STOP JUDGING LOVERS! Freedomain Call In

Stefan Molyneux

Join us in this episode as we delve into heartfelt conversations with callers navigating complex family dynamics and personal growth. One caller bravely discusses the liberation found in distancing from her family, while another seeks advice on severing ties with manipulative parents for their well-being. We explore the concept of inner parents and their influence on relationships, urging reflection and self-awareness for healthier connections. Empathy and guidance are offered to a caller struggling with forming relationships post-past experiences, emphasizing rational assessment and boundaries. Lastly, we discuss building healthy relationships based on honesty, mutual respect, and self-awareness, while addressing low self-esteem struggles and the importance of self-perception and secure relationships.  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  NOW AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING' - AND THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI AND AUDIOBOOK!  Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon!  https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022

Transcript

00:00:00I will be defoeing from my family this weekend, which was last weekend.

00:00:05My parents know I want time to heal and go no contact, however they think it's temporary.

00:00:11I think the truth is that I would want to immediately cut contact permanently once moved, so I know they're out of my life forever.

00:00:18I'm not sure if this is very Russian rational, but if they were to die tomorrow, I would have no regrets, alongside having had no desire to spend time with them for a couple of years already.

00:00:29Excluding obligation feelings and using them for resources.

00:00:35I am not even sure if permanently defoeing is the right thing to do.

00:00:40The people pleasing has improved a lot since we last spoke, however still significantly,

00:00:46really significantly affects me on a day-to-day basis. For example, I keep choosing bad men and

00:00:53creeps. Maybe creeps a wrong word, but I keep choosing bad men. And I've had dishonest friendships

00:01:00and a relationship in which I people-pleased and was a voluntary in bracket slave, like as talked

00:01:07about in real-time relationships. Now I only want honest friendships and once I've healed more,

00:01:14which is hopefully not long now, meet a husband and build a family. But that feels like a world's

00:01:19away. I don't know what it would feel like to even just be happy and just have a happy relationship.

00:01:26I have no idea what that would look like.

00:01:32Right, right. And okay, I'm sure that there's more that you want to add, so I can hear. And if you

00:01:39could just, just a minor technical thing, if you could back off from the mic a little bit,

00:01:42I'm getting some breath noises.

00:01:43Oh, sorry.

00:01:44No, no problem. Yeah, so I'm sure there's more you want to add and I'm all ears.

00:01:49Yeah. Okay. So regarding men, I've been, I've spoken to a few men. So I had a relationship from

00:02:01December to July last year and it was a completely dishonest relationship. He was less intelligent

00:02:09than me, still intelligent. And it was sort of like a safe haven. I was with him for the

00:02:15sake of being with someone. So I was using him. I then broke up with him because I realised,

00:02:21oh my gosh, we have nothing in common. There's no deep conversations. This is as dead as it

00:02:26humanly gets. And then after my friend introduced me to a guy and I told him from the get go,

00:02:33I don't want a date or anything, just want to be friends. And then somehow we started doing

00:02:40things that friends don't do. And he knew about my people pleasing, but it was still

00:02:50dishonest and passive whilst we would do.

00:02:58Oh, I think, sorry, I don't know if you pulled a chord or something, but

00:03:02I heard a click and then you were gone.

00:03:07Is this okay?

00:03:08Oh, yeah. Sorry. You just clicked and you're gone. Now you're back. Sorry. Go ahead.

00:03:12Okay. So not sex, but intimate things. I won't go into detail.

00:03:25But I would even be like, I hate this. I feel disgusting. And we would still do it,

00:03:30even though I felt that way. And I would openly say it during it sometimes.

00:03:34And I'm sorry to interrupt. And I, you know, obviously I don't mean to pry. I just want to

00:03:38make sure I understand. Did you feel disgusting just because you were having sex with a guy you

00:03:44didn't really like? Or was there something? It wasn't sex. It was kissing and I feel awkward

00:03:53going into detail of people going to hear this. But it doesn't involve...

00:03:58Anything you're not comfortable with. Absolutely. But I just wanted to make sure,

00:04:02let's say it's just kissing. We just say kissing plus or whatever. We don't have to get into

00:04:05details. So did you feel grossed out because of the kissing plus or because of him?

00:04:17That's interesting. I was never once attracted to him. I actually felt embarrassed when we first

00:04:24met hanging out with him in public, which is a really, which is shameful.

00:04:28No, no, no. Okay. Sorry. I hate to be annoying, you know, and you're doing great. But if you could

00:04:33just hold off on the self-attacking moral judgments, you know, because they're kind of

00:04:37tough to listen to. It's shameful. It's like, no, it's not shameful. What was wrong with how he

00:04:43looked that this was embarrassing or he was so unattractive? His face.

00:04:49And okay. So what was wrong with his face?

00:04:51It just wasn't. I don't know. I never get that. I've never got this before, but it just,

00:05:00there was just something that just looked very embarrassing. I can't put a finger on it.

00:05:10Was he like a chinless wanderer? Did he have weird hair or did he have...

00:05:15His hair wasn't good.

00:05:17Okay. But was he fat?

00:05:18His facial hair wasn't good.

00:05:19No, he had a very good physique, but he didn't know how to dress.

00:05:25Okay. So he's a man.

00:05:27He was like a mother's boy.

00:05:30Okay. So was it something in the eyes, something in the demeanor? Like he just

00:05:35seemed like a loser or like, what was it that gave you the ick so bad?

00:05:40He was confident, but he was just ugly.

00:05:45Okay. And he was ugly. Was it, he was ugly for things outside of his control,

00:05:50right? Like his facial structure is just his facial.

00:05:54Yeah. Okay.

00:05:55He looked bellow about glasses on, but he always wore glasses, but yeah, it was just out of his

00:06:00control. I guess he could have controlled the facial hair a tiny bit more and faced on that

00:06:05before the hair a teeny bit more, and then he could address better and that will have made it

00:06:10maybe, but yeah, it was more so just things out of his control.

00:06:16Okay. So, and I'm sorry to stall right at the beginning here, but I mean, it's a very

00:06:21interesting thing that you're talking about. My gut says it has some real relevance.

00:06:26So, and the previous guy was not as intelligent. How was this guy in terms of the smartitude?

00:06:33Oh yeah. With my ex, I did have sex,

00:06:36which I regret. So I've done it once like with one guy and how did he look much better looking?

00:06:44He also went to the gym. He was a teeny bit chubby, but I was also a teeny bit chubby,

00:06:49but he had a good physique. He was strong. He had a pretty face,

00:06:53like yeah, good looking guy. And he had stayed not status status, but he had friends. And well,

00:07:00I guess the other guy also had a lot of friends, but.

00:07:03Sorry. So what I'm sort of trying to understand is you said that your ex.

00:07:07I felt good walking with my ex. I'm sorry?

00:07:10I felt good walking with my ex. I felt embarrassed walking with

00:07:15the guy from September to let's say recently, like March.

00:07:21Yeah. We can say ex and new guy, just so we can differentiate these two.

00:07:24Now you said, did I get this right? You said your ex wasn't so smart. What about new guy?

00:07:30He was a network engineer, so he was intelligent, but he just was

00:07:39like any other human, no deep conversations, no depth, no passion, didn't read, didn't have any

00:07:48hobbies besides video games and going to the gym and drinking alcohol. And he was a typical British

00:07:5720 something year old.

00:08:00And particularly kind of concrete, like an engineer, not much into abstractions and so on, right?

00:08:05Yeah.

00:08:06There is good or is it the soul, no poetry. Okay.

00:08:10Yeah.

00:08:10I've worked with people like that. All right. And so, but somebody was saying wasn't smart,

00:08:16at least that was my understanding. And is that new guy or did I just misunderstand that completely?

00:08:21Um, ex, it's not that he wasn't smart. I mean, he has an average intelligence. It's that I was just

00:08:28a lot smarter and into deeper things.

00:08:31Okay. So he would be smarter at engineering, but you'd be smarter at other things like

00:08:35around wisdom and curiosity and life and.

00:08:38Yeah, but I almost got into network engineering out of people pleasing and codependency.

00:08:45I'm sorry, I didn't quite follow that. Could you repeat that?

00:08:47I almost got into that sector. It was like, why not do network engineering? I was like,

00:08:51sure. And I like studied for it and made notes. And then part of me was just like,

00:08:55no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to do this.

00:08:57Right. Okay. All right.

00:08:59That happened with my first, sorry, that happened with my first boyfriend. So in the UK,

00:09:04there were A levels and I was going to do psychology, biology and geography. And my ex was

00:09:10like, no, they're such like bad feminist subjects or whatever. So I ended up doing

00:09:15maths and computer science.

00:09:18Sorry. Now, oh, this is the network engineer. So he, he.

00:09:22That was the first boyfriend, the maths and computer science guy, second boyfriend,

00:09:27network engineer.

00:09:28Okay. And then new guy. All right. So your first boyfriend said, don't do this psychology,

00:09:34geography stuff, do maths and computer engineering. So that's what you did?

00:09:39Yeah.

00:09:40Okay. And how did that work out for you?

00:09:44I ended up dropping out of school that the next year, but that was more so because,

00:09:50because of, I started speaking to a narcissist and I was young at the time and he was

00:09:59mid twenties. So we had a big age gap. This is when I was still in school

00:10:04and we spent all our time together and he had a massive influence on me. I went from

00:10:09being in my parents' control to being a slave to this narcissist. Slave as in I had complete

00:10:15free will to be there, but like, but I was treating him like a master and I was making

00:10:21myself a slave. I have complete free will and that.

00:10:25Yeah.

00:10:26So sorry. I mean, not your fault because it's your life. I'm just skipping around a little bit.

00:10:31So the narcissist, tell me a little bit about that situation. How did that come about? But

00:10:38he wasn't a boyfriend, right?

00:10:40No, we actually talked about him in my first show. So he was my best friend at the time.

00:10:48He was all the way from another continent. We spoke every day for a year and a half,

00:10:52pretty much. And it started all nice. We'd have all these deep, amazing conversations. I didn't

00:10:58think there was anything like him in the world. And it just turned toxic at the end. I talked

00:11:06about betraying him in my last calling, but you fought back on the fact, was that actually a

00:11:11betrayal or not?

00:11:13Right, right. Okay. Yeah.

00:11:14But it turns out, and then when he ditched me and stopped talking to me because of a choice I made,

00:11:23when he stopped talking to me, I was like, oh my gosh, am I the most selfish person ever? And

00:11:28he just kept insulting me and called me a bunch of derogatory names.

00:11:32Right, right. Okay, okay.

00:11:35He also introduced me to you.

00:11:37Right, right, right. Yeah. It certainly is interesting, the variety of people who listen.

00:11:43I think some people listen to me because they want the truth and the other people listen to me

00:11:47because they want to know how the human mind works so they can better disassemble it. That's sort of

00:11:51my rough guess. Okay. All right. So

00:11:58with regards to what happened last weekend, tell me all about it.

00:12:04I moved. I'm here now. I'm in another country, technically.

00:12:10Right.

00:12:12It was move sailing. Old guy, not old guy, new guy helped me move, but I did say beforehand,

00:12:20I do not want to be friends with you after this and I wouldn't like to speak with you or hang out

00:12:26with you. Even though he was driving all the way because we needed two cars to fit all my stuff,

00:12:31I wouldn't have been able to just fit it in mine.

00:12:34But this is the guy you said you only wanted to be friends at the beginning,

00:12:37and then you ended up making out with him, right?

00:12:39Yeah.

00:12:40So he may have been like, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. We'll just be friends, right? Whatever, right?

00:12:45Yeah.

00:12:47All right. I know a little bit about how men work and we sometimes are like,

00:12:51I can fit through, we're like cats under doors. I can fit through that. I can get through that.

