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Nov. 27, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:46:40

I GOT A RESTRAINING ORDER! Freedomain Call In

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	Stefan, I just filed a restraining order against my dad after he trespassed at my house refusing to leave.
	My sister stopped speaking to him 15 years before I did.
	She was raised by a different mother.
	After he trespassed, he sent me an email mocking my deceased mother, showing his intentions were as expected to intimidate me.
	I was looking for general life advice on how to move on and how to feel fulfilled in the present in hopes of his past mistreatments not having too much of a negative effect on my current life.
	Gosh, I'm really sorry to hear this.
	This kind of intrusions and aggressions are very, very hard to deal with.
	And I guess if you can just give me a bit of the story of your childhood, your family life as a whole, I'd appreciate that.
	Of course.
	So my parents were married until I was about two years old.
	And the general issues that I had had with my dad growing up, I spent a significant amount of time with him because my mom was very sick with cancer at the time.
	She did survive that.
	Unfortunately, she passed this year.
	The general things that were very difficult to deal with my dad on is he had very high standards for me and virtually none for himself.
	He would get absolutely enraged at random trivial nonsense, and he was always trying to get one over on me.
	So I had spent basically 20 years around him walking on eggshells, always terrified of the next thing flipping him out.
	And when we went to Mexico, he actually tried to get one over on me because he wasn't happy that I only spent one hour with him on a separate island as opposed to the recommended seven hours or so.
	He tried hiding my passport so I couldn't get my COVID test to get back into America so I would be stranded there.
	And when I asked him, By any chance, did you intentionally try to do that to teach me a lesson?
	I mean, it sounds weird, but it's in the back of my mind.
	I have to ask you, was it you?
	Because I know I didn't just accidentally misplace the passport.
	And then he writes me a long text explaining how you're so unappreciative.
	You're Mr. I-can-do-everything-all-by-myself, so let's see you do things by yourself.
	And on that day, I just said, you know what?
	I think I'm going to do what my sister did 15 years ago and just no longer have a relationship with someone who doesn't appreciate me or respect me.
	It's just too exhausting.
	Life is just a scarce amount of time.
	We are here on Earth, and I have no reason to spend it with someone who actively unappreciates me.
	Wow, that's really something.
	And how long have you listened to what I do?
	So I originally started listening, I bet it was like six years ago when I first came across a video titled The Truth About Slavery.
	I just came across it randomly.
	I watched that.
	I watched one or two call-in shows, but I just devoured your books and your propaganda analysis series where you'd read an article and reviewed it line by line.
	So, that was always the big one for me.
	I would guess six years.
	Okay, got it.
	How old were you, or when did the incident happen with the passport?
	That was three years ago, and that was just the final straw.
	But I actually, before I really made the decision, so that day, we're in Mexico, and I go, well, he's got access to my ticket back, so...
	And even so, I'm not going to make a decision right here.
	I sat on this for a month before ever actually telling him, I don't want to talk to you again.
	And I wrote out a whole list of, it's a document I titled, Dad Reasons, both general and specific reasons that I'm not talking to him because I really wanted to make sure I was making the right decision.
	And after a month, I just decided that enough was enough.
	So three years ago.
	Okay, got it.
	And what's happened since?
	He had reached out a couple times to me, and I blocked his email.
	And then he would talk to my mom every now and then, and my mom would give him updates.
	And then one time he came to the door.
	He had seen a speech I gave on social justice, and he just came to the door, knocked on it, and said, I'm very proud of you, son.
	And then I said, please go away.
	And he left.
	And then, six months later, was this incident just the other day.
	So, this is why I got the restraining order.
	He likes to play this game where he is a one-man show of good cop, bad cop, to see what's going to get more attention from me.
	So, yes, the first time he came, it was just, hey son, I saw your social justice speech at...
	I'm very proud of you.
	The next time...
	Banging, screaming, ringing the doorbell non-stop for five minutes straight, so long that the police had time to arrive.
	So, yeah, that has really been it for the last three years.
	Okay, so he mostly was not in touch with you, but just get information from your mom.
	And when did they split?
	I want to say 99. Okay, got it.
	Did he remarry?
	No.
	He had one girlfriend that I ever met.
	I have two other siblings from two other moms.
	So, my mom was his second marriage.
	Right, okay.
	And what did you think, what made him so appealing to women?
	Well, he was very good looking and very muscular in his military days.
	I asked my mom why she married him because she...
	I was always curious because I'm like, Dad's a rageaholic.
	Why did you marry him?
	And she goes, I laughed so much with your dad.
	They met at Alcoholics Anonymous.
	And it was...
	Yeah, the things I remember her saying were he always made me laugh and he seemed that he could be very loving at certain moments.
	Huh.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And do you know much about your father's personal history?
	Yes.
	In fact, that was the frequent go-to every time I would ask him, you know, when you do, thus and so, it really is a disincentive for me to drive all the way to your house and spend time with you, to which he immediately would just start telling me stories about his childhood, of which I felt very bad.
	He grew up with a stepdad who was physically abusive, and that all seemed very terrible.
	But the justification got pretty slim after a time when he just wouldn't change, and every response to any criticism I had of him would be, well, my dad was way worse.
	Even in one of these emails I got, he goes, I don't know how mad you are at me, but there's no way it could be as mad as I was at my dad.
	It's just so boring and predictable at this point.
	Well, and it's interesting when you confront someone who's this aggressive and they have a pivot to their own lives, how often that just seems to be like, okay, well, let's make it about me.
	Let's have you focus on me.
	And then you kind of end up detaching from yourself and you come with the problem.
	And then you end up having to sympathize with them.
	And that's not a very good dynamic at all because it never ends up being about you or what your issues are.
	So I stopped talking to him three years ago and a few months ago my mom passed away.
	And this was the email from three days ago.
	My wife, your mom.
	He doesn't say ex-wife.
	But he goes, wow, just wow.
	So mom died and you didn't even have the moral character to even have someone else tell me?
	What's wrong with you?
	Now you're trying to blame me for saying it was karma?
	What is wrong with you?
	Dear God, I don't know what to say.
	That was the first email he sent after hearing...
	Just remember, if you can stay off the names, I would appreciate that.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	That's fine.
	I apologize.
	Yes.
	So, he got the information that my mother passed away, and the first thing was to send an email, and I just read it in its entirety, was, how come I wasn't told?
	No word about, I am so sorry about your mom, and I'm so sorry I haven't been a good enough dad to incentivize you to have open communication with me.
	I hope all is well.
	He called my grandma, my mom's mom, and gave her the same speech, And my aunt, and gave her the exact same speech.
	No apology for losing our mom.
	So, unfortunately, in three years, he's exactly the same.
	Right.
	So, can you just read that part, read that back again, stay off the name, and I just want to get that line by line.
	Uh, son...
	Wow.
	Just wow.
	So mom died and you don't even have the moral character to even have someone else tell me?
	Okay, so hang on.
	So he starts off with son, which is a power play, right?
	You're an adult and all of that.
	So son is a power play.
	Wow, just wow.
	This is one of the most boring bits of trollery on the internet.
	Like, wow, man, just wow.
	Like, everything's so incomprehensible.
	Everything's...
	What you're doing is so weird.
	I mean, so that's trollery 101. You don't even have the moral character.
	Right.
	Right.
	So this guy, you know, who's intimidating and aggressive and so on, and has, what, three different kids by three different women?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, he's gonna...
	Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh because it's not funny, but he's gonna try and lecture you about moral character.
	And his daughter, as you say, 15 years ago, your half-sister had cut off contact with him?
	Yeah, 15 years before I did, so 18 years as of now.
	Oh, okay.
	So, this guy is going to try and lecture about moral character.
	So, what people do, if they're this tyrannical, is they create a character.
	It really is an amazing work of fiction.
	They create a character.
	You know, Sun...
	You need to have moral character.
	You know, it's in the wow, just wow stuff, like your behavior is so incomprehensible to me, which is strange because he's your father, so he's supposed to teach you moral character, so if you don't have moral character, that would be more on him teaching you than you as an adult, at least from his perspective, right?
	It's like if I don't teach my kid Japanese, and I'm like, wow, just wow, you don't even speak Japanese.
	You don't even have Japanese in your vocabulary.
	It's like, well, you never taught me that, so how would I have...
	So they create this sort of fictionalized version of themselves, and it's kind of like a black theater improv situation where they instantly create a character...
	Inhabit that character and attempt to transmit self-attack to you, right?
	So it's trying to find that button and they create this character and they try to find this button that they can push to get through your armor, the button that will get you to attack yourself.
	And it's very cold, very cruel.
	I'm sorry about that.
	What was the next sentence?
	What's wrong with you?
	Now you're going to try to blame me for saying it was karma?
	This is in reference to a previous email where he said, You've taken your mother's greatest hits, and we know what she meant, karma.
	Apparently he didn't know she had passed, all he knew was she had A terminal illness, two broken ankles, heart failure, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
	So he only thought she was suffering.
	Sorry, why did she have two broken ankles?
	She had diabetes, and she fell, so she had permanent nerve damage in both.
	So that means when he came over Saturday to bang on the door, scream, and ring the bell nonstop, a very intimidating sound, by the way, he thought he was doing that.
	To an elderly, terminally ill woman who was also in the house.
