Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - How Do I Make Friends? CALL IN SHOW

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Dec. 4, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:14:34

How Do I Make Friends? CALL IN SHOW

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	I have a baby daughter.
	She's asleep right now, but I might have to pick her up and have her join the meeting, if that's okay.
	That is totally fine.
	Don't worry.
	Don't worry even the tiniest little bit about that.
	That's totally fine.
	Okay, thank you.
	You're welcome.
	You're welcome.
	All right.
	So how can I help?
	I would like to talk about avoiding a future problem and helping myself.
	I don't have any close friends and I always end up with weird people that I don't really trust.
	So I feel lonely and I don't know how to show my daughter how to make friends and how to avoid bad people.
	I need help to try to figure out how to meet the right people and make friends, or rather, why I can't do that at this point.
	So that's what I wrote.
	And I would like to add that I have figured out how to meet people that align a bit better with me.
	I have joined a bit more conservative church and I have figured or found groups that do homeschooling close to where I live.
	But then I still need part with how to make friends, how to connect with people and make friends because I think I end up meeting people and making friends with people that I don't think is scary,
	but when people align with my, I guess, perceptions of the world or are a bit more conservative or I, what am I trying to say?
	I'm trying to say that.
	No, I think I get it.
	I think I understand.
	And do you feel kind of nervous at the moment?
	Yeah.
	Okay, listen.
	I mean, I get that.
	Listen, I do this all the time.
	It's not your job, right?
	So just I know the deep breath stuff because I know the that comes a lot from nervousness.
	So I totally understand that.
	Don't worry about it.
	If you say anything that you don't want to have released, we'll just take it out of the show.
	So just, you know, I hate to say just relax.
	You know, it's like that works.
	But yeah, just do your best because we're just here to have a chat.
	Okay.
	So I'm driven almost by morbid curiosity to find out what's happened in your relationships.
	You said people are scary or dangerous.
	Or like, what, what's, I mean, what sort of, what sort of hellscape have you gotten yourself into in the past?
	Well, I have talked to you before, actually.
	I have talked to you about breaking contacts with parents.
	So I'm from like a place where my parents ended up divorcing each other eight times now, I think.
	So was that eight times?
	When did we eight times?
	A couple of years ago, I think.
	Okay, good.
	If it was recent, I'd feel terrible, but a couple of years, I'm okay.
	Okay.
	All right.
	It's okay.
	It's okay.
	No, we, so my parents have like been with each other and with other people and it's been a lot of boyfriends and girlfriends and getting uh, yeah it's.
	It has been not stable at all um, and so socially in my family I was kind of made the bad guy, I think, Because my parents always told me that, oh, I'm so weird and I'm so different from everyone else.
	And I am, yeah.
	Or that would be the mild cases.
	The worst cases would be like, oh, you shouldn't exist and I shouldn't have had children and stuff like that.
	Oh, so straight up, like murderous, non-existent, like wish you'd never been here.
	I mean, so they really are sadistic in that way, right?
	Yeah.
	So sorry.
	I'm so sorry.
	That's that's appalling.
	Yeah, it's one thing for a stranger in a sense to be mad at you.
	But if it's your own parents, man, that's a very, very tough set of words to hear.
	I'm so sorry.
	No, it's well, it's not okay, but I'm going to therapy.
	I'm working through it.
	Okay.
	And then, but it has been a bit difficult because I have a sister and she has not been treated well.
	She has been more or less neglected, but she has also been like not screened the same things at, or we were like, we got different treatment.
	I'm the oldest one, so I got like, oh, you shouldn't exist, or we don't like you, and oh, you're weird and different, and other people probably won't like you.
	And my sister got more like or nothing, actually.
	So I grew up thinking that I was like the bad guy in the family, that I destroyed everything.
	And at some point in my youth, I stopped talking to people because I thought that, okay, but if I'm that bad, then maybe I will make the world a better place by not socializing with anyone if no one wants to.
	Yeah, like in quarantine, like if your personality is so bad that you're like an illness, then I'll stay away from people and I won't infect them with my badness.
	And yeah, I think I understand that.
	Yeah.
	So I think that's where I come from.
	And then I think the reason I'm calling bad people like to avoid bad people.
	I don't really believe that everyone is just bad.
	Well, no, because if you did, then you wouldn't be calling me because like, well, everyone's bad.
	So there's nobody calls me to say, how do I fly by flapping my arms?
	Right.
	At least I hope not.
	No.
	Because it's not possible.
	But sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah.
	No, it's just, I think I've just ended up with people whose, how do I describe it?
	I don't want to be rude.
	But.
	No, just be honest.
	I mean, this is just your perceptions.
	Nobody's, this is not a court of law.
	So this is just your perceptions.
	Okay.
	Well, I usually end up with friends that's if I'm honest.
	For example, with sorry, I just have to go take the baby.
	Sure, Napa.
	There we go.
	I have a five months old.
	How lovely.
	And listen, if your baby Googles coos, cries, makes noise, don't sweat it at all.
	We're very pro-baby here.
	So I miss those sounds and I'm still a ways away from grandfather.
	So I'm delighted to hear baby sounds.
	So don't worry about that at all.
	Okay, thank you.
	Yeah, no, so I usually end up with, I couldn't say to people, I don't like divorces, because usually my friends would be like, oh, but sometimes divorces are great.
	And, you know, what about the bad relationships?
	Or I could end up with people who Honestly, be like, I like that Charlie Kirk is shot.
	Oh, gosh.
	Yes.
	And so I don't think I have any friends right now that would say that.
	But I think I have friends that's on the borderline to say something like that.
	And I don't think that's people I should introduce my daughter to.
	Right.
	And I know like how to connect them, really.
	Right.
	So tell me a little bit more about how.
	And if we talked about this last time, just please let me know and we'll move on.
	But tell me a little bit about your experience of your parents treating your sister.
	I wouldn't say treating her better, but not treating her as badly as you because neglect is pretty terrible too.
	But what was your experience with that?
	My experience, or it's a bit different from when I was a child, because when I was a child, I thought that they liked her more.
	And that, okay, they're letting her be.
	So they're like, I must be terrible and she must be great.
