so I apologize for that.
No, I agree with the grief.
I don't know what to do with it.
So hearing just your experiences with grief and what you went through with that would help a lot.
Right.
Okay, so I guess the philosophical question is, why do we grieve?
Why do we grieve?
Now, of course, grief is related to a loss.
We have to lose something in order to grieve.
And grief is the price we pay for attachment, right?
I mean, there's sort of been, like, rabbits get taken by hawks and the other rabbits barely look up from eating because they don't pair bond.
Whereas if, you know, wolves lose their mates, they grieve because... So the price of the pair bond is grief. And there are two types of grief in general. One
is loss and the other is regret.
And you know if you think of someone, you know my wife and I are very happily married and
you know one day probably one of us is going to die and the other one isn't.
And it's, you know, statistically more likely to be me, because women live longer, right?
So, she's going to hold my hand for the last time, and I'm going to slip into the great beyond, alive only in bits and bytes.
And she's going to have to live on without me, which is, you know, going to be very tough.
Or it could happen the other way, or maybe we both die simultaneously in some accident, or whatever.
So, that grief is the result of just loss, and that's the price you pay for the pair bond.
There's nothing free in the world, right?
And, you know, the people who don't really experience grief are the people who don't pair bond.
Everyone's kind of interchangeable.
There may be some regret and loss of status, but that's all social hierarchy stuff.
It's not genuine love and pair bonding.
So, yeah, the price we pay for pair bonding is grief.
Now, yours is a very challenging situation, and I feel for your heart about this, brother, because you have both loss and, I'm going to go out on a limb here, a little bit of regret as well.
Because you were close to changing things in her life and your life and you had reached that place where you wanted to really make a solid play for the permanent pair bond, right?
I mean you wanted to maybe marry this girl and have children with her and so on and so there's the loss and there's some regret.
As well.
You know, so the typical thing is, you know, some cold-hearted guy who never tells his wife he loves her and then she dies, he has the loss of his wife and he also has the regret of all he didn't say, right?
I mean, I may have regrets later in my life, but I don't think I'll have regrets that I didn't say enough.
That's one thing for sure I won't have.
So, I guess, if we look at it this way, that there's both loss and regret, Where do you stand on those two polls?
I stand heavier on the loss.
I would say it's like 90% loss.
90% loss.
I'm just sort of telling you.
Because you had two years, and sorry to ask you again, how long has it been since you guys were a couple?
Two or three.
Two or three years?
And those two or three years, have you dated anybody else?
Yeah, it's been a lot.
Oh, you've dated a lot of other girls over that time, right?
Okay.
And were you looking for someone that you could fall in love with in the way that you fell in love with the girl who died?
Or were you just looking, just passing time and waiting for her or waiting to be worthy of the girl?
Or what were you doing in this sort of dating life?
It was independent, looking for a new love.
Yes.
Okay.
And how many girls, you don't have to tell me exactly, but in the last couple of years since you were with the girl who died, how many girls did you date?
I don't necessarily mean sleep with, but date.
Okay, well, in that case, the dating part is small.
Two real ones.
Well, no, I said date, not necessarily have a relationship with.
Like, how many women did you go on dates with?
Ah, well, see, usually I just do something stupid, or if I date them, then we're immediately in a relationship.
So, go on dates, in the colloquial sense, maybe 12, and then two relationships.
And you said do something stupid, does that mean a one night stand?
Yes, that includes that.
Okay, so you went on dates with twelve, you had serious relationships with two, and how many did you sleep with?
All of them.
Oh, you slept with all of them, is that right?
Yeah.
And did you sleep with the women knowing that you didn't want a relationship?
Yep.
And they knew that you just wanted to use them for sex and had no interest in their personalities?
That's not it, but there's more than that.
But yes, everything was clear.
There's no deception.
I'm happy to be corrected on sleeping with a woman that you have no intentions of seeing again.
Wouldn't you tell me?
I want to see them again.
But like... Never mind.
No, no, I want to know.
I mean, you know, this is a brave new world of dating that I'm not particularly familiar with.
So is it that you wanted to see them again, but they didn't want to see you again?
Or what?
I just circumstances make it move on or I find out they're toxic, which is known.
It's usually those two things.
So it's either circumstances or you find out they're toxic?
Yes.
Okay, so you sleep with the woman before finding out that she's toxic?
Or sometimes, yeah, she's toxic, but I'm still gonna go for it.
Okay, or there's circumstances wherein you know that you're not going to date her.
Maybe she's passing through town or something like that, but you still sleep together, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
And the two serious relationships, how did they go?
They're complex, so we'll go... I wanted to, for the sake of status, get married as soon as possible.
Um, so the first one, uh, agreed to, well, they both agreed to get married, um, for the sake of status.
And then we'll be together for two years, even though I knew it.
Now you've been immigration status, not like social status, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
Um, for citizenship, it was, it was the main thing.
It's like, okay, I have a feeling this isn't going to be the one to spend the rest of my life with, but.
It's so worth it, so I'll continue."
And she agreed.
And that was two of them.
That's the quickest way I can put it.
And how long were these relationships?
I think six months each.
Okay.
And why did they break apart?
They're insane.
Okay, go on.
I knew they were kind of wacky going into it, but I'm just trying to parse them out.
They can be equated because they're both the same.
Both crazy wild, but agreed to do this for me.
And then they went back on their word a few months down the line.
And what do you mean by crazy wild?
Um, you know, the type of girl who will, um, maybe party too much once in a while, do something stupid, uh, emotional, um, party girl, but, um, inconsistent.
How do I explain it?
Characterization works for me.
Yeah, I don't think I've ever dated a party girl.
I tend to date sort of bookworms.
So, I don't think I've ever dated a party girl.
So, do you mean like an addict?
Like an alcoholic?
Or a drug user?
Or both?
In the past, yes.
Oh, but not now.
But drinks, like binge drinks, is that right?
Sometimes.
Once in a while, yeah.
What do you mean by once in a while?
Like, once a month or something.
Oh, so once a month binge drinking and you said do stupid stuff like what?
Like drink drive or have an affair or?
Yeah, that would make sense.
Neither of, well, yes.
And other than the binge drinking and the bad decisions, what else would you say made them crazy?
I'm trying to get the specifics Um, most of the bad decisions, the inconsistency with keeping their word, their integrity.
Um, but that was like lying.
Um, less lying, more going back on their word.
Like that's kind of a lie, right?
I'm going to do something and then you don't do it.
That's means that you were lying when you said you were going to do it.
Right.
I agree, but I do find them different.
Okay.
Where I've met people who will, yeah, they make the promise on the spot, and they believe they'll follow through with it, and then they don't.
So are they lying at that point?
Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah.
No, they are lying if they know that they have a habit of not following through.
Then when they make a commitment, they're lying.
Interesting.
I mean, you're not talking about a kid here, you're talking about women in their 20s or whatever, so by that time you've learned enough about yourself to know what you can and can't commit to, right?
Okay, yeah.
And that level of wisdom would be a little above their pay grade.
So, you didn't particularly like or respect these women, and it was just for status, or how did that go?
The combo of intimacy and status, yes.
So, intimacy, by that, do you mean emotional or mostly sexual?
Both!
I like to just do the whole thing with the integral I'm with.
I feel like it's tough to... I mean, I don't really want to keep asking questions, because, I mean, maybe because you don't want to give details or whatever, which is fine, but I just feel like it's like pulling teeth a little bit.
Sorry about that.
No, no, don't have to apologize.
I'm just pointing out that it's getting a bit repetitive to ask stuff and then get these sort of very brief answers that don't illuminate much.
Okay.
So, all right, we'll move on to something else.
Now, of these two relationships, who ended?
It, it had to be me because they went back on their word.
About marriage for the citizenship.
Exactly.
Okay.
Yeah.
And, um, and that was, sorry, go ahead.
That was the main driving factor of why I pursued it so much.
And this is something that I've been balancing with and I don't know how to balance.
Um, if I'm presented with an opportunity to go for a marriage agreement like that, even with someone that I don't particularly, um, love and respect all the way I take it.
And I think that's the wise thing to do, given the circumstance.
Do you think so?
I mean, that's a big old complicated question that's around a lot of status policies and political power and so on.
So, I don't know.
I mean, obviously, if you find someone you love and citizenship comes with a bonus, that's fine.
But marrying a woman who knows that you're mostly there for the paperwork is a recipe for disaster.
Because what happened was, There's an old movie with Gerard Depardieu, I think, called Green Card, and the typical fantasy for women is, he gets together with me for one reason, but it turns out he loves me for every reason.