	I mean, in that sense, it's worse.
	It's one thing to harass and intimidate his son, a young man.
	That's bad enough.
	But to think my mom was in the house, just psychotic.
	Right.
	Right.
	And we'll get to the larger issue in a sec.
	Okay, so because he said her illness is karma, he then has a vulnerability that you have something documented that shows coldness, right?
	Yeah.
	So he blamed her for her illness, but how dare you blame him for blaming her for her illness, right?
	Got it.
	All right, and next?
	What's wrong with you?
	Question mark.
	Dear God, insert my name, I don't know what to say.
	I always love it, and I love in the very darkest sense, right, but I always love it when People say, after a couple of sentences of pretty savage attack, I don't know what to say.
	You know, here's my argument one, here's my argument two, here's how you're a bad person three, here's a negative thing you did four, here's, but I just don't know what to say.
	It's like, for somebody who doesn't know what to say, you seem to have an awful lot to say.
	Anyway, go on.
	That was the end of it.
	The last line is, Dear God, I don't know what to say.
	But, I mean, with all the emails here, he had sent, the first one he sent, this was the really nefarious one because I was like, all right, here comes the fake apology that I've heard 400 times and then he never changes.
	To my surprise, it just said, wow, that escalated quickly, lol, after I had to call the cops to have him physically removed, so to speak, from my house.
	He had said, this one's too long, but I'll read one line.
	I taught you better than that.
	I wish you no harm, but unfortunately, you are living a lie.
	Your mom once told me she thought you may be gay.
	It doesn't matter to me.
	I will always love you, even though you continue to treat me like trash after everything I've done for you.
	There wasn't even an apology in this one.
	I mean, he's really just lost it, so that's why I had to get that order of protection.
	Wow.
	Okay, so, I mean, it seems that this is a man with no particular limits on what he's willing to do to win or get his way.
	There's no line he won't cross.
	There's no insult he won't sling.
	There's no emotional button he won't try to push.
	Yes, that is the general roadmap.
	Get the attention of others at all costs, because negative attention is better than no attention at all.
	Right, right.
	Okay, well, I'm really sorry, of course.
	And you in your 20s or 30s?
	28. 28, okay.
	So I'm really sorry about this.
	To have to deal with this is very, very tough.
	And, of course, incredibly harmful and wretched.
	And it's not just what these kinds of people do to you.
	And this is sort of the larger perspective that I think is worth talking about, but of course I'm here to sort of serve your needs, so whatever works best for you is essential.
	But when I have these kinds of calls, the one thing that seems to be in common is people reaching out almost like they're half-drowning for a helping hand for someone to say, this is Irredeemably monstrous, like the behavior of your father.
	And I'm not sure what your experience has been.
	Certainly my experience with an abusive parent was nobody wanted to talk about it.
	Nobody wanted to admit anything.
	Nobody wanted to just actually look at the malevolent behavior and judge it for what it was.
	You know, aggressive, abusive, destructive, whatever.
	I mean, monstrous.
	Monstrous!
	People get very uncomfortable, in particular with parents, but people get very uncomfortable when you talk about malevolent or destructive behavior on the part of a parent.
	And that's really, really, in many ways, the hardest thing.
	It's not so much that you got mauled by a line, it's that everybody said it was a kitten.
	Right?
	That's the crazy part of this.
	Because to me, the abuse that happened in your childhood, you know, a decade plus ago, now I'm not saying that what he did now was not aggressive and abusive, but I mean, when he had direct power and control over you, the question is, why does it linger?
	And I think that's the essence of your email.
	And it's that the abuse happened a long time ago, but...
	What really aggressive and abusive people reveal to their victims is the amorality and cowardice of the world as a whole.
	That everyone just kind of edges away and everyone just kind of, you know, maybe makes a few sympathetic sounds but won't actually take any kind of moral stand that there is this blank erasure of people's so-called morality.
	When abuse happens in general, but in particular when the abuse is from a parent.
	I mean, if you were a woman and your boyfriend beat you up, people would give you huge amounts of sympathy.
	But as a man, it's tougher to get sympathy as a whole.
	And as a man who's abused by a father or a parent as a whole, it's really tough to get sympathy.
	People just don't seem to want to call this kind of behavior for what it is.
	And they just get very uncomfortable hearing about it, and they just kind of want the issue to not be there.
	So, and I'm not trying to say you're like everybody else, but my general impression, and of course, correct me if I'm wrong, you know yourself infinitely better than I do, but my impression was, you know, and then he does this crazy thing, and then he does this crazy thing, and I think one of the reasons that you would say that is, I'm not sure how much people in your life as a whole Have acknowledged.
	How destructive.
	Well, and violent, this kind of behavior is.
	And I'm not sure if you've had that kind of comfort of you were victimized by a brute whose company you never chose.
	It's one thing to choose someone who turns out to be abusive.
	The abuse is still wrong, but there was an element of choice.
	But with parents, we don't choose them.
	We don't choose to be under their control.
	We can't choose to leave.
	It's almost like an arranged marriage in a really primitive culture.
	And so that should get the most sympathy, and yet so often it seems to get the least.
	So what has your experience been as a whole moving through society, being targeted in this kind of way?
	Have you received, you know, sort of genuine sympathy and compassion that this kind of victimhood will, or this kind of victimization would generally engender?
	So the general rule is no sympathy or microscopic sympathy because of the parent-child relationship.
	The three exceptions to the rule were my dad's other ex-wife, I refer to her as my stepmom, my sister, and my dad's brother.
	The people who know him the best never even questioned why I stopped talking to him.
	They totally understood.
	People in general will almost always say, Oh, but he's your dad, but he's done so much for you.
	To which I've always responded, exactly.
	And that's why I gave him 1,000 excuses in a way that I would never give to anyone else.
	If any random friend or colleague, co-worker, did two of the 1,000 things that I could think that he's inconvenienced me on, I'd kick them out of my life immediately.
	But I felt so bad that he already had a child who didn't talk to him, that I kept giving him all these That I just stuck with it.
	And the general rule was, well, he's your dad, and all of us have parents that have both good sides and bad sides, so hopefully you guys can work it out.
	It was like I just gave them a speech pouring my heart out, and they said, you know, I didn't hear any of that, and I'm going to give you the advice that I would give anyone else regardless of what they had just told me.
	So that has been the most difficult part.
	People not taking me seriously in general on that.
	But like I said, the people who know him the best were the most supportive because they actually knew the details.
	It's funny you say the thing about it's like a prearranged marriage in a primitive culture.
	One of the last fights my dad and I had was he was explaining the obligation, the eternal obligation that children have to their parents because the parent brought the child into the world.
	Therefore, the child owes the parent their life, basically.
	Which, by the way, the implications after what happened last week are kind of scary.
	He believes he owns my life and everything in it.
	Whatever.
	I had said to him, Well, Dad, I never agreed to be with you forever or to always give you my attention.
	However, you agreed twice before God to commit to marrying two women till death do you part.
	So, explicit promises that you make don't count, but promises I've never made, I'm all of a sudden beholden to.
	It's funny that that was the last discussion we had, and you had just mentioned that.
	So, yeah, that's generally how other people have received it, and that's how I see it generally.
	Yeah, I mean, you know the sort of NPC meme of sort of programmed language, and people talk about it in politics and so on, but I find that the real NPC memes generally have to do with family.
	And that is where you just know everything that people have just programmed input-output, right?
	My father did bad things, but he's still your father.
	Right?
	And it's funny how He says, well, you're obligated to me forever.
	You have to look at me positively and so on.
	But he would brutally criticize his own father, right?
	Oh, nonstop.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	And so it all is just that there's no coherence to the personality.
	It is just a power grab.
	And it is, to me, just like, it's the probing for weakness, right?
	If you're in a war, right, you want to attack where you're strongest and the enemy is weakest, therefore the enemy wants to portray where their weakest is the strongest and vice versa.
	And so you're just probing for weakness.
	You know, if you've ever...
	You go through a physical, right?
	And they'll sort of feel around your abdomen.
	Does it hurt here?
	Does it hurt here?
	So they're not trying to cause pain in that sense directly, immediately, but they're just probing.
	They're just probing.
	And there's no logical coherence.
	It is...
	What does the other person believe that I can use?
	Right?
	So I'll say, ah, but I'm your father!
	And it's like, okay, well, does that work?
	No.
	Okay, well, I created your life.
	You owe me endless obligations.
	Does that work?
	Well, family is sacred.
	It's like, they're just trying to find a belief that you hold that they can utilize, that they can manipulate you with.
	If that makes sense.
	And so, there isn't going to be any logical coherence to their belief structure because it's like saying, well, why doesn't the lion run in a straight line?
	That's not logically, that doesn't make any sense.
	If the lion wants to get from A to B, he'd just run in a straight line.
	And it's like, well, no, because the lion is running to chase the zebra, so whichever way the zebra turns, the lion will turn.
	The destination is not A to B, the destination is chewing up the zebra.
	And so these constant changes in direction and this bewildering gaslighting and so on, it's like asking a chameleon to stay the same color.
	Why does this octopus keep changing color?
	Where's the consistency?
	It's like, well, it's a form of camouflage, right?
	So asking for consistency from people who are only interested in control and bullying, well, it's not a rational demand.