	That's my thought as when I was little.
	But from an adult perspective, I think they might have even treated her worse because they think she's normal, but they also think that normal children are bad in a way.
	Like when she had nightmares, when she was little, they would lock her up in the bathroom because they were tired and wouldn't deal with it type of neglect.
	And that just well, that's a bit more than neglect.
	Yeah.
	Neglect is, you know, we have no time for you.
	We're going out.
	We don't care.
	We don't read to you.
	Locking you in a bathroom when you have a nightmare, that's, I would argue that's beyond neglect.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So, so, but socially, it was, I think she was treated a bit better because she would be like, oh, she's not a problem.
	Oh, she's, she can do things herself.
	It's fine.
	I don't really remember they talking too much about it.
	But with me, it was more like, oh, she's always troubled about this.
	I'm sorry.
	No, that's fine.
	Now, did your parents ever compare you or your sister to any other of their own parents?
	Like, was it that, oh, you're just like my mother, or you're just like my father?
	Or was there any of that sort of cross-pollination from the generations?
	Well, my mom sometimes would think of me a little bit like herself.
	Because she would be like, oh, my parents always thought that I was weird, but you know, it's just ADHD or something.
	And you have it too, so you're weird as well.
	Or something like that.
	But not with any other family members, I think.
	And what would you say about the weirdness?
	How would they describe it?
	Or would they just use the word without any explanation?
	Mostly just the word, but They would say that I had too much energy and that I had to calm down a lot and that they would say that I was like mean, mean to them, and that my apologies didn't mean anything.
	But mostly it would be like, you're weird.
	And I would ask, okay, but how am I weird?
	Or, no, you're just weird.
	It's a thing.
	Right.
	Well, and for a lot of cruel parents, treating one sibling better is part of the cruelty.
	It shows you that they can be nice or at least nicer.
	So it's clearly you who is making them not nice, if that makes sense.
	Like you're the one who's provoking them.
	Because look, your sister doesn't do it.
	We're fine with her.
	At least we're not as cruel with her because she's not weird.
	And so they're cruel then in two ways.
	One is that they're cruel to you by showing you that they can speak, they can deal with children in a less negative way.
	And also then they're cruel to your sister because she sees how they treat you.
	And that's, I mean, you don't have the example of seeing an older sister treated this way by your parents.
	So you, she, she falls in line and she is more frightened of negative consequences because she saw and sees what happens to you.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	I see.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So the father of your child.
	Yes, my husband.
	Congratulations.
	He's he's not one of the people you need to get away from, is he?
	No, actually, good.
	I hesitated to bring it up.
	No, I'm sorry.
	I should have brought it up.
	My husband is the one that saved me from my family.
	We met at the school where you sleep at the school.
	So we lived at the school and then we became boyfriend and girlfriend.
	And when he understood what family I came from, he was like, no, this is not good.
	Something has happened.
	And then he introduced me to your shows.
	And I would listen a lot to your shows.
	And I would be like, oh, that happened to me.
	Oh, and that happened to me.
	And that doesn't feel so great.
	And then I would slowly realize that, oh, they're kind of wrong.
	And they're bad people.
	They're not good to spend time with.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	A lot of men don't realize that the rescue the woman from the fire breathing dragon is rescue the innocent young woman from the fire breathing is is verbal abuse and verbally abusive parents.
	So, and of course there's great danger in that, but you, you get the maiden.
	If uh, if it works out, so okay yes, all right.
	So uh, what sort of oddballs have you had as friends before?
	What what, what would you look at them?
	And again, this is just your opinions, but what would you look at and say well, that person is strange.
	And if I looked at them i'd say oh, that person is strange.
	I mean, how is it that we would know that, looking at your prior friends uh well, what do you mean, like looking at them um, visually or no?
	I mean if then, if it, if it's visual, yes.
	If it's not visual, how else would would I know that they were oddballs?
	Well, I had uh, I had um, a friend that like um, She preferred, for example, to let out air in public.
	She preferred, like that was okay.
	It wasn't like, oh, no.
	It was like, oh, good?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And were kind of the full package of like Greenpeace, save the planet.
	Everyone.
	Save the planet while adding CO2?
	That seems odd.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	So like a lefty with no sort of physical boundaries or consideration for others.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Another friend of mine would be some Christian friends who would tell me that it's important that I get back to my parents and that it really is all about forgiveness.
	And then I would have friends that I mean that if we came in conflict or I remember I had a fight with a friend or I didn't try to make it a fight, but she kind of struggled a bit and locked herself up at home.
	And I tried to talk to her about it and tried to say to her, what about treatment?
	If you know that it's like social anxiety, is it possible to like go to a psychiatrist and she would say like, no, it's not my thing to go into psychology.
	And well, it didn't turn out so great.
	She also said, I think she tried to like escalate the conflict in a way with saying something like, oh, but so you're breaking contact with everyone you meet, like your parents.
	And oh, so you're the one with the problem because you're negative towards everyone.
	You're right.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And what happened to that?
	Do you know what happened to her?
	I don't know.
	She wouldn't really have contact afterwards.
	Do you never?
	Do you, I mean, maybe you're alone in this, but do you never sort of check up on people afterwards if you're curious?
	Because now with the exciting joys of social media, you can usually check up and see how people are doing.
	Yeah, well, sometimes I do.
	With her, I haven't.
	Okay.
	But a lot of people I haven't, actually.
	I'm not saying you should.
	I mean, maybe it's healthier to not do, but I mean, it's interesting.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And so quirky people, manipulative people, ideological people, I mean, it sounds like it's that kind of stuff that you had around you.
	And were they mean or openly abusive, or more just if confronted, they would get maybe manipulative, like this woman?
	I think both.
	Okay, so what about the verbal abuse people?
	What were they like for you?
	I think, but I don't know.
	No, I think the first one that they weren't really verbally abusive, but I think I would understand it as verbally abusive.
	For example, the friend I had, the Greenpeace friend, She would say that, oh, I'm so weird and you're so weird too.
	Oh, the hahahaha, we are weird.
	Oh, sorry.
	I just said my name.
	Is it?
	Oh, sorry.
	I'll take it out.
	Don't worry about it.