00:12:55So freaking passive.

00:13:00Go on.

00:13:01No, he was the most passive guy ever. He didn't even ever feel desire. He only ever initiated

00:13:10for me once, which was after I stopped talking to him and Vergara introduced me to him for a

00:13:16short time. But that was the only time he ever initiated hanging out with me. And he says he's

00:13:22never initiated with any of his friends either, and he simply forgets to initiate because he is

00:13:27in his own little world. And I almost got in a relationship with him. He asked me to be his

00:13:33girlfriend at like 1am, 2am, completely impulsively.

00:13:40So he initiated there?

00:13:42Yeah, but it was at like 1 or 2am, and it was out of more so feelings of guilt, or I'm guessing

00:13:48because of the more intimate style things we are doing. Most of his friends are religious.

00:13:56Okay. So with regards to last weekend, your issue was around the defooing,

00:14:02which of course I'm very sorry to hear about. It's always a tragic situation.

00:14:06Yeah.

00:14:06So I asked you what happened last weekend. You said, I moved.

00:14:11Oh, I deflected.

00:14:12I do feel that you could break it out just a tiny bit more since that seems to be the core topic.

00:14:17Yes. I would say that would be like a 50-50 topic. I'd like to focus half on the defoo

00:14:24and half on the how do I not choose bad guys, but for the defoo. So I told my parents that I would

00:14:33like to go a few months not speaking just to give myself some time. And that, oh, I just want time

00:14:40to heal X, Y, and Z. So I'm not speaking to them now and they're as far away from me as it gets,

00:14:47but I haven't permanently cut things off yet. And I feel so ambivalent, so ambivalent about it.

00:14:55I know regarding my father, he is as lost cause and as no hope as it gets. He can rot away.

00:15:03There's, I've tried, I've spoken to them and confronted them not much. Only recently,

00:15:09really, when I finished RTR, I've only confronted them a couple of times like for past

00:15:15a couple of months. I, cause I, I mean, I guess when I was a kid, I confronted them all the time.

00:15:23So I used to confront them all the time up until the age of 16, 17. So I knew how it worked out.

00:15:30I did it my whole life. So no wonder I held off, but I did it again recently.

00:15:37And this is how my dad's language went. I say, he hit me. He say, a light tap. I say,

00:15:43he screamed at me to the point the neighbours hear. He would say, yell. I say, control me.

00:15:51He would say, oh, we probably did. You see, he would, and then the only thing he took

00:15:56responsibility was, I'm sorry I yelled at you. Sometimes that's wrong. He is as lost hope cause

00:16:04as it gets. There's not an ounce of me that ever wants to speak with him. And he's actually been,

00:16:10tell me if I'm speaking too much and you'd like to interrupt me.

00:16:15No, yeah, don't, don't worry. I'll manage my side. You do yours.

00:16:18Okay. So he's actually been a care home for a year and a half. My,

00:16:23all year, my family situation is very disgusting and evil.

00:16:26Sorry, he's been a what for a year and a half?

00:16:28In a care home for a year and a half.

00:16:30Oh, sorry. Okay. Got it.

00:16:31My mum kicked him out of the house he's paying for. She lives there without a job and gets to

00:16:36do whatever she likes every single day. Meanwhile, he's in a care home yet paying for the house

00:16:41and he's not even in that house. She doesn't even work.

00:16:45Sorry, but why is he in a care home rather than living in an apartment?

00:16:48He had a stroke in November of 2020 something.

00:16:53Right.

00:16:54A couple of years ago.

00:17:00So it makes him living, living life harder. But yeah, so my mum gets to, you know,

00:17:05live her best life. She doesn't work. She just has a house to herself.

00:17:10She goes to the gym several hours a day, though right now she's on well with something.

00:17:14But like she lives on her own little fairy land and complains and there's always a poor

00:17:19helpless victim, vindictive bitch. And can I swear?

00:17:25You certainly can. I don't want you to self-censor, so go for it.

00:17:29If I faint, don't worry about it. I'll recover soon.

00:17:34Okay. Okay. So I've been my, I feel so much happier now than I have in a long time. I'm teary-eyed.

00:17:44Oh, you mean as a whole or in this?

00:17:47Right now.

00:17:48Good. Good. I'm glad. Well, I'm obviously glad to be glad to be talking and glad to be hearing.

00:17:53I'm not obviously happy about the content, of course, right. But I'm certainly happy to be

00:17:58having a conversation. And so, yeah, I'm yours for an hour or two. So go for it.

00:18:05So your dad's in the care home and your mom.

00:18:09My mom's in fairy land.

00:18:11I'm sorry. Why did your mom kick him out? Was it because he was unwell?

00:18:14Because he's hard to look after.

00:18:17She didn't want to wipe his butt and everything.

00:18:19Now, he didn't recover much from the stroke. Is that right? Because sometimes people can wrestle

00:18:23back.

00:18:24Walk a bit, like with a stick, like to an end of a corridor. But like not much besides that. But

00:18:31honestly, I don't think he put the work in he should have. There were hiccups and stuff. And

00:18:37then I remember when he was at home, my mom was feeding him unhealthy food. We talked about this

00:18:41in the first quarter, but she was fattening him up like a narwhal again because she's a think evil.

00:18:50And now, sorry, how is his health outside of the stroke? In other words, is he going to

00:18:56live for a while or is he like decaying physically?

00:19:01I rarely visit him, but he's not decaying. He's like his brain's completely healthy.

00:19:08Like his body's, well, stroke-ified, but his body's okay, I guess. It doesn't seem like he's

00:19:14going to die anytime soon or anything. So it seems like he's going to live a fair bit longer.

00:19:19But yeah, he's like just doing nothing every day, probably.

00:19:23And sorry, just remind me of your age range. You don't have to tell me specifics.

00:19:30Early 20s.

00:19:31Early 20s. Okay.

00:19:33Right. So he could go on for another 30 plus years, right?

00:19:37Yeah.

00:19:39Okay.

00:19:41But regarding the care home, what I was going to get into is I never felt a desire to see him.

00:19:47The only time I felt a desire was out of obligation because he paid for my car insurance and whatever

00:19:51else.

00:19:53Right.

00:19:57But yeah, I don't want him in my life. I want him gone forever. And now I'm as far away as it gets,

00:20:05but I haven't told him I want to permanently stop speaking. I haven't yet sent him that message.

00:20:11Sorry, why would you need to send him that message?

00:20:17Because it would feel like the rope is cut. They're actually gone forever.

00:20:23But that's in your heart, right? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing. You seem to be like it's an

00:20:28absolute. I have to tell them blah, blah, blah, right? I mean, so I'm not sure why.

00:20:35Because won't that just stir up a hornet's nest?

00:20:40Yeah, but it still feels temporary. It still feels like they're controlling me,

00:20:48just with the fact I just want to be like, you're gone forever.

00:20:52No, no. But you see, if you have to send them the letter, they're still controlling you.

00:20:58It's a choice. It's an option. Maybe it's a good idea. Maybe it's not. I don't know.

00:21:03But if you have to send them the letter, that's not escaping their control.

00:21:07Why? I'm confused.

00:21:09You have to.

00:21:11No, I mean like out of my choice.

00:21:14Well, okay. And if it's your choice, that's fine. But you said have to.

00:21:19And have to does not indicate choice. You know, like I have to pay my taxes. That's not necessarily

00:21:27a choice. I have to go to the dentist if my tooth is hurting. That's not necessarily choice.

00:21:34I want to, Ben. I want nothing to do with them.

00:21:39I'm not disagreeing with you about that. Wanting nothing to do with them does not necessitate

00:21:45communicating that to them. Like if you say, and again, maybe it's the right thing to do,

00:21:50maybe it's the wrong thing to do, but it's not an obligation. So if it's easier for you and better

00:21:54for you, then you can just say that I'm taking a break, goes on and on, right? Now, if you do want

00:22:02to, if it's closure and so on, but I suppose my concern is that is it easier sometimes to fade

00:22:10away or is it easier to blow the trumpets when you leave? I mean, blowing the trumpets will cause

00:22:18havoc and fading away won't cause any havoc. Right. And I don't, you know, if the parents

00:22:27were this bad and so on, I'm not sure that there's much of an obligation. And to be in

00:22:34communication, I mean, will they respect what you're saying? They respected that. I told them

00:22:42both that I don't want to speak for a few months and they were like, yeah, we're sad. We wish you

00:22:47the best. We won't contact you. Okay. So what happens if you say, never contact me again?

00:22:57It would blow trumpets horns, maybe.

00:23:06They would maybe get angry. I'm not too sure, but it would sort of give me that peace. Maybe

00:23:15it wouldn't and I'm fooling myself, but I'm thinking it would give me that peace that the

00:23:20rope is fully tied and I never need to speak to them again or have anything to do with them. But

00:23:26why would I need to tell them that? Can't I simply just ignore them? Well, I mean, you're on the

00:23:31other side of the world, you're in another country. I mean, it's going to be pretty easy to not

00:23:36have any particular communication, right? Yeah, very easy. Right. And again, I don't know,

00:23:42obviously, whether it's the right or wrong thing. My only concern was that you said,

00:23:45well, I have to send this letter. I have to whatever, right? Yeah.

00:23:51It just still feels like they're there. Like I see their messages, they're not blocked.

00:23:56They're just there. Sorry, what do you mean you see their messages? As in I could go on to

00:24:01like messages and they'd be one of the messages on there because I haven't blocked them.

00:24:08So you said, I don't want to be in contact for a couple of months and they keep messaging you.

00:24:11I'm not sure I fully understand. No, but I know I haven't blocked

00:24:15them though. So they'd come up on my contacts list.

00:24:23But they're not messaging you? No, my mum did regarding clothes,

00:24:30but I just said, no, you can just do what you like. Please don't message me.

00:24:35Sorry, she said, your mother said, please don't. Because I had extra clothes and stuff in my room.

00:24:41I didn't take with me. She just messaged about that. Okay. So they are not contacting you

00:24:49at the moment. Yeah, they're not contacting me. Okay. And your concern is they show up in your

00:24:54contacts? No, more so that they're just in my contact list still, that they're not blocked.

00:25:05Right. Okay. And what's wrong with blocking them and then deciding in a couple of months?

00:25:13I could block them now, that would be nice.

00:25:17So why haven't you? Again, I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't, but why haven't you?

00:25:21I told them I wouldn't block them.

00:25:25And why did you say that? Oh, because in case there's an emergency or something like that?

00:25:31I don't care if there's an emergency. I don't care if they die tomorrow.

00:25:36Okay. No, again, I understand the temptation to, oh, that sounds terrible, blah, blah, blah. But

00:25:45it doesn't. Well, it is what it is. You know, my sympathy is with you as the child,

00:25:52because you were not in a chosen relationship. Your parents chose to have children.

00:25:57Sorry. Sorry, I'm interrupting you. There's quite a lot of that. I'm not sure if we have a delay or

00:26:03something like that, but I feel like I start talking and then I get about three seconds,

00:26:08if that makes sense. And then you're saying, and again, I want to hear and all of that, but

00:26:12it's a little tricky. It's not you. It's not a delay. I'm really bad at interrupting people.

00:26:20No, I, hey, I appreciate the enthusiasm. So that's, that's totally fine. So why,

00:26:26if you don't want to hear from them, why did you say you wouldn't block them? And again,

00:26:30I'm not criticizing. I'm just curious. Maybe I think to make them less scared.

00:26:37Okay. Got it. Or more calm about it. Right. Okay. Okay. So if you, is your, would your goal be

00:26:49to send the message, let's say in a couple of months, you haven't changed your mind and it

00:26:52doesn't sound like you will, is your goal then to message your parents and say peace out forever.

00:27:01And then you would immediately block them and they would have no way of contacting you. Is that right?