	It is like asking the lion to run in a straight line, or, you know, if the gator's full, it doesn't bite you.
	Well, make up a decision.
	Do you want to eat me or not?
	It's like, well, it depends if I'm hungry or not.
	So rational consistency would be a form of self-discipline, and it would be a form of having power over yourself, right?
	And he doesn't want power over himself, because power over oneself interferes with having power over others.
	Because if I say no, like, you know, obviously in my marriage, right, I mean, we've never raised voices, we never call names, we never, you know, I mean, we almost never have conflicts, and when we do, it can be passionate, but it's never aggressive, right?
	And so, I don't have power over my wife, not that I'd want such a hideous thing, but I don't have power over my wife because...
	I have power over myself.
	Because I have self-restraint, it means I give up power over my wife.
	And people who want power over others cannot be held to rational standards, because having rational standards is like saying to a lion, well, you've got to chase this zebra, but you can't turn left.
	It's like, well, what if the zebra goes left?
	No, no, you can't turn left.
	It's like, okay, then I'm going to starve to death, and I don't get to eat the zebra.
	So it is just a pursuit of dominance over others.
	They will claim to have universal standards.
	Of course, because that's a way of controlling others.
	But to actually try and hold them to universal standards, well, that's not the point.
	The point of them deploying universal standards, like the moral character, you know, the virtue and so on, family is every loyalty, like the purpose for them to use these statements is to control you.
	The idea that they then would be restrained in their own behavior goes against the entire purpose of power, which is to create rules for others to manipulate them, but never have them applied to yourself, because that would diminish your power over others, if that makes sense.
	Absolutely.
	One of the things that I'm currently struggling with is I am telling everyone that basically the you should talk to your dad again after last week is just completely off the table.
	Please don't ever bring it up.
	And it's been hard for me to say this calmly.
	After everything that happened and I've been so terrified, I spent a ton of money on getting an alarm system everywhere and I'm still on eggshells about the whole thing, kind of, you know, jumping.
	Was that a sound?
	Is that going to be him?
	And when I get the response, well, he does this because he loves you.
	By members of my family.
	My aunt and uncle, as of two days ago, completely blocked.
	I have no interest in ever speaking to them because they had a real significant defense of him.
	But when I'm talking to my grandmother, and she continues to say that after...
	I read my grandma.
	I sat her down and said, Grandma, here's the deal.
	And I read her every word of every email.
	And I said...
	Please don't bug me about talking to him again.
	And just yesterday, Grandma's 84, by the way.
	Just yesterday, she was saying that he really loves me and it's unfortunate that he goes about it this way.
	You know, he doesn't know how to express himself.
	I just really don't want to lose it because I didn't scream the other day at my cousin's birthday, but we were going around the table and two of my family members made this exact claim.
	Well, he really loves you.
	Well, he doesn't really know how to show his emotions accurately.
	He's unfortunately, unintentionally shooting himself in the foot.
	And I, let's just say, responded unfavorably.
	Used unclean language in front of family, including my aunt and grandma.
	So, I'm not happy about that.
	Oh, were they shocked at the, like, they're willing to excuse this kind of aggression, but were they shocked and appalled at the spicy language?
	I didn't know how else to get their attention.
	I'd go, you know what?
	I'm gonna have to drop 10 C-bombs and F-bombs in order to let them know this has gone from Sorry.
	Hang on.
	You're C-bombing and F-bombing the elderly ladies?
	Reluctantly.
	No, no, no.
	Come on, man.
	That's not good.
	No, that's not the way.
	Oh, no.
	No, I'm sorry.
	I wasn't calling them that.
	I was just describing my dad's behavior, but I did say that.
	I've never called them that.
	Okay.
	But after just explaining for years how difficult my dad is and always getting the but-he-loves-you response...
	You're still trying to explain something to them?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But why?
	No, you have a thought behind it, right?
	This was relatively recent.
	This was my cousin's birthday.
	How long ago was that?
	Saturday.
	So you're still doing family events with people who enable an excuse your father's aggression, right?
	Yes.
	Why?
	Well, because...
	Look, I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't.
	Because when I ask why, I never wanted to come across as like, why the hell would you do such a crazy...
	I'm genuinely curious.
	Like, why?
	What's the plus?
	Sure.
	Because it seems like their position on this issue is an anomaly with regard to their personality as a whole.
	An anomaly?
	I'm curious what you mean by that.
	So on regular issues, on every other thing that we talk about or exchange ideas on, they can be very, very rational and understanding, but it's just because of the parent-child relationship.
	It's just an issue that they can't concede on.
	Not they can't.
	They are actively choosing not to take my position and side with me.
	It's difficult, but I do choose to be around them because I still think they're great assets to my life, and I really do like them as people.
	Okay, and I'm obviously not going to try and interfere with that, but are you saying that their defense of...
	A rampant and violent abuser is just like a quirk or a blip, or as you put it, an anomaly, right?
	Yes.
	Just because of the lack of dedication.
	They don't make passionate statements on why I should.
	It's a very passive, well, he's your father and he loves you.
	And unfortunately, that is just...
	Something that I have chosen to tolerate because it's not that bad.
	No, no, no, no.
	Because you're F-bombing and C-bombing.
	Don't tell me you've decided to tolerate something that you're F-bombing and C-bombing about.
	Good catch.
	Nice try.
	Good catch.
	Thank you.
	See that invention of the standard in the moment, right?
	It completely contradicts.
	But that's your father talking, right?
	Yeah.
	Because that's the same lack of consistency, right?
	Yeah.
	You know, I'm using the most vile curse words in the face of elderly people, but, you know, I've chosen to accept it.
	I've chosen to accept them.
	Well, in the sense of if acceptance means choosing to have them in my life, even with, you know, communicating unproductively and vilely, yeah, I've still chosen to tolerate them in my life, even though I have the...
	No, no, you're not tolerating them.
	You're pursuing the relationships.
	Yes, that is a more accurate explanation.
	Now, why do you think...
	They don't show any sympathy towards you and side with your father at your expense.
	Let's be clear about what it is.
	If somebody doesn't speak English, is it fair for me to get angry at them for not communicating to me clearly in English?
	No.
	Right.
	So, I mean, there was this old comedy routine about, you know, how we're in a farm, like we're in Hungary or something, and somebody doesn't speak English.
	So we speak the same sentence, but slower and louder.
	Where is the coffee shop?
	Right?
	I mean, it's like, but they don't speak English.
	So, if somebody was speaking to you in some foreign language, you know, and they just went slower and louder, right?
	I mean, it wouldn't be any clearer to you because you don't speak the language, right?
	So, if they're saying, your father loves you, he doesn't express it well, then they're actually not even just accusing, but outright stating that you are intolerant of somebody's difficulty in expressing something.
	You're yelling at a foreigner for not speaking English.
	Right?
	So they are siding with your father because when there's a problem in the relationship, who's at fault, right?
	Usually either one or both people are at fault when there's a sort of big tear or problem in a relationship.
	So you're not speaking with your father and you've taken this legal action against him.
	So there's a huge problem in the relationship.
	And who are they saying is at fault?
	So what they would say is, your dad is absolutely at fault, but still consider talking to him in the long run.
	It doesn't have to be this terrible, maybe just Once or twice a month, they're always trying to talk me back.
	Okay, so you can pretend to be these women, if you don't mind, and I'll do a little quick roleplay, because I just sort of want to understand this mindset, right?
	Okay, so they make the speech about, he's absolutely at fault, right?
	So then I would say, well, what has your communication with him been like when you tell him he's at fault?
	Okay.
	Well, your father called last week, and he was really horrible to me, and he was just yelling, and he didn't even apologize for your mother passing.
	It was all about him, but I think you just need a month or two, and then maybe you two can talk.
	Okay, great accent.
	So, what have you said to my father about how bad his behavior has been?
	What demands have you made of him?
	I told him he was horrible.
	And I told him, look, the mistakes he made with his daughter, he's doing it again.
	But I don't know what's wrong with him.
	He just has such a weird way of showing his love.
	Can you tell me what you mean by the word love here?
	Because, I mean, I would think that love would have to do with being treasured and respected and people treating you well, not sort of half beating down your door and you've got to call the cops and so on.
	So, can you tell me, what is it that you mean by love?
	I know it's a big philosophical question, but you are using the word, so you must have some idea what it means.
	When I was born, parents would beat the hell out of their kids, but they still loved them.
	You still want what's best for your kids.
	That's what I'm talking about.
	So you want what's best for your kids, right?
	Sure.
	Okay.
	So if someone pretends to be a doctor...
	And sets up shop, but doesn't know what he's doing and ends up really harming his, quote, patients.
	Is he allowed to say, I want what's best for my patients, if he's not actually studied to be a doctor?
	You're changing the subject.
	You always do that.
	It's an analogy.
	It's directly related.
	Just indulge me for a second.
	Um, okay, but you need a license to be a doctor.
	Parents love their kids.
	No, no, he pretends.
	He pretends to have a license.
	He prints it up.
	He fakes it, right?
	Okay, that's wrong.
	Okay.
	So, if he says, well, I just want what's best for my patients, but he hasn't done any education on how to be a doctor, then we wouldn't believe him, right?
	Oh, you're changing the subject.
	No, no, just...
	That's the last thing.
	Yeah, okay.
