0:00 - Introduction
0:28 - Childhood Trauma and Relationship Patterns
1:54 - Influence of Childhood Trauma on Relationships
1:08:59 - Relationship Reflections
1:12:22 - Painful Encounters Resurface
1:17:05 - Uncovering Verbal Masks
1:21:08 - Vengeance and Self-Preservation
1:23:24 - Navigating Emotional Barriers
1:26:32 - Report Cards and University
1:28:04 - Reconnecting with Memories
1:30:43 - Transition to New Field
1:33:22 - Mourning and Therapist Experience
1:35:21 - Finding Hope and Business Start
1:36:28 - Leaving the Father's Business
1:45:08 - Awakening and Dating Approach
1:50:11 - Dating Challenges and Compromise
1:51:55 - Reflecting on Dating Market
1:53:32 - New Business Opportunity
1:57:20 - Building Trust in Relationships
2:09:32 - Recognition of Contradictions
2:23:46 - Admitting Contradictions and Seeking Understanding
2:28:30 - Impact of Childhood Trauma on Narrative Contradictions
In this episode, Stefan starts by engaging with a caller who prefers audio communication to discuss personal struggles related to dating and family dynamics. The caller shares experiences from childhood, highlighting challenges with his father's anger and his mother's mental breakdown. Stefan delves into the caller's upbringing, analyzing the impact of parental relationships on his perceptions. They navigate the layers of anger and control within the caller's family, offering support and guidance throughout the conversation.
Moving on, the caller recounts experiences from childhood to high school, including manipulative behavior from his mother that affected his emotional connections. Stefan encourages the caller to focus on specific events and feelings, acknowledging the lasting effects of trauma on relationships. They explore the caller's journey through post-breakup emotions, emphasizing self-awareness and emotional navigation to build healthier relationships. The dialogue challenges perceptions of pettiness as a warning system in relationships, stressing the importance of recognizing subtle cues.
The conversation then shifts to discussing the impact of past relationships and parental influences on emotional responses, exploring concepts of vengeance and self-expression shaped by childhood experiences. Stefan draws parallels between instincts and survival mechanisms, highlighting the caller's struggles with love and emotional barriers. They dissect the interplay between past trauma, defenses, and relationship dynamics.
The caller shares a personal journey of battling depression and suicidal thoughts stemming from difficulties with his father and challenges in his 20s. Reflecting on destructive patterns and starting a mobile sharpening business post-breakup, he emphasizes personal growth and self-discovery. Through introspection and philosophy, he navigates healthier relationships despite setbacks, embodying resilience and transformation.
The main speaker navigates discussions with a caller on dating, trust, commitment, and emotional vulnerability in forming authentic connections, emphasizing emotional presence and openness. They unravel the significant role of acknowledging emotions from childhood experiences in maintaining connections and passions. Stefan delves into male-female dynamics, storytelling contradictions, and openness in vulnerability for meaningful connections, ending with reflections on seeking certainty and growth through shared experiences.
Lastly, Stefan and the caller explore ingrained answers from childhood trauma leading to narrative contradictions and connection struggles. Stefan highlights the importance of addressing contradictions and focusing on facts to nurture personal growth and genuine relationships, stressing self-reflection to overcome internal conflicts. The conversation emphasizes honesty and self-awareness in building meaningful connections free from past influences, encapsulating the journey towards understanding and growth.
[0:00] Hello, hello, good morning.
[0:02] Hi, Stefan, good morning.
[0:03] You can turn your video off if you like. We can just do audio for this, but... Hello, hello, nice to meet you. I'm glad we could get our chat on, get our chat in. So, I'm all yours, man. How can I best help?
[0:19] Hey, good morning. How'd you sleep last night?
[0:22] Oh, very well, thank you.
[0:24] Do you have your coffee yet?
[0:27] I'm juiced and ready to roll.
[0:28] Same here so a long time listener about a decade first time caller um, so you could imagine and from my point of view like you i've had stefan's wisdom and and voice choice in my, in my life, like the, you know, the, the guiding light that I, you know, that all of these parentless kids never, you know, never got moral instruction or, or anything of virtue. And here I am, I'm finally talking to you. And it's, I was so excited to, to have the opportunity to, I was actually pressured into to this call by one of my closest personal friends and um, I was really resistant at first because I'm stubborn to a fault and really big on my privacy. But listen to my buddy and here we are and I'm rambling and not used to it.
