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Aug. 1, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:50:55

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	I will be defoeing from my family this weekend, which was last weekend.
	My parents know I want time to heal and go no contact, however they think it's temporary.
	I think the truth is that I want to immediately cut contact permanently once moved, so I know they're out of my life forever.
	I'm not sure if this is very Russian rational, but if they were to die tomorrow, I would have no regrets, alongside having had no desire to spend time with them for a couple of years already, excluding obligation feelings and using them for resources.
	I am not even sure if permanently defooing is the right thing to do.
	The people-pleasing has improved a lot since we last spoke, however still significantly, really significantly affects me on a day-to-day basis.
	For example, I keep choosing bad men and creeps.
	Maybe creeps a wrong word, but I keep choosing bad men.
	And I've had dishonest friendships and a relationship in which I people-pleased and was a voluntary in bracket slave like as talked about
	in real-time relationships.
	Now I only want honest friendships and once I've healed more, which is hopefully not long now,
	meet a husband and build a family. But that feels like a world's away. I don't know what it would
	feel like to even just be happy and just have a happy relationship. I have no idea what that
	would look like. Right, right. And okay, I'm sure that there's more that you want to add so I can hear.
	And if you could just, just a minor technical thing, if you could back off from the mic a little bit, I'm getting some breath noises.
	Oh, sorry.
	No, no problem.
	Yeah.
	So I'm sure there's more you want to add, and I'm all ears.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So regarding men, I've been, I've spoken to a few men.
	So I had a relationship from December to July last year, and it was a completely dishonest relationship.
	He was less intelligent than me, still intelligent, and it was sort of like a safe haven.
	I was with him for the sake of being with someone, so I was using him.
	I then broke up with him because I realized, oh my gosh, we have nothing in common.
	There's no deep conversations.
	This is as dead as it humanly gets.
	And then after, my friend introduced me to a guy and I told him from the get-go I don't want a date or anything, just want to be friends.
	And then somehow we started doing things that friends don't do.
	And he knew about my people-pleasing, but It was still dishonest and passive whilst we were doing... I think, sorry, I don't know if you pulled a chord or something, but I heard a click and then you were gone.
	Is this okay?
	Oh yeah, sorry, you just clicked and you're gone, now you're back.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	So, not sex, but intimate things.
	I won't go into detail.
	But I would even be like, I hate this, I feel disgusting, and we would still do it, even though I felt that way, and I would openly say it during it sometimes.
	Sorry to interrupt, and obviously I don't mean to pry, I just want to make sure I understand Did you feel disgusting just because you were having sex with a guy you didn't really like?
	Or was there some... It wasn't sex.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	It was kissing and... I feel awkward going into detail with people going to hear this.
	No, that's... But it doesn't involve... Anything you're not comfortable with.
	Absolutely, you don't... But I just wanted to make sure.
	Let's say it's just kissing.
	We'll just say kissing plus or whatever.
	We don't have to get into details.
	Yeah, kissing plus.
	So did you feel grossed out Because of the kissing plus, or because of him?
	I'm... That's interesting.
	I was never once attracted to him.
	I actually felt embarrassed when we first met, hanging out with him in public, which is shameful.
	No, no, no.
	Okay, sorry.
	I hate to be annoying.
	You know, and you're doing great.
	But if you could just hold off on the self-attacking moral judgments, you know, because they're kind of tough to listen to.
	Okay.
	It's shameful!
	It's like, no, it's not shameful.
	What was wrong with how he looked, that this was embarrassing or he was so unattractive?
	His face.
	Okay, so what was wrong with his face?
	It just wasn't... I don't know.
	I've never got this before, but it just... There was just something that just looked very... embarrassing.
	I can't put a finger on it.
	Was he like a chinless wanderer?
	Did he have weird hair?
	No!
	Did he have... His hair wasn't good.
	Okay, but was he fat?
	His facial hair wasn't good.
	No, he had a very good physique.
	OK.
	But he didn't know how to dress.
	OK.
	So he's a man.
	He was like a mother's boy.
	OK.
	OK.
	So was it something in the eyes?
	Something in the demeanor?
	Like he just seemed like a loser?
	Or like what was it that gave you the ick so bad?
	He was confident, but he was just Ugly?
	Okay.
	And he was ugly, was it, he was ugly for things outside of his control, right?
	Like his facial structure is just his facial structure, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	He looked bellow without glasses on, but he always wore glasses, but yeah, it was just out of his control.
	I guess he could have controlled the facial hair a tiny bit more, and he's done that before, and the hair a teeny bit more, and then he could have dressed better, and that would have made it Maybe?
	But yeah, it was more so just fingers out of his control.
	Okay, so, and I'm sorry to stall right at the beginning here, but I mean it's a very interesting thing that you're talking about.
	My gut says it has some real relevance.
	So, the previous guy was not as intelligent.
	How was this guy in terms of the smartitude?
	Oh yeah, with my ex I did have sex, which I regret.
	So I've done it once, like with one guy.
	And how did he look?
	Much better looking.
	He also went to the gym.
	He was a teeny bit chubby, but I was also a teeny bit chubby.
	But he had a, like, good physique.
	He was strong.
	He had a pretty face.
	Like, yeah, good-looking guy.
	And he had status.
	Not status status, but he had friends.
	And, well, I guess the other guy also had a lot of friends, but... Sorry, so what I'm sort of trying to understand is you said that your ex... Good walking with my ex.
	I'm sorry?
	I felt good walking with my ex, I felt embarrassed walking with the guy from September to, let's say, recently.
	Yeah, we can say ex and new guy, just so we can differentiate these two.
	Now you said, did I get this right, you said your ex wasn't so smart?
	What about new guy?
	He was a network engineer, so he was intelligent, but he just was...
	Like any other human, no deep conversations, no depth, no passion, didn't read, didn't have any hobbies besides video games and going to the gym and drinking alcohol.
	He was a typical British 20-something year old.
	And particularly kind of concrete, like an engineer, not much into abstractions and so on, right?
	Yeah.
	There is good or is it the soul?
	No poetry.
	Okay.
	I've worked with people like that.
	But somebody was saying wasn't smart.
	At least that was my understanding.
	Is that new guy or did I just misunderstand that completely?
	X. It's not that he wasn't smart.
	I mean, he has an average intelligence.
	It's that I was just a lot smarter and into deeper things.
	Okay.
	So he would be smarter at engineering, but you'd be smarter at other things like around wisdom and curiosity and life.
	Yeah, I almost got into network engineering out of people pleasing and codependency.
	I'm sorry, I didn't quite follow that.
	Could you repeat that?
	I almost got into that sector.
	It was like, why not do network engineering?
	I was like, sure.
	And I like studied for it and made notes.
	And then part of me was just like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to do this.
	Right.
	OK.
	All right.
	So with my first, sorry, that happened with my first boyfriend.
	So in the UK, there were A-levels.
	And I was going to do psychology, biology and geography.
	And my ex was like, no, they're such like bad feminist subjects who will ever swindle up doing maths and computer science.
	Sorry, now, oh, this is the network engineer, so he... That was the first boyfriend, the maths and computer science guy.
	Second boyfriend, network engineer.
	Okay, and then new guy, alright.
	So, your first boyfriend said, don't do the psychology, geography stuff, do maths and computer engineering, so that's what you did?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And how did that work out for you?
	I ended up dropping out of school the next year, but that was more so because I started speaking to a narcissist.
	I was young at the time and he was mid-twenties, so we had a big age gap.
	This was when I was still in school.
	We spent all our time together and he had a massive influence on me.
	I went from being in my parents' control to being a slave to this narcissist.
	Slave as in I had complete free will to be there, but I was treating him like a master and I was making myself a slave.
	I have complete free will on that.
	So, sorry, I mean, not your fault, because it's your life, I'm just skipping around a little bit.
	So, the narcissist, tell me a little bit about that situation, how did that come about?
	But he wasn't a boyfriend, right?
	No, we actually talked about him in my first show.
	So he was my best friend at the time.
	He was all the way from another continent.
	We spoke every day for a year and a half, pretty much.
	And it started all nice.
	We'd have all these deep, amazing conversations.
	I didn't think there was anything like him in the world.
	And it just turned toxic at the end.
	I talked about betraying him at my last calling, but you fought back on the fact, was that actually a betrayal or not?
	Right, right, okay, yep.
	But it turns out, and then when he ditched me and stopped talking to me because of a choice I made, When he stopped talking to me, I was like, oh my gosh, my most selfish person ever, and he just kept insulting me and called me a bunch of derogatory names.
	Right.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	He also introduced me to you.
	Right, right.
	It certainly is interesting, the variety of people who listen.
	I think some people listen to me because they want the truth, and the other people listen to me because they want to know how the human mind works so they can better disassemble it.
	That's sort of my rough guess.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So, with regards to what happened last weekend.
	Tell me all about it.
	I moved.
	I'm here now.
	I'm in another country technically.
	Right.
	It was smooth sailing.
	Old guy, not old guy, new guy helped me move but I did say beforehand I do not want to be friends with you after this and I wouldn't like to speak with you or hang out with you.
	Even though he was driving all the way because we needed two cars to fit all my stuff, I wouldn't have been able to just fit it in mine.
	But this is the guy you said you only wanted to be friends at the beginning and then you ended up making out with him, right?
	Yeah.
	So he may have been like, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, we'll just be friends, right?
	Whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	Alright, I know a little bit about how men work and we sometimes are like, I can fit, we're like cats under doors, I can fit through that, I can get through that.