	No sweat, no sweat.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Yeah.
	Don't.
	Yeah, because I'd rather edit afterwards than have you watch everything you say.
	So don't worry about it.
	It's fine.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So, yeah.
	So the Greenpeace friend would tell me that, oh, she's so weird.
	And we are weird together or stuff like that.
	And since my parents always called me weird, that was kind of a no, I don't like that.
	Right, right.
	But I don't think it was verbally abusive people I ended up with.
	Actually, I just think it was not my type of people and people I couldn't really stay connected with.
	So I think I ended up choosing people that weren't so bad to lose if I should lose them because I thought that I was that I was not worthy of being friends with.
	And when they figured that out, I would lose them anyway.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, I never quite know how to categorize people who are not like calling you an a-hole or some sort of really negative word.
	You're selfish, you're mean.
	But the people who are just they have this weird psychologizing where you always come out petty and wrong.
	You know, like if you have an issue with her, it's like, oh, you just have an issue with everyone.
	You're the one with the issue.
	No one is good enough for you.
	It's not quite verbally abusive, but it is highly manipulative and it is not.
	I don't know exactly how to word it.
	I never have, but it's somewhere in that gray zone because it's not nice, but it's a form of lashing out that in a way is for me, and I think for most people, it's even worse.
	Like if somebody calls you an a-hole or a jerk or something like that, then you can just kind of say, well, you know, they lost their temper.
	But when people lay these complicated psychological traps for you, it's really, it's really hard.
	I just wrote about it.
	I just read the chapter in my novel where a guy does this, and I never quite know how to categorize it, but it's not verbally abusive.
	It's kind of manipulative.
	And in a way, it's even more damaging because they're trying to define your personality for you in a very negative way, but not by using mean words, if that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it makes sense.
	That's that's that's I think that's the category I've ended up with.
	Okay, so let's let's dive into how you met these uh people.
	These we'll call them oddballs.
	Uh so how did you meet them?
	Because that that's if you have a pipeline about how oddballs come into your life, then we obviously need to do something different.
	So how did those people come into your life in the past?
	Well, the first one was through another friend, just because she lived in the neighborhood.
	So we just ended up hanging together because we were in the same neighborhood.
	And I think that, well, I was lonely and she was too weird for people to like.
	I mean, when you go around and party in public, it's not many that would hang out with you, I guess.
	So we kind of just ended up hanging together because I didn't think that anyone else would hang out with me.
	And then the one that escalated when she had anxiety, I think we.
	Yeah, we met through work.
	Yeah.
	We met through work.
	I worked in a store and she worked at the same place.
	So we also just it's a lot just ending up with people actually.
	I think it has been mostly by coincidence.
	Like, okay, I'm at the same place and they're ish my age and maybe not it's not the worst people to lose, I guess.
	So I just ended up knowing so but so you meet them sort of you don't seek them out, but there's circumstances that the neighborhood or work that they're around.
	So how when you met, let's say, Greenpeace girl, how old were you?
	I was nine, I think.
	So it's like all through.
	Oh, nine.
	Oh, okay.
	Okay.
	So what about adult friends?
	Well, she ended up being my adult friend.
	Well, sure, but I mean, you didn't meet her as an adult.
	So what about Gas Girl?
	One from the one from the what did you say, Gas Girl?
	Yeah, the fart girl.
	We can call her Jupiter.
	Gas girl.
	Yeah, yeah, that was the fart girl.
	Oh, that was the fart girl.
	It continued until adulthood.
	Adult.
	Okay, so what about an artball you met as an adult?
	That would be, for example, the one with the anxiety.
	We met during work.
	Okay, well, we'll call her, we'll call her Nelly because when I was growing up, there was a cliché nervous Nelly.
	You're a nervous Nelly.
	Okay, so we'll call her Nelly.
	Okay, so you met Nelly through work.
	And when you met Nelly, were there any indications about her mental health issues?
	I would say no.
	Maybe just that she was really skinny, but I don't think that's a warning sign other than like I don't think she had a problem with eating, so I don't well, I mean, if she's really skinny, then that's a bit of a warning sign, isn't it?
	Not that skinny, or maybe borderline that skinny, but yeah.
	Okay.
	I think maybe a little bit because she would like we would be invited to a Christmas party and she liked to go or she would like to go, but then we both ended up cancelling last time or like right before and after she would be really angry that she still had to pay.
	But I thought that okay, but I don't guess why she would be that angry because when you have said you're going to their party, they have a budget and we're supposed to pay a little bit.
	And if they have like bought meals already, you know, it's it's so I guess the only signal would be that she could get overly emotional about things that happen, I guess.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	So at work, was she competent and decisive and like, but she kind of been that anxious in her private life and also been great at work?
	At least.
	No, I guess she would be a little anxious, I think, and talk maybe a little mean about the customers when they didn't hear.
	And was she, when you met her, was she in her 20s or 30s?
	Twenties.
	Twenties, okay.
	And when you met her, usually, I mean, there's a funny kind of vetting process that you go through when you meet people, at least certainly as you get older, because you have to know if you have things in common.
	And so when you met her, if you start talking about things other than work, usually what happens is you try to find out about people's personal lives because you want to find out if they say, oh, I have 15 cats, you know, you want to know that.
	Oh, yeah.
	So that you can, so, or, or, you know, I have a long-distance relationship with somebody on the other side of the world.
	And it's like, okay, you kind of want to know that because, you know, or they're 28 and they're still living at home.
	And so you want to, or if they're a woman and they live in a bad section of town, it means that they lack sort of basic self-protection.
	So you want to ask people questions.
	Maybe you do, but generally there's this exchange of information.
	Because when you get older, you tend to move in similar circles, right?
	So if you're very successful, you tend to be around people who are very successful, media, medium.
	So you don't need to do those.
	There's a sorting process over the course of your life so that you end up meeting people who are, you know, kind of like yourself.
	Like if you live in a poor neighborhood, you're going to meet people like yourself.
	If you live in a very wealthy neighborhood, you're going to meet people who have those.
	So there's a whole sorting process.
	But that sorting process doesn't happen until the 30s, 40s, sometimes even the 50s.
	But usually it's done by the 40s.