[1:44] Hopefully, I won't snap my fingers at the end. You'll wake up and it will all have been a dream. But yeah, so why did your friend say that we should talk?
[1:55] Well, I've been working diligently for the better part of two years to find a wife and be a family man and raise kids. And as we all know, the dating market is interesting and I am very active, very busy and give constant feedback with my buddies about the dates and my experiences. Plaintiffs and they are very keen on all of your work and they RTR in their own life, all about UPB very high speed philosophical close personal friends of mine some of which have already begun their journey into peaceful parenting their own families and her fathers others and some that are in the same position as me aspiring. And, um, they had noticed, especially because I was.
[3:03] I was transparent with my childhood as we, some of us in the group have been that I had a particularly brutal childhood and they were, they were curious. Like, do you think that, you know, some of these girls are picking up on that or, or, um, you know, obviously you're, you're very high functioning, you're a business owner and you don't have any substance abuse issues and great looking guy, talk six feet tall. Um maybe this is just something like one more stone you could unturn just so that you could say you you're doing everything who better to run your your store your story by than the the man you know and um i've had a couple friends call into your show already and we're all so grateful for the gifts that you're giving to humanity and very humbled that we just, I would just want to tell if this call does make it public, I'd like to encourage future call-ins.
[4:25] I had scheduled a call-in last night, close to midnight. It is 10 a.m. the next day, And I am speaking with the greatest philosopher of our generation at no cost. I can't believe that I waited this long to take advantage of this opportunity.
[4:43] And I'm already feeling inspired to donate more to you and to give back to philosophy so that other people can find happiness.
[4:57] I appreciate all of that. I certainly appreciate your kind words. And do you want to start with Le Childhood or something else?
[5:08] Um, yeah, I'll start with my childhood. That's what my friends are really curious to see your feedback on. So, um, so I am a middle child with, um, an older sister, three years older and a younger brother about a year or so younger than me. And my parents managed to keep their marriage together for 35 years and got divorced in 2020. And...
[5:57] I'm sorry, just one minor technical note. I'm getting some wicked breathing noises. And maybe it's when you breathe through your nose or maybe the mic is too close to an air passageway. But that is kind of coming in.
[6:07] All of my buddies tell me that I do that, and I like the standard you set for phone call quality, and I'm guilty there.
[6:19] Don't worry about it. It's just if you could do anything about it, great. If not, no worries. We'll clean it up in post.
[6:27] Okay. Thank you so much for letting me know. now. So. Huh? Train.
[6:38] Are you going to say middle child?
[6:40] Yep. Middle child. Um, I have been defood from my parents for four years. I waited way too late. Um, My dad passed away in the day after Christmas 2022. My mom and my sister are codependent and live together. And my brother is married. And I'm fairly certain childless, but I'm no contact with anybody, especially since my dad died. And I've been almost limited, no contact whatsoever for four years. Um, I grew up in the deep, deep South.
[7:36] And sorry, what's your, you don't have to give me your actual age, but twenties, thirties, mid thirties, mid thirties. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.
[7:44] Never married, no kids. Um, My mom was born and raised in England, and my dad is from Michigan, and he enlisted in the Navy right out of high school. He had a terrible, vicious childhood. He had three older brothers and one younger brother. I don't really know that much about my dad's life, hardly ever even spoke to me. Uh growing up at all uh any little half or quarter of a story he did share with me was like a gold nugget of wit like of of his lore so to speak but i really don't i don't know the man like he's just uh well i mean he's sorry to interrupt.
[8:40] It's sort of a cliche that a girl who who has a bad father, a bad family, or whatever, or is being abused at home, runs into the arms of a man who's, you know, either the same or worse, usually. But she uses sexuality to get out of a bad situation. The Army often serves the same function, or in this case, the Navy serves the same function for men. A lot of times, like, I'm in a really bad situation, I need to get away from it. So rather than being able to get a guy to pay for your room and board, so to speak, you just run to the army and have the state pay for your room and board, and often it is that kind of escape mechanism.
[9:20] Well said, well spoken.
[9:26] And so he barely talked to you. Was he, was he gone a lot? I mean, Navy, you'd think, right. Or was it mostly done by the time you got older?