	I'm so freaking passive.
	Go on.
	No, he was the most passive guy ever.
	He didn't even ever feel desire.
	He only ever initiated for me once, which was after I stopped talking to him and Vergara introduced me to him for a short time.
	But that was the only time he ever initiated hanging out with me.
	And he says he's never initiated with any of his friends either and he simply forgets to initiate because he is in his own little world.
	And I almost got in a relationship with him.
	He asked me to be his girlfriend at like 1am, 2am.
	Completely impulsively.
	So he initiated that?
	Yeah, but it was at like 1 or 2am and it was out of more so feelings of guilt or I'm guessing because of the more intimate style things we are doing.
	Most of his friends are religious, so.
	Okay.
	So, with regards to last weekend, your issue was around the defooing, which of course I'm very sorry to hear about.
	It's always a tragic situation.
	Yeah.
	So, I asked you what happened last weekend.
	You said, I moved.
	Oh, I deflected.
	I do feel that you could break it out just a tiny bit more, since that seems to be the core topic.
	Yes.
	I would say that would be like a 50-50 topic.
	I'd like to focus half on the defu and half on the how do I not choose bad guys but for the defu.
	So I told my parents that I would like to go a few months not speaking just to give myself some time and that oh I just want time to heal x y and z so I'm not speaking to them now and they're as far away from me as it gets But I haven't permanently cut things off yet.
	And I feel so ambivalent, so ambivalent about it.
	I know regarding my father, he is as lost cause and as no hope as it gets.
	He can rot away.
	I've spoken to them and confronted them, not much, only recently really when I finished RTR.
	I've only confronted them a couple of times like the past couple of months.
	I mean, I guess when I was a kid, I confronted them all the time.
	So I used to confront them all the time up until the age of 16, 17.
	So I knew how it worked out.
	I did it my whole life.
	So, no wonder I held off.
	But I did it again recently.
	And this is how my dad's language went.
	I say, he hit me.
	He say, a light tap.
	I say, he screamed at me.
	To the point the neighbours hear.
	He would say, yell.
	I say, control me.
	He would say, oh we probably did.
	You see, he would.
	And then the only thing he took responsibility was, I'm sorry I yelled at you, sometimes that's wrong.
	He is as lost, hope, cause as it gets.
	There's not an ounce of me that ever wants to speak with him and he's actually been... Tell me if I'm speaking too much and you'd like to interrupt me.
	No, yeah, don't worry.
	I'll manage my side.
	You do yours.
	Okay, so he's actually been a care home for a year and a half.
	My family situation is very disgusting and evil.
	Sorry, he's been a what for a year and a half?
	In a care home for a year and a half.
	Oh, sorry.
	Okay, got it.
	My mum kicked him out of the house he's paying for.
	She lives there without a job and gets to do whatever she likes every single day.
	Meanwhile, he's in a care home yet paying for the house and he's not even in that house.
	She doesn't even work.
	Sorry, but why is he in a care home rather than living in an apartment?
	He had a stroke in November of 2020-something.
	Right.
	a couple years ago.
	So it makes him living life harder.
	But um, yeah, so my mom gets to, you know, live her best life.
	She doesn't work.
	She just has a house to herself.
	She goes to the gym several hours a day, though right now she's on well with something.
	But like, she lives on her own little fairyland and complains and is always a poor, helpless victim, vindictive bitch.
	And um, can I swear?
	You certainly can.
	I don't want you to self-censor, so go for it.
	If I faint, don't worry about it.
	I'll recover soon.
	Okay.
	I feel so much happier now than I have in a long time.
	I'm teary-eyed.
	Oh, you mean as a whole, or in this room?
	Right now, like... Oh, good, good, I'm glad.
	Well, I'm obviously glad to be... I'm crying!
	Glad to be talking, and glad to be hearing.
	I'm not obviously happy about the content, of course, right?
	But I'm certainly happy to be having a conversation, and so, yeah, I'm yours for an hour or two, so go for it.
	So, your dad's in the care home, and your mom... Yeah, my mom's in Fairyland.
	I'm sorry, why did your mum kick him out?
	Was it because he was unwell?
	Because he's hard to look after.
	She didn't want to wipe his butt and everything.
	Now, he didn't recover much from the stroke, is that right?
	Because sometimes people can wrestle back.
	Walk a bit, like, with a stick, like, to an end of a corridor.
	But, like, not much besides that.
	But honestly, I don't think he put the work in he should have.
	There were hiccups and stuff.
	And then I remember when he was at home, my mum was feeding him unhealthy food.
	We talked about this in the first corner, but she was fatting him up like a narwhal again.
	Because she's a think evil!
	Right.
	And, um...
	And now, sorry, how is his health outside of the stroke?
	In other words, is he going to live for a while, or is he, like, decaying physically?
	I rarely visit him, but he's not decaying.
	His brain's completely healthy.
	His body's, well, strokified, but his body's okay, I guess.
	It doesn't seem like he's going to die any time soon or anything, so it seems like he's going to live a fair bit longer.
	But yeah, he's just doing nothing every day, probably.
	Sorry, just remind me of your age range.
	You don't have to tell me specifics.
	Early 20s.
	Early 20s, okay.
	Right, so he could go on for another 30 plus years, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	But regarding the care home, what I was going to get into is I never felt a desire to see him.
	The only time I felt a desire was out of obligation because he paid for my car insurance and whatever else.
	Right.
	Yeah, I don't want him in my life.
	I want him gone forever.
	And now I'm as far away as it gets, but I haven't told him I want to permanently stop speaking.
	I haven't yet sent him that message.
	Sorry, why would you need to send him that message?
	Because it would feel like the rope is cut.
	They're actually gone forever.
	But that's in your heart, right?
	I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, I'm just... You seem to be like it's an absolute, I have to tell them blah blah blah, right?
	I mean... So... I'm not sure why.
	Because won't that just stir up a hornet's nest?
	Yeah, but it still feels temporary.
	It still feels like they're controlling me.
	I just want to be like, you're gone forever.
	No, no, but you see, if you have to send them the letter, they're still controlling you.
	It's a choice, it's an option.
	Maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's not, I don't know.
	But if you have to send them the letter, that's not escaping their control.
	Why?
	I'm confused.
	You have to.
	No, I mean, like, out of my choice.
	Well, okay, and if it's your choice, that's fine, but you said have to.
	And have to does not indicate choice.
	You know, like, I have to pay my taxes, that's not necessarily a choice.
	I have to go to the dentist if my tooth is hurting, that's not necessarily choice.
	I want to, Ben.
	I want nothing to do with them, and I want them gone forever.
	No, no, I'm sorry, I'm not disagreeing with you about that.
	Wanting nothing to do with them does not necessitate communicating that to them.
	Like, if you say, and again, maybe it's the right thing to do, maybe it's the wrong thing to do, but it's not an obligation.
	So, if it's easier for you and better for you, then you can just say that I'm taking a break, goes on and on, right?
	Now, if you do want to, if it's closure and so on, but I suppose my concern is that, is it easier sometimes to fade away, or is it easier to blow the trumpets when you leave?
	I mean, blowing the trumpets will cause havoc, and fading away won't cause any havoc.
	Right, and I don't, you know, if the parents were this bad and so on, I'm not sure that there's much of an obligation.
	And to be in communication, I mean, will they respect what you're saying?
	They respected that.
	I told them both that I don't want to speak for a few months and they were like, yeah, we're sad, we wish you the best, we won't contact you.
	Okay.
	So what happens if you say, never contact me again?
	It would blow trumpets horns, maybe.
	They would maybe get angry.
	I'm not too sure, but it would sort of give me that peace.
	Maybe it wouldn't and I'm fooling myself.
	But I'm thinking it would give me that peace that the rope is fully tied and I never need to speak to them again or have anything to do with them.
	But why would I need to tell them that?
	Can't I simply just ignore them?
	Well, I mean, you're on the other side of the world.
	You're in another country.
	I mean, it's going to be pretty easy to not have any particular communication, right?
	Yeah, very easy.
	Right.
	And again, I don't know, obviously, whether it's the right or wrong thing.
	My only concern was that you said, well, I have to send this letter.
	I have to, whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	It just still feels like they're there.
	Like I see their messages.
	They're not blocked.
	They're just there.
	Sorry, what do you mean you see their messages?
	As in, I could go onto, like, messages and they'd be one of the messages on there because I haven't blocked them.
	So you said, I don't want to be in contact for a couple of months and they keep messaging you?
	I'm not sure I fully understand.
	No, but I, no, I haven't blocked them though.
	so they'd come up on my contacts list.
	But...
	they're not messaging you?
	No, my mum did regarding close by just said, uh, no, you can just do what you like.
	Um, please don't message me.
	Sorry, your mother said please don't mess with me.
	Because I had extra clothes and stuff in my room I didn't take with me.
	She just messaged about that.
	Okay.
	So they are not contacting you at the moment?
	Yeah, they're not contacting me.
	And your concern is they show up in your contacts?
	No, more so that they're just in my contact list still.
	That they're not blocked.
	Right, okay.
	And what's wrong with blocking them and then deciding in a couple of months?
	I could block them now.
	That would be nice.
	So why haven't you?
	Again, I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't, but why haven't you?
	I told them I wouldn't block them.
	And why did you say that?
	Oh, because in case there's an emergency or something like that?
	I don't care if there's an emergency.