	So when you meet people, let's say when you met Nervous Nelly, when you met Nelly, what kind of questions did you ask her, if any, or what kind of indications did she give to you that her life was odd or that she had these kinds of difficulties?
	Well, we talked a bit about home life, I think.
	And she would tell me that she hated her parents because they were really mean to her, but she still lived at home and didn't want to move out.
	Well, there you go.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, there you go.
	Yeah.
	And was she early, mid or late 20s?
	Early 20s.
	Early 20s.
	Okay.
	I mean, that may not be the end of the world because early 20s, you know, it's tough to get things going economically, especially these days.
	But how did she seem when she was talking about these things emotionally?
	She laughed about it a bit.
	Or she would be kind of uptight about it.
	Like, oh, but it's not a big problem type of.
	Okay.
	So there's your, I mean, that's more than a clue.
	That's decisive to me.
	Like if somebody has, like, and again, I don't want you to delve into her history.
	She's not here, but what sort of issues did she have with her parents?
	Or what sort of complaints did she have?
	Well, I don't remember much, but she said that her father would be think that she was useless and Say a lot of like, oh, you're you're living home in your 20s, you're you should be a loser or something like that, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, like okay.
	So, her father was uh really cruel to her.
	And listen, I mean, I get the tough love thing, but the tough love thing usually can't come from the parents because the parents have created the situation, yeah, okay.
	All right, um, I think if it helps, I have a um a recent example, I think let's look for the patterns, absolutely.
	Um, I uh I have this is also a neighbor of mine, um, and we had babies almost at the same time, so we kind of bonded over that.
	Um, uh, but she would uh she um she's not against divorces, she's like, Oh, but it's um, it's necessary sometimes.
	Um, she uh I don't know, I think she's not that bad of an oddball, I think, but but also we we really don't align, I think, as well.
	Right, we can talk about everything like um babies, diapers, children, stuff like that, but um she would also think that it's uh it's important that uh rich people share all their their money with poor people.
	And when I said that I was a bit more conservative, she would ask if I was a racist straight out.
	What?
	Um, yeah, and I oh, because because say black people generally are poorer than say East Asian people, so if you don't want redistribution, you must be a racist.
	Is it something like that?
	I think so, okay, yeah, or I think we actually we um we discussed political parties, and she would be like, Oh, but I will be a bit uh disappointed if if this and that is what you vote, and I would be like, um, you then just you just have to be disappointed.
	So, so if you if you said I don't want the government to re to take money from the rich and give it to the poor, she then asked you if you were a racist not that no yes and no.
	Uh, if you will vote for the party that doesn't want to take money from the rich to the poor, does that mean that you're racist?
	Because the party is racist, yeah.
	See, personally, um, uh, that would be it for me in those in that conversation.
	I would not pursue it any further.
	Now, I'm not telling you what you should do, of course.
	I'm just saying that if somebody is so indoctrinated that they just say, Well, everyone who's conservative is a racist, and you say, Well, I'm a conservative, and they say, Well, then are you a racist?
	It's like, I mean, I wouldn't even know, like, how could you part that there's too much intellectual damage to undo.
	Yes, if that makes sense, and and it's not your job to try and fix it, and of course, also, you know, and I posted this on X, I think, yesterday, that or the day before, people don't evaluate your ideas, they only evaluate the effect your ideas have on their relationships.
	So if she's friends with everyone who thinks all conservatives are racist, then if you try to change her mind on that, she knows that every single one of her friendships is going to be, I mean, toast, dead, dead.
	Because I don't deal with individuals.
	I deal with systems.
	Like it's like saying, well, I'll just remove you, build a house of cards, right?
	I'll just take this one card out from the bottom.
	It's like, but it's a whole system, right?
	And so I don't look at people having ideas.
	I mean, obviously there's exceptions, but most people, I don't view them as having ideas.
	I view them as having relationships based upon lies.
	And if I start undoing any of those lies, all of those relationships fall apart.
	And we are social animals and we need our relationships in order to survive.
	So basically what happens is I am setting fire to the food they need to survive over the winter.
	They don't, that they view it as if I am honest or if I accept what you're saying, I will have no friends and no family and I will die alone in the woods.
	And so I, you know, we're not programmed to pursue the truth.
	We're the programmed to pursue survival.
	And as social animals, this gives people who propagandize a lot of power over us because they can have us set up our relationships based upon these lies.
	And then anyone who comes and tells the truth, well, they threaten the relationships and thus provoke a fight or flight mechanism.
	Like, you know, there's that famous picture of that woman here, triggered, you know, you know, like she's really, really angry and upset.
	Well, that's her fight or flight kicking in because the truth is coming along and the truth is a predator to the indoctrinated.
	So if somebody said, oh, well, if you are, if you don't want the government to point guns at people and move money around, you must be a racist or you could be a racist or something like that.
	know i mean that's that's a lot of work to try and undo if that makes sense and and why would you but then again um then i have no mom friends left then you have Then I have no mom friends left or friends with children.
	But that's because, I mean, of course, listen, I accept and I understand that.
	And I'm not saying that you're wrong because that's a very real phenomenon.
	But it also does have something to do with how you evaluate people.
	When I was a gold panner, like almost everything that I found was not gold.
	And the important thing as a gold panner was to figure out where the gold was not.
	Yes.
	And then even if I found a place where I thought gold would be, it was as quickly as possible to get rid of all of the stuff that wasn't gold, if that makes sense.
	And sorry, that's a kind of a cheesy analogy or a silly analogy, but the sorting process, if you're looking for people who think, if you're looking for high quality people, then having a sorting process is really important.
	I mean, let's say that only one out of 20 people can think.
	I mean, who knows what the real number is, but let's just say, or one out of, let's say one out of 10.
	It'd be nice.
	Be nice.
	So one out of 10 people can think.
	So you have to be really rigorous when it comes to figuring out who you're going to talk to.
	Yeah.
	And so I think that's I think that's part of what you're calling about is how do we find the people who can think.
	Yeah.
	And if you are, you know, I mean, the number of women who've gone very far left over the past 10 to 15 years is very high.
	So again, the gold has become more scarce.
	And so if you are looking at, I mean, sorry, this is this is the question.