[9:34] Uh, actually the story is going to take a little bit of a curve. Um, so as he was enlisted in the Navy, he had chosen as his dream destination, uh, that they give you a choice. If you could go travel in the Navy anywhere in the world where he didn't go career in the Navy to answer your question. But when he got a choice as far as American ports, he had chosen Italy as his dream destination. And he arrived at the U.S. Naval base of Guyana in southern Italy. And um my mother and her girlfriend platonic were a vacation traveling working their way across europe to experience europe when they were young she was bartending in europe and they had met and that's where the the quote-unquote romance had begun and uh he had gotten out of the navy um After like four years, honorable discharge, pen paled with my mom for quite a while to save up the money to immigrate her to the south of southern part of America where he was living and working for his father.
[10:51] And they had begun to start a family. My dad had a terrible relationship with his dad, working in his family business. And they split off. off uh no contact they i was told that i was i met my grand my dad's dad when i was a little baby but i have no memory of him ever i and the few times i saw my grandmother my dad's mom she had like covertly lied to her husband to come and visit like saying she was running an errand to come and visit us and we all knew that like the time's limited you can see your grandma but she's got to go and your dad and his dad aren't really close right now and then my mom's family i don't they're all you know the atlantic ocean is between me and them so the few times i've seen them in my life or you know barely even spoken to him like there's that just whole half of that family's just, there's there's nothing there and, Um, man, the totality of my childhood.
[12:04] So we don't have to do the totality. I think we're just looking for the parts that most influence the present.
[12:10] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he had split off from his dad's business and started the same version on his own and was the sole breadwinner for, um, the home. And my mom was a stay at home mom with three kids. We went into the public school and we were all like, you know, just put in front of televisions as kids, you know, TVs raised our family. There was no actual love ever. It was money. Like my mom.
[12:48] Sorry, so you don't have any memories of your mom, like taking delight in your company or let's play a board game or let's go for a bike ride or. So she didn't seem to take much pleasure. In your company or the company of your siblings so what was she doing i mean i guess if the.
[13:03] Kids were on screens what was she there she'd stay.
[13:06] At home what she what she stayed at home for.
[13:08] There there there what there i'm exact there was tenderness and and some attempts at love from her but she had a um major mental breakdown about five years into her marriage when i was about three, where she howled out one morning i can't take it anymore at the top of her lungs because she had realized the um the the tragedy of the man she had married and she had gotten on a heavy dose of antidepressants so she try try as she might to make some memories and to to try to express love I love the whole family.
[13:50] I'm sorry, you were how old at this point?
[13:52] I was like three.
[13:54] Three, sorry. Okay, got it, got it. And she'd realized the tragedy of the man she'd married. That's very poetic, but I don't really know what it means.
[14:02] So she couldn't, she, she said, she howls out. I can't take it anymore. Um, at the top of her lungs from her bedroom. And, um, they had almost gotten divorced a couple of years prior. Um, because my dad was, is the most vicious figure that I've ever come across. Like he is, um, he never hit me and I never saw him. And that was never his weapon of choice was physical violence with his family. He did get in a ton of fights in the Navy and with his brothers and growing up in high school. And he was beaten as a kid. But psychological terror, intimidation, verbal aggression, verbal abuse were his tools of his trade. And he wielded these weapons better than I've seen any person in my life.
[14:59] And okay so for what was it was it sadism or was there a some other end was it any so what was his motivation for this cruelty and also how did it manifest like what would he say.
[15:17] Oh so i mean curse words were just a warm-up like you know i'll beat your fucking ass um like and me saying it in that tone for me to reenact the level of viciousness that he could unleash i don't even really want to expose you to like imagine.
[15:40] I grew up with a screamer i don't i don't have to imagine i grew up with a screamer sure or that sure level of intensity i don't my mother i don't think was sadistic she was just uh utterly uncontrolled, Okay, so was it out of control or was it controlled, this level of aggression?
[15:59] Out of control.
[16:00] Okay, so that's not particularly sadistic because the sadistic stuff is, you know, like the slow, mingly, you know, torture you and they take delight in your anticipation of the punishment. And so if he was out of control, I'm not saying it's an absolute, of course, right? But that would strike me as less sadistic and more just than acting out.
[16:24] Sure. He was well above average IQ and did extremely well for himself in industry. Now, you're probably, yeah, I mean, I could totally see that. It wasn't as, but it was like pure rage and fury. And then like, so there's.