	So, I guess with regards to these parents who beat their children, I mean, for...
	70, 80 years.
	There have been books on parenting.
	And, I mean, of course there have been books on parenting going back hundreds of years, but sort of modern, you know, reason with your children, don't beat them to hell and gone, and so on.
	These books have been around really since the end of the Second World War, right?
	Sure.
	Okay, so that's, you know, 80 years or so.
	So...
	If parents say they want what's best for their children but they never get educated on parenting, is it fair to say that they do want what's best for their children?
	Because you said, well, if the doctor doesn't get educated, Then he can't claim to say what's best for his patients because he's pretending to be a doctor and he's not getting educated.
	And, you know, we all upgrade our skills all the time.
	People learn how to use computers and cell phones and digital thermostats and watches and tons of stuff.
	New cars and they learn how to twiddle with these endless dials like a space shuttle on the new cars and so on.
	So people upgrade their skills all the time.
	And so should parents who want what's best for their children not read a couple of books which are available for free at the library, right?
	And people have years and years and years as adults to figure out something about parenting.
	And then, you know, they get married and they discuss having children and so they have years to prepare.
	The mom is pregnant for nine months and so on.
	So they have a lot of time To prepare.
	Like, if I didn't know anything about how to feed a baby, and I never asked a doctor, or I never looked it up, or I never got any education, and I gave a newborn baby a ham and cheese on rye, and the baby didn't do very well, would I get to say, well, I just wanted what was best for my baby?
	And it's like, well, why didn't you do any research about what was best for your baby?
	And I guess that's the question I have.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	There's no time to read books, and all books say different things, and you never know what to read, and it's too complicated, but he does love you.
	I know that.
	I'm sorry, parenting books are too complicated, and there's no time to read?
	I don't follow what you mean.
	There's so many books, and they all say different things, and you don't know what to believe.
	Okay.
	Are there books that recommend screaming at and beating your children?
	I don't know.
	I haven't read many.
	Oh, you've read some.
	Okay, so of the some that you've read, how many of them advocated beating your children and screaming at them?
	Well, none of them, but we all fall short.
	Okay, so look, this is good.
	So you read parenting books that said it's probably better to try reasoning with your children, to show them affection, and to not scream at them and beat them, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so did you ever tell my dad about this?
	Yeah, I told him he was driving you into the arms of your mother, away from him.
	Okay, so you told him that what he was doing was not the best thing for me.
	Yeah.
	So how dare you tell me, how dare you tell me that he wants what's best for me when you told him that what he was doing was bad for me and he kept doing it?
	Yeah.
	That's nasty.
	That's kind of malevolent.
	So you couldn't change him, although you've known him a hell of a lot longer than I have.
	You couldn't change him with good advice.
	And you claim that he wanted what was best for me when you repeatedly told him that what he was doing was damaging me and he didn't change and he hasn't changed and he still hasn't changed and he won't change.
	And then you have the nerve, the literal absolute audacity to say he wants what's best for you when you clearly told him with expert advice in parenting books that what he was doing was harmful to me and he's been doing it now for close to 30 years.
	How dare you lie to me in this way?
	It is an absolute falsehood.
	You told him that what he was doing was bad for me, and you sit across from me at this table, look me dead in the eye, and say, he only wants what's best for you.
	My God, what's the matter?
	What's going on?
	This is so crazy.
	What is going on?
	Like, genuinely, what is going on?
	Yeah, that's probably the more calm, rational, productive way I should have approached things the other night.
	Well, I don't know.
	I think indulging in those kinds of swear words at a birthday party is probably not ideal.
	I definitely regret it.
	I accept that, and I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything like that, but my question is...
	What are you getting from this social situation?
	Because 99% of the time it's very loving and productive and they're my closest living genetic connections who I generally get along with.
	And that's why I refer to their position on this issue, while horrible, It does seem like an anomaly that they're not very dedicated to.
	They just will passively say things like I was imitating before.
	Okay.
	Okay, but let me ask you this.
	Do you think that your father's behavior and the enabling of your relatives are two separate things?
	No.
	Okay, so your father has been a dark shadow in your life for close to 30 years, right?
	Yeah.
	So, if your father was in general only able to do what he did or largely able to do what he did because he counted on and got the support of your relatives and his relatives to do what he did, then his abuse is tied into their approval and their gaslighting and minimizing and trying to talk you back into being in contact with him And so on, right?
	So it's sort of like saying, well, the guy who drove the getaway car didn't rob the bank.
	So he's fine.
	And it's like, no, because the bank was only robbed because there was a getaway driver.
	Right?
	If the getaway driver said, I'm not going to be your getaway driver, and the bank robber had no getaway driver, the bank robber would not rob the bank, right?
	Yeah.
	So you say, well, he's, I mean, I mean, come on, man, he's just sitting in a car.
	You can do that.
	He's just driving away.
	You can do that.
	And it's like, but he's charged, right?
	Even though what he did, if it wasn't related to a bank robbery, would be legal, assuming he wasn't double parked, I guess.
	But if the bank robbery only happens because of the getaway driver, Then he's charged equally because he's an equal criminal, because the bank robbery would not happen without him.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	So your father did what he did with the certain knowledge that all these blue-haired biddies would herd you back to him with all the social force at their disposal, that they would be the slave catchers.
	If you know the whole community is going to rally around to catch and return a slave who runs away rather than get them on the Underground Railroad to safety, you can treat your slaves much worse, right?
	I have not considered that aspect of enabling.
	Abuse is social.
	It is not individual.
	Now, we focus on the individuals, I understand that, because they're more vivid, right?
	But abuse is a social phenomenon.
	So when I was abused as a child, we lived not in some remote cave or location in the middle of nowhere.
	I lived right in the middle of a city in a crowded apartment building and series of crowded apartment buildings.
	We never had a house, at least after I was a baby.
	A series of crowded apartment buildings with paper-thin walls, right?
	I went to school, I went to friends' houses, I went to relatives' houses, I went to live with other people from time to time when my mother was disabled, and when my mother was institutionalized, nobody cared, nobody knew, nobody inquired, no doctor, no, I mean, the people who took My mother into the institution.
	I'm sure they knew she had children.
	They did not, because I went to visit, right?
	And nobody inquired as to how I was doing, although they would have taken a history of that.
	So everything that happened to me as a child, it's very easy to focus on my mother, but my mother operated in an entire social environment.
	And I was not isolated.
	I was not locked in a basement on the moon.
	I moved through society.
	I moved through other people's houses.
	I was very social.
	And of course, the violence and abuse was audible to probably 50 to 75 people in the apartment building.
	And so, if I just focus on my mother, I'm focusing on the bank robber.
	If I don't look at all the getaway drivers, I'm missing the truth about society.
	And you said, sort of, how do I prevent this?
	Or one of your fundamental questions is, how do I prevent this from affecting my life going forward as much?
	Do I have that right?
	Is that something that's of concern to you?
	Absolutely, yeah, because I just want to completely separate from him.
	He thinks I want to ruin his life, not even close.
	I just want separation, and I want to move on with a mentally healthy mindset for the rest of my life, but this thing is just bugging the heck out of me.
	Right, right.
	Now, we generally feel upset until we're safe, right?
	We feel upset until we're safe.
	Yes.
	So, many years ago, I was swimming in the ocean in a warm place.
	And there were a bunch of guys on a sandbar further out to the ocean, and a large dark shadow swam under myself and my family.
	And these guys were yelling shark, shark, shark.
	So my heart was pounding.
	I see the fin and I'm looking to see whether the tail is going up and down or side to side because up and down is dolphin and side to side is shark, right?
	And then the fin goes about 100 feet to the right and then stops.
	And I'm like, don't turn around, don't turn around.
	And, you know, I'm basically trying to, you know, not panic, but, you know, let's get out of the water.
	And anyway, the guys on the sandbar ended up laughing and laughing.
	It's like, oh, bro, it's just a dolphin, right?
	So I went from fear...
	Well, to a mixture of fear and anger, like, that's not particularly funny, right?
	Hey, you're gonna die!
	Just kidding!
	Psych!
	Right?
	But...
	So, I no longer was concerned because dolphins are not dangerous to humans.
	I mean, I guess they will sexually assault their trainers from time to time, but this wasn't that situation, right?
	So...
	Once I realized that it was a dolphin and not a shark...
	Then I was relaxed.
	I relaxed and I kept splashing.
	In fact, I looked for the dolphin again because it's cool to see a dolphin, right?
	I mean, that's kind of neat, right?
	So that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
	I felt nervous or anxious until such time as I realized that I was not in danger and then my fight or flight dissipated and I ended up relaxing and enjoying my day at the beach.
	So we're upset until we're safe.
	Now, if it had been a shark, and my family and I, as would be most likely the case, would get to the shore, I would not continue to feel as frightened on the shore, right?
	Yeah.
	So we're upset until we're safe.
	So if you're still upset, it means you're not yet safe.
	And if you think that you have solved the problem of embedded family abuse, because it is embedded.
	Your father did what he did in part because he had the getaway driver of the rest of the family who were going to herd you back and convince you.
	Give him another chance.
	Just be around him.
	He needs you just once or twice a month.
	What can it hurt?
	You know, he's just awkward.
	He doesn't know how to express himself, but he loves you.
	He wants the best.