There's so many stories about this.
You know, so the typical teen story, I don't mean to insult you by saying it was a teen thing, but the teen thing is like, uh, his friends dared him to go out with me, or he lost a bet and had to date me.
And then it turns out that he loves me because I'm so fun and cool and great.
And then I find out that he only started dating me on a dare or because he lost a bet.
And then I'm really upset.
And then he professes his love and says, yes, it's true that I only dated you on a dare or because I lost a bet, but it turns out that I love you.
Right?
So, and this is very common that women who don't feel worthy of a quality man's affections, have to explain why he's dating them, and so a lot of women are willing to accept that a guy will date them or sleep with them for not reasons of great moral passion and devotion, but through proximity, you know, this guy who's mostly looking for a green card or citizenship, this guy will fall in love with me
Like, he's only with me for the marriage, but he'll fall in love with me for who I am, and this is sort of a big fantasy that women have, and fundamentally it's about sex, right?
I mean, so, you know, he just wants to sleep with me, but it turns out that he loves me, and he can't live without me, and the sex is the bait, and the hook is her fabulous life and circumstances and personality and virtues.
So, a lot of women are perfectly content in a way to have a guy around for reasons of not love and devotion and they believe and they've been programmed to believe that this will turn into a genuine deep and passionate love so I would imagine that for the women they made this promise to get you around but then as it turns out you didn't fall in love with their wonderful sparkling personalities and virtues
They then became more and more difficult, and then went off in search of another guy they would rope into proximity in the hope that roping someone into proximity would flower into love.
That has been the timeline for both of those relationships.
Yeah, like it's the Fifty Shades of Grey thing, right?
Like, they're put together because she's doing an interview, right?
And then he just falls for her because she works in a hardware store and is thin.
It's all completely bizarre.
Uh-huh, yeah.
Right, so yeah, isn't there a movie with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell called Overboard where, you know, literally women have also this fantasy that, you know, He kidnaps me, but then he falls in love with me.
We're together through some bizarre, coercive situation.
We're tied together and we dislike each other, but then we slowly fall for each other.
So this idea that proximity will breed a great love is a great fantasy of women.
And basically it's implanted by men who want to exploit women by holding out the possibility of love without requiring virtue.
And it's also the women's fantasy that they can get love without having to be virtuous, but rather by being sexual or in possession of a legal status that the man is after, or something like that.
Or the ability to negotiate contracts about bondage.
So, yeah, I would imagine that the arc went something like that, but of course I don't know for sure.
No, you're right.
I guess that's an important thing.
Now that I've kind of unblocked, you've helped me excavate something for the future that's actually been a problem in those two years.
I've had a tendency to force love out of women who I know aren't virtuous, or I suspect might not be.
What do you mean by force love?
In that fantasy sense of attempting to get love, or love them, or have them love me, or create a loving relationship in a category of someone I don't find virtuous.
And the only person that I know who talks about love with regards to virtue is you.
And that frustration is for the rest of the people out there.
No, I mean, I keep saying it, and I guess one day people will believe me, which is fine.
So, right.
So, this, of course, reminds me of your level of religiosity?
Atheist like you.
Okay.
And were you raised religious?
Yes, I was raised Catholic.
Okay.
So, of course, in the Christian conception of the world, There's always something to love in someone.
Do you know why?
There's a lot of whys.
Which one do you have in mind?
Well, because there is an incorruptible soul within the person that can always be accessed.
Yes.
So it's kind of like everyone is a fantastic sprinter, like everyone is Usain Bolt.
You just need the right combination of words to unlock those muscles and that lung power.
And even if someone has been a smoker for 40 years and is, you know, 300 pounds, if you're the right coach using the right words, by gosh, you can unlock The fastest sprinter in the world within that person.
That there is a ghost of perfection inside the body of corruption.
And so this idea that, you know, that some people, the secularists call it the real me.
Like once he sees the real me, right, then he'll love me, right?
And unfortunately for people who are not that way inclined, to put it mildly, then there is no soul
in the person we can love, there are only empirical actions. The intentions don't
count much, and in particular if the intentions don't lead to virtue but instead are used for
purposes of corruption.
So, you know, I intend to stop drinking, but you don't stop drinking, and you loop someone in, you sort of lure someone into this disastrous life, because you say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna quit, that's my intention, but the intention is used simply to draw that person in.
So, if intentions are used in this corrupt manner, then it's even worse.
So, fundamentally, the heart is an organ of the body, and the body is empirical.
There's no imaginary food that you can eat.
That is going to fill your body, right?
If you're really hungry, then you dream of a buffet, but you don't wake up full, right?
You're still hungry.
So the body is relentlessly empirical, but the mind can create all kinds of imaginary fantasies.
And so a lot of times the attachment is something generated in the mind rather than empirical in the actions of another.
So, if somebody says, I'm going to show up at 10 o'clock in the morning, if they show up at 10 o'clock in the morning, that's empirically verifiable, right?
If they show up at noon with no excuses and no apologies, that's also empirically verifiable.
If they make commitments and don't follow through on them, that is empirically verifiable.
So, in the world of philosophy, there is nothing to love but actions.
Now in the realm of theology though, there's a perfect soul in the body that we can love despite actions and we just need to reach through that maze of actions to grab the perfect heart and the perfect soul and the perfect virtue deep within and that process of, I don't know, picking the lock or diffusing the bomb or Reaching through the maze is something that's very seductive, and it's hard to shake that mindset that there's a perfect person somewhere in there, we just need to figure out how to access it.
But, you know, as I've sort of said before on the show, if you've been a smoker for 40 years, and you get some horrible lung disease, and you go to the oncologist or you go to the doctor, the doctor doesn't say, Well, we could treat this horrible lung disease, but I think what we'd rather do is pray that your emergency ghost backup lungs take the place of your actual physical real lungs.
There's no emergency backup perfect lungs.
There is only what you have done in the world.
Right, I mean, what is it the old saying about dieting in every fat woman there's a skinny woman trying to get out and what is it some obese comedian woman said There's no skinny woman within me.
I ate the bitch.
So, there is no perfect person in there that we can access outside of their empirical actions.
We can only love empiricism.
We can only fantasize about ideals.
And so my guess is that you hoped, and this may be based on your upbringing, but you hoped that you could get through to some perfect person within there and you just need to find a way to unlock it with inspiration or action or, you know, hope is the secular form of prayer, right?
Except it doesn't connect to anything divine or certain and therefore it remains weak and susceptible to manipulation.
So my guess is that In these women you hoped to find a better person in the messy maze of their actions and love that perfect person and then the realization probably grew over both of you that there is no ghost in the machinery of empiricism that we can only love actions in the same way that our body can only be fed by real things we can only drink real water
You know, when people are dying of cold, according to all reports, like they get lost in some mountain climate, they're dying of cold, they feel extremely warm and comfortable.
But they're not, right?
They're dying.
So their body is trying to give them some comfort on the exit scenario.
So, my guess is that you both dreamed of a perfect person in the other that could be unlocked with the right combination of love, or language, or devotion, or money, or circumstances, or something like that.
and then because you were only miming eating you slowly starved to death and had to break up.
This illuminates my view and how I approach it a lot.
Yeah.
Good.
I knew if we were patient we'd get someplace useful.
Okay, so is there something that you wanted to add to that?
that because I did want to turn to the regret side.
Two thoughts came up while you were talking.
One, I realize I do this same thing, this hopeful thing related to the future to myself.
So I will like ignore my actions or what I've done and just instead focus on what will be.
So kind of like a not real thing, non-empirical.
So that might give me blind spots to myself.
Yes, yes, yes.
And then, of course, if we believe in the perfect ghost within another, we also believe in the perfect ghost within ourselves, which means we're less strict with our own empirical actions, right?
I mean, it's tough to quit smoking if you believe you have perfect imaginary backup soul lungs that can take the place of your deceased lungs.
It's a lot tougher to quit.
Whereas if you just say, the physical lungs are the only lungs I have, and the physical virtues are the only virtues I possess.
I mean, it's fine to have knowledge.
You have to have knowledge in order to be good.
But if you don't act on it, then you're like the guy stuffing his face with cheesecake while reading a diet book.
You may know everything about dieting, but if you don't actually put down the cheesecake, it's worse than useless, right?
Yes.
Oh, okay.
That one hit a little close to home.
Why is that? I have like a lot of knowledge on virtue and like what a good relationship could be,
but I just don't do it.
Well, yeah, so, I mean, I question the grand love if you're banging a dozen other women after you break up with the grand love.