[16:47] There's the fury that the fury has two levels, right? So the first level is what's being said, like I'm angry because, you know, and then there'd be some excuse. Uh, but then the, you know, there's an underlying fury, which is, you know, what's the real anger about and what would be those two levels when he would rage?
[17:09] Um, I'm, can you repeat? I'm angry about in the other level.
[17:14] Well, the other level is what's really going on, like what's really underneath all of that anger. So my mom would, you know, like, I'm angry because you didn't wash the dishes properly. But underneath, she was angry because her looks were fading and she wasn't able to lock down the kind of man that she wanted. And her vanity was being harmed. And like, there was a lot of other stuff that was going on that was occurring. I mean, my mom was all in on physical looks, right? There was no backup plan. And I mean, she was very attractive and all that, but that was her whole plan. And when it didn't really work out, that created a lot of rage and frustration in her. Because when you go double or nothing, you either win big or you lose everything. And she went double or nothing and lost everything. And that makes people kind of freak out. So there is, and even below that, it's probably the war and all that sort of stuff. So there's the surface level stuff. Like, here's what I'm saying I'm mad about. Out then there's the underlying stuff like well here's what's really going on in terms of anger or rage.
[18:15] He was constantly in a bad mood like he would have moments of like overwhelming charisma, and charm which he utilized in his business on command like to become extremely successful of two relatively large companies. Um, but underneath it all, like that he had total control over, he would, or in his personal life, he was just very just hurt, I guess, from his, from how rough his childhood was.
[19:02] And, uh, no, but it doesn't translate into anger necessarily.
[19:07] Oh, well, what he would be angry about.
[19:09] So what would he say he was angry with you about when he would scream and yell and all of that?
[19:17] Oh, like the way that I spoke to my mom or school grades or getting menial work tasks done around the home, landscaping, stuff like that.
[19:37] Okay, so was he a bit of a perfectionist? Like, no matter what you did, it wasn't quite right?
[19:42] Correct.
[19:42] Okay, got it. So, okay. So it was mostly minor stuff. It wasn't like, uh, you had taken some car for a joyride or something like that. So relatively minor stuff like the trim on the, on the lawn is not good enough, or, you know, you missed this spot or something like that. And then, you know, rudeness with your mom and all of that. Okay. So that, that kind of stuff was the surface level, right?
[20:05] Yes, sir.
[20:05] Okay now how would he get usually it doesn't go zero to a hundred right so how would he get to you know i'm gonna beat you from from you know you didn't quite mow the lawn properly.
[20:17] No he went zero to a hundred oh.
[20:20] So you would like not mow the lawn properly and he'd be like screaming at you i'm gonna beat your ass because you didn't mow the lawn properly no no intermediate steps i'm not doubting you i just want to make sure i understand in very.
[20:31] Very few of them I mean like I it was constant threat of like being murder I mean this was a huge guy to like not only.
[20:39] Was threat of being what that sounded important of.
[20:43] Like being murdered like that level of.
[20:46] I'm gonna I'm gonna kill you I'm gonna that brought you into this world I can take you out like that kind of stuff oh yeah so he was like he would be like you didn't mow the lawn properly I'm gonna kill you, Like in a serious state.
[21:02] If I would have done what you just did to me, my dad would have kicked my fucking ass. And you're lucky that I don't beat your, you know, your effing ass. Like um in in in a in a from like this 250 270 pound you know like land you know gorilla of a dude that could that would unleash this viciousness that i see like ufc fighters like facing off before the fight and he's signaling an.
[21:35] Out of controlness that would have been part of his business success too because he would have been really intimidating to his employees okay.
[21:42] Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and i i worked for him for 10 years and it was it was a real treat.
[21:49] So your mother is, I mean, profoundly selfish, as far as I can tell. And I'm certainly happy to be corrected if that's.
[22:02] No, no, she gets no slack from me at all. The fact that she didn't, like, even vet for an even slightly moral, virtuous guy. Like, no. Well, I agree, of course.
[22:17] But it's not just that. I mean, you're three years old, and what does she scream? I can't i i not not oh my gosh what have i done to these kids yeah no like so she's like well i can't take it as opposed to i don't know the three-year-old child you had with this a-hole right so uh that's the i mean the i stuff right oh.