	I don't care if they die tomorrow.
	Okay.
	Again, I understand the temptation to, oh that sounds terrible, blah blah blah.
	But it doesn't.
	It is what it is.
	My sympathy is with you as the child, because you were not in a chosen relationship.
	Your parents chose to have children.
	Sorry, I'm interrupting you.
	There's quite a lot of that.
	I'm not sure if we have a delay or something like that, but I feel like I start talking and then I get about three seconds, if that makes sense.
	And then you're saying, and again, I want to hear and all of that, but it's a little tricky.
	It's not you.
	It's not a delay.
	I'm really bad at interrupting people.
	No, I, hey, I appreciate the enthusiasm.
	So that's, that's totally fine.
	So why, if you don't want to hear from them, why did you say you wouldn't block them?
	And again, I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious.
	Maybe I think to make them less scared.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Or more calm about it.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So if you, is your, would your goal be to send the message, let's say in a couple of months you haven't changed your mind and it doesn't sound like you will, is your goal then To message your parents and say, peace out forever, and then you would immediately block them and they would have no way of contacting you, is that right?
	Yes, but I would like to do that now rather than in a couple of months.
	Right.
	And you don't because you said you wouldn't?
	And I haven't because, well, I'm waiting for a sim to come, but that'll come in two days, and then I'll be out of my dad's control, because that's, he's still, like, my sim's connected to a family sim, but once I've got my new sim, then that's that, and I can just send him money I owe still being blocked, because I have his bank details, and then my mum I can simply just block now.
	Right, okay.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I mean, I just was a little alarmed when you said, like, I have to send that message, and I have to do this, and I have to do that, and I don't think you do.
	I mean, if you want to send the message, great.
	If you don't want to send the message to me, that would be fine too.
	I don't think you owe much to people who have been that negative in your life.
	No, you're right.
	And yeah, like I said, I was surviving a hellhole every day as a kid.
	Like, before I'd go to bed, I'd literally, like, they'd always come in my room, right, when I was asleep and check on me.
	So every day I felt like I was some surviving prey.
	It was, my life was a literal terrifying nightmare.
	I'm sorry, why was it, I'm not disagreeing with you again, of course, but why was it so scary when they would come into your room?
	I don't know.
	I just remember this terrifying feeling of them checking on me when I'm like, so I have to fake being asleep and I'm just terrified of them.
	I don't know.
	It just scared me.
	They'd always come in and check on me every night.
	And until what age?
	I think this was up until early teenage years.
	I'm not too sure what age it stopped.
	Right.
	Now, I mean, I've heard some pretty terrible things over the course of my conversations with people over the last, I guess, close to 20 years.
	My parents checking on me is not the scariest.
	And again, I just want to make sure I understand where you're coming from in terms of why it was alarming.
	And again, I'm not disagreeing with any of your instincts.
	I just want to make sure that I understand things from your perspective.
	Yeah.
	I don't know why it was alarming.
	Well, more than alarming, you said it was terrifying.
	Like, I'd just be scared every night when they'd open the door and check on me and I'd be faking being asleep.
	I'm guessing because if they knew I was awake, it wouldn't be a good thing.
	I honestly have virtually no memories.
	So if you were awake, they would be upset at you for being awake, is that right?
	Angry?
	Angry at you for being awake, okay.
	Yeah, my dad had raging anger issues.
	Right, okay.
	Okay, so I think I understand.
	Okay, I just wanted to make sure that I was on board with that.
	Okay.
	All right, so is there anything else that you want to talk about with regards to your parents and what happened last weekend?
	Yeah so again part of me still feels like I want to say peace out forever now but my mum's so manipulative when I confronted her like she would be like oh I'm sorry um I don't have memories I don't remember this but I'm sorry if that happened maybe I did this because of this and then um And she'll just be like oh I was probably just in such an unhappy marriage and I'm sorry you felt that way and um like what can I do to make a relationship right?
	And then the next day she would be angry at me and bitter at me as always so it's all fake manipulative apologies and you actually said like all the lines she said at the end of real-time relationships you literally got her points spot on all her arguments it's like you were speaking for her Yeah, defensives are just like NPC programming.
	It's pretty easy to figure out what people are going to say.
	Exactly.
	And so it's all gaslight and manipulation, which is what's stopping me.
	But I don't want her in my life.
	I want to say peace out forever, but I haven't yet.
	And what's wrong with that?
	Because she's still there.
	Do you think there's a way?
	Tell me what you mean by still there.
	In my head it's like a rope cut tied.
	Even though I'm far away from them physically, there's an elastic band that can go from Antarctica to the other one, I don't know what it's called.
	Arctic, yeah.
	And I want it cut.
	You want it cut, so what does that mean?
	I want nothing to do with her.
	I just want the fact that I will never speak to her again to happen.
	Because I know in a few months I'll have to speak to her again so it doesn't feel over.
	Well, again, this is back to my first question.
	Why do you have to speak to her again?
	I don't.
	I feel obligation.
	I just want to say goodbye forever.
	Okay, but saying goodbye forever is in your mind.
	It is not in a conversation.
	Necessarily.
	I could... Sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
	Okay, I could simply just block them and never unblock.
	But I don't like that idea.
	Why don't you like that idea?
	Because they might email me or try to get a contact of me to quote-unquote see if I am okay.
	Mm-hmm.
	And?
	I don't want them to try getting contact.
	I'd rather say goodbye forever.
	I will be safe.
	So they don't use that excuse.
	Okay, but are they going to respect your decision or if you say I don't want to talk again ever, are they Going to escalate and be intrusive.
	I mean, they might escalate and be intrusive, but they will know I've not died in a car crash or something.
	Whereas if I just block them and be like, oh my gosh, what has happened?
	She just blocked us without saying goodbye.
	Well, but if – I'm sorry to interrupt – but if you blocked them, it's unlikely that you died in a car crash.
	I mean, if people are dying in a car crash, what they don't generally do is block people on their phone.
	They might not know I blocked them.
	I don't know how that works, technically.
	On WhatsApp, for example, you can't see if someone's blocked you.
	Like, the messages will still send.
	It could just look like they never read it.
	Right, okay.
	Okay, so, listen, I mean, philosophically speaking, the technicalities of whether you get contact or whether they know you've blocked them, that's not a philosophical topic.
	That's a sort of technical issue.
	With regards to how you're going to manage it.
	But here's what I don't want, and here's where I think your thinking may be a little bit on the wishful side, which we all have, right?
	But it's something like this.
	So, your parents are in your head.
	Well, yeah, that's called being a human being, right?
	I mean, I haven't talked to my mom in a quarter century, she's still in my head.
	Now, I mean, now she's helpful, right?
	Because my mom, my inner mother was developed to protect me from danger, and so my inner mom is pretty good at protecting me from danger.
	In fact, it was my inner mother who said, stop doing politics.
	Right?
	So, I've, you know, I wouldn't say I've tamed her, but I've enlisted her as a helpful aspect of my personality.
	So she's still in my head, and you can't undo that.
	It's like saying, I'm gonna live like I never learned English.
	But you can't do that, right?
	Yeah.
	So, and it is in a sense a wish for self-erasure to say, I need to get my mother out of my head, because she is a part of who you are, and your inner mother is not your enemy, your inner mother is your friend.
	Now, your external mother sounds like pretty horrible, but your inner mother, she's not your enemy, she's there to help you.
	And so saying, well I want to get rid of my mother in my head, is getting rid of self-protection, because this is tied into how do you choose good men.
	So, your inner mother is there, was there, and is there, to protect you from danger.
	So, you have, I assume, an inner father as well, that makes you anxious when people get aggressive, right?
	When people get... I'm not sure, actually.
	Hang on, hang on.
	Please, I mean, just let me finish my thoughts.
	You must have an inner father who makes you anxious when people get aggressive, because otherwise you wouldn't be the slave, as you referred to.
	You wouldn't have taken computer science because some guy told you to.
	You wouldn't have obeyed the narcissist that we talked about last time.
	Right?
	So when people get aggressive or assertive or tell you what to do, you must have, I assume it's an inner father, could be
	inner father and mother, who says, well you better obey or you're in danger.
	Ah, I see, so the inner father would be obey because I would obey to my real father and
	if I didn't obey that would lead to punishment and escalation.
	And danger, yeah, great danger.
	So you have an inner father who's there to protect you from dangerous people who have power over you.
	Right, so if a guy in prison gets beaten up by a guard every time he looks the guard in the eyes, he's going to lower his eyes, right?
	Yeah.
	And so, you have an inner father who tells you, you better obey people, otherwise you're in grave danger.
	And that's the slave part that you were talking about, if that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	That makes complete sense.
	Now, your inner father may feel like a bully.
	But your inner father is, says, hey man, or hey lady, I know how to manage aggressive people.
	You comply and you're safe.
	You better not look that guard in the eye or he's gonna F you up, right?
	So your inner father is not an aggressor against you, he is a protector of you in that he has internalized your father's trigger points and warns you ahead of time what will make your father angry so you don't do it and thus get aggressed against or abandoned or neglected or whatever horrible things happened like when these skills evolved, right?
	Like, all of our evolutionary psychological mechanisms evolved during a time of massive infant mortality and literal child murder.
	Infanticide, child murder to the gods, to the ancestors or whatever.
	There was not enough food, so you really had to be a favorite.
	You could not piss off your parents.
	without risking real death throughout most of our evolution.
	That's where all of these mechanisms of survival came into us.