Oh, I don't, in my opinion, because I think they're unrelated.
The way that you move on or the actions you do with women who are more shallow, I don't think it impacts the deep love that you have with other women.
So you think that promiscuity doesn't affect pair bonding?
I can be open to convincing, but I don't think it affects it on the men's side.
And I'm skeptical on the women's side as well.
Well, no, the women's side, the data is very clear.
Yeah, divorces are diktos dependent, right?
So the more boyfriends, the more lovers a woman has, the more likely she is to divorce, the more likely she is to not not pair bond in a sort of foundational way.
But with men, it's not a correlator or strong at all, isn't it?
Well, I don't know.
I don't think the studies have been done, at least not that I've seen.
And so I don't know.
I mean, I do think that men in general are sort of hardwired to be less harmed by promiscuity because we don't have nearly as much investment in the sexual pregnancy and birth process, right?
So a man can do a spray and pray and I think he's a little less damaged by it, which is not to say undamaged, but less.
I think a case could be made sort of evolutionary biologically that a man can survive promiscuity better than a woman can.
But I think your perspective, and I don't want to speak for you, but I'm guessing that your perspective is something like this, correct me of course if I'm wrong, but it's something like, well, I don't get a great meal, but a man's got to eat, so I'll just eat some fast food.
That is my perspective.
I try to make it a little more holier-than-thou, like to make it sound better, but that's the baseline of it, yes.
Right.
And I'm aware of that.
I'm aware of it when it's happening.
And I don't know the wisdom of it.
And I am curious whether I should just go full stop and embrace it more.
I don't know which direction to go.
Well, but you were doing more than sleeping around because you were, you know, fairly desperately trying to marry two messed up women, right?
Yes.
So, that would have eliminated the woman of your dreams, right?
Eliminated?
I mean, from your potential, right?
I mean, you get married to some woman, then you're not getting back together with your ex, are you?
No, it was still in the plan, because after a few years you divorce, and I go back to her.
That was the plan.
Okay, so, I mean... And she knew about that.
You know that the authorities are perfectly aware of marriages of convenience, right?
I don't know.
And I'm also aware of how often they work and how many people do it.
It's kind of insane.
Okay.
So you would get married and you would, and were the women aware that you would marry them in order to divorce them?
Oh yeah.
It was, everything was clear up front.
There was no deception.
There's like a whole understanding, whole agreement, timelines.
So why would they, why would they, why would they do it?
Why would they do it?
That's actually a good question.
I mean, they're burning up a half decade of their fertility years for what?
To get divorced?
The first one, she was older, widowed, that was fine.
How much older?
A lot.
Was she in her 50s?
40s?
Maybe?
Was she in her 50s? 40s? Maybe? Yes. She was in her 50s?
Yes.
Yep.
Okay, so you in your robust twenties was going to marry a woman 30 years older and get some sort of status from her and then you would divorce her and she would get a couple of years with a young man, right?
Yes.
Okay.
And what about the other woman?
She was younger.
Because of that, I was aware... Sorry, younger than you, or younger than the 50 plus woman?
Younger than the 50 plus woman.
Okay, but was she still much older than you?
No, just a little bit.
Like, late 20s, early 30s.
This one, I was aware of that, and I gave her the option of If we're doing this for these two years, keep looking, because I'm not going to do it, but if you find someone, just keep that on the front burner.
I don't know how to word it.
Okay, I get it, I get it.
But still, why would she do it?
That one was because she really liked me.
Okay, so she was hoping you would fall in love with her if you're around for the immigration reasons.
Yeah, and I think she said that directly too, yeah.
Okay, and what was your perception on that?
More of the hopey, perfect soul love thingy, where I was like, if that would happen, that would be so convenient.
I'm going to try to make that happen.
But the perspective now, it's a business deal, two years, blah blah blah.
So you were both hoping to fall in love?
Um, yes, but that wasn't the primary, uh, goal of it.
Well, then what was the primary goal?
What's in it for her?
That's it.
That's the thing I kept telling her.
It's like, what's in it for you?
It's like me, I guess.
Okay.
So she was hoping you would fall in love with her.
Yeah.
Maybe more than I thought.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I, I mean, I can't imagine why she would do it otherwise.
Well, yeah, she really liked me and I liked her too.
Okay, and what was it that, do you think, what was it about her actions that prevented you from falling in love with her?
Oh, she was irrational, drank too much, had a bad family but wasn't aware of it.
What's it called?
No deep virtues to speak of.
What was she irrational about?
Sometimes, I would guess schizophrenic a few times, like hearing or seeing things that weren't there.
Oh, so she had hallucinations?
Yes, I think so.
I never confirmed it, but it was like, yeah.
What do you mean you think so?
Give me a snapshot.
So it'd be up in the middle of the night and she'd be like, what's that?
Did you hear that?
And it's like, no, I didn't hear anything.
Um, so it's like, yeah, maybe she heard something, but so like, no, a hundred percent crazy, like a hundred percent hallucination.
Um, but most likely as to the point where I say, yeah.
Am I being too, too soft?
I'm not in a position to judge.
I just yet sort of understand.
So you were with this woman who drank too much and hallucinated, but you were hoping that you would fall in love with her.
It would be, yes, but not betting on it.
I'm a probabilities gambling man.
If there's like a 10% chance this happens, I'm very happy for that.
No, but there's a 0% chance that happens.
I mean, how long have you been listening to what I do?
A long, long, long time.
And do you disagree with the argument that love is our involuntary response to virtue, if we're virtuous?
I agree with it, but more on the hope, because I still don't understand it at a deep level.
What don't you understand?
I can't explain it to myself or someone why that is necessarily love, even through the argument.
I still am of the belief that you can love as an act or just get a feeling of love even from someone that isn't virtuous.
But that might be my lack of understanding of love in the first place.
Well, I mean, it also really depends on your definition of love.
You can certainly have lust for people who aren't virtuous.
You can have a biochemical care bonding, a pair bonding based upon sexual proximity with people who aren't Virtuous, but, you know, biochemical bonding and lust, they're not love.
Right?
So, I mean, a woman has a, and a man too, when you become a father, you have an incredible, beautiful, wonderful bond with your baby, but not because your baby is virtuous.
That's just nature saying, don't leave them in the snow drift, right?
Okay.
Now, that's not the same as love, that's a kind of attachment, because it's also shared by countless animals and birds and so on, right?
And it's not a bad thing, it's a wonderful thing, but nobody's going to say that that's in the same category as romantic love, because that would be creepy AF, right?
So, love has to be a response to something that is higher and better, right?
Yes.
Now, is there anything higher or better than virtue?
No.
So if love is a response to something higher and better, and there's nothing higher or better
than virtue, then love that is the greatest and deepest must be a response to virtue.
I...
To circle back on something that comes to mind, it's like, if I just perceive it's in everyone, I just need to dig through it and like get it out or inspire it out.
Well, that's the soul thing, right?
Yeah, that there's a perfect person in there who's wonderfully virtuous and they don't need to train, like, you know, but that destroys, one of the problems I have is that that destroys the concept of Virtue.
So, virtue is study and practice, right?
So, if I want to learn how to play piano very well, like really well, if I want to learn how to play piano and I have two approaches, right?
So, one is I just do my scales, I learn and it's going to take years and it's going to be difficult and so on, right?
But, you know, at the end of that I'll play piano well, right?
Yeah.
But if I believe that there's already a perfect piano player within me, I just need to find a way to access it, then I'm going to not do all of that hard work.
Why would I?
You know, if you, in your house, you have a desperate need for a very hard to get cable and you're absolutely certain it's in a box in the basement, you don't go and order it because it's very expensive and will take forever.
You look in the basement, right?
Because you already have it.
Whereas if you know for sure you don't have this hard-to-get cable, you'll order it, right?
So if we think we're already in possession of excellence and we just need to find a way to unlock it, then we don't study and take the hard road to virtue.
Does that make sense?
That does make sense.
Something that I've come to mind is, like, the absence of evil is enough for virtue.
That's something that I've usually gone forward with.
I understand there's the act of virtues, but I've always found that bottom line to be my starting point for where virtue is.
Sorry, the absence of evil is the presence of virtue?
Yes.
Okay, so how would you define evil?
Evil is, I find it more easier to define.
It's when you just violate morality.
You assault, you lie, you steal.
Straightforward UPB.
Okay, so UPB doesn't necessarily involve lying, that's more APA, but let's go with your definition that lying is immoral, right?
Okay.
Wait, sorry.
You're saying okay like I'm forcing you.
I'm just trying to revive your argument.