[22:42] Yeah big time right.
[22:43] And did they stay married.
[22:46] They made it 35 years until she finally couldn't take it anymore and she she oh there was so many like prophecies that came true with things that i had heard from her like, just feminist and selfish and solipsistic that it was like yeah.
[23:05] Sorry i don't know i don't know what you mean the prophecies that so she came true i don't know what that means well.
[23:11] Yeah and And I was going to, I was, thank you for being curious. I was going to go right into detail. I like, she had just give me the details first.
[23:18] Because if I get the conclusions that then have to circle back for the details, it gets a bit messy in my head. But sorry, go ahead.
[23:24] That's very fair. Um, so yeah. As early as eight years old, she had kind of cornered me in a room alone and was unleashing her feminist, manipulative, undermining respect for my dad and saying that she is the one who actually controls him and that she makes the decisions and that she's really in charge. And as like a young healthy boy before the real abuse like where it really got bad in my teenage years set in my dad was still relatively my hero at eight and he hadn't really picked started like really getting nasty until i hit puberty like so many like it's very common and that just put a bad taste in my mouth like whoa this is major i understand.
[24:15] What would your mother say like i'm I've got your dad wrapped around my little finger. I'm in charge.
[24:21] Bingo.
[24:21] Okay. Bingo.
[24:22] Yeah. And then another one was.
[24:27] Why would you say that stuff? In what context would that come up?
[24:31] In the context of like, great question too. In what context? Not like an event had happened that had triggered her to pull me aside and say this. She i was the most empathetic i i think of all my siblings and i'm i'm the scapegoat in the family you know there's there's a cliche for you and maybe she had picked up on this but for whatever reason she just wanted to express power uh her power over men to me because i was the firstborn born son at like a vulnerable time where she could still have power over me when I'm eight and still.
[25:17] I understand that saying I control men communicates to you that she has power over men. But in what context, again, if you can remember, I know it's pretty early, early days for you, but in what context would she even bring this up as a topic.
[25:33] Out of the blue? I, I can't recall specifically, but almost just like a spontaneous, spontaneously context and maybe something had happened in the background between her and my dad but um other than that i i can't remember what specifically triggered her to to to let me know this okay.
[25:58] But she is giving you a ticket out right of the relationship with her she's she's giving you an exit visa because she's saying that she is entirely responsible for the quality of the household and the presence of your father.
[26:17] Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have. Yeah, I'm so glad I do food.
[26:22] Yeah. I'm sorry about all of this, of course, right? Okay, so you did a lot of screen time or a lot of TV time. And your mother, did she stay at home your whole childhood? Did she ever end up working outside the home?
[26:38] Once all of us graduated high school, she went into dog grooming. Grooming and as we all know you know the the death grip that dogs have on western women nowadays as far as an escape it was like two peas in a pod she just absolutely loved the, focusing on stupid dogs instead of trying to help get even one of her kids really towards marriage and grandchildren oh god so so what on earth in that department right Yeah. Shame on her. And my sister's life hangs in the balance because she's already been making attempts on her life that have put her in the emergency room like four or five times.
[27:24] Suicidal, you mean?
[27:25] Oh, yeah. She's been cutting up her arms to the point where it's like bathtubs full of blood kind of thing.
[27:33] Now, do you mean this now or back in the day?
[27:36] Within the last five years. but my sister went on antidepressants at like age 14 and my mom has been on the highest legal dosage of zoloft for the better part of like two decades so she's like pushing new ground as far as like the frontier with zoloft if there's any candidate or demand to get those milligrams every year, a higher allotment she's she she's the banner uh carrier so to speak because she's been on board word with them since the, you know, early nineties.
[28:12] Right. So it's like that old Jerry Seinfeld joke about maximum strength Tylenol. It's like, okay, what dose will kill me? Okay, back it off from that just a tiny bit. Yeah.
[28:22] Oh, wow. The room is spinning. Where am I? Who am I? True self? Never heard of it.
[28:29] And what was your mother's discipline approach?
[28:35] Approach scolding shaming uh into physical intimidation and and being you know just like like psychological terror man like she her and my dad were two peas in a pod like, Like crazy how these two people, um, you know, Oh, another one, you know, stonewalling, you know, I, I had gone, I had been like stonewalled by both of them. Infinitum.
[29:10] What do you mean by like.