	So, when you're faced with particularly male aggression, your inner father kicks in and says, comply or die.
	And throughout almost all of your, throughout almost all of her evolution, your inner father was totally right.
	So he's there to help you.
	Your inner mother is there to help you.
	And this is tied into How to choose better men.
	But I want to make sure this part makes sense.
	When you say, like, I've got to tear out my inner mother and I don't want her to have any influence over me, or I want to have a not-haffer in my head, I'm like, oh no, no, no, you really want your inner mother and your inner father in your head.
	To clarify, when I say inner mother, I don't mean inner mother, I mean her on my mind.
	Real mother on my mind, in my head.
	No, there is no real mother in your mind.
	She can't get into your head physically, right?
	No.
	So, this is your thoughts.
	So, are you saying that you have repetitive thoughts about your mother that you want to get rid of?
	Um, more so just the looming fact that I've not cut contact yet out of always a bad choice.
	Well, okay, so is your belief that if you cut contact, you won't think about your mother as much?
	No, my belief is that if I cut contact, they're gone for good.
	What do you mean by gone, though?
	From where?
	From your mind?
	But I won't need to talk to them again.
	Okay, but we're talking about different things here.
	Are we talking about talking to your parents, or are we talking about your inner parents?
	Are we talking about the choice you have to make?
	I think what you said about inner parents is really true.
	I never actually thought about that regarding my inner father before.
	I hadn't thought about that.
	But I was more so speaking about them being out of my life.
	And by stopping, by cutting contact forever, they would be out of my life.
	Okay, I just feel like we're going in circles here, and I'm not sure why.
	Because it seems like the definition keeps changing.
	Because you keep talking about your thoughts.
	My concern is that if you think that if you block your parents, you don't talk to them again, that they won't show up in your mind as much, or, you know, it's almost like, I'm tortured by my parents, but as soon as I do this thing, all that torture will be gone, or it'll be closed, or there'll be peace afterwards.
	But that's not... I don't think that's how it works.
	Now, if you're just talking about, well, I don't physically talk to them, okay, well, that's not a philosophical topic, right?
	I mean, if you block them and they can't get in contact with you, then, yeah, I mean, but that's not a philosophical topic, right?
	That's just a technical thing about blocking people, if that makes sense.
	So, let me ask you this.
	Let me ask you this.
	Have you ever known people who get divorced and continue to complain about their ex?
	Often.
	Right.
	That's very common, isn't it?
	Yeah, really common.
	Now, even if they haven't talked to their ex in years, even if they have separated, and the legal separation, the marriage is all done, the divorce is done, they're still talking about that person, right?
	Right.
	So them cutting all contact, having no ties to them at all anymore, they still can't stop talking about it or get it out of their head.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	So even if I do block them, they're still going to be there.
	Well, the question is, how do you harness your injuries rather than try to get away from them?
	Because you can't get away from your injuries, but how do you use them to protect yourself?
	I see.
	So, I think what's going on with you and the boys, the guys, is probably, and this is, you know, to
	some degree out of RTR, right?
	So, managing dysfunctional parents was the only control you had as a child?
	Yeah.
	So, you couldn't control, and the example you gave of bedtime now makes more sense to me, so you couldn't control whether your parents came in at night.
	You couldn't control whether they might be upset if you were still awake.
	You couldn't control any of that, right?
	You couldn't control whether your dad would yell, you couldn't control his mood, but you could control whether you pretended to be asleep.
	So you can't control them, you can only control yourself.
	You can't make them be reasonable, but you can pretend to be asleep.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Now, what that means is that Your only sense of control is managing crazy people.
	Now, we all like to have a sense of control, don't we?
	Nobody likes to feel out of control or helpless.
	But if the only sense of control that you have is managing... Let's just talk about the male side.
	If the only sense of control that you have is managing dysfunctional men, then if there aren't dysfunctional men around, you're out of control.
	Maybe that's why I feel out of control.
	I see.
	So, go on.
	That makes sense!
	Because, um, ever since the move in, even, like, at times when there's no guy around, I'm just point-blank confused.
	Like, after the new guy we were speaking about, there was actually another guy on FDR I was speaking to.
	I don't think he was a terrible person, but he had a lot of issues he needed to work on still, and eventually I got disgusted.
	Spouse for a couple of months.
	It's like guy to guy to guy to guy to guy.
	And they're dysfunctional.
	Yes.
	Right.
	So managing dysfunctional people, managing dysfunctional men, is your sense of control.
	It's sort of like if you've ever done a walk where it's crazy windy and you end up leaning like 30 degrees into the wind.
	See, I can say 30 degrees because you did math, right?
	So you're leaning forward like 30 degrees into the wind and if for some reason the wind stops, you just fall over, right?
	So you have control, dysfunctional man.
	Manage dysfunctional men.
	That's your job.
	That's the only thing that you had power over.
	You can't have control over dysfunctional people, because they don't control themselves.
	Can I say another thing you might have forgot?
	I talked about it in my first call-in, but I'm guessing you forgot.
	So I was showered by my mom until the age of 11, and then my dad would impose crazy rules upon me, like, oh, I can't I'm not able to decide if I have a bath or not on my health when I'm 16, but he would enforce crazy tyrannical rules on me.
	He was a tyrant.
	So you couldn't control any of the rules or inflicting them, but you could try to manage In some other way.
	Avoid the topic, say, I showered at school or at the gym.
	Like, just find some way to manage the situation because you can't manage the person.
	I would.
	I would fight back.
	I would, like, shout and fight and fight and, like, I wouldn't give up.
	I would spend ages fighting back, defending myself, and protesting for freedom.
	Right.
	Because the one thing, and that is disgusting behavior, and the one thing that you have said is, about a couple of these guys, is you're disgusted.
	Yeah, I felt disgusted feeling after doing stuff.
	Right, right.
	And just like, oh, I spoke to them.
	Not I spoke to them, but just of the stuff we did and how codependent I got.
	I was an infant with some of them, not with some, only with a couple of them.
	So two guys, I ended up being the narcissist and then the FDR guy.
	The two FDR guys, one was from March to let's say May and one was from the year and a half when I was younger.
	I ended up becoming more depressed, binge eating, getting into bed, basically fattening myself up so I'd be ugly to them and being depressed in bed so I'd be ugly to them.
	And then my ex and then the new guy, I was still going to the gym.
	So I guess with the new guy I wasn't like I was still going to the gym and living life normally, but they were less intelligent.
	They weren't dumb, they were still smart.
	But they weren't part of FDR, so they weren't deeply intelligent and curious and poetry and all.
	So with the two FDR guys, I ended up coming in bed like a kid again.
	And with the non-FDR guys, I ended up living normally.
	Okay.
	So, have you met a guy where there's been romantic interest on either of your part who you would not consider gross or disgusting?
	Recently.
	But I have told him I don't think it's right for me to date for a few months.
	He's also part of the FDR community, but he lives ten minutes away.
	Sorry, and this is somebody we haven't talked about yet, right?
	No, we started speaking recently.
	Okay, got it.
	And I stopped because I keep interrupting.
	No, no, go ahead.
	Tell me more.
	You know what, he's not in the convo, so maybe let's not drag him in.
	Okay, so the guys before were kind of gross or disgusting, and this new guy is not.
	Yeah, I guess my ex wasn't gross.
	Yeah, my ex wasn't gross.
	The network guy?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	But just kind of under-stimulating or un-deep, right?
	Yeah, and I guess a new guy.
	Well, there's a lot of guys.
	Oh my gosh.
	This is so bad.
	Okay.
	I have to number them now.
	You have to what?
	Oh, number them?
	Right, right.
	But you know, we're not going in exponential, so that's good.
	And at least I've only had sex with one person.
	That's what matters.
	Okay.
	I feel embarrassed.
	You don't have to say if it's embarrassing.
	I mean, that's totally fine if you don't want to talk about it.
	It's okay, I should, because... I should.
	But, um... I felt disgusted about the FDR guy I spoke to for two months, and then I felt disgusted from new guy, the guy from, let's say, September to March.
	But not about my ex.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	Sorry, I'm just collecting my thoughts for a moment.
	you you
	So, the question is, your inner father can protect you from disgusting guys, or guys
	that are creepy or weird or negative or not appropriate or whatever, not compatible, it
	could be any number of things, right?
	and we'll see you next time.
	But here's the problem, every inner alter ego wants a job.
	Because they've evolved for a particular reason or purpose.
	So every internal alter ego wants a job.
	So you have an inner father who's designed to protect you from aggressive guys, but the only thing he knows how to do is to comply.
	So the only way he gets to keep his job is if you have aggressive guys around.
	In fact, he will try to summon aggression in guys by you being dithery and flaky and helpless.
	To try and summon aggressive guys, or aggression in guys, so that he has a job.
	You know... Oh, can I interrupt?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Or not?
	Um, so at the start of the call-in, I was, like, debating being, like, to you.
	I feel like you're gonna attack me instantly, and, like, give me, like, a bunch of, like, oh, and, like, I'm gonna get called out into oblivion.
	So he came out immediately at the start of his call-in as well, and it was, like, I was just expecting attack, attack, attack from you.
	Right.
	Right.
	And you did say, like, I'm really, really nervous, which, you know, is honest, and I appreciate and understand that.
	But, you know, I think in general I'm pretty nice and helpful in this call, so I don't usually rip into people.
	So, your inner dad needs aggressive guys around in order to Keep his job.
	So it's kind of like if you have a security guard that's there to protect your warehouse.