00:27:07Yes. But I would like to do that now rather than in a couple of months.

00:27:13Right. And you don't, because you said you wouldn't.

00:27:18And I haven't because, well, I'm waiting for a SIM to come, but they'll come in two days and

00:27:24then I'll be out of my dad's control because that's, he's still like my SIM's connected to

00:27:29a family SIM. But once I've got my new SIM, then that's fair. And I can just send him money I owe

00:27:35still being blocked because I have his bank details. And then my mom, I can simply just block now.

00:27:42Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean, so I, I'm just, I'm just, it was a little alarmed when you said like,

00:27:52I have to send that message and I have to do this and I have to do that. And I don't think you do.

00:27:59I mean, if you want to send the message, great. If you don't want to send the message to me,

00:28:03that would be fine too. I don't think you owe much to people who have been that negative in your life.

00:28:10No, you're right. And yeah, like I said, I was surviving a hellhole every day as my, as a kid,

00:28:19like before I'd go to bed, I'd literally like, they'd always come in my room, right. When I was

00:28:24asleep and check on me. So every day I felt like I was some surviving prey. It was, my life was a

00:28:32literal terrifying nightmare. I'm sorry, why was it? I'm not disagreeing you again, of course,

00:28:38but why was it so scary when they would come into your room?

00:28:42I don't know. I just remember this terrifying feeling of them checking on me when I'm like,

00:28:47so I have to fake being asleep and I'm just terrified of, of, I don't know. It just scared

00:28:54me. They'd always come in and check on me every night. And until what age?

00:29:01I think this was up until early teenage years. I'm not too sure what age it stopped.

00:29:06Right. Now, I mean, I've, I've heard some pretty terrible things over the course of

00:29:11my conversations with people over the last, I guess, close to 20 years.

00:29:15My parents checking on me is not the scariest. And I, again, I just want to make sure I understand

00:29:21where you're coming from in terms of why it was alarming. And again, I'm not disagreeing

00:29:26with any of your instincts. I just want to make sure that I understand things from your perspective.

00:29:31Yeah. I don't know why it was alarm.

00:29:38Well, more than alarming, you said it was terrifying.

00:29:42Like I, I just be scared every night when they'd open the door and check on me and I'd be faking

00:29:48being asleep. I'm guessing because if they knew I was awake, I, it wouldn't be a good thing.

00:29:55I honestly have virtually no memories.

00:30:00So if you were awake, they would be upset at you for being awake. Is that right?

00:30:04Angry.

00:30:05Angry at you for being awake. Okay.

00:30:07Yeah. My dad had raging anger issues.

00:30:10Right. Okay. Okay. So I think I understand. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that I was

00:30:17on board with that. Okay.

00:30:19Mm-hmm.

00:30:20All right. So is there anything else that you want to talk about with regards to

00:30:25your parents and what happened last weekend?

00:30:28Yeah. So again, part of me still feels like I want to say peace out forever now,

00:30:36but my mom's so manipulative when I confronted her, like she would be like, Oh, I'm sorry.

00:30:44I don't have memories. I don't remember this, but I'm sorry if that happened.

00:30:48Maybe I did this because of this. And then, and she'll just be like, Oh, I was probably just in

00:30:54such an unhappy marriage and I'm sorry you felt that way. And like, what can I do to make a

00:31:01relationship bright? And then the next day she would be angry at me and bitter at me as always.

00:31:07So it's all fake manipulative apologies. And you actually said like all the lines she said at the

00:31:13end of real time relationships, you literally got her points spot on all her arguments. It's like

00:31:18you were speaking for her. Yeah. Defensives are just like NPC programming. It's pretty easy

00:31:26to figure out what people are going to say. Exactly. And so it's all gaslighting manipulation,

00:31:33which is what's stopping me. But I don't want her in my life. I want to say peace out forever.

00:31:41Right. But I haven't yet.

00:31:45And what's wrong with that?

00:31:46Because she's still there.

00:31:50Do you think there's a way? Tell me what you mean by still there.

00:31:54In my head, it's like a rope cut tied. Even though I'm far away from them physically,

00:32:01there's an elastic band that can go from Antarctica to the other one. I don't know what it's called.

00:32:07Arctic, yeah.

00:32:10And I want it cut.

00:32:13You want it cut. So what does that mean?

00:32:16I want nothing to do with her. I just want the fact that I will never speak to her again

00:32:25to happen. Because I know in a few months, I'll have to speak to her again so it doesn't feel

00:32:31over. Well, again, this is back to my first question. Why do you have to speak to her again?

00:32:38I don't. I feel obligation. I just want to say goodbye forever.

00:32:47Okay, but saying goodbye forever is in your mind. It is not in a conversation. Necessarily.

00:32:59So I think, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.

00:33:01Okay, I could simply just block them and never unblock.

00:33:07But I don't like the idea.

00:33:09Why don't you like that idea?

00:33:12Because they might email me or try to get a contact of me to quote unquote, see if I am okay.

00:33:21And?

00:33:23I don't want them to try getting contact. I'd rather say goodbye forever. I will be safe

00:33:28I will be safe. So they don't use that excuse.

00:33:33Okay, but are they going to respect your decision? Or if you say, I don't want to talk again ever,

00:33:41are they going to escalate and be intrusive?

00:33:49I mean, they might escalate and be intrusive, but they will know I've not died in a car crash or

00:33:56something. Whereas if I just blocked them and be like, oh my gosh, what has happened?

00:34:01She just blocked us without saying goodbye.

00:34:03Well, but if I'm sorry to interrupt, but if you blocked them,

00:34:08it's it's unlikely that you died in a car crash. I mean, if people are dying in a car crash,

00:34:13what they don't generally do is block people on their phone.

00:34:18They might not know I blocked them.

00:34:23I don't know how that works, technically.

00:34:25On WhatsApp, for example, you can't see if someone's blocked you.

00:34:31Like the messages will still send. It could just look like they never read it.

00:34:37Okay, so listen, I mean, philosophically speaking, the technicalities of whether you

00:34:44get contact or whether they know you've blocked them, and that's not a philosophical topic.

00:34:49That's a sort of technical issue with regards to how you're going to manage it.

00:34:54But here's what I don't want. And here's where I think you're thinking maybe

00:34:58a little bit on the wishful side, which we all have, right?

00:35:02But it's something like this. So your parents are in your head. Well, yeah, that's called being

00:35:06human being, right? I mean, I haven't talked to my mom in a quarter century. She's still in my head.

00:35:14Now, I mean, now she's helpful, right? Because my mom, my inner mother was developed to protect

00:35:19me from danger. And so my inner mom is pretty good at protecting me from danger. In fact,

00:35:27it was my inner mother who said, stop doing politics. Right? So I've, you know, I wouldn't

00:35:33say I've tamed her, but I've enlisted her as a helpful aspect of my personality.

00:35:39So she's still in my head. And you can't undo that. It's like saying, I'm going to live like

00:35:45I never learned English. But you can't do that, right? Yeah. So, and it is in a sense, a wish for

00:35:54self erasure to say, I need to get my mother out of my head, because she is a part of who you are.

00:36:01And your inner mother is not your enemy. Your inner mother is your friend. Now, your ex donor

00:36:06mother sounds like pretty horrible. But your inner mother, she's not your enemy. She's there to help

00:36:11you. And so saying, well, I want to get rid of my mother in my head is getting rid of self

00:36:17protection. Because this is tied into how do you choose good men. So your inner mother is there,

00:36:26was there and is there to protect you from danger. So you have, I assume, an inner father as well,

00:36:35that makes you anxious when people get aggressive, right?

00:36:42When people get, I'm not sure, actually.

00:36:46Oh, you must, because otherwise, hang on, hang on, hang on. Please, I mean, just let me finish my

00:36:52thoughts. You must have an inner father who makes you anxious when people get aggressive. Because

00:36:59otherwise you wouldn't be the slave, as you refer to, you wouldn't have taken computer science,

00:37:04because some guy told you to. You wouldn't have obeyed the narcissist that we talked about last

00:37:09time. Right? So when people get aggressive or assertive, or tell you what to do,

00:37:14you must have, I assume it's an inner father, could be inner father and mother,

00:37:19who says, well, you better obey, or you're in danger.

00:37:24Ah, I see. So the inner father would be obey, because I would obey to my real father,

00:37:36and if I didn't obey, that would lead to punishment and escalation.

00:37:40And danger. Yeah, great danger. So you have an inner father who's there to protect you

00:37:49from dangerous people who have power over you.

00:37:54Right. So if a guy in prison gets beaten up by a guard, every time he looks the guard in the eyes,

00:38:03he's going to lower his eyes, right?

00:38:09Yeah. And so you have an inner father who tells you, you better obey people,

00:38:16otherwise you're in grave danger. And that's the slave part that you were talking about,

00:38:23if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes complete sense.

00:38:26Now, your inner father may feel like a bully,

00:38:33but your inner father says, hey man, or hey lady, I know how to manage aggressive people.

00:38:43You comply, and you're safe. You better not look that guard in the eye, or he's going to F you up,

00:38:51right? So your inner father is not an aggressor against you, he is a protector of you, in that

00:39:02he has internalized your father's trigger points, and warns you ahead of time what will make your

00:39:10father angry, so you don't do it, and thus get aggressed against, or abandoned, or neglected, or

00:39:17whatever horrible things happened, like when these skills evolved, right?

00:39:23Like, all of our evolutionary psychological mechanisms evolved during a time of massive

00:39:32infant mortality, and literal child murder. Infanticide, child murder to the gods, to the

00:39:41ancestors, or whatever. There was not enough food, so you really had to be a favorite. You could not

00:39:47piss off your parents without risking real death throughout most of our evolution. That's where all

00:39:54of these mechanisms of survival came into us. So, when you're faced with particularly male

00:40:07aggression, your inner father kicks in and says, comply or die.

00:40:16And throughout almost all of our evolution, your inner father was totally right.

00:40:27So he's there to help you. Your inner mother is there to help you.

00:40:31And this is tied into how to choose better men. But I want to make sure this part makes sense.

00:40:38When you say, like, I got to tear out my inner mother, and I don't want her to have any influence

00:40:41over me, or I want to have a not-heifer in my head, I'm like, oh no, no, no. You really want

00:40:47your inner mother and your inner father in your head. To clarify, when I say inner mother,

00:40:52I don't mean inner mother, I mean her on my mind. Real mother on my mind, in my head.

00:41:04No, there is no real mother in your mind. She can't get into your head physically, right?

00:41:12No.

00:41:13So this is your thoughts.

00:41:18So, are you saying that you have repetitive thoughts about your

00:41:21mother that you want to get rid of?

00:41:24Um, more so just the looming fact that I've not cut contact yet out of,

00:41:32oh, is this a bad choice?

00:41:34Well, okay, so is your belief that if you cut contact,

00:41:40you won't think about your mother as much?

00:41:43Um, no. My belief is that if I cut contact, they're gone for good.

00:41:49What do you mean by gone, though? From where? From your mind?

00:41:55But I won't need to talk to them again.

00:41:59Okay, but we're talking about different things here. Are we talking about

00:42:03talking to your parents, or are we talking about your inner parents?

00:42:06Are we talking about the choice you have to make?

00:42:12I think what you said about inner parents is really true. I never actually thought about

00:42:16that regarding my inner father before. I hadn't thought about that, but I was more so speaking

00:42:21about them being out of my life. And by stopping, by cutting contact forever, they would be out of

00:42:29my life.

00:42:31Okay, I just feel like we're going in circles here, and I'm not sure why. Because it seems

00:42:36like the definition keeps changing, because you keep talking about your thoughts. My concern is

00:42:41that if you think that if you block your parents, you don't talk to them again, that they won't show

00:42:48up in your mind as much, or, you know, it's almost like, I'm tortured by my parents, but as soon as

00:42:53I do this thing, all that torture will be gone, or it'll be closed, or there'll be peace afterwards.