	So the further you go, are you religious?
	Are you a religious woman?
	Yes, I'm a Christian.
	Oh, good.
	Okay.
	That's fantastic then, because if you weren't, then you have to sort of, in a sense, pick your challenge because the further left you go, the more people will probably agree with you about religion, but the less they'd agree with you about ethics.
	And the further right you go, the more people would agree with you about ethics, but the fewer people would agree with you about religion.
	So the fact that you are religious is great in terms of finding people who agree with you both about God and morals.
	So okay, so that's that's good.
	So homeschooling groups, you said you've looked into those.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	I've met up with one a couple of times.
	And there's all kinds of people there.
	You have everything from moms that are like vegetarian and kind of a little bit green piece, but also at the right wing, more like we should do the childcare ourselves.
	We should be home with the children-ish.
	And then you have other moms that lean a bit more or I don't know.
	It's a bit blend of people, I think, in the groups with homeschooling.
	So it's not a specifically Christian homeschooling group, is that right?
	yes that's right sorry have you thought about a specific i'm sure you have but what's the story with a specifically christian homeschooling group um It's so I live in a country with really long distances between cities.
	So it's a bit.
	I don't know if it exists.
	As far as our research, I can't find any.
	Though I might be able to make one because me and my husband have just started in a bit more conservative church.
	And I know that a few of the mothers there are thinking about homeschooling.
	Yep.
	So it might be possible to create one, actually.
	I think that would be good.
	Now, of course, the big challenge is that if you create one, then you have to filter.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Yes.
	So then the question is, if you're going to start one, how do you filter?
	Yeah.
	And also, I think, sorry, I just have to move something that's no, no, it's fine.
	It's fine.
	Don't worry about it.
	That's totally fine.
	Parenting is a delightful thing to hear in the show.
	We are a bit close to the cats, we'll be.
	There we go.
	Yes, I need to know how to filter.
	Okay.
	So how conservative is the church that you go to?
	As conservative as women aren't allowed to be priests.
	Okay, got it.
	So is there and how many parents are there?
	I think it's almost only parents and young men.
	And is there no group there already?
	Not yet.
	It's I think it's a quite new church.
	And no, I know it's not that new.
	It's 20 years old.
	There's nothing there yet, but like it's Sunday school and there's the parents know each other, but I haven't heard anything about something there yet.
	No?
	Okay.
	Well, I would say that obviously would be you can talk with the priest.
	And if you can recruit people for a mom's group, you could just call it or a parents' group.
	If you can recruit people from the church, then I mean, you'll still need to do some filtering because Lord knows not everyone in the church is totally mentally healthy.
	But I think you can at least have a good base to start from.
	Yeah, yes, yes.
	Yeah, so I mean, there will be, I mean, there's one thing, especially if you have a more conservative church, the one thing they're good at is networking and creating groups.
	Sorry, I shouldn't say that.
	It's not like the one thing, but it's something that they are very good at, is that kind of networking and creating social groups, creating reinforcement groups.
	And so if you were to create a meetup for moms or something like that and just restrict it to the people in the church, then that could be very positive.
	As you've been going to this church, what percentage of oddballs would you say there are at the church?
	10%, maybe less.
	Okay, so that's pretty good.
	That's pretty good.
	Yeah.
	I would say so.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And so have you ever done anything like this before?
	No.
	So generally, the way that I would approach this, which, you know, I'm obviously I don't know how you should do it, but I can tell you the way that I would approach it is what I would do is I would have a mission statement.
	Right.
	So reason, virtue, happiness, you know, this sort of, and for me, the tagline was the logic of personal and political freedom.
	That was sort of the tagline for the show.
	And so you need to have a mission statement.
	Like, what is the purpose of the group?
	Because any group without a specifically designed purpose gets lost to the crazy people.
	Like there's an old saying in all sorts of social organization that any group that is not specifically right wing becomes left wing over time.
	Okay.
	And so I would say write down your wish list of what you want the group to be.
	A group to reinforce our faith and to talk about parenting from a Christian godly perspective, blah, blah, blah.
	So have a mission statement.
	And then if it's online, you know, say, here's the group and here's the mission statement.
	If you agree with this mission statement, come on in.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Because that way, if people end up going against your mission statement, like let's take a silly example, like let's say some atheist socialist comes in and starts preaching about the evils of the bourgeoisie.
	Then you can say, oh, yeah, I mean, you signed something which said this is a Christian godly group to talk about the morals of parenting from a biblical perspective.
	You clicked on that and you're not doing that.
	So you can't be the group, right?
	The group is for this, right?
	Yes.
	I mean, I guess I could come up with a whole bunch of fake things and then apply to speak at a physics conference.
	But if those things weren't real, they wouldn't let me speak because it's like, no, this is a, for physics professors, you're not a physics professor.
	So you've got to have a mission statement.
	And those things can take a little while because you've got to get things just right.
	So have a mission statement and then have people agree that the mission, they sign it in a way, they agree to it.
	And even if they come in person, read out the mission statement and it's funny, you don't have to have people sign it, but at least have them initial it.
	It's funny because people view initialing as much less serious in signing and some people can freak out about the signing thing.
	But somebody wants to join, say, hey, great.
	You know, come on down and, you know, come down 10 minutes earlier.
	You read them the mission statement and just have them initial it saying that they agree with it.
	Sorry, but I don't understand the word initialing.
	Oh, so if it's online, you can have them check a box to say that they agree with the mission statement.
	Yeah, okay.
	But if to to just have your mission statement and then say, oh, just initial it that you've read it and then just keep that.
	And then if they ever deviate from it, you can say, no, I have your like I have your, like you did read this and you did agree to it.
	Your initial is right here.
	Because you need to have, yeah, you need to have rules.
	Anything without rules gets taken over by crazy people.
	Okay.
	And you have rules.
	And of course, the first thing that crazy people will try and do is to subvert the rules, right?
	So, I mean, I just know this from having run bulletin boards and, of course, being in the business world and having employees and so on.
	And most times I hired everyone, but there were times when I would inherit somebody else's hiring decisions and then have to sort of clean house from the crazy people.
	So you need to have that, this is what we're for.