	You've got some warehouse, right?
	Now, does the company that hires out security guards, do they work really, really hard to make sure there aren't any criminals around?
	They're selling you protection from criminals.
	So do they work really hard to reduce the number of criminals in the world?
	I don't know.
	Like, some just stand around.
	Yeah, they work to make sure they're not around.
	No, the company.
	No, not the individual guards.
	The company that hires out the guards.
	Yeah, they work to make sure there's no criminals around and they focus the business on that.
	No, they don't work to make sure there are no criminals around.
	They make sure there are criminals around so that you have to hire their security guards to protect your property.
	How does that work?
	Well, if I am selling protection from criminals, if there aren't any criminals, I have nothing to sell.
	Uh-huh.
	Make sense?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	So, if I'm selling a cure for a disease, I don't want that disease completely eliminated.
	Because that's my business, is selling the cure for the disease, right?
	I mean, this is why, you know, have governments taught all the bomb-in-the-brain stuff and had really great parenting classes so that we end up with much fewer criminals in the world?
	Well, no, because the government is selling you protection from criminals, and so if the criminal population gets reduced by 90 or 95 percent, the government can't frighten you with criminals into complying and paying your taxes, right?
	In the same way, nobody buys insurance against smallpox anymore because smallpox has been eliminated.
	So, the people who are selling you the treatments for smallpox are not the people who work to eliminate smallpox.
	Nobody works very hard to eliminate their entire industry.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So, what that means is that Your inner father needs the aggressive guys around in order to have his job, to get paid in a sense, to have authority, to have a need for him.
	Yeah.
	So that means that you will tend to be drawn towards aggressive guys or You might be drawn to guys who have absolutely zero aggression, which means they're passive.
	Like the recent guy with the funny face, right?
	Yeah.
	So, like, okay, he's safe because he has no aggression at all, right?
	Yep.
	Now, a man with no aggression, though, I'm sorry to say, is unappealing.
	Very unappealing.
	Because you need somebody who's going to go out there and wrestle and fight and win resources and bring home the food and compete with other men.
	You need a guy with a little bit of vinegar as well as the sugar, right?
	So, you either end up with a guy Who tells you what to do, and your inner father knows how to deal with that and manage that, and he's really needed, right?
	Or, you are kind of with a guy who has no assertiveness or aggression, but then you're not attracted to him, so you have to keep moving.
	Yes.
	So it's the Aristotelian mean, right?
	Aggression in men, and in women too, but just in terms of men, aggression needs to be in the middle.
	You need to have the capacity for aggression, but you also need to have good control over your aggression.
	Because women want men who are aggressive when facing outside the home, but gentle when inside the home, right?
	Does that make sense?
	Oh yes, that makes sense.
	OK.
	I was just conscious of interrupting and speaking too much.
	Well, if there's a pause, you're not interrupting.
	I mean, by definition, right?
	Yeah.
	Interrupting is when I'm trying to say something and you're talking over me.
	If I've paused, you can speak because I... So this is... I mean, you see what I mean?
	This is like the middle ground, right?
	So you're either talking over me or not saying anything.
	Like that's not a middle ground.
	Yeah, I'm so bad at interrupting.
	It's not a middle ground kind of thing, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, it makes sense.
	And I say that with great affection and it's just an interesting thing, right?
	Well, and that's part of the compliance, right?
	Which is, you were talking over me, which, you know, was fine for a little while, but then we sort of pointed it out and I asked for that not to happen too much.
	And then you're like, meekly curl into a ball and don't say a thing.
	Blank.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Can I?
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Can I add another guy into the interview?
	All right.
	I'm going to need to open up a spreadsheet here, but go ahead.
	Actually, maybe a database.
	I'm just kidding.
	I'm just kidding.
	Go on.
	I don't know why I'm laughing at this.
	Okay.
	Let's find out together.
	Laughing at SiriGuide.
	Yeah.
	Guy number one million.
	Okay.
	So a month ago, someone from FDR messaged me and it turns out he was living 10 minutes away from where I'm moving.
	So we met up the day after I moved.
	Sorry, I touched my mic by mistake.
	So we met up the day I moved and the entire time, it's like what I talked about at the start of the call-in, I felt so nervous and I didn't know what a normal happy secure friendship or relationship's like.
	I didn't know how to be.
	It's also new and foreign.
	So I don't trust him yet.
	I'm still worried but he's done nothing to prove me that he's a virtuous guy.
	I won't go into details, I'm conscious of time, but he's done nothing to show you that he's a virtuous guy.
	But my brain, the time we met, I was just like, oh my gosh, I'm so boring, I have nothing to say.
	And then I faked facial expressions, which I mentioned at the end, and he could tell that my tonal voice would be different to my facial expressions.
	I just didn't know how to have a good time with him.
	I was so sort of... I'm sorry, how are you supposed to have a good time with someone while going through a brutal separation from your family?
	Yeah, I know.
	I did express I may not be happy and stuff.
	I did express that and he had to complete something and said he just wanted me to show up with whatever feelings I have.
	But, um, I was still trying to fake things.
	But yeah, I just wasn't happy.
	I don't know what it's like to sit and live normally.
	Like, nothing's ever just okay and I can relax.
	I don't know what a happy relationship, just interaction looks like.
	I felt so nervous.
	Like, what if I'm so boring and have nothing of a human possible land of words to say?
	And this goes very deep-rooted because in school I had no friends for a time and I was hiding in the toilets and I'd be like oh my gosh what do I say and it's just this anxiety that haunts me like what if I'm boring and I was just like and then the other ping would be how can I know if I can trust him?
	How can I know if he's a good guy?
	How can I know he's not a creep or an aggressive guy or meat guy?
	How do I know?
	How can I know if I can trust him?
	Because He seems virtuous, but I don't know.
	Truly, I have no idea, no clue in the slightest.
	How am I meant to know if he's virtuous?
	I'm sorry, is that not a rhetorical question, right?
	It's not a rhetorical question.
	Okay, got it.
	Well, how do you know if someone is virtuous?
	What would the most philosophical answer you could give be?
	Actions.
	Well, okay, but that's not action.
	The word action doesn't explain very much, right?
	Okay, so you would hear their moral values and you would see that they stick and oblige to it every single day.
	Well, not every single day, but you know what I mean.
	They stick and oblige to it, so their honest, integrity, courage and they apply it and if they don't and you bring it up, they Like, oh yeah, you're right!
	That doesn't feel like an answer, though.
	It feels like... No, that's so... I mean, how you know if someone is virtuous is they have rational morality and they follow it.
	Yes.
	Now... Oh, he's gonna dislike me, but that's all right!
	That's all right.
	Now, how pretty are you?
	Just remind me again.
	I don't know.
	Oh, yes, every woman knows.
	Come on, let's not.
	You have some idea, right?
	You evolved to know.
	The thing is, I was an ugly duckling.
	Yes, was.
	I would say I'm like six or seven.
	So I'm like, I'm pretty.
	Boy, that was quite a yodel.
	Pretty.
	I don't know.
	Like, um, I have a tiny bit more weight to lose.
	I'm like, I go to the gym, so I'm like bulky and chubby at the same time right now.
	But, um, let's say I lost it.
	I'm pretty.
	Okay.
	Not attractive, attractive.
	Like it's probably my personality that gets.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	It's like, my brain's probably more attractive to me than my looks.
	Guys wouldn't just come and ask me out.
	Right, okay, got it.
	So, we'll call this guy Jake, right?
	The new guy, right?
	New guy Jake.
	New guy Jake, all right.
	Now, you're going through quite a bit of chaos at the moment, right?
	A lot.
	Right, a lot of chaos at the moment.
	So, if you were An elderly gentleman, would Jake be your friend?
	Pizzion Guy would be my friend.
	Why would a young guy be friends with an elderly gentleman?
	Well, if it's just personality and quality of character, an elderly gentleman.
	I hope so!
	Hang on.
	I hope so.
	Did you just try that again, right?
	So, if you're saying it's my personality, right, then Elderly gentlemen can have wonderful personalities, right?
	They can be very wise and helpful and thoughtful and, right, transfer great knowledge and wisdom, business experience, like any number of things, right?
	Or, even if we don't want to say elderly, if you were a guy, right?
	I assume that Jake's not gay, right?
	So if you were a guy, would Jake be working to befriend you?
	Um, I don't know, because right now I felt awkward in social interactions, but I do think I have- I would be a good friend.
	But I- But right now, you're going through a lot of chaos, right?
	So I'm, like, not super great in social interactions.
	Well, listen, and this is not anything negative towards you, but when you're going through a lot of turmoil and chaos, you and me and everybody else on the planet tends to be kind of needy, right?
	And so you can't reciprocate too much in terms of friendship at the moment, right?
	Maybe that's why I notice I've been struggling asking people questions about themselves.
	You're going through one of the biggest and most wrenching changes a person can go through.
	And again, for which you have my enormous and deepest sympathies.
	And this just happened last weekend.
	Yeah, but I guess it felt like, it doesn't feel like it because they were dead to me from when I was 16, from before.
	They've always been dead to me.
	I've always hated them.
	I get that, I get that, but you emailed me saying this happened last weekend.
	Yeah, last Sunday, exactly a week ago, I just arrived.
	So, it's one thing to have it kind of abstract and feelings-based and still be in contact, it's another thing to move continents, right?
	Oh, it wasn't continents, but yeah, I moved like 6,000.