00:43:02But that's not... I don't think that's how it works.

00:43:06Now, if you're just talking about, well, I don't physically talk to them, okay, well,

00:43:10that's not a philosophical topic, right? I mean, if you block them and they can't get in contact

00:43:15with you, then, yeah, I mean, but that's not a philosophical topic, right? That's just a

00:43:18technical thing about blocking people, if that makes sense.

00:43:25So, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Have you ever known people who get divorced

00:43:33and continue to complain about their ex?

00:43:37Often.

00:43:38Right. That's very common, isn't it?

00:43:40Yeah, really common.

00:43:42Now, even if they haven't talked to their ex in years, even if they have separated,

00:43:46and the legal separation, the marriage is all done, the divorce is done,

00:43:50they're still talking about that person, right?

00:43:53Yeah.

00:43:54Right. So, them cutting all contact, having no ties to them at all anymore,

00:44:02they still can't stop talking about it or get it out of their head.

00:44:07Does that make sense?

00:44:09Yes. So, even if I do block them, they're still going to be there.

00:44:15Well, the question is, how do you harness your injuries rather than try to get away from them?

00:44:26Because you can't get away from your injuries, but how do you use them to protect yourself?

00:44:34I see.

00:44:38Yeah.

00:44:42So, I think what's going on with you and the boys, the guys, is probably, and this is,

00:44:51you know, to some degree out of RTR, right? So, managing dysfunctional parents

00:45:01was the only control you had as a child.

00:45:04Yeah.

00:45:05So, you couldn't control, and the example you gave of bedtime now makes more sense to me.

00:45:11So, you couldn't control whether your parents came in at night. You couldn't control whether

00:45:19they might be upset if you were still awake. You couldn't control any of that, right?

00:45:25You couldn't control whether your dad would yell, you couldn't control his mood,

00:45:29but you could control whether you pretended to be asleep.

00:45:36Mm-hmm.

00:45:37So, you can't control them, you can only control yourself. You can't make them be reasonable,

00:45:44but you can pretend to be asleep. Does that make sense?

00:45:49Yeah.

00:45:50Right. Now, what that means is that your only sense of control is managing crazy people.

00:46:01Now, we all like to have a sense of control, don't we? Nobody likes to feel out of control

00:46:05or helpless, but if the only sense of control that you have is managing, let's just talk about

00:46:14the male side, if the only sense of control that you have is managing dysfunctional men,

00:46:20then if there aren't dysfunctional men around, you're out of control.

00:46:23You're out of control.

00:46:26Maybe that's why I feel out of control.

00:46:33I see.

00:46:35So, go on.

00:46:37That makes sense, because ever since the move-in, even at times when there's no guy around,

00:46:44I'm just point-blank confused. After the new guy we were speaking about,

00:46:51there was actually another guy on FDR I was speaking to. I don't think he was a terrible

00:46:57person, but he had a lot of issues he needed to work on still, and eventually I got disgusted.

00:47:06That was for a couple of months, but it's like guy to guy to guy to guy to guy.

00:47:13And they're dysfunctional.

00:47:16Yes.

00:47:17Right. So, managing dysfunctional people, managing dysfunctional men is your sense of control.

00:47:30It's sort of like if you've ever done a walk where it's crazy windy and you end up leaning

00:47:35like 30 degrees into the wind. See, I can say 30 degrees because you did math, right?

00:47:41So, you're leaning forward like 30 degrees into the wind, and if for some reason the

00:47:46wind stops, you just fall over, right? So, you have control of dysfunctional men.

00:47:59Manage dysfunctional men. That's your job. That's the only thing that you had power over.

00:48:05You can't have control over dysfunctional people, because they don't control themselves.

00:48:09Can I say another thing you might have forgot?

00:48:14I talked about it in my first call, but I'm guessing you forgot. So, I was showered by

00:48:18my mom until the age of 11, and then my dad would impose crazy rules upon me, like,

00:48:24oh, I can't decide if I'm not able to decide if I have a bath or not on my health when I'm 16,

00:48:31but he would enforce crazy, tyrannical rules on me.

00:48:35Right.

00:48:37He was a tyrant.

00:48:38So, you couldn't control any of the rules or inflicting them, but you could try to manage

00:48:49in some other way. Avoid the topic, say, I showered at school or at the gym. Just find some way

00:48:58to manage the situation, because you can't manage the person.

00:49:03I would. I would fight back. I would, like, shout and fight and fight and, like,

00:49:09I wouldn't give up. I would spend ages fighting back, defending myself and protesting for freedom.

00:49:17Right.

00:49:19Right.

00:49:21Because the one thing, and that is disgusting behavior, and the one thing that you have said

00:49:27is, about a couple of these guys, is you're disgusted.

00:49:32Yeah, I felt disgusted feeling after doing stuff.

00:49:37Right.

00:49:38Right.

00:49:39Just, like, oh, I spoke to them.

00:49:42Not I spoke to them, but just of the stuff we did and how codependent I got.

00:49:49I was an infant with some of them, not with some, only with a couple of them.

00:49:54Mm-hmm.

00:49:55So two guys, I ended up, the narcissist and then the FDR guy, the two FDR guys, one was from March

00:50:02to, let's say, May, and one was from the year and a half when I was younger. I ended up becoming

00:50:10more depressed, binge eating, getting into bed, basically fattening myself up so I'd be ugly to

00:50:15them and being depressed in bed so I'd be ugly to them. And then my ex and then the new guy,

00:50:21I was still going to the gym. So I guess with the new guy, I wasn't like, I was still going to the

00:50:27gym and living life normally, but they were less intelligent. They weren't part of, they weren't

00:50:32dumb, they were still smart, but they weren't part of FDR, so they weren't deeply intelligent

00:50:38and curious and poetry and all. So with the two FDR guys, I ended up becoming in bed like a kid

00:50:48again. And with the non-FDR guys, I ended up, I was living normally.

00:50:55Okay. So have you met a guy where there's been romantic interest on either of your part

00:51:05who you would not consider gross or disgusting?

00:51:09Recently. But I have told him I don't think it's right for me to date for a few months.

00:51:16He's also part of the FDR community, but he lives 10 minutes away.

00:51:20Sorry, and this is somebody we haven't talked about yet, right?

00:51:23No, I, we started speaking recently.

00:51:27Okay, got it.

00:51:29And I stopped because I keep interrupting.

00:51:37No, no, go ahead. Tell me more. No, you know what, he's not in the convo, so maybe let's not

00:51:42drag him in. Okay, so the guys before were kind of gross or disgusting, and this new guy is not?

00:51:54Yeah, I guess my ex wasn't gross. Yeah, my ex wasn't gross.

00:52:03The network guy?

00:52:05Yeah.

00:52:06Okay.

00:52:07But just kind of under-stimulating or un-deep, right?

00:52:11Yeah, and I guess a new guy, well, there's a lot of guys. Oh my gosh, this is so bad.

00:52:21Okay. I have to number them now.

00:52:26You have to what? Oh, number them? Right, right.

00:52:30But you know, we're not going in exponential, so that's good.

00:52:33And at least I've only had sex with one person.

00:52:36Right, right.

00:52:37That's what matters. Okay, I feel embarrassed.

00:52:44You don't have to say if it's embarrassing. I mean, that's totally fine if you don't want

00:52:48to talk about it.

00:52:50It's okay, I should because I should. But I felt disgusted about the FDR guy.

00:53:00I felt disgusted about the FDR guy I spoke to for two months, and then I

00:53:05felt disgusted from new guy, the guy from, let's say, September to March.

00:53:14But not about my ex.

00:53:16Okay, got it.

00:53:20Okay.

00:53:20Sorry, I'm just collecting my thoughts for a moment.

00:53:37So, the question is, your inner father

00:53:41can protect you from

00:53:49disgusting guys, or guys that, you know, are creepy or weird or negative or not appropriate

00:53:56or whatever, not compatible. It could be any number of things, right?

00:54:00But here's the problem. Every inner alter ego wants a job.

00:54:04Alter ego wants a job.

00:54:08Because they've evolved for a particular reason or purpose. So, every

00:54:13internal alter ego wants a job.

00:54:17So, you have an inner father who's designed to protect you from aggressive guys.

00:54:23But the only thing he knows how to do is to comply.

00:54:26So, the only way he gets to keep his job is if you have aggressive guys around.

00:54:33In fact, he will try to summon aggression in guys by you being dithery and flaky and helpless

00:54:41to try and summon aggressive guys or aggression in guys so that he has a job.

00:54:49You know, oh, can I interrupt you or not?

00:54:52Yeah, yeah.

00:54:52So, at the start of the call-in, I was like, debating being like to you,

00:54:56I feel like you're going to attack me instantly and like, give me like a bunch of

00:55:00like, oh, I'm like, I'm going to get called out into oblivion.

00:55:05So, he came out immediately at the start of his call-in as well.

00:55:08And it was like, I was just expecting attack, attack, attack from you.

00:55:11Right, right. And you did say like, I'm really, really nervous, which, you know,

00:55:14is honest and I appreciate and understand that.

00:55:17But, you know, I think in general, I'm pretty nice and helpful in this call.

00:55:20So, I don't usually rip into people.

00:55:23So, your inner dad needs aggressive guys around in order to keep his job.

00:55:35So, it's kind of like if you have a security guard that's there to protect your warehouse,

00:55:40you got some warehouse and do, right?

00:55:42Now, does the company that hires out security guards,

00:55:48do they work really, really hard to make sure there aren't any criminals around?

00:55:52I was going to say no.

00:55:58They're selling you protection from criminals.

00:56:02So, do they work really hard to reduce the number of criminals in the world?

00:56:10I don't know.

00:56:12Like, some just stand around.

00:56:14Yeah, they work to make sure they're not around.

00:56:15No, the company.

00:56:16No, not the individual guards.

00:56:18The company that hires out the guards.

00:56:20They work to make sure there's no criminals around and they focus the business on that.

00:56:24No, they don't work to make sure there are no criminals around.

00:56:27They make sure there are criminals around

00:56:29so that you have to hire their security guards to protect your property.

00:56:34How does that work?

00:56:37Well, if I am selling protection from criminals,

00:56:40if there aren't any criminals, I have nothing to sell.

00:56:42Uh-huh.

00:56:43It makes sense?

00:56:45Yeah, that makes sense.

00:56:46So, if I'm selling a cure for a disease, I don't want that disease completely eliminated.

00:56:52Because that's my business, is selling the cure for the disease, right?

00:56:54I mean, this is why, you know, have governments taught all the bomb in the brain stuff and had

00:56:59really great parenting classes so that we end up with much fewer criminals in the world.

00:57:04Well, no, because the government has to make sure that there are no criminals around.

00:57:06So, if I'm selling a cure for a disease, I don't want that disease completely eliminated.

00:57:11So, if I'm selling a cure for a disease, I don't want that disease completely eliminated.

00:57:14And so, if the criminal population gets reduced by 90 or 95 percent,

00:57:19the government can't frighten you with criminals into complying and paying your taxes, right?

00:57:27In the same way, nobody buys life insurance,

00:57:31nobody buys insurance against smallpox anymore because smallpox has been eliminated.

00:57:34Mm-hmm.

00:57:38So, the people who are selling you cures for, or the treatments for smallpox,

00:57:42are not the people who work to eliminate smallpox.

00:57:46Nobody works very hard to eliminate their entire industry.

00:57:49Does that make sense?

00:57:51Yeah.

00:57:52Okay.

00:57:52So, what that means is that

00:57:54your inner father needs the aggressive guys around in order to have his job,

00:58:08to get paid, in a sense, to have authority, to have a need for him.