	And then you need to enforce it.
	Right.
	So I would, when I would run message boards, there would be rules like, you know, no verbal abuse.
	Right.
	And then people would be verbally abusive.
	And then I would say, no, no verbal abuse.
	You agreed to that to come into the but you know verbal abuse that and what they do is they go right up to the edge of it yeah okay right or how yeah so people you know there's this kind of personality that's out there And you can see this all the time on social media, which is anytime you create a standard, they will immediately look for an exception, or they will try to edge of that standard, or they'll push the boundaries.
	And these are people in general who are not successes in life.
	They are there to thwart any other person who's decisive or any other person with rules, they will try to thwart those rules.
	They will try to undermine those rules and they act as a kind of rust on the iron of resolution and so on, although much faster.
	And so then, of course, I would say to people, no, this is verbally abusive.
	And then they would say, and they would immediately look through the whole message board using the search function to try and find somebody else who said something similar who wasn't banned.
	Or any time that I might have been upset and said something.
	And they would just try to use all of that against me.
	And then if you would banned them, they would create an alt account and say, hey, whatever happened to that guy who was banned, man.
	I really liked his contributions.
	I mean, it seems like censorship to me, you know, and just all of this just manipulation and stuff.
	And again, I'm not saying that would necessarily be the case because the internet is much more of a wild place than, say, a church rectory.
	But yeah, people will test.
	And you sort of have to trust your instincts, which I know is an odd thing.
	But in terms of manipulation, by the time you've puzzled it out rationally, it's usually too late.
	You have to have a kind of instinct for when people are being manipulative.
	And that instinct is what I'm trying to strengthen with you today, right?
	So if you say, I'm conservative, and someone says, oh, does that make you a racist?
	Or are you a racist then?
	I'd be like, no, I appreciate that, but I'm not going to engage in this.
	Or, you know, because then they're trying to put you on the defensive.
	They're being very aggressive.
	And they're calling you, you know, what has become and is a terrible word, right?
	I mean, this is like the worst, worst thing in the West is to be a racist.
	So that's very aggressive.
	And, you know, if somebody said to me that, let's say they said, I'm an agnostic and I'm married.
	And I said, oh, well, as an agnostic, you have no moral values.
	I guess you're cheating on your husband.
	That would be kind of rude, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Now, it might be true, but probably not.
	So that would be very aggressive.
	And if I said, well, these would be the logical results of, and even if I was wrong, right?
	Like if somebody said to me, I'm a Christian, and I said, oh, so that means you're secretly a Satanist and you eat babies, they'd be like, what now?
	Right.
	So, I mean, conservatism has no relationship to racism.
	And of course, you know, you could make the left of the real racist.
	You could make those arguments all day long.
	But this is just how people have been programmed to vote for the left, right?
	Especially people who are non-white.
	They vote for the left because the leftist says, oh, white people are racist.
	White people are conservatives.
	Conservatives are racist.
	Therefore, white people are racist.
	Therefore, they'll take away your rights.
	Therefore, you've got to vote for us.
	All that kind of programmed hysteria.
	So I would not engage with that.
	I mean, I did a show the other day.
	Sorry for the long speech.
	I did a show the other day where a guy was saying, I said, well, do you believe that rocks exist?
	And he's like, I think so.
	And I'm like, okay, well, I'm not, I'm not going to engage with somebody who doesn't even know if rocks exist because I'm obviously much less real as a voice in his ear than rocks.
	My words are a lot less real than rocks.
	So if he doesn't believe that I'm, if he doesn't know that I'm real and he doesn't accept the objective meaning of my words, then I won't engage with him.
	And then, of course, he got all kinds of huffy and all of that.
	It's like the determinists.
	Like if I would disengage from a determinist, they'd get upset with me and say, well, you got to continue the debate.
	Or why are you quitting?
	Or that's cowardly or blah, blah, blah.
	And I'd be like, no, it's predetermined that I quit.
	It's not my choice.
	You see, I don't have any free will.
	So if I choose to quit, there's nothing to get mad about.
	So the moment they get mad about it, like, so you're just looking for people to be to be hypocrites.
	I mean, you could get aggressive.
	I'm not saying you should.
	But if somebody says you're conservative, oh, therefore, you have to defend yourself against a charge of racism.
	Then if they're a Democrat, then you could say, well, I guess you approve of the holodomore.
	You approve of the murder of the Kulaks and of the bourgeoisie.
	Or, oh, you're on the left, therefore you must approve of the murder of Charlie Kirk, right?
	I mean, that would be, I mean, not everyone on the left approves of these things and so on, right?
	And so that kind of punching back, though, is usually, it escalates to people who don't respect rules.
	You know, one of the problems with the leftists is they tend, they don't, they only respect power, not rules.
	The right are kind of hamstrung by objective moral rules through Christianity, but the left don't, they don't have any rules.
	And so it's like there are two rabbits and one rabbit can only run right, but the other rabbit can run left and right.
	Well, which one's going to get caught?
	The one that is constrained in its movements and behaviors by rules.
	So yeah, so start a group and come up with a mission statement.
	I'm sure your husband will be happy to assist you on that.
	Come up with a mission statement about what the group is for.
	And then you get people to initial or checkbox it, checkbox it online, have them, and then have an interview with them.
	Right.
	So if somebody wants to join the group and you don't already know them from church, then have an interview with them.
	A friend of mine who lives in the States was trying to join a homeschooling group.
	And he had an interview, a fairly extensive questionnaire, and an interview to sort of vet, vet him and his family and to see if he would be allowed to join.
	And then he did join and he stayed in, but there was an issue with somebody who was breaking the rules.
	There was a meeting and then their family was kicked out.
	And so you have to be, I wouldn't say strict, but you have to be resolute that this is the mission statement.
	And if you agree to it, then you have to stick by it.
	And if you break the rules, you know, we'll have a conversation and we'll sort of remind you.
	And then if you keep breaking the rules, you got to go.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So what do you think?
	I think it's a good idea.
	It makes sense to me.
	I just don't feel confident enough yet.
	Does that make sense?
	Of course.
	I mean, I'm telling you to do something that your parents trained you against that you've never done before.
	If you felt confident, that would be insane and you're not crazy, right?