Sorry.
Fraud.
Which... Fraud is theft.
And lying is fraud.
That's my chain of reasoning to why lying is wrong.
Oh, so this is why you resisted it when I said that the women who broke their word to you consistently were liars.
Oh.
Okay, now I understand, because I was like, remember, and you're like, well, no, no, right?
Because if you say that the absence of evil is the presence of virtue, and it's immoral to lie, then if I say these women lie, then you lose that excuse, right?
Because then they're immoral, and then they're not virtuous, and therefore it was completely predictable that you wouldn't fall in love with them.
Okay.
Yes, but the conclusion, I still put out hope that you can counter people who don't have virtue or are evil and bring it out of them.
But I'm trying to do that.
Of course.
No, absolutely.
Listen, of course you can.
I mean, I did it with myself.
I do it with listeners and so on.
Right.
In terms of like, so absolutely.
So if somebody doesn't know piano, they can learn piano, but what do they have to do?
Yeah, they have to learn piano.
They have to commit to learning piano, and they have to actually do the scales, they have to learn how to read music ideally, they have to do like all kinds of stuff.
To play piano, right?
Otherwise, they're not playing piano.
Like, if they just say, I want to, but they don't practice, then they don't learn anything.
If all they do is watch videos, then they don't practice, then they don't get the muscle memory and all of that, right?
So, of course, yes, we can teach virtue, absolutely, but somebody has to, first of all, recognize that they're deficient in virtue, and then they have to recognize the value of virtue, and then they have to do the empirically verifiable hard work of learning and enacting virtue, right?
Right.
And did the women admit that they had morality or integrity problems?
Yes.
Okay.
Enough that... Sorry, go ahead.
Go ahead.
Enough that it gave me that aspect of this isn't a complete dead end.
The way I approach it, if someone makes any progress in that regard, so for a specific instance, like someone's drinking too much, it's like, okay, I'm going to stop drinking.
Slow down drinking significantly.
That happened in the second relationship.
Or just any signs of that improvement towards that stated goal.
Sorry, the big virtue that you're supposed to fall in love with is somebody who cuts down on binge drinking?
No.
I mean, come on, man.
That's a pretty thick rule to live on.
I know.
I'm trying to use this time to excavate why I was being so hopeful in those relationships besides the status benefit.
And this has been enlightening.
Okay, so if you're lying to yourself about why you're in a relationship, now if you say, well, these women are unpleasant and they're not moral.
But, you know, I'll do this.
I mean, I guess it would officially be classified as a fraud or whatever, right?
So I'll do this marriage of convenience.
I don't like the person.
You know, she's in her 50s or whatever.
I guess the other woman was not.
But if you say, no, no, I'm holding out for wonderful virtues from a woman who's struggling to cut down her binge drinking.
Right?
So who's lying then?
Definitely the first one with a chance of the second one.
Who else is lying?
Huh?
Who else is lying?
You're saying it's 0%?
If you believe that love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous, and
you also say that lying is immoral.
Then women who lie are immoral.
And let's say they cut down on their lying a little bit.
That's not enough.
Okay.
Right?
They actually have to have a commitment to truth.
And they have to do the hard and difficult work of figuring out their barriers to truth and overcoming them and all that, right?
Right.
So if they're not doing that, Like, if a woman is gaining weight because she's eating 5,000 calories a day, right?
And you want her to be slender, and you kind of nag her and shame her into cutting down from 5,000 to 4,000 calories a day, is she going to end up slender?
It's progress!
No, it's only progress if it keeps going!
Of course, to cut down to a healthy meal size, you have to cross the 4,000 calorie barrier.
Yep.
Right?
But if that's where it stops, then she's not going to become slender.
Right.
And she's not committed to becoming slender, because she stops at 4,000 calories.
She is responding to you nagging, and maybe she wants to keep you around, and she's showing some progress, but she's only going to Okay, that point you made, I think I fall victim to that often.
I never thought about that.
Sorry, what do you fall victim to?
I'm going to show them a bit of progress just to keep them around.
Okay, I see a pattern there.
Right.
And this is not something you don't know, right?
A woman cutting down on binge drinking does not make her someone you can love.
I know.
So, you hanging around and hoping is a form of lying to yourself.
I see, yeah.
And it is a form of fraud, not in the legal sense, but if you say to a woman, there's a chance I can love you, then You have to say that to yourself first.
There is a chance I can love her when she's not.
Yes.
When all she's doing is cutting down on her corruption somewhat.
Yes.
Which means you'll dislike her less.
Mm-hmm.
But that doesn't mean that you will love her.
But if you say to yourself and to her, I'm around because I could magically fall in love despite The empirical actions of corruption, and less corruption is not virtue.
Now, again, a corrupt person to become virtuous has to pass through less corruption, but if a woman just basically cuts back on corruption because corruption is inefficient, yeah, you know, I'm drinking too much, it's too expensive, I hate the hangovers and I make bad decisions, then that's just practical consequences.
It's not virtue.
Okay.
So why did she cut back on the drinking?
Just because it was expensive and inconvenient and you didn't like it and she didn't like the hangovers?
You're right, out of convenience.
I think you're right.
Okay.
So somebody who cuts back on corruption out of convenience is like the guy in the store.
He's like, he's going to steal.
And he actually does steal, and then he sees that there's a security camera, and he puts the thing back, right?
Hey look, he didn't steal!
He's a good guy!
But no, that's just consequentialism, right?
He just couldn't get away with it.
Okay.
And it is true that some addicts or binge drinkers cut back as they get older, because their bodies can't handle it as much.
But that's not the same as figuring out why you drink.
And figuring out the trauma that drives the drinking and dealing with that, which means having difficult conversations with the people who raised you, and then saying, oh man, the people who are around, who I drink with, are really not very good people at all, and I've got to get to a better place, and like, none of that happens if you just cut back on drinking, right?
You're just avoiding that sort of self-knowledge.
Now if you hadn't lied to yourself about your capacity to love these women, would you have
been able to have or continue the relationships?
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
I'm happy to help. Thank you.
If I hadn't lied, yes.
The reason being is, even going full on, there's a 0% chance this could be anything genuine love.
Still do it for the status So that's just erasing the woman though, right?
Because if you had told the woman who was in her twenties that you found her, you know, fairly gross and repulsive and corrupt, and would never fall in love with her, would she have offered you the marriage of convenience anyway?
Ah, good point.
Probably not.
Well, no.
I mean, unless she was masochistic.
Which she was.
She was masochistic?
Yeah.
Why did you say that?
Sorry, I was making a BDSM joke.
Sorry, I didn't quite catch that.
I was making a joke.
Oh, because she was dating you?
She was masochistic or something like that?
Yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
Got it.
That was the point.
I understand.
Sometimes in jokes... Okay, never mind.
We understand.
I was trying to make it serious, but no.
Yeah, yeah.
Got it.
Got it.
Okay.
So, in Your Girlfriend, what were the... Sorry, The Woman Who Died, what were the virtues that you most admired in her?
one, the respect for virtue, the diligence, honesty, integrity, putting truth above all else,
and the mostly aesthetic, the like the love of life, the curiosity, the
emotional stability, that should I keep going?
A lot of them I feel are aesthetic, but the ones that mattered was... Yeah, yeah, sounds like it.
So, and what were the virtues in you that she most admired?
Similar, the integrity, the respect for virtue, the... Respect for virtue?
Please, please reply with the awareness that we've just been talking about this in great
detail for 45 minutes.
Bye.
It Before our conversation, or before what?
Before I went down this path?
Of sleeping with a dozen women?
Yeah.
And then having relationships with the 50 year old plus woman and then the crazy woman you kind of half promised to fall in love with?
Yes.
Okay.
So, if the woman who died had known about all of this, tell me the virtues that she would have most admired in you.
Oh, she knew all about them.
And she was like... Well, she didn't know all about them because you didn't know all about them until this conversation, right?
Well, yeah, the things we're discovering here, yes.
But the things that I knew, she knew as well.
All right.
So she knew that you were dangling love over a woman that you couldn't love in order to get a marriage?
Or did she believe that you could love a woman who was corrupt in this and lying?
Um The first one yes
The second one, no.
And she felt that this was morally good for you to be pursuing this path.
The idea of, yeah, get the status.
No, no, I get that, but the lying to yourself about it.
See, that I wasn't aware of.
Well, wouldn't she Wouldn't she ask you about that?
Maybe this is my key.
I'm getting it as we're talking, but my key thing is if I see it like a percent chance, I don't see it as a full line.
And if I see it as 10%, then it's like possible.