00:58:15Yeah.

00:58:16So, that means that you will tend to be drawn towards aggressive guys

00:58:23or you might be drawn to guys who have absolutely zero aggression, which means they're passive.

00:58:35Like the recent guy with the funny face, right?

00:58:39Yeah.

00:58:40So, like, okay, he's safe because he has no aggression at all, right?

00:58:46Yep.

00:58:46Now, a man with no aggression, though, I'm sorry to say, is unappealing.

00:58:52Very unappealing.

00:58:54Right? Because you need somebody who's going to go out there and wrestle and fight and win

00:58:57resources and bring home the food and, right, compete with other men and, right?

00:59:03You need a guy with a little bit of vinegar as well as the sugar, right?

00:59:13So, you either end up with a guy who tells you what to do and your inner father knows

00:59:20how to deal with that and manage that and he's really needed and, right?

00:59:23Or you are kind of with a guy who has no assertiveness or aggression

00:59:36but then you're not attracted to him, so you have to keep moving.

00:59:43Yes.

00:59:45So, it's the Aristotelian mean, right?

00:59:47Aggression in men and in women, too, but just in terms of men,

00:59:51aggression needs to be in the middle.

00:59:54You need to have the capacity for aggression

00:59:58but you also need to have good control over your aggression

01:00:02because women want men who are aggressive when facing outside the home

01:00:06but gentle when inside the home, right?

01:00:16Does that make sense?

01:00:17Oh, yes, that makes sense.

01:00:19Okay.

01:00:19I was just conscious of interrupting and speaking too much.

01:00:23Well, if there's a pause, you're not interrupting, I mean, by definition, right?

01:00:26Yeah.

01:00:27Interrupting is when I'm trying to say something and you're talking over me.

01:00:30If I've paused, you can speak because I...

01:00:32So, this is, I mean, you see what I mean?

01:00:34This is like the middle ground, right?

01:00:36So, you're either talking over me or not saying anything.

01:00:39Like, that's not a middle ground.

01:00:41It's not a middle ground kind of thing, if that makes sense.

01:00:44Yeah, it makes sense.

01:00:45And I say that with great affection and it's just an interesting thing, right?

01:00:50Well, and that's part of the compliance, right?

01:00:52Which is, you were talking over me, which, you know, was fine for a little while

01:00:56but then we sort of pointed it out and I asked for that not to happen too much

01:01:00and then you're like, meekly curl into a ball and don't say anything.

01:01:02Blank.

01:01:04Yeah.

01:01:05Yeah.

01:01:07Right.

01:01:09Can I...

01:01:10Yeah, go ahead.

01:01:12Can I add another guy into the interview, please?

01:01:15All right, I'm going to need to open up a spreadsheet here, but go ahead.

01:01:19Actually, maybe a database.

01:01:22I'm just kidding.

01:01:23I'm just kidding.

01:01:23Go on.

01:01:28I don't know why I'm laughing at this.

01:01:32Okay.

01:01:32Let's find out together.

01:01:33Laughing at SiriGuide.

01:01:34Yeah.

01:01:36Guy number one, really?

01:01:39Okay.

01:01:40So, so, so, so, a month ago, someone from FDR messaged me and it turns out he's living,

01:01:54he was living 10 minutes away from where I'm moving and so we met up the day after I moved

01:02:03and sorry, I touched my mic by mistake and so we met up the day I moved and the entire time,

01:02:09it's like what I talked about in the start of a calling, I felt so nervous, like, I know,

01:02:15I felt so nervous and I didn't know what a normal, happy, secure friendship or relationships like,

01:02:21I didn't know how to be.

01:02:22It's also new and foreign.

01:02:25So I don't trust him yet.

01:02:26I'm still worried, but he's done nothing to prove me that he's a virtuous guy.

01:02:31He's very, I won't go into details.

01:02:34I'm conscious of time.

01:02:36But he's done nothing to show you that he's a virtuous guy.

01:02:40And, but my brain, like the time we met, I was just like, oh my gosh, I'm so boring.

01:02:46I have nothing to say.

01:02:48And then I faked facial expressions, which I mentioned at the end and he could tell that

01:02:53my tone of voice would be different to my facial expressions.

01:02:55I just didn't know how to have a good time with him.

01:02:58I was so, so off.

01:03:00I'm sorry, how are you supposed to have a good time with someone while going through

01:03:03a brutal separation from your family?

01:03:06Yeah, I know.

01:03:08I did express I may not be happy and stuff.

01:03:13I did express that.

01:03:14And he had to complete something and said he just wanted me to show up with whatever

01:03:17feelings I have.

01:03:21But I was still trying to fake things.

01:03:24But yeah, I just wasn't happy.

01:03:26I don't know what it's like to sit and live normally, like nothing's ever just okay.

01:03:31And I can relax.

01:03:32I don't know what a happy relationship, just interaction looks like.

01:03:36I felt so nervous, like what if I'm so boring and have nothing of a human possible land

01:03:40of words to say?

01:03:42And this is very deep rooted because in school I had no friends for a time and I was hiding

01:03:48in the toilets and I'd be like, oh my gosh, what do I say?

01:03:50And it's just this anxiety that haunts me, like what if I'm boring?

01:03:54And I was just like, and then the other thing would be how can I know if I can trust him?

01:04:00How can I know if he's a good guy?

01:04:01How can I know he's not a creep or an aggressive guy or meat guy?

01:04:06How do I know?

01:04:08How can I know if I can trust him?

01:04:09Because he seems virtuous, but I don't know.

01:04:14Truly, I have no idea, no clue in the slightest.

01:04:19How am I meant to know if he's virtuous?

01:04:23I'm sorry, is that not a rhetorical question, right?

01:04:28It's not a rhetorical question.

01:04:31Okay, got it.

01:04:36Well, how do you know if someone is virtuous?

01:04:40What would the most philosophical answer you could give be?

01:04:45Actions.

01:04:47Well, okay, but that's not action.

01:04:48The word action doesn't explain very much, right?

01:04:51Okay, so you would hit their moral values and you would see that they stick and oblige

01:04:59to it every single day.

01:05:01Not every single day, but you know what I mean.

01:05:03They stick and oblige to it, so their honest, integrity, courage, and they apply it, and

01:05:12if they don't and you bring it up, they are like, oh, yeah, you're right.

01:05:17That doesn't feel like an answer, though.

01:05:19It feels like-

01:05:20I mean, how you know if someone is virtuous is they have rational morality and they follow

01:05:30it.

01:05:32Yes.

01:05:35Now, oh, he's going to dislike me, but that's all right.

01:05:40That's all right.

01:05:41Now, how pretty are you?

01:05:43Just remind me again.

01:05:46I don't know.

01:05:48Oh, yes, every woman knows.

01:05:50Come on, that's nice.

01:05:50Oh, yeah, the thing is-

01:05:51You have some idea, right?

01:05:52You evolved to know.

01:05:53The thing is, I was an ugly duckling.

01:05:56Yes, was.

01:05:57I would say I'm like six or seven, so I'm like, I'm pretty.

01:06:06Boy, that was quite a yodel.

01:06:08I don't know.

01:06:15I have a tiny bit more weight to lose.

01:06:17I go to the gym, so I'm bulky and chubby at the same time right now.

01:06:20But let's say I lost that.

01:06:22I'm pretty, but not attractive attractive.

01:06:26It's probably my personality that gets-

01:06:32Sorry, go ahead.

01:06:34My brain's probably more attractive to me than my looks.

01:06:38Guys wouldn't just come and ask me out.

01:06:42Right, okay, got it.

01:06:44So, we'll call this guy Jake, right?

01:06:50The new guy, right?

01:06:52New guy, Jake.

01:06:53New guy, Jake, all right.

01:06:56Now, you're going through quite a bit of chaos at the moment, right?

01:07:01A lot.

01:07:02Right, a lot of chaos at the moment.

01:07:03Right, a lot of chaos at the moment.

01:07:06So, if you were an elderly gentleman, would Jake be your friend?

01:07:24He's a young guy.

01:07:25Why would a young guy be friends with an elderly gentleman?

01:07:28Well, if it's just personality and quality of character, an elderly gentleman-

01:07:32I hope so.

01:07:33Hang on.

01:07:34I hope so.

01:07:35Did you just try that again, right?

01:07:36So, if you're saying it's my personality, right, then elderly gentlemen can have wonderful

01:07:45personalities, right?

01:07:46They can be very wise and helpful and thoughtful and transfer great knowledge and wisdom, business

01:07:51experience, like any number of things, right?

01:07:56Or, even if we don't want to say elderly,

01:07:59if you were a guy, right, I assume that Jake's not gay, right?

01:08:03So, if you were a guy, would Jake be working to befriend you?

01:08:12I don't know, because right now I felt awkward in social interactions, but I do think I

01:08:18have- I would be a good friend, but I-

01:08:21But right now, you're going through a lot of chaos, right?

01:08:24So, I'm, like, not super great in social interactions.

01:08:30Well, listen, and this is not anything negative towards you, but when you're going through

01:08:37a lot of turmoil and chaos, you and me and everybody else on the planet tends to be kind

01:08:43of needy, right?

01:08:46And so, you can't reciprocate too much in terms of friendship at the moment, right?

01:08:54Maybe that's why I talk- I notice I've been struggling asking people questions about

01:09:00themselves.

01:09:02You're going through one of the biggest and most wrenching changes a person can go through,

01:09:09and, again, for which you have my enormous and deepest sympathies.

01:09:14And this just happened last weekend, right?

01:09:21Yeah, but I guess it felt like- it doesn't feel like it, because they were dead to me

01:09:28from, like, when I was 16, from before.

01:09:30They've always been dead to me.

01:09:34Yeah.

01:09:34I've always hated them.

01:09:35I get that, I get that, but you emailed me saying this happened last weekend.

01:09:42Yeah, last Sunday, exactly a week ago.

01:09:45So, it's one thing to have it kind of abstract and feelings-based and still be in contact,

01:09:50it's another thing to move continents, right?

01:09:57Oh, it wasn't continents, but yeah, I moved, like, 5,000-

01:10:00Moving a lot, right?

01:10:01You're not up the road.

01:10:03You're not three blocks over.

01:10:04You're a long way away, right?

01:10:05Definitely not.

01:10:05Okay.

01:10:06Far away.

01:10:08So, it's hard for you to be reciprocal at the moment, because you need a lot of resources,

01:10:19a lot of TLC, a lot of focus, a lot of attention, or time on your own to process and so on, right?

01:10:25But it can't be a particularly equal exchange of attention,

01:10:30because you're going through this massive wrenching change.

01:10:37That makes sense.

01:10:38I agree.

01:10:39I have been sort of thinking things along the line of that, or had an incline.

01:10:45Yeah, I'll sort of give you an example from my own life.

01:10:49So, when my wife and I had our daughter, my whole life changed.

01:10:54Like, it's never been the same.

01:10:58Parenting is forever.

01:10:59There's the before, and then there's the after.

01:11:01And when you actually have to keep a tiny person alive, which is not, you know-

01:11:08I mean, they're not rabbits.

01:11:11They don't just grow on their own, right?

01:11:12So, you really have to work hard to, not just in terms of health and food, but, you know,

01:11:18interaction and, you know, dealing with a couple of leftover demons from my own childhood and so on.

01:11:24Now, when I was going through that change,

01:11:31you know, my friends would be calling up back then and saying,

01:11:35oh yeah, you know, I'm having a bit of difficulty at work and blah, blah, blah, right?

01:11:41Now, you know, to be honest, I didn't really care.

01:11:46Because what was going on in my life was so big, and such a big change.

01:11:50Not just because, I mean, not just because of my daughter, but because

01:11:56I'm doing this whole peaceful parenting thing.