	Okay, but moving a lot, right?
	You're not up the road, you're not three blocks over, you're a long way away, right?
	Definitely not.
	Far away.
	It's hard for you to be reciprocal at the moment, because you need a lot of resources, a lot of TLC, a lot of focus, a lot of attention, or time on your own to process and so on, right?
	But it can't be a particularly equal exchange of attention, because you're going through this massive wrenching change.
	That makes sense, I agree.
	I have been sort of thinking Things along the line of that, or had an incline.
	Yeah, I'll sort of give you an example from my own life.
	So, when my wife and I had our daughter, my whole life changed.
	Like, it's never been the same, it's And parenting is forever, there's the before and then there's the after, and when you actually have to keep a tiny person alive, which is not, you know, I mean, they're not rabbits, they don't just grow on their own, right?
	So you really have to work hard to, not just in terms of health and food, but, you know, interaction and, you know, dealing with a couple of leftover demons from my own childhood and so on.
	When I was going through that change, you know, my friends would be calling up, back then, and saying, oh yeah, you know, I'm having a bit of difficulty at work, and blah blah blah, right?
	Now, you know, to be honest, I didn't really care.
	Because what was going on in my life was so big, and such a big change, not just because, I mean, not just because of my daughter, but because I'm doing this whole peaceful parenting thing, I've got to plan all that out, and so on, right?
	So, I'm engaged in this massive project, and this huge change, and people would be like, talking about, you know, relatively little things compared to all of that, and we just wouldn't have that much in common.
	Or, you know, when I was undergoing a lot of media attacks and stuff like that, and, you know, people would say, I don't know, I'm having a bit of trouble with my girlfriend, and it would just be like, you know, sorry, I'm going through so much turmoil, I can't really be there for you.
	If that makes sense.
	It's quite a common thing when people have kids that they drift away from the people
	who don't have kids because your life is just too different.
	So you're going through a huge amount of turmoil, which I sympathize with, and it would seem
	to me that you couldn't quite get really focused on somebody else's life at the moment, if
	that makes sense.
	Mm-hmm.
	So, let's go back to...
	You met this guy for the first time, right?
	You didn't really know him before, right?
	We had called a few times and talked about dreams and just talked about who we are.
	And I also expressed that, like we both expressed that, like obviously,
	girl on girl speaking, that would be romantic.
	Guys and girls can't really be friends if they're both single, obviously, but that I'm not ready to date for a few months.
	Because I need to, you know, do the work on myself, process my trauma, and be able to not choose a bad guy.
	So is he romantically interested in you?
	I'm sure that's the only reason he's speaking to me.
	Have you talked about that?
	Um...
	I guess, like, I brought up, like, on, like, the second convo to do with me, like, when I'm peeled, wanting to, like, would you want to, you know, do anything?
	And he said he would ask when it's the right time.
	Okay.
	So, in general, I would assume that he finds you attractive.
	Now, listen, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course.
	It's why we're all here, right?
	So, this isn't, this isn't anything sinister or negative at all.
	But he is, you know, probably around for the possibility of dating.
	Yeah, but is for exactly what it is.
	Okay.
	All right.
	All right.
	So that's... and, you know, the way that you can figure that out is not too, too complicated.
	You just imagine in your... this is true for everyone, right?
	So, if he's not around for dating, then if you meet a guy And you start to really fall for this guy.
	There's a lot of chemistry or whatever, right?
	Then you should have no problem telling Jake about this guy.
	Yeah, yeah.
	He's definitely around for dating.
	I've known that from the get-go.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	All right.
	But he knows, of course, or respects that you're not in a position to date?
	Yeah, respects it.
	And agrees.
	And he said he would only ask if it's right.
	Interesting.
	Okay, and so you said a couple of months.
	I said a few months, but I said it could be more, it could be less when I'm ready.
	I wonder if this has any driving or motivating factor to tell your parents you're not going to talk to them again sooner rather than later.
	Interesting.
	If he's in a bit more of a hurry, and you know, guys, if he had the choice, he'd rather date you sooner than later if you were up to it, right?
	Yeah.
	So maybe some of the urgency and maybe some of the confusion that we had earlier is because he wants this band-aid off so he can make his move.
	Yeah, like sort of like, oh gosh, I need to do the work quickly.
	To comply.
	He has needs, he has a preference, I gotta move this along!
	And I'm not saying they're coming from him, right?
	And this is nothing negative towards him.
	It's never felt rushed or anything, yeah.
	Then do you have, it could be your desire as well, like I want to get this dealt with because he's a great guy, I want to explore the possibilities, it may be coming more from you, but there was something odd about what we were talking about earlier, and maybe it has something to do with this.
	I think you're onto something, maybe.
	Yeah, maybe this need for speed thing is kicking in.
	Because if he's a great guy too, you know, maybe he'll find someone too.
	Picture books.
	Like, not picture books.
	Like, by what you'd hear, sounds almost perfect.
	Right, so maybe he is a great guy, and maybe he'll get snapped up in six months, or over the next six months.
	Exactly.
	He has everything to do about easily.
	Okay, so then that makes a bit more sense why we were going back and forth over the parental stuff, because there's a kind of jetpack strapped to this thing that I didn't know about, if that makes sense.
	Okay.
	I got it.
	I got it.
	That makes sense.
	I always like it when things make sense instead of the job, right?
	So I appreciate that.
	Okay.
	So how do you know if he's a good guy?
	Yep.
	Pardon?
	Sorry, I think we kind of came and went for a second there.
	You said, so how do I know if he's a good guy?
	Yeah, so how do you know if he's a good guy?
	I am a lost lamb.
	There you are, bringing that helplessness to the table, so I get assertive, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Good, good.
	I got it.
	We'll just speak in buying from now.
	Buying all bad fortune.
	Okay, so...
	Your focus on him being a good or bad guy...
	is...
	a control issue.
	you you
	It's being a coach and seeing if he can make the team.
	What the heck?
	We just keep getting these noises.
	Can you hear anything or is it just me?
	Tess, Tess.
	Yeah, I can hear you.
	Um, hello?
	Yeah, can you hear me?
	I didn't hear a thing you said.
	You did hear or didn't?
	Did not.
	You did not, okay.
	I messaged saying I lost you.
	Okay, just let me know if we're still cooking.
	You're back, you're back.
	You wanting to know if he's a good or bad guy is like you're the coach and he is trying to make the team, or you're the job interviewer and you're trying to see if you want to hire someone.
	It's a position of authority, it's a position of judgment, if that makes sense.
	Mm-hmm.
	What you do, and you're also, you are taking the position that he is potentially extremely dangerous and toxic, and you need to evaluate him very carefully and very closely before moving forward with anything, right?
	I am wary.
	Yes, wary, that's right.
	That's right.
	I don't particularly... Oh, gosh, I don't know what's going on with this.
	Hello.
	All right, let's try that again.
	Let's try that again.
	All right.
	So, if you distance yourself from this guy and evaluate him critically, you're treating him as a threat.
	Or a potential threat, right?
	So, if I don't evaluate him, I'm treating him as a threat?
	No.
	If you are evaluating him, are you a good guy?
	Are you a bad guy?
	Yes.
	Then you are treating him as a potential threat.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yes, I am.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Now, that is to say, are you like my father?
	Mm-hmm.
	Which is letting the lens of your father dictate your interactions with this man.
	Now, saying, are you a creepy nasty person, is not particularly complimentary to somebody who is a good guy, right?
	No, it's not.
	And it's also relinquishing control to your inner father to do all of this cold-eyed evaluation, which means that you're going to be a little distant, a little skittish, and a little unavailable, and also because you don't know exactly how to judge, it's going to be hard to know when that process ends, right?
	Yes, spot on.
	I felt disconnected, like, sceptical, couldn't really just relax.
	All right, would you like the solution?
	He asked rhetorically.
	Oh yes, I'm so, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
	So here's the solution.
	I'm excited.
	I'm gonna give you an analogy, right?
	So, if you want to know if someone is a good runner, Let's say you're a very good runner and you want to know if someone's a good runner.
	You have basically two choices.
	One, you can stand around with a stopwatch and time them and test them and see how fast they run.
	That's one option.
	The other option is you can run like hell and see if they can keep up.
	So you want to evaluate him from the sidelines and see if he's good or bad or right, but you're not running.
	So he doesn't get to evaluate you, because all you're doing is judging him from the sidelines.
	So in other words, if you're the coach and you're timing someone's running, does the person you're timing know whether you, the coach, are a good runner or not?
	No, you don't!
	That's right.
	However, you're looking to join this person in a virtuous relationship, but if you're judging them and evaluating them, they can't judge you.
	Sorry?
	You aren't together.
	Right.
	I mean, that's very abstract and you sort of understand it, but what does that mean in practice?
	What that means in practice is You focus on being as honest, direct and virtuous in this budding relationship and see if he keeps up.
	Ah.
	I see.
	Okay.
	I think I've been doing that a little bit.
	I can give an example.
	Sure.
	I noticed when I was saying goodbye to him, I gave a fake smile and I was super fake-enthusiastic.
	I'm very good at being fake-enthusiastic because of my jobs, like my previous one and my current one.
	So I'm amazing at being fake-enthusiastic.
	I know, man.
	I don't even know if you're enjoying this conversation or not.
	No, I'm just kidding.
	Sorry, Kay.
	No, no, no.
	I cried in like a couple of minutes.
	I laughed and I rarely, rarely laugh.
	Like, you don't get it.