[29:12] Like, no, like just don't talk to you or the bare minimum.
[29:15] Like, yeah.
[29:16] Yeah and like when when i had when i had bad grades in high school there there was like periods where i had gone like like eight months where my dad was like not only am i not like talking to you but i'm i'm constantly angry at you and it's like walking through it walking near like a, live minefield every time you're even near him for like over a year over half over easily over six months which.
[29:48] I i mean obviously was painful at the time but at least you're not getting screamed at right oh.
[29:53] He would scream too oh he would still so he would still scream at you yeah yeah ostracism.
[30:01] Right. And what was your, um, school life like a social life?
[30:08] Like I was pretty popular and I had, uh, like kind of a storybook, um, middle school and high school period. Cause I was a skateboarder and I, because I was in one city for middle school and made friends there and then i went back to just a closer city because of zoning rules for high school i i made even more friends over there i had a like a a selection in the double digits of people of buddies that i could like so why did you get your.
[30:47] Social skills from do you think i mean a good looking kid i assume fairly athletic uh but what was it that gave you that sort of poise or do you remember was that just come naturally or did you have a model for.
[30:59] Naturally yeah naturally yeah i had like picked up on philosophical like you know universal principles and stuff from like a really young age and had tried to like pick apart when the fan when our family would watch like kind of a movie with deep meaning i would be the one that would that even in single digit age would be like wow like um something about this in this movie you know yada yada yada and i and i would get the weird looks from everybody in the family and as far as like moral instincts i was raised culturally christian but there was no praying or mention of god and or practicing of christianity other than going to church once a year for christmas um but i had gone to a christian youth group from like age eight nine to about eleven and one of the.
[32:00] Activities we did in this group with about 15 kids ranging in age from, you know, eight, nine, all the way up to like 13, 14 was the teacher would read a, uh, uh, a, a confrontation or something, uh, a conflict that would happen in society.
[32:23] And the lesson of it was like, who, Who can understand who's in the right and who's in the wrong and try to find some moral foundation from this test? And I was unanimously always the one to answer it. And this went on for over nine months to the point where the teacher would ask the question, the whole class would go quiet, look at me. me and then I would answer it. And then nobody, they would all just be in total agreement. And I saw like them try to answer it a couple of times. Like I didn't hog the, the stage. I, it's not like I needed attention, but I just, I knew the answer immediately when they asked the question and they all kind of picked up on that. And it got to the point where my nickname, They thought I was so good at like understanding moral, uh, or at least, you know, for, for that level of degree of, uh, technical moral analysis, they gave me a nickname. They called me NASA.
[33:34] Yeah.
[33:38] I mean, it's, uh, it was rudimentary stuff, but, um, so I had a. I had, I had a great social life and, uh, and, um, girls were really easy to come by. And I got into a really meaningful relationship for like over, um, two and a half years with this girl that I had laid eyes on her at 13 and we were dating by 14 to almost 17, like 16 plus.
[34:15] So, sorry, what are you telling me about this meaningful stuff? Help me sort of understand that because I would have trouble following that.
[34:24] It was meaningful to me because even though if love is our involuntary response to the virtue we see in others, and there was not a tremendous amount of virtue that I could see in her, I was really compelled in that hormonal state of being a young teenager by her looks and the fact that she liked me and wanted to talk to me and spend time with me and based on the family that i had going on my family of origin i had put like way too much hopes and dreams on this girl of um of being kind of like a lifeboat no no i mean i'm.
[35:17] Just just trying to figure out you i mean you're severely traumatized you have two brutal vicious parents uh you're still trapped for another half decade at the home and i'm just trying to figure out what kind of you know meaningful and and positive relationship you could get involved in.
[35:30] Yeah anybody that acknowledges your existence and no no no.
[35:38] I get this need and looks and all of that it's just i thought you were saying sort of a deeper meaningful or or you know there was positive aspects to the relationship and i'm not saying there weren't any but it would be pretty tough to square with how messed up your home life was.
[35:51] Yeah the the one of the things that i i believe i was i was very much pair bonding with her at the time is we were both staunch virgins and nothing but kissing for over two years so the so like the level of um Um, just, um, I'm, I'm with you because I'm here for you. Not your, not like the sex or the pleasure that gratitude.
[36:16] Like did she, did she know that your home life was messed up?