01:11:57I've got to plan all that out and so on, right?

01:11:59So, I'm engaged in this massive project, and this huge change.

01:12:05And people would be, like, talking about, you know,

01:12:09relatively little things compared to all of that, and we just wouldn't have that much in common.

01:12:16Or, you know, when I was undergoing a lot of media attacks and stuff like that, and,

01:12:20you know, people would say, I don't know, I'm having a bit of trouble with my girlfriend,

01:12:24and it would just be like, you know, I just, sorry, I'm going through so much turmoil,

01:12:29I can't really be there for you, if that makes sense.

01:12:35And it's quite a common thing, yeah, it's quite, sorry to interrupt, it's quite a common thing

01:12:39when people have kids, that they drift away from the people who don't have kids,

01:12:42because your life is just too different.

01:12:49So, you're going through a huge amount of turmoil,

01:12:55which I sympathize with, and it would seem to me that you couldn't quite

01:13:02get really focused on somebody else's life at the moment, if that makes sense.

01:13:12So, let's go back to,

01:13:20you met this guy for the first time, right? You didn't really know him before, right?

01:13:26We had called a few times and talked about, like, dreams and just talked about who we are,

01:13:31and I also expressed that, like, we both expressed that, like, obviously,

01:13:35guy and girl speaking, that would be romantic, guys and girls can't really be friends if they're

01:13:39both single, obviously, but that I'm not ready to date for a few months, because I need to,

01:13:44you know, do the work on myself, process my trauma, and be able to not choose a bad guy.

01:13:50So, is he romantically interested in you?

01:13:54I'm sure that's the only reason he's speaking to me.

01:13:57Have you talked about that?

01:14:02Um, I guess, like, I brought up, like, on, like, the second convo to do with me, like,

01:14:10when I appealed wanting to, like, would you want to, you know, do anything, and he said he would

01:14:15ask when it's the right time.

01:14:17Okay. So, in general, I would assume that he finds you attractive. Now, listen,

01:14:23there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course, it's why we're all here, right? So,

01:14:27this isn't anything sinister or negative at all, but he is, you know, probably around

01:14:34for the possibility of dating.

01:14:36Yeah, but is for exactly what it is.

01:14:39Okay. All right. All right. So, that's, and, you know, the way that you can figure that out

01:14:46is not too, too complicated. You just imagine, and this is true for everyone, right? So,

01:14:51if he's not around for dating, then if you meet a guy,

01:14:59and you start to really fall for this guy, there's a lot of chemistry or whatever, right?

01:15:03Then you should have no problem telling Jake about this guy, right?

01:15:09Yeah, yeah. He's definitely around for dating. I've known that from the get-go.

01:15:13Okay. Got it. All right. And, but he knows, of course, or respects that you're not in a

01:15:18position to date.

01:15:20Yeah, respects it and agrees, and he said he would only ask if it's right.

01:15:26Interesting. Okay. And so, you said a couple of months.

01:15:30I said a few months, but I said it could be more, it could be less when I'm ready.

01:15:36I wonder if this has any driving or motivating factor

01:15:42to tell your parents you're not going to talk to them again sooner rather than later.

01:15:50Hmm. Interesting.

01:15:53If he's in a bit more of a hurry, and you know, guys, if he had the choice,

01:15:57he'd rather date you sooner than later if you were up to it, right?

01:16:01Yeah.

01:16:03So, maybe some of the urgency and maybe some of the confusion that we had earlier

01:16:07is because he wants this band-aid off so he can make his move.

01:16:14Yeah. It's like, sort of like, oh, gosh, I need to do the work quickly.

01:16:20To comply.

01:16:25He has needs. He has a preference. I got to move this along.

01:16:30And I'm not saying they're coming from him, right? And this is nothing negative towards him.

01:16:35It's never felt rushed or anything yet.

01:16:38Then do you have, it could be your desire as well, like, I want to get this dealt with because he's

01:16:42a great guy. I want to explore the possibilities. It may be coming more from you. But there was

01:16:46something odd about what we were talking about earlier, and maybe it has something to do with

01:16:51this.

01:16:52I think you're onto something, maybe.

01:16:55Yeah, maybe this need for speed thing is kicking in. Because if he's a great guy too,

01:17:00you know, maybe he'll find someone too.

01:17:03Picture books, like, not picture books, like, by like, what you'd hear sounds almost perfect.

01:17:11Right, so maybe he's a great guy.

01:17:13He's in the middle.

01:17:13Yeah, maybe he's a great guy and maybe he'll get snapped up in six months.

01:17:18Right.

01:17:18Or over the next six months.

01:17:20Exactly.

01:17:22He has like, everything to do about easily.

01:17:26Okay, so then that makes a bit more sense why we were going back and forth over the

01:17:29parental stuff, because there's a kind of jetpack strapped to this thing that I didn't

01:17:34know about, if that makes sense.

01:17:36Okay, I got it.

01:17:38I got it. That makes sense. I always like it when things make sense. That's sort of the

01:17:42job, right? So I appreciate that. Okay. So how do you know if he's a good guy?

01:17:55Pardon?

01:17:56Sorry, I think we kind of came and went for a second there.

01:18:00You said, so how do I know if he's a good guy?

01:18:03So how do you know if he's a good guy?

01:18:08I am a lost lamb.

01:18:11There you are, bringing that helplessness to the table, so I get assertive, right?

01:18:16Yeah.

01:18:16Yeah, yeah. Good, good. I got it. We'll just speak in buying from now.

01:18:22Buying all bad fortune. Okay, so.

01:18:29Your focus on him being a good or bad guy is a control issue.

01:18:43It's being a coach and seeing if he can make the team.

01:18:50What the heck? We just keep getting these noises. Can you hear anything, or is it just me?

01:18:54Tess, Tess.

01:18:55Yeah, I can hear you.

01:18:56Hello?

01:18:56Yeah, can you hear me?

01:18:58I didn't hear a thing you said.

01:19:01You did hear or didn't?

01:19:04Did not.

01:19:04You did not, okay.

01:19:05I messaged saying I lost you.

01:19:07Okay, just let me know if we're still cooking.

01:19:12You're back, you're back.

01:19:14So you wanting to know if he's a good or bad guy is like you're the coach and he is

01:19:26trying to make the team, or you're the job interviewer

01:19:32and you're trying to see if you want to hire someone.

01:19:37It's a position of authority, it's a position of judgment, if that makes sense.

01:19:42Mm-hmm.

01:19:46So what you do, and you're also, you are taking the position that he is potentially

01:19:56extremely dangerous and toxic and you need to evaluate him

01:20:00very carefully and very closely before moving forward with anything, right?

01:20:06I am wary.

01:20:09Yes, wary, that's right.

01:20:12That's right.

01:20:15I don't particularly...

01:20:17Oh gosh, I don't know what's going on with this.

01:20:22Hello.

01:20:23All right, let's try that again.

01:20:25Let's try that again.

01:20:26All right, so if you distance yourself from this guy and evaluate him critically,

01:20:34you're treating him as a threat or a potential threat, right?

01:20:43So if I don't evaluate him, I'm treating him as a threat?

01:20:47No, if you are evaluating him, are you a good guy, are you a bad guy,

01:20:52then you are treating him as a potential threat.

01:20:54Is that fair to say?

01:20:55Yes, I am.

01:20:56Okay.

01:20:58Now, that is to say, are you like my father?

01:21:04Mm-hmm.

01:21:05Which is letting the lens of your father dictate your interactions with this man.

01:21:15Now, saying, are you a creepy, nasty person,

01:21:23is not particularly complimentary to somebody who is a good guy, right?

01:21:30No, it's not.

01:21:31No, it's not.

01:21:34And it's also relinquishing control to your inner father to do all of this cold-eyed

01:21:40evaluation, which means that you're going to be a little distant, a little skittish,

01:21:45and a little unavailable.

01:21:47And also because you don't know exactly how to judge,

01:21:53it's going to be hard to know when that process ends, right?

01:21:56Yes, spot on.

01:21:57I felt disconnected, skeptical, couldn't really just relax.

01:22:02All right, would you like the solution?

01:22:05He asked rhetorically.

01:22:06Oh, yes, I'm so, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

01:22:09Okay, so here's the solution.

01:22:11I'm excited.

01:22:11I'm going to give you an analogy, right?

01:22:15So, if you want to know if someone is a good runner,

01:22:22right, let's say you're a very good runner, and you want to know if someone's a good runner,

01:22:26you have basically two choices.

01:22:29One, you can stand around with a stopwatch and time them and test them and see how fast

01:22:35they run, right?

01:22:39That's one option.

01:22:41The other option is, you can run like hell and see if they can keep up.

01:22:48So, you want to evaluate him from the sidelines and see if he's good or bad or, right?

01:22:58But you're not running, so he doesn't get to evaluate you, because all you're doing

01:23:05is judging him from the sidelines.

01:23:06So, in other words, if you're the coach and you're timing someone's running, does the

01:23:12person you're timing know whether you, the coach, are a good runner or not?

01:23:21No, you don't.

01:23:23That's right.

01:23:24However, you're looking to join this person in a virtuous relationship, but if you're

01:23:31judging them and evaluating them, they can't judge you.

01:23:38Sorry?

01:23:40You run together.

01:23:42Right.

01:23:43I mean, that's very abstract and you sort of understand it, but what does that mean

01:23:47in practice?

01:23:47What that means in practice is, you focus on being as honest, direct, and virtuous in

01:23:53this budding relationship and see if he keeps up.

01:24:00Ah, I see.

01:24:05Okay, I think I've been doing that a little bit.

01:24:09I can give an example.

01:24:10Sure.

01:24:12I noticed when I was saying goodbye to him, I gave a fake smile when I was super fake

01:24:17and enthusiastic.

01:24:18I'm very good at being fake and enthusiastic, because of my jobs, like my previous one and

01:24:24my current one.

01:24:25So, I'm amazing at it.

01:24:26I know, man.

01:24:26I don't even know if you're enjoying this conversation or not.

01:24:29No, I'm just kidding.

01:24:29Sorry, Kay.

01:24:29But, no, no, no, no, no.

01:24:33I cried in like a couple of minutes.

01:24:36I laughed and I rarely, rarely laugh.

01:24:39You don't get it.

01:24:40I laugh once every millennia.

01:24:43This is probably the first time I've genuinely laughed in like 52 years, and I'm not 52.

01:24:49Well, you are an ancient soul.

01:24:50Okay, an ancient bitter soul.

01:24:52Okay, got it.

01:24:53All right, so you gave him some fake enthusiasm at the end of the meeting.

01:24:58And I told him, like the next day or however long after, I was like, hey, I noticed when

01:25:03I said goodbye, I would put on a fake smile or a fake this, and I noticed, and he pointed

01:25:09out also like, oh, how my tone of face was different during, whilst we were speaking,

01:25:14he mentioned this, like my face was different to my tone of voice, but I'd bring up that.

01:25:20Right, okay.

01:25:21So, I think that's an example of me being honest.

01:25:24Like I told him, like fake to smile, fake to enthusiasm.

01:25:28I think that is a good approach.

01:25:32The next stage, of course, is when you have the urge for a fake smile, what do you say?

01:25:39I feel like I'm, I feel like I sort of need to fake smile right now because you're smiling,

01:25:44so I sort of like need to join in almost.

01:25:48Right.

01:25:49So, and if you have an urge to comply, you would say?

01:25:55I feel like I need to agree with you here or not question you more.

01:25:59That brings me up on something I want to actually ask that I've not pressed on more.

01:26:05Right.

01:26:06Sorry, was that a real question that you wanted to ask or was that part of the?

01:26:09No, rhetorical to myself, sort of.

01:26:11Right.