	I laugh once every millennia.
	This is probably the first time I've genuinely laughed in like 52 years.
	And I'm not 52.
	Well, you are an ancient soul.
	Okay, an ancient bitter soul.
	Okay, got it.
	All right, so you gave him some fake enthusiasm at the end of the meeting.
	And I told him, like, the next day, or however long after, I was like, hey, I noticed when I said goodbye, I would put on a fake smile and a fake this, and I noticed, and he pointed out also, like, oh, how my tone of face was different during, whilst we were speaking, he mentioned this, like, my face was different to my tone of voice, but I'd bring up that.
	Right, okay.
	So I think that's an example of me being honest, like I told him I fake to smile, fake to enthusiasm.
	I think that is a good approach.
	The next stage, of course, is when you have the urge for a fake smile, what do you say?
	I feel like I sort of need to fake smile right now, because you're smiling, so I sort of need to join in almost.
	So, and if you have an urge to comply, you would say?
	I feel like I need to agree with you here, or not question you more.
	That brings me up on something I want to actually ask, that I've not pressed on more.
	Right.
	Sorry, was that a real question that you wanted to ask, or was that part of the... No, rhetorical to myself, sort of.
	Right.
	So, and the other thing that you would add is, I feel the urge to comply with you, Which is unfair because you're not asking for compliance.
	I feel the urge to give you a fake smile, although you've really only asked for authenticity.
	Does that make sense?
	Because it's one thing to say, I feel the urge to comply with you, but you also need to not just be honest, but just and fair.
	Which is to say, I feel the urge to comply with you, which is not coming from you.
	Right?
	It's history, it's, you know, habit, but it's not coming because you're not asking me to comply.
	Definitely, it's to do not at all his fault.
	Right.
	So, rather than saying, How do I judge if he's a good guy?
	I think the question is, how can I be as honest and virtuous as possible?
	And then, if he's a bad guy, how is he going to react to you being honest, indirect and curious?
	Ah, so the more virtuous I am, the more good guys.
	See, the problem with judging someone's morality is that you may very well attract insecure masochists who like to be judged negatively.
	So the problem with going and judging and being on the sidelines is that some people like negative judgment and being judged.
	Yeah, some people like it, because maybe somebody grows up with a hypercritical mother, and then you're like, well, I'm going to need to judge you, and they're like, oh, I know this one well.
	Oh, I can work with this.
	Oh, yeah, this is totally familiar to me.
	So it's like two bards, so codependency again, and an unhealthy relationship, like an RTR for two people.
	Right, right, right.
	So everything that you do that is not aimed at virtue, We'll almost always end up in dysfunction.
	Because the other thing too is that if you're putting yourself in a situation where you judge the other person, you're putting yourself in a situation of hierarchy, of power.
	Now a good guy will also want to judge you, but he's going to be being virtuous.
	And he's going to say, can you keep up?
	Now, because, because, uh, a, you know what a relay race is, right?
	So a relationship is like a relay race.
	Both people have to run.
	And so if you say I'm the coach, you're saying I'm not the runner.
	Now the runner is being judged by the coach and it's one way, right?
	The runner is not judging.
	The coach is running.
	The coach is judging.
	Like people always used to say this in American Idol, right?
	Like they'd sing not too well and.
	Simon Cowell would say, you sang badly, and they'd say sometimes, well, you try coming up here and singing.
	It's like, no, that's not his job.
	His job is to evaluate, not to sing, right?
	So, if you go and judge guys, then you're putting yourself in a superior or hierarchical or power position relative to them, and confident guys, assertive guys, Won't particularly like that, because they'll say, well if all you're doing is judging my running, but we're supposed to be running in a team, when do I get to evaluate your running?
	When do you stop being the coach and run with me?
	and we see how fast we can go together.
	Yes, that is completely making sense and I'm like still sort of on the sidelines assessing.
	Right, right.
	But Ward, how would it feel to just run the race together?
	That's what you said before.
	And now, if you start to run and he flakes out or trips you up or, you know, whatever sort of analogies you could make, He takes out a cigarette and starts smoking and blowing smoke in your face over to some... Well, then you know, right?
	I'll leap a race.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Then you'll be like, OK, I need to look for another runner because you're not running with me, right?
	So, yeah, don't be a coach because a coach is a hierarchical thing and...
	It is not giving you an accurate evaluation of how you run together any more than the coach standing by the track with a stopwatch is not learning how to run with his runner.
	He's just judging the runner.
	And it gives me so much more free will rather than feeling powerless because it's down to my choices rather than his.
	It gives so much more free will.
	And it means you don't have to put your own pursuit of virtue on hold while you're evaluating because your pursuit of virtue and the evaluation go hand-in-hand.
	You running and you judging the other runner and allowing him to judge you goes hand-in-hand.
	It's beautiful.
	Responsibility is beautiful.
	I love it, because it means I can change more.
	Right.
	And having a relationship which is not founded on hierarchy.
	Because a confident guy is going to like to just be judged.
	He's also going to want to judge himself.
	He's going to want to see how you run.
	And if you're just holding back, then he'll be like, well, she's kind of cold and distant, and then he's going to be judging you, and that's a real shame.
	Just run together and see how it goes.
	Thank you, Steph.
	That's pretty amazing.
	Thank you.
	You are.
	You're not here to attack me today.
	No, not today.
	Boy, if you catch me tomorrow.
	Tomorrow.
	But today is the one day where I'm just not attacking people.
	Yeah.
	So good luck.
	I do have a couple more questions, but I think they'll be counterfeits.
	Sure.
	Unless you have more things to say on this, because I'm finding this incredibly helpful.
	Yeah, go for it.
	Okay, so I think you're all in.
	So, the lack of happiness, not a Lack of happiness, anger, but I think that goes towards channeling inner parents and then there's the incredibly low self-esteem.
	The incredibly low self-esteem, like when I hang out with him, like oh my gosh I'm gonna have nothing to say.
	I have an incredibly low self-esteem about who I am.
	I just moved out and I am like in my early 20s and I've moved all the way so far away and I've got myself a good job and I've like and I have relatively good people in my life so I think I'm quite well off for my age I even dropped out of school I didn't go to uni because screw debt I have money in bitcoin I'm like open and I love criticism I'm curious I'm like I love nature I go to the gym right so I think I'm fairly well off for my age Right?
	But I have.
	So it's this weird parallel.
	Part of me is incredibly damn prideful and confident like oh my god I've come so far this is amazing compared to the kid that was hiding in the toilets and that was living the most miserable life.
	I've come beyond leaps.
	Then there's the other half that just when I'm out in public is like feels like that 12 year old again that had no friends and wanted to fit in but all the people would run away from me.
	So there's these two parts of me The incredibly low self-esteem like I felt today when I was out.
	It was such a nice day.
	Everyone was all out with people and they all look great because I'm a tiny bit chubby.
	I'm not like a whale.
	I'm just a little bit chubby and bulky.
	I felt so damn insecure and like oh I can never be happy until I'm like skinny or oh I'm just incredibly low self-esteem and So yeah, there's these two parts, the prideful part, over everything I've gone through and been through, and I think I've gone down leaps, but then the insecure, really frickin' low self-esteem part.
	Right.
	Would you like to resolve those two?
	Mm-hmm.
	Right.
	And it is the big question of how do we judge ourselves?
	And there's really only two things we can do.
	We can judge ourselves by objective standards, or we can judge ourselves by the opinions of others.
	So, when you judge yourself by the opinions of others, you feel small, right?
	Yeah?
	Because that's what you said, the people would walk away from me, I didn't have any friends, of course your parents looked down on you and so on.
	So when you see yourself through the eyes of others who are not great people, then you feel small, right?
	But when you compare yourself to objective standards, you feel strong and powerful and worthy of respect, right?
	Very much.
	But then there's the bad guys, which sort of debunk all of that, I feel like.
	Like, yeah, I've done these things, but I keep going for bad guys.
	Okay.
	But I think we've talked about why you went for the bad guys.
	Yes.
	Yes, we have.
	Okay, so you're dealing with it, you're talking about it, you're working through it, right?
	I'm open and I love criticism, so it doesn't debunk it.
	I love being called out.
	Right.
	And of course here the thing is you're able to resolve your problem with dating bad boys or bad guys because you are comparing dating bad guys to an objective standard called dating good guys.
	So you're able to identify and work on the problem at a very young age, early twenties, because you are comparing what you're doing to An objective standard called dating good guys.
	What do you mean?
	I'm slightly... Well, you're saying that dating bad guys is bad and dating good guys is good, right?
	Yes.
	So you're able to fix this problem because you're comparing what you're doing to an objective standard called dating good guys is better.
	So even this process is part of how you have generally done such wonderful things with your young life.
	Because you're saying, I'd rather date good guys than bad guys, I've got an objective standard, I need to figure that out, I need to solve this, you know, I'll do some self-work, I'll talk to Steph, I'll think about it.
	Because the bad guys are happy to have you date them, so if you only judged Who you date by what other people want, you just keep dating bad guys.
	But you're saying, no, no, no, there's a better standard, there's an objective standard called date good guys.
	I'm going to work to conform to that.
	So that's progress, right?
	Yes.
	So that's what I mean.
	When you judge yourself according to objective standards, then you realize where you're deficient, as we all are, and you work to close that gap, and that's where genuine pride comes from.
	But if you judge yourself by the opinions of others, then you lose your power because you have no protection.
	Objective standards are a protection against the sour opinions of losers.