[36:25] Yeah. Okay.
[36:26] And what were her thoughts about that?
[36:29] Not much because she had similar stuff going on with her parents.
[36:33] I would assume so. Right. Okay.
[36:35] Yeah.
[36:36] So it was not a sort of deep and connected relationship in that you could really sort of talk honestly about your own experiences and so on, but you were both kind of avoidant about the home stuff?
[36:46] Yeah. And in certain situations, I had decent verbal IQ and cognition interpersonally, like with your buddies and stuff like that. But anything that's where the stakes get raised, like with your parents, being able to communicate with them or with romantic interests, I was so...
[37:20] Damaged from being, um, neglected by my parents that when I would get into anything that would like trigger or like a moat, like real meat, like important emotion or, um, substance for like my future, it's like, I didn't have the language to be able to express myself. And I was aware of it it in real time too i saw uh the corruption going on around me and i felt powerless during the moment but yet i was aware of it at the same time which was like how come i i'm smart enough i'm i'm a i'm a great conversationalist and i'm decent with uh vocabulary how come when i get into these situations it's like there's just gridlock like i can't express myself i can't, and um i don't know if that makes sense but.
[38:18] No i i think i think i understand i think i understand and so why did that relationship peter at or end.
[38:24] Um i i had used her as an um uh in my opinion being hard on myself i had used her as an emotional crutch too much uh in place of like um a nurturing parent or um not not really taking enough leadership over the situation and just being kind of like in a week and not not masculine enough um um position in my life at 16 okay Okay.
[39:00] So I need a favor from you, if you don't mind. I know, I'm guilty. No, no, it's fine. You're giving me some excellent narrative. Right? Now, so everything that you're telling me, none of this is a criticism, of course, right? I'm just pointing you there. So you're giving me sort of very obviously brilliant and refined information about the narrative of your life. Right. So while I used her as an emotional, uh, SOP, I, I was not masculine. Like this is all.
[39:37] I didn't take her. I didn't take her out on dates enough. And I would just, that's so.
[39:46] And the reason I'm pushing back on a narrative, and, you know, we'll go on with your childhood in a sec, but just the reason why I have to push back on narrative is two reasons. One, the narrative you have is not working. Right, so you're telling me, you're not telling me what happened in your life, you're telling me the themes and messages and morals and explanations, but not what actually happened, right?
[40:12] Yeah, I'm dissociating, aren't I?
[40:14] Well, so there's, there's two things about that and there's nothing wrong with what you're doing. It's just a minor tweak that, that I would prefer. And you know, it may not even be right. It could just be a please indulge the big chatty forehead kind of thing. But number one is that the one thing I know about your narrative is it's not gotten you where you want to get to. So if you, if you tell me your narrative, you're telling me everything that isn't working and no facts. So so so that's down to the that's number one problem and number two is that yeah you're right it's totally dissociated because when you don't tell me the events but you tell me the narrative the narrative keeps you at an emotional distance from your event because i have not had uh for me i haven't it's tough because we're just listening right and talking but i haven't had or experienced a shred of emotional connection from you. And I'm concerned that the narratives are a buffer by which you keep the feelings at bay. And you can explain your life to everyone, but who feels they can genuinely connect with you?
[41:19] Right. Bullseye. Bullseye.
[41:24] Why did your relationship with the girl end? What happened?
[41:30] I was, not connecting with her.
[41:36] Nope, nope, nope, that's a narrative. What happened?
[41:39] You're right, you're right. Um, well...
[41:49] Now, of course, I ask why, and that's an invitation to narrative, so you can say something about narrative. You know, I didn't take her out on dates, she got mad at me, I said this, she said that. Like, there's going to be, there can be a sort of causality, but I still need to know kind of what happened.
[42:06] Yeah the emotions are in this is awesome the dissociation.
[42:09] Often is in the narrative right.
[42:10] Right well uh she she ran into a guy that she was more attracted to than me and and immediately left me for him and.
[42:24] Wow okay i'm sorry about that.
[42:25] Yeah and then um, She went on like a late teenage girl sex rampage with like a bunch of guys.
[42:41] And she was 16.
[42:43] Yeah.
[42:45] So she would only kiss you or you guys would only kiss each other for two years. And then she went and slept with everything.
[42:53] Yep. And I, I was kind of, I, yes. And this is, I've been aware.