01:26:12So, and the other thing that you would add is, I feel the urge to comply with you,

01:26:19which is unfair because you're not asking for compliance.

01:26:23Mm-hmm.

01:26:27I feel the urge to give you a fake smile, although you've really only asked for authenticity.

01:26:37Does that make sense?

01:26:38Like then, because it's one thing to say, I feel the urge to comply with you,

01:26:45but you also need to not just be honest, but just and fair,

01:26:50which is to say, I feel the urge to comply with you.

01:26:54Which is not coming from you.

01:26:57Right.

01:26:57It's history, it's, you know, habit, but it's not coming because you're not,

01:27:00you're not asking me to comply.

01:27:03Definitely.

01:27:04It's to do not at all his fault.

01:27:07Right.

01:27:09So, rather than saying, how do I judge if he's a good guy?

01:27:16I think the question is, how can I be as honest and virtuous as possible?

01:27:21And then if he's a bad guy, how is he going to react to you being honest and direct and curious?

01:27:30Ah, so the more virtuous I am, the more good guys.

01:27:38See, the problem with judging someone's morality

01:27:43is that you may very well attract insecure masochists

01:27:48who like to be judged negatively.

01:27:53Can you start this?

01:27:55Ah, so the problem with going and judging them and being on the sidelines is that

01:28:00some people like negative judgment and being judged.

01:28:03Yeah, some people like, because maybe somebody grows up with a hypercritical mother,

01:28:08and then you're like, well, I'm going to need to judge you.

01:28:10And they're like, oh, I know this one.

01:28:11Well, oh, I can work with this.

01:28:13Oh, yeah, this is totally familiar.

01:28:14So it's like two buds.

01:28:17So codependency, again, and an unhealthy relationship, like an RTR for two people.

01:28:25Right, right, right.

01:28:26So everything that you do that is not aimed at virtue

01:28:34will almost always end up in dysfunction.

01:28:39Because the other thing, too, is that if you're putting yourself in a situation

01:28:43where you judge the other person,

01:28:45you're putting yourself in a situation of hierarchy of power.

01:28:50Now, a good guy will also want to judge you, but he's going to be being virtuous.

01:28:57And he's going to say, can you keep up?

01:28:59Now, because you know what a relay race is, right?

01:29:04So a relationship is like a relay race.

01:29:06Both people have to run.

01:29:08And so if you say, I'm the coach, you're saying I'm not the runner.

01:29:13Now, the runner is being judged by the coach, and it's one way, right?

01:29:17The runner is not judging.

01:29:18The coach is running.

01:29:20The coach is judging.

01:29:21Like people always used to say this in American Idol, right?

01:29:23Like they'd sing not too well.

01:29:26And Simon Cowell would say, you sang badly.

01:29:29And they'd say sometimes, well, you try coming up here and singing.

01:29:32It's like, no, that's not his job.

01:29:33His job is to evaluate, not to sing, right?

01:29:37So if you go and judge guys, then you're putting yourself in a superior or hierarchical or

01:29:46power position relative to them.

01:29:49And confident guys, assertive guys, won't particularly like that because they'll say,

01:29:56well, if all you're doing is judging my running, but we're supposed to be running in a team,

01:30:00when do I get to evaluate your running?

01:30:04When do you stop being the coach and run with me?

01:30:07And we see how fast we can go together.

01:30:19Yes, that is completely making sense.

01:30:22And I'm like still sort of on the sidelines assessing.

01:30:27Right, right.

01:30:28But Ward, how would it feel to just run the race together?

01:30:34Right.

01:30:36And now if you start to run and he flakes out or trips you up or, you know, whatever

01:30:43you could sort of analogies you could make, he takes out a cigarette and starts smoking

01:30:47and blowing smoke in your face.

01:30:50Well, then you know, right?

01:30:51I'll leave the race.

01:30:52Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:30:53Then you'd be like, okay, I need to look for another runner because you're not running

01:30:56with me, right?

01:30:58So yeah, don't be a coach because a coach is a hierarchical thing.

01:31:01And it is not giving you an accurate evaluation of how you run together any more than the

01:31:12coach standing by the track with a stopwatch is not learning how to run with his runner.

01:31:18He's just judging the runner.

01:31:22And it gives you so much, this gives me so much more free will rather than feeling powerless

01:31:28because it's down to my choices rather than his.

01:31:32It gives so much more free will.

01:31:35And it means you don't have to put your own pursuit of virtue on hold while you're

01:31:39evaluating because your pursuit of virtue and the evaluation go hand in hand.

01:31:43You running and you judging the other runner and allowing him to judge you goes hand in

01:31:47hand.

01:31:49It's beautiful.

01:31:50Responsibility is beautiful.

01:31:52I love it because it means I can change more.

01:31:54Right, and having a relationship which is not founded on hierarchy.

01:31:58A confident guy is going to like to just be judged.

01:32:02He's also going to want to judge himself.

01:32:03He's going to want to see how you run.

01:32:05And if you're just holding back, then he'll be like, well, she's kind of cold and distant

01:32:09and then he's going to be judging you.

01:32:11And that's a real shame.

01:32:12Just run together and see how it goes.

01:32:17Thank you, Steph.

01:32:19That's really amazing.

01:32:21That's the idea.

01:32:22Thank you.

01:32:23You are.

01:32:23You're not here to attack me today.

01:32:26No, not today.

01:32:26Boy, if you catch me tomorrow, tomorrow, today is the one day where I'm just not attacking

01:32:32people.

01:32:32Yeah.

01:32:33So good luck.

01:32:34I do.

01:32:36I do have a couple more questions, but I think they link on to this.

01:32:39Sure.

01:32:41But let's get the things, more things to say on this because I'm finding this incredibly

01:32:44helpful.

01:32:45Yeah, go for it.

01:32:46Okay.

01:32:46So I think it all links.

01:32:48So it's so the lack of happiness, not a lack of happiness, anger.

01:32:56But I think that goes towards channeling in a parent.

01:32:59And then then there's the incredibly low self-esteem, the incredibly low self-esteem.

01:33:05Like when I hang out with him, like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to have nothing to say.

01:33:08I have an incredibly low self-esteem about who I am.

01:33:11Like, I just moved out and I am like in my early 20s and I've moved all the way so far

01:33:16away and I've got myself a good job and I've like, and I have relatively good people in

01:33:22my life.

01:33:23So I think I'm quite well off for my age.

01:33:25I even dropped out of school.

01:33:26I didn't go to uni because screw debt.

01:33:28I have money in Bitcoin.

01:33:30I'm like open and I love criticism.

01:33:32I'm curious.

01:33:33I'm like, I love nature.

01:33:35I go to the gym.

01:33:36Right.

01:33:37So I think I'm fairly well off for my age.

01:33:40Right.

01:33:41But I have.

01:33:42So it's this weird parallel.

01:33:44Part of me is incredibly damn prideful and confident, like, oh, my God, I've come so

01:33:48far.

01:33:48This is amazing compared to the kid that was hiding in the toilets and that was living

01:33:54the most miserable life.

01:33:55I've come beyond leaps.

01:33:57Remember, there's the other half, but just when I'm out in public is like feels like

01:34:01that 12 year old again that had no friends and wanted to fit in.

01:34:04But all the people would run away from me.

01:34:08So there's these two parts of me, the incredibly low self-esteem like I felt today when I was

01:34:14out, everyone was it was such a nice day.

01:34:16Everyone was all out with people and they all look great because I'm a tiny bit chubby.

01:34:21I'm not like a whale.

01:34:22I'm just a little bit chubby and bulky.

01:34:25And I felt so damn insecure and like, oh, I can never be happy until I'm like skinny

01:34:32or oh, I'm just incredibly low self-esteem.

01:34:35And so, yeah, there's these two parts, the prideful part of everything I've gone through

01:34:41and been through.

01:34:41And I think I've gone by leaps, but then the insecure, really freaking low self-esteem

01:34:47part.

01:34:49Right.

01:34:51Oh, I have nothing.

01:34:51Would you like to would you like to resolve those two?

01:34:56Mm hmm.

01:34:58Right.

01:34:59And it is the big question of how do we judge ourselves?

01:35:04And there's really only two things we can do.

01:35:08We can judge ourselves by objective standards or we can judge ourselves by the opinions

01:35:14of others.

01:35:18So when you judge yourself by the opinions of others, you feel small, right?

01:35:25Yeah, because that's what you said.

01:35:30The people would walk away from me.

01:35:32I didn't have any friends.

01:35:33Of course, your parents look down on you and so on.

01:35:35So when you see yourself through the eyes of others who are not great people, then you

01:35:42feel small, right?

01:35:44Mm hmm.

01:35:45But when you compare yourself to objective standards.

01:35:49You feel strong and powerful and worthy of respect, right?

01:35:53Very much.

01:35:54But then there's the bad guys, which sort of debunk all of that.

01:35:57I feel like, like, yeah, I've done these things, but I keep going for bad guys.

01:36:04OK.

01:36:06But I think we've talked about why you went for the bad guys.

01:36:10Yes.

01:36:10And yes, we have.

01:36:12OK, so you're dealing with it.

01:36:14You're talking about it.

01:36:15You're working through it.

01:36:16Right.

01:36:16So that doesn't happen.

01:36:18And I love criticism.

01:36:20Right.

01:36:20So it doesn't debunk it.

01:36:21It doesn't debunk it.

01:36:23I love being called out.

01:36:24Right.

01:36:26Right.

01:36:26So.

01:36:28When it and of course, here, the thing is you're you're able to resolve.

01:36:33Your problem with dating bad boys or bad guys, because you are comparing dating bad guys

01:36:39to an objective standard called dating good guys.

01:36:43So you're able to identify and work on the problem at a very young age, early 20s, because

01:36:49you are comparing what you're doing to.

01:36:54An objective standard called dating good guys.

01:36:59What do you mean?

01:37:00I'm slightly.

01:37:01Well, you're saying that dating bad guys is bad and dating good guys is good, right?

01:37:07Yes.

01:37:08So you're able to fix this problem because you're comparing what you're doing to an

01:37:13objective standard called dating good guys is better.

01:37:16Mm hmm.

01:37:18So even this process is part of how you have generally done such wonderful things with

01:37:24your young life.

01:37:27Because you're saying I'd rather date good guys than bad guys.

01:37:30I've got an objective standard.

01:37:31I need to figure that out.

01:37:32I need to solve this.

01:37:34You know, I'll do some self work.

01:37:35I'll talk to Steph.

01:37:35I'll think about it.

01:37:36So when because the bad guys are happy to have you date them.

01:37:40So if you only judged who you date by what other people want, you just keep dating bad

01:37:46guys.

01:37:46But you're saying, no, no, no, there's a better standard.

01:37:48There's an objective standard called date good guys.

01:37:51I'm going to work to conform to that.

01:37:53So that's progress, right?

01:37:56Yes.

01:37:58So that's what I mean.

01:37:58When you judge yourself according to objective standards, then you realize where you're

01:38:03deficient, as we all are.

01:38:05And you work to close that gap.

01:38:06And that's where genuine pride comes from.

01:38:08But if you judge yourself by the opinions of others, then you lose your power because

01:38:17you have no protection.

01:38:18Objective standards are a protection against the sour opinions of losers.

01:38:27Right?

01:38:28I mean, there's lots of people who think I'm a bad guy or a terrible guy or whatever,

01:38:32right?

01:38:32It's like, but I have to look at objective standards.

01:38:34Am I pursuing truth, reason, evidence?

01:38:37Am I doing good in the world?

01:38:38And am I acting with integrity and so on?

01:38:41So my protection against, like, I mean, there was a guy on the live stream today who was,

01:38:47you know, attacking me and sort of putting me down.

01:38:50And if I judge myself by other people's opinions, then I.

01:38:54You'd be Hitler.