	Like this constant drip, drip, drip.
	Erode your will.
	Throw you back in the water, covered with blood.
	When there are fins around and tails going side to side, not up and down.
	This constant drip, drip, drip of put yourself back in danger, put yourself back in danger.
	He's just awkward.
	You're intolerant.
	You're mean.
	You don't understand him.
	You don't understand what it's like to be a father.
	He had a bad childhood.
	You need to have some sympathy.
	He's not a...
	He just...
	He expresses himself badly and he's doing the wrong thing, but he's doing the best he can.
	How dare you?
	How dare you get angry at a cripple for not climbing a mountain?
	How intolerant are you?
	He's doing the best he can.
	He had it tough.
	Right, that constant drip, drip, drip.
	Go back.
	And he's relying on that.
	And he treated you badly, in part, to a large degree, I would argue, because he knew about the biddies who would catch your escape and send you back.
	The sharks don't need to chase you if, when you get to the shore, the lifeguards throw you back at them.
	Sure.
	Thank you.
	So the reason why I think it's still upsetting to you is because, and the reason why you were dropping these F-bombs and C-bombs is because I think you're waking up to the true danger and the true predation.
	With very rare exceptions, abusers never act in isolation.
	They always act with the support of those around them, and usually that support comes from women.
	But they're sweet, and they're old, and they're nice, and they bake pound cakes, and they have little jars of sweets, and they appear harmless, and they're sweet, and they're sympathetic, and they're thoughtful, and they remember your birthdays, which is all called camouflage.
	Did any of these women ever intervene when you were being so harmed as a child?
	Did they ever give you sympathy?
	Did they ever help you understand what you were facing?
	Did they ever try to get any kind of protective services involved?
	Did they threaten to ostracize your father if he didn't go to anger management classes?
	Did they stand up for you at all?
	Well, there were certainly times where they had, you know, defended me to my face, like, oh, yeah, I totally get that.
	You're right about that.
	But then it was all washed away with the, but, you know, he does love you.
	It's like, all right, well, now everything else is just meaningless, if that's going to be your closing line.
	So they did not do anything with regards to your father...
	That would have caused him to change or given him a chance to change.
	What you're doing is absolutely unacceptable.
	You're incredibly harming these children.
	And you need to go to anger management.
	Did they stage an intervention?
	Didn't stage an intervention.
	My grandmother claims to have had this conversation with my dad where she told him to change.
	And on two occasions, when I was much younger, I want to say like 10 and 12, I did call her and she picked me up from his house when he was in a rageaholic fit.
	Okay, so she knew directly how terrified you were and how dangerous he was.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So what did she do?
	Always offered for me to stay at her place if I wasn't comfortable there.
	Okay.
	And then your dad would come and pick you up.
	Or you'd go back.
	Oh yeah, I would always go back.
	So she knew, she had direct experience of how volatile, terrifying and dangerous your father was.
	And she did nothing in particular then.
	And she's counseling you to stay in this relationship now.
	More or less.
	That's an absolute, unless I completely misunderstood what you're saying.
	Keep calling him once or twice a month, stay in the relationship, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that was the most recent exchange we had on this issue.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So that's siding with the abuser and saying that the victim has to change.
	How's your dating life?
	you Dating life is better than ever before because I found the carnivore diet.
	So I used to be 290 pounds.
	So for the first time in my life, I'm actually getting positive attention from women.
	So that has actually been a silver lining in this mess.
	Oh, tell me a little bit about that change.
	So, there was this woman I was head over heels in love with.
	And I'm like, I think she's into me.
	And one day, I just said, we've gone on dates.
	I would really want us to be exclusive.
	And she gets a smile on her face and says something to the extent of literally someone as good looking as me is not going to date someone as bad as you.
	And then I just went to YouTube.
	I just watched probably 70 videos on foods to eat for fat loss.
	And I lost the weight.
	Her and I dated for some time.
	And then, unfortunately, on Valentine's Day, I walked into her place and she was actually cheating on me.
	But...
	Without that advice, I never would have lost the weight and really gotten any attention from other women at all.
	So, yeah, that is where I'm at as far as dating goes.
	Okay, so congratulations on the weight loss.
	Good for you.
	Tell me a little bit about your dating life or if there was a dating life.
	Normally it starts to cook in around mid-teens, right?
	I'm not saying it's particularly serious, but that's where it starts to kick in.
	So you've had, what, 13 years or so where dating has been possible.
	And when did you first start dating in your life?
	I want to say high school.
	There were two women.
	I dated one woman I dated in college, but there were really just three from age teens to 26 before I lost the weight.
	Okay.
	And how were these relationships as a whole?
	I found it so difficult to believe that anyone could like me or be attracted to me.
	That it was really hard for me to be invested in it.
	I was constantly, like, needing confirmations that they really were into me.
	And I think I just exhausted them to the point of, like, I drove them away.
	That is my immediate recollection.
	To be honest, I've not put much thought into that recently.
	And sorry, were they sexual relationships?
	How long did they last?
	Yes.
	First one, high school.
	Yes, it was.
	And I want to say six months.
	Second one, yes, probably two months.
	And then the third one, I'd say six months.
	This was, I would have been 18. It was right when I went to college.
	Was it long distance?
	No, it was in person.
	Oh, so it was in college.
	I went to school with them.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And why did the college one end?
	I was heavily addicted to Adderall, cocaine, and Vyvanse, and I was just very unreliable.
	And the relationship just ended when I stopped responding to her.
	Once I got clean, I'd been clean for seven years, I texted her and apologized for everything as extensively as I could.
	And sorry, when did you first start getting into the Adderall and cocaine, and what was the other one?
	Adderall, Vyvanse, and cocaine.
	This would have been from age 17 to 21. Okay, got it.
	And then from 21 to 26, you didn't date?
	I'm really trying to think.
	I literally don't think.
	No, I mean, if you had a date or two, but basically you didn't, right?
	Oh, no, no.
	Yeah, certainly no significant relationships.
	And then you got involved with the hottie who convinced you to lose weight or gave you the stimulus to lose weight.
	And then you dated with her for a while and then she cheated on you on Valentine's Day.
	Yeah, that one lasted a year.
	Ah, okay.
	And it was exclusive for a year?
	On my end, yes, it was exclusive for a year.
	And when I found out...
	I'd never even asked her the details, because whatever she said, I wouldn't have believed.
	But right when I saw this, you know, I knew it was just her home alone.
	And I was showing up like two hours early to our Valentine's Day.
	I was going to surprise her.
	And I just see this military handsome guy walking out of the house.
	And I go, Oh my God, she cheated on you, but you're dead.
	And I walk in, and it was common for me just to walk in.
	I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary.
	And she's in the hallway, and she just turns into a ghost, looks at me, and then looks at the clock on her wall.
	And I just hugged her, and I said, Hey, so good to see you.
	Happy Valentine's Day.
	And I said, By the way, were you sleeping with that guy by any chance?
	And I said, It's totally okay if you were.
	I just want to know.
	Now, again, it's not that it's okay.
	It's I'm about to lose my mind, and I'm trying to build her a golden bridge to retreat across because I had suspected it.
	So I'm just like, I just need to hear her.
	Sorry, you had suspected that she was cheating?
	Yeah, I mean, she was just so good looking that at the back of my mind, I'm like, how is this a real thing?
	Sorry, were you dating with the intention to get married?
	Yes, and she was three years older than me.
	She had talked about how she really wanted to get married and have kids, and we had had this conversation multiple times in a capacity that I thought was serious.
	And you were, sorry, you were 25, 26?
	I would have been 27. So you were already out of contact with your father, is that right?
	Yep.
	Okay.
	And did she meet any of your family?
	No, she had met my friends.
	My family really consists of mom, grandma, aunt, everyone else in other states.
	Sorry, so you were talking about marrying this woman, but she didn't meet your family?
	Or talk to them on the phone or Skype or anything, right?
	Correct.
	Why not?
	Because she was Asian and my family's Jewish, and before I introduce anyone who isn't Jewish, I gotta be positive that it's gonna be the one or else it's not worth the hassle.
	Okay, got it.
	But granted, that has actually faded.
	Recently.
	It used to be like around my bar mitzvah time that was like, absolutely only marry a Jewish girl.
	And then I actually haven't heard that in some time.
	I think they just lost that ambition.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	So she admitted to sleeping with the guy and then you broke up, right?
	Correct.
	Okay.
	And have you dated much since then?
	Yes.
	I basically had more confidence than ever before.
	And in the last year or so, I've dated probably 50 times more than I dated from age 14 to 27. Primary places that I meet women will either be at work, at bars, or at events.
	Okay.
	And what's the longest of those relationships been?
	I would say probably four months or so.
	I'm really at the point where I'm looking for a long-term girlfriend.
	So when I'm on these dates, I will usually, it's not really about getting Them interested in me so I could sleep with them immediately.
	It's like, you know, if we're not clicking that soon, I'm not going to invest much time or money.
	Because, frankly, I went broke with the woman who was cheating on me.
	And I'm a little once bitten, twice shy about...
	Wait, wait.
	How much did you spend on her?
	Oh, Steph.
	No, come on.
	I'm going to have to put it in the chat.
	I can't.
	Let's just say...
	Could you buy a car?
	Oh, I could buy a couple.
	Could you buy a couple of cars?