	So, so no, of course.
	I mean, that makes that makes sense.
	That makes sense.
	But let me speak to you from a religious perspective.
	Yeah.
	Does this benefit Christianity and the worship of Jesus and of God?
	Well, I would think so, yes.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So if it benefits Christianity and the worship of Jesus and of God, then will not God guide you if you pray to God for guidance.
	Will God not guide you in this way?
	Yes, he would.
	Yes.
	I mean, it's a thing that's wild to me.
	I remember when I was a kid, like, how could he pay attention to everything?
	It would be like me playing piano and playing baseball and doing math and learning how to juggle all at the same time.
	Like, I can't conceive of it.
	But God will take a personal interest in your promotion of this godly group, right?
	Particularly because it involves children.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	So God will guide you.
	If you pray, if you consult with your husband, you consult with your conscience, you consult with your priest, then God will guide you.
	Because you have instincts that your parents can distort but not destroy.
	And this is very true about the victims of child abuse as a whole.
	You have instincts that your parents can distort but not destroy.
	So they can hijack your fight or flight mechanism and make you frightened of conflict because they're so aggressive.
	And so they can hijack your fight or flight mechanism, but they can't erase your fight or flight mechanism.
	So you just kind of need to wrestle yourself back from the enemy, but you don't need to rebuild yourself from scratch.
	It's like some criminal grabs a knife from you.
	You just have to grab the knife back, but he can't destroy the knife.
	So your parents can hijack your emotional system and use it to their benefit, but they can't destroy it.
	You just need to take it back, so to speak.
	So your healthy fight-or-flight mechanism is there.
	It just needs to be recovered from what your parents did.
	And prayer, consulting with your conscience, consulting with your deepest self.
	If you're not religious, you're praying to the deepest aspects of yourself, which are beyond the reach of your parents.
	Your parents can't verbally abuse you and destroy your liver or your kidney.
	I mean, they can hijack your systems, but they can't destroy them.
	So it's just a matter of taking them back.
	And so your healthy scanning for and identification of crazy people, dysfunctional people, oddballs, eccentrics, manipulators, and all of that.
	All the mechanisms that do that are all still in you and are all still viable.
	They've just been pointed in the wrong direction and you can kind of wrestle them back to point in the right direction.
	So your parents, by calling you weird, weird, weird all the time, were programming you to be more sympathetic to weird people and to, in a sense, have less in common with healthy people.
	And so you just need to challenge that definition and your instincts will all be there and be right and healthy.
	I mean, my family messed up my instincts.
	Excuse me.
	My family messed up my instincts for some time.
	And again, through therapy, through self-knowledge, through philosophy, I was able to reorient my instincts back to not identifying and rejecting healthy people in a way or identifying and bringing dysfunctional people more in my life.
	But now, I mean, I see a dysfunctional person.
	I can tell from the body language.
	I can tell from the vocal intonation.
	I can tell from eye contact.
	Can tell from, even if they're just typing.
	I mean, I can just tell, I can tell on a blog post or somebody's reply on X or anywhere I could tell if, if all they're doing is trying to manipulate me with everything that they're typing, I can feel that sweat, I can see that, that musculature, that they're trying to manipulate and control me from the very first sentence.
	And so your instincts will be just fine, they haven't been destroyed, they've just been hijacked.
	If that makes sense, like you know, if you get rid of the terrorist and then you can take the plane back in its proper direction.
	But the terrorist um can only change the course of the plane.
	It can't despawn the plane from existence.
	If that makes sense yes, it makes sense, and I think you're right.
	I think because I have like, when my friend asked if I were racist because I was um conservative, I I would get that oh feeling yeah, but but I just couldn't like say no, she can't be my friend yeah well, it's awkward right, and I, I I don't have any magical cure for that awkwardness right,
	like I mean, if if I were to say this is what I believe and somebody were to say oh, that makes you whatever, a fascist or something like that.
	I mean you can say um I, I. What do you mean by fascist?
	I don't understand the definition because a lot of people mean a lot of different things by the word fascist and say, oh well, you're for um, you know, a private, a partnership between government and business.
	And I would say well, aren't there a lot of partnerships between government and businesses all over the world?
	Does that mean everyone's a fascist, like I don't?
	Again, to sort of try to understand right yeah say, oh well, fascism is when you have laws that that you want to, you want to have laws that harm minorities, and i'd be like okay, so in Africa or South Africa, whites are the minority and there are laws that say you can't hire them.
	So does that mean that the government of South Africa is fascist, like and?
	And you just ask them questions.
	I mean this is the Socratic thing just, I mean most people, they don't have a clue what they're talking about.
	I mean it's just a sad fact of life based upon bad education and propaganda and so on.
	They don't have a clue what they're talking about.
	And so uh, and you can, just you can kind of patiently ask them questions, um, oh well, what is racism?
	Oh, it's a systematic discrimination against people.
	It's like, well then, don't hiring quotas that disadvantage whites, doesn't that isn't that racist?
	Well no, because you can't be racist if you have power.
	And it's like, but individual whites don't have power, stuff like so, so just, you know ask, ask questions, and most times people will just freak out and kind of stay away from you because you've got this light that shows the brain cockroaches in their minds right sorry, coming in.
	Well if, if you um yeah, if you ask people questions that they can't answer, then you begin to peel Back the layers of their language to reveal that there's nothing inside.
	There's no thought, there's no reason, there's no understanding, there's no kindness, there's no compassion.
	They're just an empty shell wrapped in spiky words.
	And so they will generally tend to avoid you.
	Or you can say, I don't, I don't really feel good about being even possibly accused of racism.
	So with your kind indulgence, I think I will not talk about this topic.
	Or this is kind of volatile to talk about at work.
	Or, you know, this seems a little aggressive to me.
	And I mean, but they're putting you in an awkward position when somebody accuses you of something heinous out of nothing, really, right?
	They put you in an awkward position.
	And if you escalate, they generally don't have any rules of combat, right?
	I mean, it would be one thing to go into a boxing ring, right, where it's like you can't gouge the eyes, everyone's got to wear the gloves, you can't hit below the belt, like there's all these rules, right?