01:38:55Yeah, I wouldn't.

01:38:56I don't know.

01:38:57Would I get out of bed?

01:38:58I don't know.

01:38:58But it would be pretty tough.

01:38:59Sure.

01:39:00But no, as in, like, I bet you there's people that call you Hitler and all these horrible

01:39:03things because they think you're the worst guy in the world when, like, you literally

01:39:07care about the most innocent, vulnerable people in the world.

01:39:11Right.

01:39:12So I don't judge myself according to the opinions of others unless I trust them.

01:39:20In other words, unless they're virtuous themselves.

01:39:23So the question now, we all see ourselves through the eyes of others from time to time,

01:39:27and that's not a bad thing.

01:39:29It's like reciprocal empathy, right?

01:39:31So we want to sort of feel what other people, but we also want to feel what other people

01:39:35feel about us.

01:39:37And if they love us, that's good.

01:39:39If they're malevolent towards us, we need to know that, too, so we can avoid them or

01:39:43fight them if we need to, right?

01:39:46So if you view yourself through the eyes of bad people, then you have no control over

01:39:59your life or your feelings or your emotions or your progress.

01:40:03Now, if you judge yourself according to objective standards, then you have control over your

01:40:08life and your self-image because you can work to close your gaps towards pursuing that better

01:40:13standard and so on.

01:40:15So the two sides of you are judging yourself according to objective standards, wherein

01:40:21you feel powerful and good, or judging yourself according to the manipulative belittlements

01:40:28of petty people, or belittling from petty people.

01:40:36I mean, if I were to judge myself according to how my mother or father judged me, I would

01:40:44not be doing very well in this world at all.

01:40:48And one of the great things about toxic family members is they train you out of taking other

01:40:54people's opinions seriously pretty quickly, or you just don't make it.

01:40:58They train you out of taking other people's opinions seriously.

01:41:10Like when my mother said, oh, I hate you or whatever, does that mean I'm hateful?

01:41:13No.

01:41:15It means she's really messed up.

01:41:17So, I mean, if I can put my...

01:41:20It's funny, you know, it's part of the superpower of child abuse, particularly verbal abuse.

01:41:26The part of the superpower is, look, I mean, yeah, people say bad things about me.

01:41:31It's like, my own mother said she hated me.

01:41:34If I can flourish from that, why on earth would I take what strangers say seriously

01:41:41when I had to reject the perspective of my own mother as a child?

01:41:47You get this incredible immune system.

01:41:49You get this incredible capacity for self-direction.

01:41:53You know, there's this old meme, you think you can hurt me and, you know, I've already

01:41:56done X, Y, and Z.

01:41:57Like, oh, you think being mean to me verbally is going to take me down?

01:42:01It's like, I survived and flourished my own mother's hatred of me.

01:42:06What is some stranger on the internet typing going to do after you've conquered that?

01:42:12Mm-hmm.

01:42:13For sure.

01:42:14So, if you focus on how you're doing relative to objective standards—virtue, integrity,

01:42:27honesty, directness, self-protection—if you measure yourself relative to objective

01:42:34standards, you have control over your own self-image.

01:42:37If you judge yourself based upon the petty judgments of petty people, you can't form

01:42:43a stable self-image because you've given people too much control.

01:42:48This is giving me more free will now.

01:42:50Yes.

01:42:53Yes.

01:42:53Love it.

01:42:54And, of course, if—and we all do, I mean, if we're raised this way, so it's a natural

01:42:58habit—but if we judge ourselves according to the petty opinions of petty people, we

01:43:02invite power-mad megalomaniacs into our life because they like having that kind of power,

01:43:09right?

01:43:11Mm-hmm.

01:43:12So, I think that would—that's, I think, a way to resolve.

01:43:14Now, we do have to care about what other people think of us because, you know, if there's

01:43:22some mob chasing us through the forest with pitchforks, that's important, right?

01:43:26So, you have to be aware of the dangers of petty people's petty opinions of you.

01:43:31You have to be aware of that and learn how to navigate the world full of, you know, dangerous,

01:43:35unthinking, aggressive people.

01:43:37But that's judging a danger.

01:43:38That's not defining yourself, right?

01:43:41So, I recognize that there is danger in other people's negative judgments of me, but I don't

01:43:51judge myself according to that danger.

01:43:52Like, I recognize that there are lions that might want to eat me if I'm walking in the

01:43:57jungle.

01:43:58There are lions that might want to eat me, but that doesn't mean I'm a bad person.

01:44:03That's just a danger I need to be aware of, if that makes sense.

01:44:07Just because the lions judge me as food doesn't mean that I judge myself as food.

01:44:10I just recognize that they judge me as food and there's danger in that.

01:44:16Sorry if those abstractions got one too many layers away from practicality, but I hope

01:44:22that makes sense.

01:44:26Um, no, no, no.

01:44:28It makes sense.

01:44:29Like, you understand, like, that it means nothing.

01:44:33But you understand that it's dangerous, so you won't.

01:44:36I can't explain it, but I understand what you mean, I'm pretty sure.

01:44:41It's a danger you need to be aware of, but you don't define yourself by it.

01:44:47Yeah.

01:44:50All right.

01:44:51One more?

01:44:52You had one more?

01:44:53Or are we done?

01:44:54Do I have one more?

01:44:55So, low self-esteem, you did.

01:44:58Being, um, how to be in a secure, well, how do I, I guess then that other thing, um,

01:45:06yeah, that other thing of sitting, living normally, being, like, being able to just

01:45:11sit down every day without some pressure on me, I need, and then being, what does a secure,

01:45:16happy relationship look like?

01:45:18Like, how do I not feel awkward and feel weird speaking to a person normally?

01:45:27What's a normal conversation like?

01:45:30Well, I don't know.

01:45:31I mean, I'd be the last person to come to for a, quote, normal conversation.

01:45:37I mean, I guess, I mean, for heaven's sakes, people listen to me for the most abnormal

01:45:42conversations in the known universe.

01:45:44Okay.

01:45:44I, you know, I mean.

01:45:45What's the most abnormal best conversation?

01:45:47Yeah.

01:45:47What does a secure relationship look like?

01:45:50Right.

01:45:50So, how do I, I think it's just that relentless honesty.

01:45:54If you feel awkward, say, I feel awkward.

01:45:56If you, if you feel like you don't know what to say next, say, I feel like I don't know

01:46:00what to say next.

01:46:00You know, just that real-time relationship's just relentless honesty.

01:46:03We almost have thoughts.

01:46:05The awkwardness comes from being afraid to share them.

01:46:11Ah, yeah, because my brain's like, oh, I don't know what to say, so I'll say it.

01:46:16And it's like, oh, well, if I spend three hours just being like, hey, I feel like I

01:46:20don't know what to say.

01:46:20Hey, I feel like I don't know what to say.

01:46:22And repeat that for three hours.

01:46:24Well, no, because the other person is going to have their thoughts as well.

01:46:27And you, you, of course, got very used to self-censorship because words, when you were

01:46:32growing up, could be dangerous, right?

01:46:34They could trigger your father, they could trigger your mother, they could trigger an

01:46:37attack, they could, you're screaming or yelling or whatever, right?

01:46:40So, or hitting.

01:46:42So, you had to self-censor because you were surrounded by dangerous people.

01:46:47And so, it's natural that there would be awkwardness

01:46:51when you're around safe people.

01:46:55Because that's not a language that's totally familiar to you or even particularly familiar

01:46:59to you.

01:47:00You're just learning that language, right?

01:47:01So, yeah, when I'm learning to speak a foreign language, it's kind of awkward, right?

01:47:06And you're learning to speak safely when you're fluent in danger.

01:47:09Sorry, go ahead.

01:47:11Yeah, so that might be why I feel awkward, so awkward around Jay.

01:47:15But it's also like, he's like an opportunity, like, oh my gosh, virtuous man, tell me

01:47:2010 minutes, okay, has applied philosophy, like 10 minutes, like, you know, it's like,

01:47:25how do I don't want to be, you know?

01:47:28Right.

01:47:28So, I understand that because you had a negative attachment, it sounds like with your parents,

01:47:34that you had to be the opposite of who you were in order to be able to pretend to get

01:47:38along with them.

01:47:38And now, you're trying to reverse that whole process and try to get along with someone

01:47:42by being authentically and honest yourself, which would have resulted in an attack from

01:47:45your parents.

01:47:46So, you're, you know, reversing at great speed.

01:47:49And that's awkward, you know, if you ever had to back up a car at high speed, it's pretty

01:47:53awkward driving, right?

01:47:59Exactly.

01:48:03But like, I gotta go a thousand miles an hour.

01:48:06Right, right.

01:48:07So, did we get to close to the bottom of your list?

01:48:10I think, I think that was the last thing, yeah.

01:48:13Good, good.

01:48:14Well, listen, that's quite a meal we've got going on here.

01:48:17So, I think we'll give you and…

01:48:19This has been wonderful.

01:48:20Good, good.

01:48:21Well, I'm obviously very glad.

01:48:22And again, I'm sorry to hear about what's happening with your family of origin, but

01:48:27I mean, I'm not going to disagree with any of your choices at all.

01:48:30I mean, it does not sound like a particularly healthy situation at all, so.

01:48:34Yeah.

01:48:35And, you know, I do wish my best to Jake, and I hope you'll keep me posted about how

01:48:40things are going.

01:48:41Yeah, and also, like, yes, so, like, even though I've only confronted them literally,

01:48:48like, once or twice recently, like, and in total only a few times, like, I don't even

01:48:54need to confront them before de-fooing, right?

01:48:56Like, I, like, even if they were to somewhat change, which I'm sure they won't change

01:49:01and it's all manipulations, like, even if my mum were to somewhat change, like, she

01:49:07can't undo the past and all the evils when I pleaded and pleaded for so many years, so

01:49:12it doesn't even matter if she does something to try change, right?

01:49:18Like, I can still cut her off.

01:49:19I mean, I personally wouldn't be holding my breath for a radical rewiring of your

01:49:24parents' brains to occur.

01:49:25And to me, at this point, it might be like waiting for them to change height or hair

01:49:29colour.

01:49:29Exactly.

01:49:30I agree.

01:49:31Like, she's even in therapy for her own stuff, right, or whatever, and it's like, I doubt

01:49:35it's doing anything.

01:49:37She feels like as long as lost as a soul.

01:49:39When I confronted her, do you want to know what she cried about in the conversation?

01:49:43I've been in an unhappy marriage.

01:49:46Not me confronting her about the abuse.

01:49:47It's when she started talking about herself in her marriage.

01:49:51But yeah, thank you, Stefan.

01:49:53This has been so wonderful.

01:49:54You're very welcome, and I hope you...

01:49:57Sorry, go ahead.

01:49:58I feel like, like, do you think I'm an okay person?

01:50:02Do you think I feel like I need to ask for approval?

01:50:06No, that's fine.

01:50:07Listen, not only do I think you're okay, I honestly think you're magnificent.

01:50:11I mean, what you've had to struggle and survive, what you've been able to achieve, your level

01:50:17of self-awareness, the quicksilver brilliance of your mind, your commitment to integrity,

01:50:22your focus on virtue and honesty, your willingness for feedback, your eagerness for it, even

01:50:27your good humour, good nature.

01:50:30You are a wonderful, wonderful person, and I hope that you will carry that forever.

01:50:34And the medal that I would give you for what you've survived and flourished under would

01:50:38be big enough to fit around the rings of Saturn.

01:50:40So, yes, I think you should be entirely proud and certain of that.

01:50:47Thank you.

01:50:47I'm teary-eyed.

01:50:49You're welcome.

01:50:50Keep me posted, all right?

01:50:52I will.

01:50:53Bye, Stefan.

01:50:54Have a good day.

01:50:55You too.

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