	Okay, alright.
	Holy crap.
	I mean, just imagine never getting attention from women, and then...
	One who is willing to date you, sleep with you, go anywhere and hold hands with you.
	And this woman was Margot Robbie-level good-looking.
	So I'm basically just like, all right, whatever it's going to cost me, that's what I'm going to do.
	Wow, she's an expert bull money miner, right?
	Okay, got it.
	Wow, wow, wow, wow.
	Okay, yeah, I can understand some caution with regards to that.
	Alright.
	And why do you think the relationships aren't working out, in terms of, like, you want to get married and all that?
	Why aren't the relations working out?
	I am really not sure.
	I've put a lot of thought into it with friends as far as what are things to look for, things that I could bring up to sort of be a weeding mechanism for who I should really invest a lot of time into.
	I would say, I think I'm really scared in general, even still.
	So I'm much less scared than I used to be to approach women.
	But just the fact that I approached a woman the other day at a restaurant, I never would have done that.
	And we exchanged information, and I am definitely going to ask her out.
	That was the most blinding, maze-like non-answer I've heard in a while.
	Excellent.
	Well done.
	Alright, let's try that again.
	Why are these relationships not working out?
	Because if you're dating 50 times longer, you want to get married, and the longest you've managed is four months, then something's not working, right?
	Yeah, and you know, I just haven't found someone that I'm really passionate about investing a lot of time into.
	What standards are you using to approach these women?
	Standards I'm using are ability to have long-term productive conversations that really hold my interest, along with good looks that hold my attention.
	Those are really the two main things.
	Good conversation, good looks, right?
	Right.
	So you know that was your mother's standard, right?
	Well, she said my dad was funny.
	She didn't say good conversation.
	Oh, come on.
	I mean, somebody who's funny is doing so in a conversational manner, right?
	Well, I'm not going to weasel my way out of this, but I do think there's a difference between someone who can make funny one-liners or comments versus someone who says...
	You know, I'm really trying to differentiate who my good friends are versus who my bad friends are.
	That's the difference, I think, between someone who can be funny and someone who has good, solid, productive conversations.
	So that's what I'm looking for.
	All right.
	But what's missing from both your mother and your equation is virtue.
	Somebody who's a good conversationalist, well, there are people who are good conversationalists who aren't good people.
	There are obviously people who are good-looking who aren't good people.
	So, I'm sure it comes as no deep and great shock to you, my friend, that I would recommend the virtue thing.
	That absolutely needs to be on the list.
	Yes.
	Good call.
	On the list?
	Yeah, you know, somewhere.
	Maybe write it on the edge of the paper, a watermark.
	Nothing too obvious, because she could have a great rack.
	So, you know, I don't want to overemphasize the virtue thing.
	All right.
	Yes, that's right.
	So...
	How would you, you know, first of all, why do you think you're not filtering for virtue?
	Looking for, you know, integrity and clarity and skepticism and moral courage or, you know, charity, whatever, you know, would be some good markers of a virtuous woman.
	Why do you think that's not on your list?
	Especially since you've read, you know, a bunch of my stuff and all of that, and, you know, this can't be too much of a shock that I'm focusing on this.
	Yeah, I think I'm just still so high on any attention I could get in general that I guess it just didn't come to mind when you had originally asked the question.
	Oh, so you're in your fat liberated hound dog face.
	I guess that is a good way to describe it, but yeah, I'm really not sure why that didn't come to mind.
	Okay.
	So, a virtuous woman looks at you, and what would draw her to you?
	What would draw her to me, I would say, my dedication to my profession, which I've spent probably 14 years trying to perfect and get better at a general level of confidence when I'm in that arena.
	Ability to hold a steady job and someone who's capable of achieving something significant when I put my mind to it, such as the significant weight loss or getting off of drugs.
	Those are the things that I would think of.
	I'm trying to channel the Kevin Samuels answer of women want a guy who's confident, intelligent, and assertive.
	So those are some of the things that come to mind.
	Those are the ways I try to attract.
	Right, okay.
	Nothing in there is particularly virtuous, and I'm not saying that being good at your job is bad or conscientiousness is not a good thing or anything like that, but everything that you talked about could be in pursuit of bad things too, right?
	I mean, some politicians do work very hard, even though they're pretty corrupt.
	Some lawyers are pretty bad, and yet they They work very hard, and, you know, we all know the totalitarian regimes, some of the administrators work very hard and produce massive amounts of evil and death.
	So, again, I'm not saying you're in that category, but it's not a specifically moral category?
	Yes, and that is also something that I should focus on, both for when I'm trying to look for and for myself.
	Yeah, thank you for reiterating the importance of that.
	Well, and it's tough to have, and I learned this through bitter experience.
	I'm not saying this is some sort of objective rule, but I think it's a general trend.
	You can't really have a more moral relationship than your least moral relationship.
	You know, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link and so on, right?
	Like, I mean, if you have a relay team and you've got one guy who's 400 pounds, you're never going to win a race, right?
	Because even if everyone else is super lean and super fast, that one guy, right, is going to bring it all down.
	And so when a woman looks at you, a moral woman, right, she looks at you and she's going to say, okay, so I haven't married, get married, have kids and so on.
	So she's going to want to be in touch with Your family, because she's marrying into a family, right?
	Men, date, individuals, women, assess families, right?
	Because you're going to be at work and she's going to be raising kids with a bunch of family members around.
	I mean, if the family members are around, in this case, it wouldn't be a father, but, you know, it would be others, right?
	And so she says that my relationship is going to be with a whole social circle.
	And if a woman meets your friends, that's great.
	But friends are what you have for.
	olders before you have kids.
	And, you know, no, seriously, I'm going to be honest with you about this, right?
	This is just, you know, a couple of decades plus.
	And I still have friends and I still see my friends from time to time.
	But compared to how much time I spend with my family, I mean, it's virtually nothing.
	I mean, especially if you're homeschool and all of that, right?
	Because you just, now, if they live next door and you have kids all together, and then that can be great and wonderful and all of that.
	But friends are what you use to meet your wife as a whole.
	And then, like, the stages of a rocket, they generally kind of fall away in life, and then it becomes about your family and so on, right?
	And again, I mean, I have long-term friendships, and I really enjoy my friends, and they really enjoy my company, but, you know, honestly, we can go quite some time without talking because we're all busy with family and life and business and all that kind of stuff, so...
	So, for a woman to meet your friends is helpful, but for a woman to meet your family is essential.
	And any woman who's serious about marriage will want to meet, like, you know, the old thing, why haven't you brought me home to meet your mother?
	You know, well, of course, in your case, she's deceased, for which I have great sympathy, but to meet your family, right?
	Because in some ways, right, I mean, women have evolved to spend more time with your in-laws in some ways than you.
	Because, you know, you'll be off at work 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, maybe, and like with commute and all of that, and yet, you know, often the grandmother and the great aunt and so on, they're all living in the neighborhood and they're around a lot, and so she has to assess your family because she's going to be spending a lot of time with them because they're going to help her raise the kids, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So, if a moral woman...
	Meets the biddies and they say, I won't even try to do that accent, but if they meet the women and the women are like, oh, you know, his father can be a bit of a handful, but, you know, loves him and, you know, we're really encouraging them to spend time together and so on, right?
	And then she says, ah, so this is who I get to spend Mm-hmm.
	Well...
	As of now, she would just absolutely have to side with me, at least in those conversations.
	I have dated women who have said that, well, you should still talk to your dad.
	Well, you only have one parent and all this stuff.
	And that I just lost interest immediately on those ones.
	So I would want her position to be unequivocal in support of defooing, in this case.
	Well, I mean, or at least honest conversations, right?
	Yeah.
	Like not F-bombs and C-bombs, you know, and volatility and so on, but, you know, sort of honest conversations where you're more vulnerable than aggressive, right?
	Because that's acting a bit like your dad, isn't it?
	It is, and it happened once in 28 years, and I hope And I'm not going to make you feel bad about any of that.
	I'm really not.
	I'm just saying that that's probably a place that is not super productive.
	So it's just really an honest conversation.
	Like, okay, help me understand how this all happened.
	Because the protection of children is not just the job of the parents, it's the job of the whole family, right?
	Yeah.
	So how did it slip through the fingers?
	How did this guy end up, you know, I think, obviously, given what your half-sister did 18 years ago, and others, like, how did he end up being this harsh and brutal towards And with all of that, she's going to have some legitimate questions, right?
	It's like, okay, so if I'm going to raise my kids around these people, I need to know what they think about children and how good they are and dedicated they are to protecting children, right?
	What is their view of the moral status of children?
	Are children to be protected no matter what?
	And if they're not to be protected no matter what, if you appease the abusers, then that usually comes from a bad conscience, right?
	So the women that we were role-playing about, you said they're in their 80s, is that right?
	Grandma was 84, and I want to say 60. Right.
	I remember when 60 seemed pretty old.
	Anyway, but they've spent a lifetime, I suppose, and made their decisions to not strongly and strictly intervene for the protection of children, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	They didn't say, document your father's rages and maybe record them if it's legal and go to the court and say, listen, we've got to get this kid out of there and whatever it takes to actually protect the kids, right?
	Yeah, they really didn't take it seriously.
	That's why when they read the 911 call transcript, they were just shocked.