You're convincing me it's zero, but in my view, if it's small, then it's there.
Does that make sense?
Okay.
So for you, virtue is based on probability?
If they're not virtuous yet, yes.
Well, no, because then the guy who steals when he can get away with it is virtuous, because he's got a 0% chance of being caught, or a very low percent chance, whereas the guy who sees the security camera and puts the stuff back... So, if morality is playing the odds and weighing percentage, then your, quote, moral decisions are based upon circumstances and probabilities, not integrity and principles.
In the specific chance of can you love that person in the future if they become virtuous?
No, morality is not percentage-based like you said.
But that was the framework I've been operating on.
Talking through it's like, whoops, gotta change that.
Okay, got it.
So she knew that you had slept with A dozen women in the two to three years since you had gone out?
Yes.
Okay.
And did she consider that at all negative?
No, she considered it positive.
She considered your promiscuity positive, and what was her thoughts or reasoning behind considering your promiscuity positive?
When we were together, she did not know if I was so deeply attached to her because of her virtues or because of me being so inexperienced.
So her understanding that it was because of her choice gave her that kind of, oh yeah, it was because of me.
Does that make sense?
But that was her reasoning.
So, sorry, if I understand this correctly, she knew that you loved her because you slept with other women?
She felt it was more significant, yes.
So, does this seem normal or healthy to you for the love of your life to say,
well now that you've banged a dozen chicks, I know that you love me?
I don't know if this argument from absurdity is going to take root, but does that seem normal,
natural, healthy, good?
I get it, if that makes any sense.
It sounds stupid, but it's like, are you sure if this person loves you or not if they've never experienced love before?
And it's like, oh, no, it actually wasn't.
But you didn't experience love by banging 12 chicks?
That's what I realized, yes.
No, no, but she would know that, right?
I don't know if you love me unless you have a lot of meaningless, promiscuous sex.
Come on, man.
You can't defend this position.
Let's cut to the chase here, right?
It's funny, because I get the wisdom.
I think it's stupid, but that's the position.
Right.
Okay.
All right.
Now, is there anything that you... You said 10% regret when we were talking earlier, like last 10% regret.
So tell me a bit about the regret.
It's the idea on my mind of, I could have tried harder.
I could have done it earlier.
And those are like the two main sentences of regret that pop up.
While in the relationship, was there more that I could have done?
And, um, out of the relationship is could I have gone faster or could I have moved more, um, uh, what's it called?
Accurate.
Not accurately.
More decisively or made things happen more faster.
Um, the, the, the, the whole goal was to wait until after school to try again.
That, that was the intent.
Um, but the regret is what if I had done it earlier with things changed?
Those are the main sources.
If that makes sense.
Okay, so, but you didn't try to get back together for the last couple of years, you were just hoping that it would happen after school was done, right?
Correct to the first part.
Okay, so when you say, I could have tried harder, my understanding is, and obviously correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is, you didn't try, you were waiting.
Yes.
Okay, so it's not trying harder, it's try at all.
Yeah.
I mean, if I say I could have tried harder and benched 220 pounds when it turns out I didn't even go to the gym, then it's not, if I tried harder, it's like, but I didn't try at all because I didn't even go to the gym.
Does that sort of make sense?
It makes sense, sure.
Okay, so why would you phrase it as trying harder when it was not trying at all, which is pretty obvious, right?
To make it happen earlier.
Yeah, that would be the difference, yeah.
No, because you're trying to... I mean, this is lying to yourself a little bit, I think.
Okay.
Because it's easier to say, I should have tried harder, than to say, I didn't try at all.
Okay.
Right, one is a difference of degree, the other is a difference of kind.
Like if I'm having trouble getting a girlfriend and I say, I should have asked out more women, when it turns out I haven't asked out any women, why would I rephrase it as, I should have asked out more women, because then I get to say, well I tried, I guess I just didn't try hard enough.
Whereas you didn't act to get her back until you hoped that this would be the case somewhat shortly, right?
Yes, I suppose the the thing I'm countering back on is the hope
It's like, no, that was the point of action.
No, but hope is not trying!
And I've no problem with hope, I get that, but I just want you to be accurate.
Because your grief will go longer the less accurate you are.
Okay, good, thank you.
So if you want to overcome grief, grief is there to teach us a lesson.
Right, the regret part of grief, right?
So the regret part of grief is there to teach us a lesson, and if we don't learn that lesson, the grief doesn't let hold of us, right?
Okay, yeah.
Right?
If you keep getting a nagging pain in your shoulder when you lift weights, the nagging pain is there to say you're doing it wrong.
And if you don't change what you're doing, the nagging pain will only continue, right?
So, let's go back to the regret.
What is the regret?
It's not about trying, you say, I wish I'd tried harder, because you didn't try, and you were waiting to try.
Okay.
Okay, so, let's get back to some accurate stuff about what you regret.
So, let's try it again.
Yes.
Um.
The inside I'm waffling back and forth whether the, the idea of, sorry, I'm like waffling
internally.
Um, the idea of just the relationship was over, leave it be, continue onwards and leave
it open for a chance to reconsider versus.
Consistently try to make it happen again.
I'm wondering if the ideas of just leave it, relationship over, no hope, you continue, move on.
I never picked that one.
I picked the it's over, move on, but if an opportunity presents itself, rekindle it.
That's what I was operating on.
And so, what does it mean when you say an opportunity presents itself?
Because I'm never sure what...
What that means to people.
When I wanted to start a business, I had to go out and help raise the $80,000 it took to start and hire people.
I had to make it happen.
When a philosophy show became possible, I had to work to build it and grow it.
So I'm not sure what it means.
And there may be good answers, of course.
I'm just not sure what it means to say, I was waiting for an opportunity to present itself.
Okay.
The good answer is...
Come over, let's see each other.
Alright, I can come.
Oh, so she would say, let's see each other, let's rekindle.
No, me.
Oh, you would say it.
Okay, so that's not an opportunity presenting itself, that's you making a play.
Yes, but it's more passive.
I always come visit, blah blah blah.
That's hard to do.
I don't want to I don't want to say it's like, I made a solid play, here you go.
That's when it's happening.
It was more just like, yeah, come visit.
And that's the opportunity.
Does that make sense?
And how did you see that playing out?
Like, I assume you wanted her back, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So how did you see it playing out when she came to visit?
Talk about how we changed, what's different.
And then be like, I made it.
I'm stable.
I fixed it.
I'm a different person.
Come, let's try it again.
I've slept with 12 girls.
I'm ready.
Yeah, I'm ready.
Yep.
And she would have been good, Jah.
I slept with the woman who hallucinated.
I'm ready.
Yep.
I slept with the woman in her fifties.
I'm ready.
Mm-hmm.
She met that one.
Oh, she met her?
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
This new world is wild to me.
It gets worse the more details we dig into.
Go on.
I don't know where to go, but yeah, I'll go general first.
So to be productive, then I'll go details for silliness and maybe productivity.
Generally trying to do anything in the dating relationships that I've dealt with in this world in person is a complete Wild West degenerate disaster.
To the point where if I didn't take the, quote, degeneracy route, there would have been zero candidates whatsoever.
That would catch my eye.
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's just satanic.
That's just straight up Satanism.
Sorry.
That just is.
No, so you're saying that you're scaring yourself into corruption by saying, without corruption, there's nothing.
The only thing is corruption.
Women are corrupt.
Everyone's corrupt.
All the women are corrupt.
No.
And therefore I have to choose a corrupt woman or I get no one.
No, that's not what I'm saying.
Yes, it is what you're saying.
You're saying if I don't participate in this degenerate, corrupt, Wild West dating market, there's no one.
No, I don't need to participate in that and I can still get it.
It's just I wanted to take part in the degeneracy.
Okay, so sorry, then, so you're saying that there are good women out there, but you wanted the degenerate ones?
Um, in the meantime, as we're saying, like, the meals, you know what I'm saying?
Well, no, because in this scenario, you're saying, there's only crap food, and I gotta eat.
Whereas I'm saying, you've got a buffet of good food, and you've got a buffet of shit food, and you're choosing the shit food.
Okay, then I, then I need more Then, how do I find the good buffet?
Well, start filling yourself up with the shit food!
And then you get hungry for the good food!
And then you go find the good food!
But as long as you're eating the shit food, you're not hungry for the good food!
Okay.
Yeah.
That's been an internal debate of mine.
And you scare yourself into pursuing this corruption by saying there's no virtue out there.
No, no, no.
Not no virtue.
I believe 100% it's out there.
I want to give a bit of context.