	You have to disengage if the whistle blows and so on.
	So you can train for a fight like that.
	But if you're in some sort of horrible street brawl where some psycho is willing to like gouge your eyes and bite and just do anything to win, I mean, it's really tough to know how to train for that other than, you know, I guess hopefully have some sort of weapon that can get you out of that situation as safely as possible.
	So generally, when people escalate to that degree out of nothing, like, oh, I'm a conservative.
	Oh, are you a racist?
	Then they don't have any rules of combat and they will just do anything.
	And so the problem is if you engage in conflict with people who have no rules of combat, well, I mean, that was my deplatforming, right?
	People couldn't, they couldn't dispute what I said.
	And so they just said, he's a terrible guy and mass reported me and whatever, right?
	Politics, who knows what went on behind the scenes.
	But I got banned rather than engaged with, right?
	Because of course, if there were things that I was saying that was wrong, then I would love to get the counter-proof and I would love to publish the counterproof and I would retract and apologize.
	That's I've done before when I've got things wrong.
	So but the problem is they don't, they don't fight fair.
	And I don't get involved in conflicts with people who don't respect any rules of combat.
	That's like saying, well, I want to debate with you, but if I feel you're winning the debate, I'm going to shoot your dog.
	I'd be like, okay, I don't want to debate anymore.
	I'm not going to, it's not a debate.
	That's like some weird John Wick thing, right?
	So when people are that aggressive, it's an awkward position because what they're doing is they're saying, I don't have any rules in how I relate to people.
	I don't have any standards.
	I don't have.
	And now in England, when I was growing up, if you didn't have any rules, then you were shunned and ostracized.
	Like if you were impolite or rude or thoughtless or careless or something like that, then people would just not spend any time with you.
	Or when I was a kid, if there was another kid who didn't respect the rules of whatever game we were playing, we just wouldn't invite him next time.
	Right.
	Or we would actually have a signal, we'd wink or something like that, and everyone would say, oh, it's time for dinner.
	We're going home.
	And then we would leave.
	And then we would meet somewhere else and continue the game to get rid of that kid.
	And then if that kid came and wanted to join in the game, we just wouldn't respond to him.
	Or if he tried to join in the game, we would either tell him to go away or we would just say, oh, it's, you know, we've all got to go.
	And then we'd meet somewhere else.
	And then the kid would figure it out.
	And either the kid would end up learning to play by the rules or they'd just be permanently ostracized.
	And so we had that sort of, but we don't really have that in society anymore because everyone can get resources through the state.
	So we've lost our power to ostracize, which means we've lost our power to enforce rules, which means people either have rules because they have a conscience or they don't have any rules because they don't have a conscience.
	And then we have no way to enforce anything.
	So it's an awkward position to be in.
	Yes.
	And that's part of the design of the plan is to put the good people in awkward positions and watch them squirm, right?
	And so that's kind of like for you, you being called a racist or something is kind of like your parents calling you weird.
	It triggers all of this shame or feeling of wrongness or something like that, right?
	But that's tough.
	And I sympathize.
	And I certainly wouldn't.
	But yeah, you can get out of those situations and you don't have to confront anyone.
	Again, I generally don't confront people who don't have any rules, right?
	If I'm engaged in a conflict with someone and they pull out a knife, I'm going to just leave.
	I'm not going to engage at that level, so to speak.
	So, you know, I was happy when I was in Australia and the left-hard leftists were sort of outside the venue.
	If they were protesting, I'd go out and chat with them.
	And we even sent out some umbrellas when it was raining.
	But the people who were really violent, I didn't engage with them because there's just no rules then.
	So, yeah.
	So if people are like that, then your sole goal is to try and don't don't defend, don't engage.
	Your sole goal is to try and get out of the situation with as little provocation as possible because they've signaled that they're not capable or willing to engage in civil discourse, civilized discourse.
	And therefore, your sole goal is to get out of the situation as non with as little escalation as possible.
	So you can ask them definitions if you want.
	That's a little easier for me.
	It's online.
	But if it's someone right there, I would not, you know, once or twice over the years, I've had someone confront me in public and be really sort of upset and mad and so on.
	I'll ask them a couple of questions to gauge if they're at all interested in a reasonable discourse.
	And if they're not, I just disengage and leave.
	Yes, okay.
	Okay.
	So does that help in terms of maybe stuff that happens out in the world as a whole, but having a mission statement that people have to agree to in order to join your group and then interviewing them before they join to get a sense of who they are and then going over them, you know, you can go over with them or you can have in that, you know, here's the resolution process if there's a disagreement and so on.
	You don't want to get like an entire book of law, but, you know, but and you know, that the decisions of the executive committee or whatever are final, blah, blah, blah.
	And I think then you can be in control.
	And wouldn't that be great to go from somebody who was always called weird, which is horrible, to somebody who's policing weirdos and making sure that the normal, kind, happy, and healthy people are central to the group.
	Yeah.
	Yes, it would be nice.
	Okay, listen, I don't want to cut the call short.
	I know you have your baby.
	Is there anything else that I could sort of help you with in the short run?
	And nice to chat with you again.
	Yeah, nice to chat again.
	I think that will do.
	I think, well, now I have a lot of things to do.
	I have to make a group.
	Yeah, and there may be templates.
	Like if you try and join other groups, they may have templates.
	You could just try and join, read the template and then decline or whatever and just sort of see what they have.
	But I think that would be, of course, your husband sounds very wise, as are you.
	So I'm sure you guys can come up with something good.
	But yeah, that would be my suggestion.
	It certainly is possible to run positive and healthy groups.
	And if you have people's acceptance of the standards that are expected, it does a lot to filter out the crazy people.
	And then the other thing, too, is that if people have read and signed something, even if they've just initialed it or clicked on a checkbox, then they're much less likely to dispute that as a whole.
	And that could be very helpful down the road.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Well, listen, keep me posted about how things are going.
	And I really appreciate the touch back.
	Congratulations on your marriage and your motherhood.
	That is a beautiful thing.
	And I hope you enjoy, I'm sure you will, your day with your baby.
	Yes, I will.
	Thank you.
	And thank you for the help.
	You're welcome.
	All the best.
	Bye-bye.

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