	Right?
	I mean, there's lots of people who think I'm a bad guy or terrible guy or whatever, right?
	It's like, but I have to look at objective standards.
	Am I pursuing truth, reason, evidence?
	Am I doing good in the world and am I acting with integrity and so on?
	My protection against, like, I mean, there was a guy on the livestream today who was, you know, attacking me and sort of putting me down.
	And if I judge myself by other people's opinions, then I... You'd be Hitler.
	Yeah, I wouldn't, I don't know, would I get out of bed?
	I don't know, but it would be pretty tough.
	I'm sure there's, no, as in, like, I bet you there's people that call you Hitler and all these horrible things and they think you're the worst guy in the world when, like, you literally care about the most innocent, vulnerable people in the world.
	Right, so I don't judge myself according to the opinions of others unless I trust them.
	In other words, unless they're virtuous themselves.
	So the question... now we all see ourselves through the eyes of others from time to time and that's not a bad thing.
	It's like reciprocal empathy, right?
	So we want to sort of feel what other people... but we also want to feel what other people feel about us.
	And if they love us, that's good.
	If they're malevolent towards us, we need to know that too, so we can avoid them or fight them if we need to, right?
	So, if you view yourself through the eyes of bad people, then you have no control over your life or your feelings or your emotions or your progress.
	Now, if you judge yourself according to objective standards, then you have control over your life and your self-image because you can work to close your gaps towards pursuing that better standard and so on.
	So, the two sides of you are judging yourself according to objective standards, wherein you feel powerful and good, or judging yourself According to the manipulative belittlements of petty people.
	Or belittling from petty people.
	I mean, if I were to judge myself according to how my mother or father judged me, I would not be doing very well in this world at all.
	And one of the great things about toxic family members is they train you out of taking other
	people's opinions seriously pretty quickly, or you just don't make it.
	Now, if...
	They train you out of...
	Yeah, they train you out of taking other people's opinions seriously.
	Like when my mother said, oh I hate you or whatever, does that mean I'm hateful?
	No.
	It means she's really messed up.
	So, I mean, if I can put my, it's funny, you know, it's part of the superpower of child abuse, particularly verbal abuse.
	The part of the superpower is, look, I mean, yeah, people say bad things about me.
	It's like, my own mother said she hated me.
	If I can flourish from that, why on earth would I, like, why on earth would I take what strangers say seriously when I had to reject the perspective of my own mother as a child?
	You get this incredible immune system, you get this incredible capacity for self-direction.
	You know, there's this old meme, you think you can hurt me and, you know, I've already done X, Y, and Z. Like, oh, you think being mean to me verbally is going to take me down?
	It's like, I survived and flourished my own mother's hatred of me.
	What is some stranger on the internet typing going to do after you've conquered that?
	For sure.
	So if you focus on how you're doing relative to objective standards, virtue, integrity,
	honesty, directness, self-protection, if you measure yourself relative to objective standards,
	you have control over your own self-image.
	If you judge yourself based upon the petty judgments of petty people, you can't form a stable self-image because you've given people too much control.
	This is giving me more free will now!
	Yes.
	Love it!
	And of course, if, and we all do, I mean, if we're raised this way, so it's a natural habit, but if we judge ourself according to the petty opinions of petty people, we invite power-mad megalomaniacs into our life, because they like having that kind of power, right?
	So, I think that's a way to resolve.
	Now, we do have to care about what other people think of us.
	Because, you know, if there's some mob chasing us through the forest with pitchforks, that's important, right?
	So you have to be aware of the dangers of petty people's petty opinions of you.
	You have to be aware of that and learn how to navigate the world full of, you know, dangerous, unthinking, aggressive people.
	But that's judging a danger, that's not defining yourself, right?
	So I recognize that there is danger in other people's negative judgments of me.
	But I don't judge myself according to that danger.
	Like, I recognize that there are lions that might want to eat me if I'm walking in the jungle.
	There are lions that might want to eat me, but that doesn't mean I'm a bad person.
	That's just a danger I need to be aware of, if that makes sense.
	Just because the lions judge me as food doesn't mean that I judge myself as food.
	I just recognize that they judge me as food and there's danger in that.
	Sorry if those abstractions got one too many layers away from practicality, but I hope that makes sense.
	No, no, no, it makes sense.
	You understand that it means nothing, but you understand that it's dangerous, so you won't... I can't explain it, but I understand what you mean, I'm pretty sure.
	It's a danger you need to be aware of, but you don't define yourself by it.
	Yeah.
	Alright.
	One more?
	One more?
	You had one more?
	Or we're done?
	Do I have one more?
	So, low self-esteem you did, being, how to be in a secure, how do I, I guess then that other thing.
	Yeah, that other thing of sitting, living normally, being able to just sit down every day without some pressure on me.
	What does a secure, happy relationship look like?
	How do I not feel awkward and feel weird speaking to a person normally?
	What's a normal conversation like?
	Well, I don't know.
	I'd be the last person to come to for a, quote, normal conversation.
	I mean, for heaven's sakes, people listen to me for the most abnormal conversations in the known universe!
	What is the most abnormal best conversation?
	What does a secure relationship look like?
	I think it's just that relentless honesty.
	If you feel awkward, say, I feel awkward.
	If you feel like you don't know what to say next, say, I feel like I don't know what to say next.
	You know, just that real-time relationships, just relentless honesty.
	We always have thoughts.
	The awkwardness comes from being afraid to share them.
	Ah, yeah, because my brain's like, oh, I don't know what to say, so I'll say it,
	and it's like, oh, well, if I spend three hours just being like, hey, I feel like I
	don't know what to say, hey, I feel like I don't know what to say, and repeat that for three hours.
	Well, no, because the other person is going to have their thoughts as well.
	And you, of course, got very used to self-censorship because words, when you were growing up, could be dangerous, right?
	They could trigger your father, they could trigger your mother, they could trigger an attack.
	You're screaming or yelling or whatever, right?
	Or hitting.
	So, you had to self-censor because you were surrounded by dangerous people.
	And so, it's natural that there would be awkwardness when you're around safe people.
	Because that's not a language that's totally familiar to you, or even particularly familiar to you.
	You're just learning that language, right?
	So, yeah, when I'm learning to speak a foreign language, it's kind of awkward, right?
	And you're learning to speak safely when you're fluent in danger.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, so that might be why I feel awkward, so awkward around Jake.
	But it's also like, he's like an opportunity, like, oh my gosh, Virtuous Man, 10 minutes, okay?
	As applied philosopher, like 10 minutes, like, you know?
	It's like, how do I don't want to be, you know?
	Right, so I understand that because you had a negative attachment, it sounds like, with your parents, that you had to be the opposite of who you were in order to be able to pretend to get along with them, and now you're trying to reverse that whole process and try to get along with someone by being authentically and honest yourself, which would have resulted in an attack from your parents.
	So you're, you know, reversing at great speed, and that's awkward driving.
	You know, if you ever had to back up a car at high speed, it's pretty awkward driving, right?
	Exactly.
	you But like, I've got to go a thousand miles an hour.
	Right, right.
	So, did we get close to the bottom of your list?
	I think that was the last thing, yeah.
	Good, good.
	Well, listen, that's quite a meal we've got going on here, so I think we'll give you and... This has been wonderful!
	Good, good.
	Well, I'm obviously very glad, and again, I'm sorry to hear about what's happening with your family of origin, but, I mean, I'm not going to disagree with any of your choices at all.
	I mean, it does not sound like a particularly healthy situation at all, so... Yeah.
	And, you know, I do wish my best to Jake, and I hope you'll keep me posted about how things are going.
	Yeah and um also like yes uh so like even though I've only confronted them literally like once or twice recently like and in total only a few times I see like I don't even need to confront them before defooing right like I like even if they were to somewhat change which I'm sure they won't change and it's all manipulations like even my even if my mum were to somewhat change Like, she can't undo the past and all the evils when I pleaded and pleaded for so many years, so it doesn't even matter if she does something to try change.
	I mean, I personally wouldn't be holding my breath for radical rewiring of your parents' brains to occur.
	To me, it might be like waiting for them to change height or hair colour.
	Exactly!
	I agree.
	Like, she's even in therapy for her own stuff, right, or whatever, and it's like, I doubt it's doing anything.
	She feels like as lost as a soul.
	When I confronted her, do you want to know what she cried about in the conversation?
	I've been in an unhappy marriage.
	Not me confronting her about the abuse.
	It's when she started talking about herself and her marriage.
	But yeah, thank you, Stefan.
	This has been so wonderful.
	You're very welcome and I hope you... Sorry, go ahead.
	I feel like... Do you think I'm an okay person?
	Do you think... I feel like I need to ask for approval.
	No, that's fine.
	Listen, not only do I think you're okay, I honestly think you're magnificent.
	I mean, what you've had to struggle and survive, what you've been able to achieve, your level of self-awareness, the quicksilver brilliance of your mind, your commitment to integrity, your focus on virtue and honesty, your willingness for feedback, your eagerness for it even, your good Humour, good nature, you are a wonderful, wonderful person, and I hope that you will carry that forever, and the medal that I would give you for what you've survived and flourished under would be big enough to fit around the rings of Saturn.
	So, yes, I think you should be entirely proud and certain of that.
	Thank you, I'm teary-eyed!
	You're welcome!
	Keep me posted, alright?
	Thanks for the great convo!
	I will!
	Bye Stefan, have a good day!

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