This might change the view and timeline of the conversation, but for the last six months, I realized that.
And for the last six months, I just stopped with the pursuing of, uh, the bad buffet, so to speak.
Um, broke it off with the, the, um, toxic ones and just to have not pursued the chances given that and been actively seeking virtuous.
Okay, good.
Good for you.
That's the, that's the one, um, point missed in this three-year timeline.
I intentionally went head first into the degeneracy because I was curious about it.
And it's fun.
But there was this hollow feeling of, no, I don't want this anymore.
So I pivoted.
Okay.
Good, good.
However, I am being tempted to go back into it.
So I'm, I gotta, I'm trying to stay out of it.
Right.
Oh, and I get that.
I understand.
I mean, that's why we need Virtuous.
You know, the shit food is full of salt, fat and sugar and makes us feel good, right?
Once on the lips, forever on the hips, right?
Okay.
It's just a question I want more closure on.
I've not been able to get closure on this one.
Taking the degenerate route and sleeping around and just having short relationships with a bunch of women that you don't love and I have no intention with, does that inhibit or prohibit the virtuous route of finding one good one?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
It hurts your heart.
It hurts your pair bonding.
And it puts the dominance of lust over virtue, and it keeps you in the orbit of people who are, you know, trash planet.
It keeps you in the orbit of people who are kind of crappy.
And I say this with some sympathy.
I know this sounds like some horrible thunderbolt judgment or whatever, but, you know, it keeps you in the orbit of non-virtuous people, and virtuous people are not in that orbit.
No, you're absolutely right.
You're not being, like, over-exaggerated.
It is trash planet.
I mean, it's people without virtues, without values, without religion, without God, without a soul, without a higher calling, they're just kinda jumping from one dopamine stone to another in a rising sea, right?
I mean, so, it's tragic, and I view these people generally as just untutored and untrained and ungodded and unvirtued and, you know, they They're just untrained, and that's really sad that society's just completely abandoned training people in virtue, but that's kind of necessary for bad people to rule us, right?
They've got to stop teaching us about virtue.
So, I view them more as victims of an absence in the culture than of, you know, just people who are doing terrible things, but nonetheless, I mean, do you think that I'd be hanging around with the kind of women you were dating?
Oh no.
No, so, and, you just don't, those people, the good people aren't around.
around. Now Freddie Mercury doesn't do karaoke, right? So yeah, it definitely keeps you in
an orbit of people that the good people will look at you and say, oh, look, this is your
world, I'm not part of that world, and you'll probably never even meet them.
It's that second part I'm scared of.
Sure, no, this is all the way back to my very first book, which is like, yeah, you gotta cross the desert.
I mean, and nobody wants to, I mean, it's tough to cross the desert, right?
Yeah, it's hard.
I mean, you're leaving Sodom and Gomorrah, and you're looking for the oasis of good people on the other side of the desert, and there's a lot of bones in that desert!
Okay.
So I get that, and that's a choice you have to make.
But just make it consciously.
If you decide to stay on Trash Planet, and say, I'm not going to cross the desert, OK, then don't lie to yourself and say, there's all these great virtues in these people, I just have to summon them with some magical rain dance, or, you know.
Just say, OK, I'm giving up on good people, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life on Trash Planet.
Just be honest about it.
This lying to myself was a big part of that two-year period that I wasn't consciously aware of.
The last six months I've taken that leap, but I wasn't aware of why.
So that helped illuminate it.
Yeah, so crossing the desert is, I'm too good for the bad people, but not good enough for the good people.
And I've crossed it, and, you know, everybody... And it's a desert.
I mean, it's a long stretch of wide... nothing.
And, you know, it's like, if I keep going, I could die in the desert.
If I turn back now, I can still make it back to the city.
Right.
Okay.
The slum.
I'm leaving the slum, gotta cross the desert.
So, I sympathize, and I understand, but generally, the way you cross the desert is you say, Well, if I go back to Trash Planet, I can't pretend that it's not Trash Planet, like now.
So, like Trash Planet is only survivable because you lie to yourself.
That's the only reason you stay, is you lie to yourself.
Oh, she's getting better, she's cutting back on her binge drinking, she's listening to stories of virtue, and so you lie to yourself.
Oh, there's a chance I could really fall in love with her.
So Trash Planet is just lying to yourself about Trash Planet.
Once you don't lie to yourself about Trash Planet, it becomes unbearable, and then that's how you get across the desert.
You have to stop lying to yourself about Trash Planet, and then You can get out.
So, the luring back is not going back to Trash Planet.
It's going back to lying about Trash Planet.
Gotcha.
I see.
I see.
A quick note.
How do you... I have this issue.
How do you handle not being jaded about people?
Well, be around people who you don't have to be jaded about.
Okay.
That I get.
Is it correct to be jaded about people?
What do you mean by people?
People.
I mean, people like the people you've been hanging around with?
I'd be jaded about them.
That's why I don't hang around people like that.
Okay, that's what I was checking in on.
All right.
I mean, fundamentally, you're not jaded about people.
You're jaded by your choice in people.
That's what I'm talking about.
Being jaded is the shadow cast by who you choose to hang around with.
That's what I mean, yeah.
How do you handle being around broke people all the time?
It's like, well, don't be around broke people if you don't want to be around broke people.
Oh, OK.
All right.
Yeah, I realize it became... How do you handle being around fat, lazy people all the time?
Well, there are people out there who aren't fat or lazy.
So it's your choice, right?
How do I handle the negative results of my own bad choices?
Well, the negative results are there to teach you to not make bad choices.
Okay, yeah.
I was not aware of how... Like that hopeful thing we started it off with, I was being... Okay.
Yeah, you want to adapt to an environment that is the result of your own choices.
And I would say that you don't have to adapt to your own choices, because they're your choices.
Okay.
How do I deal with crazy people?
No, the question is, how do I deal with my choice to be around crazy people?
There you go.
Okay, yeah.
Alright.
Last Regret.
Right?
She died a couple of weeks ago, right?
Two weeks ago?
Yeah.
Okay.
If you'd made the play a month ago, would she have been on that plane?
Yeah.
Why?
Uh, it was unrelated to Um, whatever I do, because it was to see a family member.
Um, the, the only difference is I could have been on it.
All right.
Did you like her family?
Yes.
Okay.
Um, and, and I'll say the yes as, uh, good enough, if that makes sense.
Like they were serious about, um, uh, Virtue and, like, peaceful parenting and that sort of stuff.
Oh, come on, man.
They raised a girl who thought that the way you prove... the way a boy proves his love for her to sleep with 12 trashy women.
But, very promiscuous.
She was very promiscuous?
No, parents were.
Her parents were very promiscuous?
Mm-hmm.
Uh, like open marriage stuff?
Uh, at the time they were divorced.
Uh, were there affairs within the marriage?
I don't think so.
So, you mean after they got divorced, both the husband and the wife were both very promiscuous?
Yes, but I think beforehand too, but I don't know the beforehand.
I only know the afterhand, yes.
Beforehand, you mean after they were separated, but before they were divorced?
Beforehand, before they were married.
Oh, so before they were married, they were promiscuous, they may have been affairs, we don't know.
I'm sorry, say again?
I only know the after the divorce, which was promiscuous.
All right, and how did you, I mean, she said so, and how, sorry, how old was she when her parents divorced?
I think it was 16, like late teens.
Okay, got it.
She had a very good upbringing.
Right.
That part, like the 16 after, I'm not 100% sure about.
So how do you know she had a very good upbringing?
Um, just the parenting style, talking with the mom, etc.
Um, hands-on, direct, um, moral teachings.
Okay, so where did she get the idea that you sleeping with 12 trashy women is really great for your relationship?
I mean, you're saying she's a great pianist, she's playing with her fucking forehead.
Okay, maybe I took it too seriously.
Took what too seriously?
She made that comment before, but she could have been joking, but no, I think she was more serious about it.
That's not something to joke about.
Or it's not something to joke about in a way that you don't 100% know it's a joke.
Okay.
It was the second part.
Right, so you don't make a joke which can be misinterpreted and a guy can make some foundational decisions on his life based upon, oh no, it's just a joke, right?
Yeah, which I did.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, so it's serious.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so where does she get that from, then?
Um... Yeah, maybe her mom.
Promiscuous parents?
Yeah.
Promiscuity is good!
Yeah.
Right.
So that's kind of warped.
Yeah.
Does she have younger siblings?
Uh... How dark do I want to go?
I can't tell you that.
Did.
Yeah.
And what happened to her younger... What do you mean?
What happened to her younger sibling?