	Wow, I never would have thought this would happen.
	I don't know what they actually thought.
	That's what people say.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah.
	Towards my sister, the second I told my sister, she goes, this is exactly what I was waiting for this day.
	I'm so sorry this happened.
	So the people who knew him best were not surprised.
	The people who knew him very little, who said, I should keep talking to him, were in a state of shock.
	They couldn't believe the email.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I had no idea.
	It's one of the most common defenses.
	And don't tell me they didn't know him well.
	They're family.
	I don't really believe that stuff.
	It's just something, oh my, I had no idea, right?
	It's like, what is it, Carmela Soprano, you know?
	Yeah, he's in the waste management business, officer.
	I had no idea.
	I had no idea whatsoever.
	Now you'll have to talk to my lawyer.
	So if people have made these kinds of decisions, they're not really going to be able to turn around and then be in a state of saying, yes, I chickened out of protecting children my whole life, and I side with abusers.
	I mean, nobody's going to say that in their 80s, let alone 60 or whatever, right?
	So I think that's the reason why, is that they can't look themselves in the mirror and say, did I protect the children in my environment?
	I don't think people can do that.
	At least, I've never seen it.
	And I know those two things aren't the same thing, but, I mean, I have talked to a lot of people and I've certainly never heard of somebody in their 80s saying, you know, bursting into tears and saying, I chickened out and I let you be tormented and abused and I'm just so ashamed.
	I mean, they just come up with excuses and we didn't know and we did try our best and he still loves you.
	Like, there's just a bunch of excuses to cover up that they didn't actually work hard to protect the children.
	Yeah, that is something I could definitely see.
	That would be a difficult statement to leave my grandmother's house.
	However, she has conceded great things previously, up to and including saying she was not a very good mother, and if she could go back, she would change a lot.
	Okay, but the question then has become, of course, this was your mother who said that?
	No, this was my grandma.
	Your grandmother, okay.
	So then the question is, you find out if people break out of this solipsism when they start thinking about themselves, and instead of saying, well, I should have done this, I should have done that, I have regret for this, I have regret for that, they say, tell me how all of this affected you.
	Otherwise, they're just still talking about themselves.
	You know, it's like that old joke about the bad date, you know, hey, but enough about me.
	Tell me what you think of me.
	Right?
	I mean, when does it become about you?
	When does it become about you and the effects on you?
	And not only did they fail to protect you, and maybe this did happen for whatever reason, right, not only did they fail to protect you in any meaningful way from your father, as far as I understand it, but they also saw you get fat.
	Like, pushing 300 pounds is a danger zone and a half, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	So, what did they say about that?
	Did they stage an intervention?
	Did they slap cheesecake out of your hand?
	I don't know what was going on, but...
	When did you gain the weight?
	At what age?
	Do you know what?
	I'd always been overweight since I was young.
	I lost a ton of weight, I don't know how much, when I started getting addicted to cocaine, Adderall, and Vyvanse.
	Sorry, you're on the hot girl diet, right?
	But I just developed a tolerance, and then I gained all the weight right back while I still had the addiction.
	So there's some pictures of me from high school that I'm not totally ashamed of.
	But other than that, yeah.
	The girls take this stuff sort of like, not only can I get into the club, I can stay up for three days straight.
	Yes.
	Okay, so you were overweight as a child, which means that you were being badly fed and you weren't getting exercise, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I was eating such trash, even when I got older and I worked in online grocery pickup where you are constantly moving for eight hours a day.
	I still didn't lose the weight then just because I was eating so much bread, pasta, and tons of terrible food.
	You have PE 30 minutes every other day.
	And half of PE, you're doing something sitting or, you know, out of motion.
	So it was just a microscopic amount of exercise.
	But also you were miserable and you were just trying to get your dopamine any way you could, right?
	Looking back, that certainly seems like it.
	I mean, you were probably eating your way out of suicidality.
	Yeah.
	You know, when I look at people, you know, who died young, it's like, yeah, but probably would have died younger if they hadn't get their dopamine, because who wants to live a life of sheer misery, right?
	So, okay.
	All right.
	So, yeah, so with regards to, you know, seeing your family and not seeing your family, to me, it is just about the honest conversations.
	And if you don't want to have the honest conversations, I mean, do what you want.
	I'm not in control of anyone.
	If you don't want to have those honest conversations, oh, they're too old or they're never going to get it or whatever, Then I think just being honest about that and saying, okay, this is a severely limited relationship and accepting that, right?
	I mean, I don't talk about my finances with my dentist, right?
	Yeah.
	So, its relationship is largely limited to small talk and teeth cleaning, right?
	So, that's a limited relationship and I'm not pretending it's anything but that.
	And so...
	If relationships are limited, I think just being really brutal and frank, you know, with yourself, right?
	And not necessarily with the people, but saying, you know, yeah, this is my family.
	I, you know, I talk about, you know, 5% of what I think, and it's very circumscribed.
	And so, you know, they're not going to get that involved in the raising of the kids.
	And having those, we just have to be, I mean, whatever we do, we just have to start with absolute honesty.
	And, I mean, as best we can, absolute honesty is a bit of a ghost chase, right?
	But I do think that if you can have these conversations, because it isn't, isn't it, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, of course, but isn't it kind of offensive for people to say that the guy who did the most harm to you just loves you?
	Oh, my gosh, is that offensive?
	And that's why, that's why I blew up.
	Right, right.
	And again, it was not the first time I heard it.
	It was probably the 200th time I've heard it.
	And I go, well, obviously, after what happened one week ago, they're not going to still say that.
	And then to hear the words leave their mouth, I was just shocking.
	Right, right.
	And that's why I got a sense of a drowning guy who's just like, can anyone see what an ogre I'm dealing with?
	And I'm like, I completely see it and I'm incredibly sorry for all of this.
	I mean, to have this kind of stuff to deal with.
	I mean, you can get good stuff out of it, like really firm boundaries and great ethics and strength and all of that, but, you know...
	It's not the way we want to learn these things.
	We'd like to learn them theoretically rather than practically.
	So, you know, huge sympathies for that.
	So then the question is, in terms of security, if you're still chasing competence in conversation and looks, and I have no objection to looks and all of that, that's fine, but I do think that you're going to need to really work to filter on integrity, on virtue, on honesty, on curiosity.
	And that's tough, but it will save you a lot of time, because a virtuous woman would never take a couple of cars out of your wallet and cheat on you.
	So you say, well, I got burned.
	It's like, you got burned, but you got burned by the ancient biblical sin of lust.
	It's not super complicated, right?
	I mean, there are all of these commandments about all of this, right?
	We can go full OT on your libido and say, well, you know, this was kind of demonic in a way.
	I mean, to use that as an analogy, right?
	So if you choose someone for their looks, then you feel like you get exploited, but you're exploiting them.
	Oh, yeah, definitely.
	For sexual access, for pride, for, you know, walking around with them in public and people saying, damn, he must be rich.
	Or something like that, right?
	Although you were in the process of enriching, I suppose.
	Of unaliving your finances.
	But, so, yeah, I mean, so mutual exploitation isn't the way to go.
	And certainly people who put People who put family above virtue are always enabling the corruption of the family.
	People who put family above virtue are always enabling the family.
	No, they're always enabling the corruption of the family.
	The corruption of the family.
	Thank you.
	Right.
	I mean, you can commit all the crimes you want if all the witnesses get unalived, right?
	So, the people who put family above virtue...
	Are saying that you can be immoral to family members and it doesn't really matter because family trumps everything.
	Thank you.
	And so that, you know, looking for people who are like, yeah, integrity is really the only path to lasting love.
	And virtue and honesty are the only path to lasting love.
	And somebody who loves you enough to hate those who've hurt you is a rare find.
	But that is the kind of love I think that you need for a lifelong pair bonding and it produces a great relationship that your children are happy to see, right?
	Somebody who loves you enough to dislike those who've done you the most harm, particularly if they're unapologetic and continue to escalate.
	You can't love someone and also love those who do that person harm.
	You're going to dislike and maybe even hate the people who harm others.
	If you love your child and then some bully beats up your child, you don't encourage your kid to become best friends with the bully and invite their family over for meals.
	I mean, did your kid harm?
	And you can't like the people who do harm to those you love.
	And finding somebody whose loyalty is to virtue rather than to conformity, to NPC talk.
	Because, I mean, if you're obviously a very intelligent, creative and brilliant guy and you just you can't live your life with an NPC, it would absolutely drive you mad.
	So on my notes here, focus on virtuous woman, the metric of she has to love you enough to hate those who do you harm.
	What are some other bullet points or things to look for, green flags, if you will, as far as how I could find a virtuous woman?
	Yeah, the big green flag these days is curiosity, right?
	So if you say something that may be surprising or upsetting to some people or whatever, right?
	Do they care about you enough to be curious about what you're thinking and why?
	Right?
	Or do you just get, you know, sort of pre-programmed attack dogs of modern propaganda?
	You know, I don't know.
	A silly example would be, I don't know, like, I'm not entirely sure that the world is going to experience a biblical flood because we're putting some plant food in the air.
	And if she's like, "Oh my God, you're in league with the capitalists who are destroying the planet," you know, whatever it is.
	So people who get offended when you are honest about your thoughts and feelings, that's not You can't have a relationship with people who get offended by who you are and what you think.