She was in the plane.
Oh, I see.
Sorry, but when she was alive, did she have younger siblings?
Yes.
And how much... what was the youngest sibling?
A few years younger brother.
Okay, so the brother was 14 when the parents divorced, right?
Something like that, yeah.
Okay.
I mean, that's not ideal, right?
I know.
I mean, why wouldn't you wait at least until the kids are out of the house, which is only another couple of years, right?
And for how long was the marriage bad before they divorced?
I know.
Give me a second.
I might... It's important.
I might have gotten it confused.
Okay.
It's either 6 or 16.
It's a big deal.
What?
I know.
You mean her parents either got divorced when she was 6 or 16?
Yes.
Seems like a relatively big deal.
I know.
I might have gotten confused or something.
Because 6 would be pretty terrible, right?
Yes.
Right.
Because then her brother would be 4.
I'm gonna go with six.
At the moment, I actually can't remember.
I'm gonna go with six.
Okay, so you can't have a good childhood if your parents get divorced.
That was my... And also, if your parents are promiscuous after they get divorced, then you have a series of... maybe you have a series of men and women floating through the house with no bond with you, which hugely raises your risk of being abused.
Right.
Okay, this is confirming that it was six, because I've had this discussion with her.
Okay, so she is six.
I remember this.
Okay, got it.
Oh, you just checked?
I remember this.
Okay.
Yeah, I just checked.
Okay, so her parents got divorced when she was six, and then were very promiscuous afterwards.
Yeah.
So what are you trying to sell me this crap of the great childhood for?
I'm not quite sure I understand.
The...
I don't want to call it crap because I'm open to being convinced
otherwise, but I... it's something that I went deep into
while I was there. Because it was a big red flag.
Let me see, I'm trying to process it.
I mean, it's very selfish, right?
It's very selfish to break up a marriage because you want to sleep around at the massive expense of your children, right?
That's not good parenting, right?
Assuming that's the reason, yes.
Well, whatever reason it is, you either chose to have children with someone you weren't getting along with, or you stopped getting along after the kids, or you wanted to sleep... It doesn't matter what the reason is, you got divorced when your kids were single digits.
Right.
So that's bad parenting.
Okay.
No, I mean, you keep saying okay like I'm forcing you to... I mean, I'm happy to hear the case about how it's great parenting to divorce when your kids are in the single digits and then sleep around a lot.
I say okay because it's like, yes, this is correct.
I wish it wasn't.
I feel bad about it.
That's the okay.
But the feel bad about it might be the part of lying to myself.
Now, which family member was she going to go and see?
Sister.
Right.
And what were your thoughts on the sister?
She was an older sister.
Well, not was, is.
Her I didn't know almost anything about because she was never around.
She was out of town.
The whole time I knew her.
And when I met, it's like, she's more conservative, if that makes sense.
Right.
And was your, boy, I guess this is double sense, was your ex-girlfriend close to her parents?
Very close, yes.
And did she have any, had she ever talked with her parents about the problems in the family related to divorce and promiscuity?
Often, yes.
And how did her parents respond to that?
Well, I guess that's coloring my, this is a good relationship.
I saw the conversation that they had in front of me and it was, there was no It was just a genuine, yes, you were right, this was a poor decision, and here's how I'm going to make it better, blah, blah, blah.
I don't remember the instance of the divorce, though, or the reasoning behind that.
And what did they do to make it better?
This I knew from... I'll go with this.
It, to make it better, is the current relationship at that time.
Not in the childhood, but as adult-to-adult parent-kid.
I'm digging through a memory that I don't have details on.
No, but you were there for the conversation.
You said, we're going to work to make it better.
So what did they say they were going to do to make it better?
Like a response of if I'm just going to be flippant about Like like I
Generally don't remember the specific details How long ago did that conversation occur?
Like four years ago.
Okay, so you were still together then, and you were together for another year or two after that, and then you knew her still for two years or plus after that, so did she ever mention or did you ever hear about anything her parents were doing to make up for the bad parenting?
Oh no, nothing there.
So she never mentioned it, you never heard about it?
No.
received no empirical evidence that her parents did squat to make up for anything.
Yeah, I can't present it correct.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah, I mean, if she had issues with her family and they made empty promises of reform and making up for things and then they didn't do it, maybe she'd have taken a break from her family and wouldn't have been on that plane!
It's just one possibility, it's not a moral thing, it's just a consequentialist thing.
That's not it.
Sorry, what's not it?
That wasn't the case, but yes.
Sorry, what do you mean that wasn't the case?
I know that wasn't the case.
What do you mean?
As theory, I agree, but not in practice.
I don't know how to present evidence here, but maybe this is an issue.
Well, I mean, I'm just thinking, if I was her boyfriend, for whatever, like, some alternate universe, if I was her boyfriend, and she was telling me about all the stuff about her parents, I would have said, okay, well, geez, that was some pretty terrible decision that really had a negative impact on you, and, you know, and then she has a conversation with them, and they say, we're sorry, and we're gonna work to make amends, I'd say, okay, well, what specific steps, and what's happening, and what's, like, it wouldn't be the end of the convo, right?
Mm-hmm.
But what's for you, right?
Yes.
Like, you didn't care enough, I think, don't want to sound harsh, but you didn't care enough to say, have they followed through, or, like, they didn't even follow through on their marriage vows.
What would make you think they'd follow through on making amends?
I guess I was just there.
I can't remember it, if that makes sense.
I'm not asking you whether you remember it.
Did I ask whether you remembered it?
I said, Doug, you weren't there enough for her, in my humble opinion, you weren't there enough for her to say, okay, you had this really important conversation with your parents, what was the follow-up?
Like, what have they done?
And maybe they did stuff, I don't know, I mean, we don't know, we're just theorizing, we'll probably never know now, but maybe you'd follow up, right?
I had to speak to my parents, they apologized, they promised to make amends, and then you'd follow up and say, well, have they been making amends, or was it just something they said, or whatever, right?
So, anyway, that's obviously we're on the very outside of probabilities here, so I get that that's not... But, you know, I'm just in terms of regret.
So, if you'd been with her, you'd have been on the plane, and you would have gone down.
Okay.
Yeah, that's tragic.
So, I mean, in terms of regret, what decisions do you think, and we can close on this, and I really do appreciate the conversation, you've done a great job, but in terms of regret, right, the loss is the loss, right?
I mean, that's the price we pay for pair bonding.
But with regards to things you could have done differently or things you could do differently, Is there anything that you think you can, in a sense, pull from the wreckage of this catastrophe that you can do different?
Because the best way to honor people we've lost is to lose less in the future, right?
To commit further to life, to commit further to better decisions.
So, do you think that there's anything that you can get out of this mess, this disaster, that will minimize your regret in the future?
Do you wish you'd acted earlier?
Forget the dying in the plane crash.
I mean, I get that's right, but do you?
Like if you, sorry, if you didn't like her parents, like for whatever reason, right?
Like if they had kind of said, we're going to do reform, right?
Because the way it would have probably played out is if you had been there and said, okay, are they doing actual restitution or were they just saying it?
And then if she said, well, they're not really doing any actual restitution, then, you know, you would have probably said, well, you need to talk to them again, or you need to talk about being disappointed or, Or maybe you'd say, well, I don't like your family because they kind of messed you up as a kid, and then they messed you up as an adult by promising restitution that never came, which is really betraying you again, and so you probably wouldn't have been on that plane, because you wouldn't have gone to go see your family you don't respect, right?
And maybe, if you'd had a conversation with her, maybe she wouldn't be on that plane again.
This is all conjecture, right?
Okay, that one clicked something.
Okay, I see that.
I didn't think about that.
So do you wish, so forget about the being who's on the plane or not, but do you wish
you had acted over the last couple of years to get her back?
My immediate answer without thinking about it is no, because it was only the plane that was the
problem.
No, but you have to, because you didn't know about the plane when you made those decisions.
So do you wish, and I'm not trying to say whether you should or shouldn't have, I'm genuinely curious, do you wish you had acted earlier, regardless of the plane?
I think, like, there's so many variables in life.
That if you had, say, acted two years ago to get her back, or 18 months ago, who knows what various decisions would have been made, and the plane then becomes much less likely.
You know the butterfly effect, right?
Every little decision you make, right?
Okay.
So do you wish, outside of the plane thing, do you wish you had worked to get her back prior?
And the genuine answer to that is no.
Okay.
Surprisingly, lack of regret there.
Well, that's good.
So then she can't be an ideal that you hold other women to.
She can't be an ideal.
Okay.
Well, because you don't wish you had her back sooner.
Well, naturally I do, but I don't regret it.
Does that make any sense?
Nope.
I wish I had done it, but I don't regret not doing it is a contradiction.
I was going to do it tomorrow.
Maybe that's why there's no regret.
I want an answer that feels genuine from there.
I'll tell you why you could not have lost by doing it earlier.
So, I'm a big one for if you think it and you feel it, say it.
You know, to my sometimes benefit and detriment in practical terms.
So, let's say that a year ago you had poured your heart out about how desperately you wanted her back and how much you loved her and how you really wanted to make a life together, right?
Yes.
Now, if she'd have said yes, maybe she would have flown to see you instead of her sister.
Or maybe you'd have been close enough that you'd have pointed out some deficiencies in her family, and maybe she'd not be quite so keen to go visit them, or I don't know, like, so we don't know any of that kind of stuff.
But let's say, let's say she'd have said, no, we're never getting back together, right?
Which, well, okay, I did do the pour my heart out thing.
And when did you do that?
Like, early after the breakup.
Okay, and what does she say to that again?
Um, well no, but maybe in the future Bye.
Right.
And okay, so if you had poured it out again, as you were planning on doing tomorrow, right?
If you had poured it out, and do you mean like literally tomorrow she would have been there?
No, I didn't know.
Okay, so if you had poured your heart out again, and she would have just said, well, now is later, but it's still no, so I guess it's no.
Right, then you would have had closure, right?
Yeah.
And then... No.
Sorry?
I personally, I would not have had closure.
Sure you would have.
Yeah, because she doesn't want you.
Now, I'm not saying that you wouldn't have still wanted her, but you would have closure as to whether you can have a relationship, right?
Well, I already went through that.
And then... No, no, but she said maybe.
No, that's why I changed the variables, brother.
I changed the variables to where she says no and never, not no and maybe.
Well, she said... Oh my God.
When we broke up, she said no.
But I'm sorry, she said no, and then you said you asked her afterwards, she said, not now, but maybe later.
Yeah, so I should have recorded it then, but then I tried again.
No, no, she said maybe later.
Now, so I changed the variables, I was very conscious about that, to where she says, well, later is now, it's still no, so it's never.
Does that make sense?
We're never ever getting, like Taylor Swift style, we are never ever ever getting back together.
If you'd have said that, right?
I was about to say, yeah.
Yeah, I would still not have closure.
But that's me.
Well, no, you would have denied closure, but you'd still have it.
You could only have not had closure by pretending she said something other than what she said, or she doesn't really mean it, or it'll change.
So just by not listening to her, you would have had closure, but by not listening to her, you wouldn't be showing her respect.
So you'd have closure no matter what.
Okay.
She doesn't know her own heart.
She doesn't mean that.
That's just not listening to her, right?
And not respecting what she says.
So that's not good either.
So if she'd have said no, you'd have had closure.
So, yes, I think you should have not waited.
If you were still yearning for her, then you should have been honest with her.
Because by hiding how much you were yearning for her and wanted her back, you were being kind of dishonest with her, right?
I see what you mean.
Because you were also deceiving her about the trip, because she thought she was coming for a visit and you were going to try and, I don't know, I'm not saying exactly lock her in the basement, but you were going to make a serious play for her, right?
Well, yes.
And she didn't know that coming in, right?
Yeah.
Yes, she didn't know that?
Yes, she didn't know that.
So, that's a bit deceptive, right?
Okay, yeah.
And it's not giving her the choice, because then she's there, you make a play for her, and she's kind of surprised, didn't know it was coming.
Or maybe she was going to do the same thing, and I don't know, right?
Obviously we'll never know.
But there's no indication of that, right?
She was coming for some bizarre situationship visit, right?
Look at me using the younger person's lingo, and I think somewhat accurately.
It's the first time I felt like, okay, boomer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, that's fair.
I mean, I'm one year shy of a boom.
I'm going to hold on to that like grim death.
But no, I can't tell you how much my daughter enjoys it when I use Gen A slang.
She just finds it delightful.
Beyond wonderful.
She would like me even more to do it in public, but that's something I'm holding off on to just really delight her down the road.
So, but no, she would be coming Thinking it was, you know, friends with history, right?
Okay, yeah.
No, is that right?
Is that what she was thinking?
I'm gonna say yes.
I am seeing the pattern of me deluding myself.
No, I'm not talking about you deluding yourself!
I mean, you knew you were deceiving her, right?
You knew that you weren't saying, I'm gonna make a play for you when you come.
Come so that I can handle things.
No, I'm deluding myself into thinking, yeah, she sees that coming.
I'm sorry, say again?
I'm deluding myself into thinking, yeah, she sees that coming.
Of course she expects it.
Oh, okay, okay, right.
But then there would be no problem vocalizing it if she already knew, right?
Like if I come home with a giant sunburn and I say to my wife, I have a sunburn, she'll say, well, I know, I can see the fact that you look like a tomato with blue eyes.
So if my wife knows something, there's no harm saying it, right?
So if she already knows this, you could say, yeah, come back and, you know, let's see if we get back together.
Because if she's expecting that, but the fact that you didn't say that means that you didn't think she knew that.
My genuine logic was, this is an in-person conversation, but yeah.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
And that's fine, but she didn't know that she was coming for that in-person conversation.
Okay.
Unless you were both trying to deceive each other, in which case this may not be the very best basis for a relationship, but anyway.
Yeah, probably.
Maybe.
Okay.
So yeah, I think in general the lesson to get is if it's in your heart, say it.
If it's in your heart, say it.
Don't wait, don't manipulate, don't deceive, don't false pretense, don't, you know, hey, we're just friends, you know, just say it.
I mean, that's been my policy for better or for worse and I think it's served me pretty well over life and it's just, you know, it's really complicated to just manipulate and falsify.
It's complicated, it's messy, it's, you know, you're coming from a point of fraud and falseness and it's just, it's real tough to navigate.
Whereas if, you know, you want her back, you know, I think the honest thing, if you have a commitment to honesty, if you want someone back, the honest thing is to say what?
I want you back.
There you go!
Four easy words.
Now, again, you know, it's scary and, you know, but yeah, I mean, I've done that.
I, you know, I once or twice, I wanted to get back together with an ex and I said, I want you back.
And one time the woman said no, and she was right, and one time a woman said yes, and she was wrong.
No, the getting back together almost never works, because then you have this yearning, and you have this fantasy, and you have this ideal, and then you get back together, and you know, within three days you're like, oh right, this is why it didn't work.
But you know, so I think in general the way to minimize regret as much as possible is To take the lesson of don't wait and don't falsify.
Don't manipulate, just be direct.
Right.
And that's how you get closure.
Manipulation will never get you closure.
And directness will get you closure.
Directness, yeah.
And I mean, I also wanted to say, like, I'm really sorry for your loss, and it is a big loss.
It's a substantial loss, and there's a hole in your heart, and I sympathize with that.
You know, there's a hole in your heart.
I can see the seawater on the other side, like, lots of salt and wetness, and I really sympathize.
with that porthole view, and it's very tough.
Death is a very difficult thing, and the death of the person, the death of the hope, the death of the future, and maybe the death of the illusion, but the death of the person is really substantial, and I'm really sorry for what has happened, and you just do have my deepest sympathies for your loss, which is substantial.
Thank you.
I feel ready enough to continue speaking and now being more aware of how many illusions I hold.
I was a little surprised by that.
Oh, if it's any consolation, I still have mine, so, you know, this is a, especially when you race badly, it's a sort of constant challenge, but an exciting one.
I enjoy the combat myself.
It's like a mental video game to chase down the ghosts and exorcise them, so.
All right, listen, I really appreciate the call.
I'm glad we could do it in such short notice, and my deepest sympathies, and I hope that you'll keep me posted about how things are going.
I will, and thank you for this.
I wasn't expecting it to go this way, but let's see if I never... No, it has to be unexpected, otherwise there's no point calling.
Has the funeral come and gone?
Yes.
And did you go?
You didn't, right?
Couldn't, no.
Okay.
Why couldn't you?
Oh, travel or something?
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Well, my sympathies for that as well, and I would certainly Maybe write something down your memories and all of that so you don't forget because it's easy to forget these things and I Think keeping a record of these things, you know put together an album Maybe the picture the pictures the memories and just have it all down So that it doesn't get washed away like the sandcastles on the beach of the general pounding of the days.
So That would be my suggestion.
But yeah best of luck and I hope you keep you posted and thanks for a great call today.
I Will thank you.
Bye.
▲
Export Selection