	Now, you could be wrong, right?
	But we all have to have the capacity to be wrong without being attacked, right?
	Because then we just live in a state of fear and conformity and, right?
	I mean, I will go to my grave being completely confident that people can be egregiously wrong And should not be attacked, shamed, and abused for that, right?
	So, yeah, so maybe you have...
	I mean, I guess in this case it would be, yeah, my father was such a brute that I don't have anything to do with him.
	Now, the NPC conversation is kind of what we role-played with your biddies, right?
	Which is, you know, well, that's not allowable, and that's not right.
	And while I can understand your caution...
	Dismiss caution.
	You've got to go back, right?
	You've got to go back.
	And so if you say, yeah, I don't have much to do with my father because, you know, he's actually of a restraining order and so on, somebody is like, gosh, what happened?
	You know, tell me more, as opposed to, wow, that's pretty extreme.
	You know, why would you do that?
	You know, like, sort of like a negative judgment immediately.
	So curiosity is absolutely the key because If you have fenced off areas of your relationship where you just can't go and you can't talk about it and you're not going to get sympathy, They spread.
	You find over the course of your relationship that what you can talk about gets less and less and less.
	Because let's say she's NPC about your father.
	Well, he's your father.
	You've got to go back.
	You've got to work it out.
	You'll have a regret.
	You don't forgive him.
	All of the standard tropes that are handed by family corrupting people.
	Then what happens is you don't talk about that, but then you think about it from time to time, and then you continually remember you can't talk about that, and then you get resentful that you can't talk about that.
	Right?
	And then you can't talk about being resentful that you can't talk about that.
	It spreads, you know, it's like a spilled paint, you know, it just kind of spreads out, right?
	And then what you can talk about gets less and then you notice there are other things you can't talk about because the NPC algorithm isn't just in one tiny corner of the personality, right?
	And so what happens is you end up with less and less to talk about, then you're up staring at each other across a breakfast table a million miles apart and then you break up.
	So curiosity is endless and wonderful, and marriage, of course, is a lifelong half-century conversation, if you're lucky.
	And you just can't have stuff that's off topic.
	You just can't have stuff that you can't talk about.
	You just got to be curious because you care about the person.
	You can't care about the person and then really dislike one thing or two things or five things that they say, even if they're wrong, right?
	You say, tell me more.
	I'm curious.
	What is that, right?
	Why do you think that or what's the thought behind that?
	And just getting to know someone as opposed to judging them, right?
	Judging is a power play.
	I'm judging you to be deficient.
	I'm in charge.
	You're Bad, I'm good, son.
	You know, this kind of stuff, right?
	So when people level up and put you down by putting themselves in a position of judging you, then they aren't interested in getting to know you.
	They're only interested in feeling superior to you, and that is not a mechanic that can survive for very long, unless you're a total masochist, in which case it's pretty toxic.
	Which I'm not saying you are, I'm just saying that was the only way that that could work, right?
	Yeah, very good advice.
	I really like that line about find someone who loves you enough to hate those who do you harm.
	Those two metrics alone, I think, will drastically increase the success of relationships if I use those as weeding mechanisms.
	Yeah, I mean, love casts a shadow, right?
	Everybody wants to be nice, particularly women, but love does cast a shadow, which is you can't love something.
	I mean, you can't love virtue without hating evil, and you can't love the truth without hating compulsive liars, and you can't, like, you can't love someone without also hating people who do them harm.
	I mean, Everybody wants to focus on the statue, nobody wants to focus on the shadow, but the statue does cast a shadow, and everything contains its opposite.
	Like, you want your immune system to love your health, and how does it love your health?
	By hating bacteria and viruses and wiping them out.
	You know, that's how we survive, right?
	So, yeah, everybody wants the love, and nobody wants to see, okay, well, what's the What's the shadow of love, which is hating the opposite?
	If you love virtue, you're going to end up hating evil.
	Now, hating evil doesn't mean that you do anything violent or destructive or anything like that.
	It's just like, stay away and I'll work to promote virtue and hopefully diminish the influence of evildoers.
	And that's a pretty good mission and all of that.
	And it also, because men are here to provide and protect, right?
	And So the protection is being able to scan for danger and work to alleviate it or ameliorate it or avoid it or whatever it is, right?
	And so if you love your family, you have to, you know...
	I was not a fan of the shark that could be swimming under my family, right?
	And, you know, if there'd been a way to snap my fingers and have the shark swim out to sea or, failing that, have a heart attack, I would snap those fingers, right?
	Because I don't exactly hate the shark, but I sure love my family and anything that threatens them is...
	He's not my friend.
	So I think that is, you know, because women want to be tough.
	You see all these, like, women warriors, and they can, you know, do everything a man can do.
	And it's like, yeah, I think the toughness of women is, I love my man so much that all those who do him harm are not my friends, and may in fact be my enemies, and I don't want to spend time with them if they won't redeem themselves through restitution, apologies and restitution, so.
	I think looking for someone, because, you know, I don't think you've had an excessive loyalty to you over the course of your life, and I think we all deserve that, and we should provide that to others.
	And once you get that kind of loyalty, I mean, obviously, I've had a rather exciting career as a public figure, and the loyalty of my family is absolute.
	Once you get that kind of loyalty, man, oof, it's an incredible thing, and there's no substitutes.
	Awesome, awesome, productive advice.
	Thank you.
	I got tons of notes here.
	This has been really helpful.
	Good, good.
	Will you keep me posted about how things are going?
	Oh, yeah.
	If that's okay.
	No, not if it's okay.
	I'd love to know.
	I mean, you seem like a great guy and I've really enjoyed the conversation and, you know, I have a lot of sympathy for how you were treated and, you know, good for you for drawing that line.
	And I think that that will serve you well in the future.
	And I just really, really appreciate it.
	I really do appreciate the conversation.
	Oh, yeah, of course.
	Do you have maybe 90 seconds to two minutes for me to tell you my four favorite lessons from Stefan Molyneux?
	Hey, enough about me.
	Let's talk about what you think of me.
	Yes, I would love to hear.
	Thank you.
	As I said previously, your propaganda analysis videos is where I really found you.
	So I've been waiting maybe six years to tell you this.
	Lesson number one.
	This was from Everyday Anarchy.
	The importance of disassociating with bad actors in every aspect of life.
	No exceptions.
	Don't be afraid to have standards.
	That was so vitally important for me to hear again and again and again and incorporate into my everyday life that people are generally shocked when I say, you know what, this person is not worth the opportunity cost of my time.
	People are shocked when I say that, but I only say it with that amount of confidence because you taught me that lesson.
	Lesson number two, use precise language.
	So when one of these emails comes in and it says, was I the perfect father?
	No.
	To which the Stefan Molyneux, like my brain goes on and says, well, that's just something that applies to everyone.
	No one's perfect.
	So that's not even a reasonable metric.
	So using precise language, which you've even caught me on this call, using imprecise language, that's my second lesson.
	The importance of analogies.
	People can be very tied to...
	One specific instance, but your brilliant ability to use analogies to sort of extract a principle while giving them variables that they don't have emotional ties to, I thought was brilliant.
	And then lesson number four was hold people accountable for their statements to their face.
	you had an exchange with a guy where he had said, well, I'm going to stay with my girlfriend, but I'd break up with her if, you know, I guess if she ever really violated my trust.
	And you said, well, she already did that.
	She cheated on you and gave you an STD.
	So are you going to break up with her or just move the goalpost?
	And I remember being, my gosh, I wish I had the confidence to say that to someone's face.
	It's easier when they're on a different continent, But yeah, I get that.
	I would not have had the confidence to say that on the phone.
	I go, this is what a productive exchange of ideas looks like.
	And at the time, I for so long had always had the position.
	You recently had another video go viral on Twitter where it's you asking, gentlemen, if Israel should have open borders since diversity is such a strength.
	And he weaseled his way out of it.
	And my position for so long was Israel has a right to be a uniquely Jewish state and immigration is bad, but open borders for other countries is totally virtuous.
	That contradiction never came to my mind until you really pointed it out.
	So those were the four things that I've been waiting some time to tell you.
	So this has been an absolute pleasure, Stefan.
	Thank you so much.
	Yeah, and I also, it's funny because, I guess, how great minds think alike.
	When you were talking about the analogies, of course, I was thinking about the analogy of the doctor I used in the role play in this conversation.
	And I was thinking about how people can look at the analogies without the emotional intent.
	And I was going to say that, but then you completely unpacked that in what you were saying, that people can extract the principles without the emotional attachment and so on.
	And I appreciated that insight.
	I hadn't really thought about it in that way, but I guess you certainly illuminated that for me, and I really, really do appreciate that.
	That's great to get that insight.
	All right, brother.
	Well, thank you so much for the call and, of course, for your interest in the show over the years.
	I really appreciate that.
	You can keep me posted about how things are going in the Skype window.
	If we can ever talk again, that would be of value to you.
	I'd be happy to do that and appreciate your chat today.
	Absolutely, Stefan.
	Thank you so much for your time and all the free materials you've provided the world in general.
	Take care.
	Hey, man, somebody's got to help subsidize your addiction to Asian women.
	So I'm very, very happy to have contributed to that.
	So, all right, man, take care.
	Have a great day.

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