[42:59] Wait, wait, So your first love, right? So you're rushing now you're rushing into more explanations, right? Was this your first love this was your first love oh.
[43:07] Big time yeah big time.
[43:12] So she then her.
[43:14] Mom her mom loved me too she gave her daughter a hard time when she broke up with me like what are you doing.
[43:19] Well that shows that her mom has a certain problem of judgment too not because you're a terrible guy of course right but were you a fit, and moral and mentally healthy partner in your early to mid-teens? Well, no. So her mother looked at your surface charm, which is considerable, right? And I'm not saying there's no value in that. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a little charisma and charm, and I think that stuff's all fine. But her mother would have looked at you and not seen the pain.
[43:58] Right.
[43:59] I mean, you grew up with death threats. showering down on you from zeus and a fear of being disassembled like again like some, greek god villain right i mean my and a mother who's who's you know mentally crashing and drug drugged and right i mean you grew up in in a monster home my.
[44:22] Dad was so intimidating when i've I've seen glimpses of horror movie characters like Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th. My dad would cut through those fuckers like a hot nut. He, he would, I, they are not scary at all compared to what he was capable of. It's like, hang on.
[44:43] But capable of, but he didn't.
[44:47] As far as, yeah, as far as like, uh, psychological terror.
[44:52] But you, Do you still view your father as a big man?
[44:57] No.
[44:58] Okay, yeah, because, I mean, honestly, death-threatening five-year-olds is not my definition of strength at all. That's like pitiful.
[45:06] No, no, just psychological terror.
[45:09] Yeah, no, from a kid's standpoint, he's bigger than the sky, right?
[45:14] Yeah.
[45:14] But if you look at a 250-pound guy issuing regular death threats to a five-year-old, you see a very pitiful, weak, paralyzed, out-of-control toddler. It's contemptible behavior to the nth degree. To bully children when you're 10 times their size is, I mean, it's beyond weak. I bet you he was all kinds of nice if a cop pulled over, pulled him over.
[45:53] Oh, yeah. And the grace that he gave his employees that I had bear witness to and the level of control that he had over his charm and tenderness with them.
[46:05] Yeah, so he was nice to people he could take advantage of, and then his kids, he was a real, you know. So being a tough guy with a five-year-old is not being a tough guy, right, obviously. I mean, we know that, right? I'm just saying that this is really pitiful.
[46:17] Oh, yeah, I don't mean tough. I just meant psychological terror. That's it.
[46:22] No, no, I get it. But being sort of very aggressive and bullying and so on, only with the five-year-old and never with anyone else, is really the definition of pathetic, cucked weakness.
[46:33] Weakness oh he would oh he would he would go against other men not cops but like other men like he he he uh he was not afraid of any like essentially any, comfort he was the most confrontational guy i've ever met in my life but.
[46:51] Not with anyone who had power over him.
[46:52] Fair i.
[46:57] Mean if i'm wrong i mean i want to make sure i understand this correctly.
[47:02] Yeah. I mean, he wouldn't, he wouldn't roll over on cops either. Like he would give pushback to cops sometimes too. Like he was cunning in that respect, but he'd also like, he's just, he just, he lived for confrontation. He loves confrontation. It was like being in a movie. Oh, yeah, yeah.
[47:26] Okay, no, that's a fair correction. I appreciate that. All right. Not fair. I mean, I want to be as accurate as possible. Okay, so what happened leading up to your girlfriend at 16 running off with another guy?
[47:39] What happened? Can you be more specific?
[47:41] Sure. So you've been dating. The relationship was, was it progressing or was it mostly just stagnant or circular?
[47:50] Circular. and then she had asked to take a break. And then I was like, I didn't have healthy levels of assertion. And I was just like, oh yeah, you know, I'm okay.
[48:00] So do you know when she asked to take a break, was that because she was interested in another guy?
[48:05] I didn't know that at the time, but obviously, yeah, I found out later.
[48:09] Okay, so what was missing for her in your relationship?
[48:18] I don't know. I didn't abuse her enough because the guy she went with she i had gotten back in touch with her like a year later and the story she told me about this guy like threatening her with like like death threats like and like oh god i was just like what are you doing you know what you graduate where am i the bully.
[48:38] To the bully right.
[48:39] Yeah okay okay i like adored this girl like i was like total like simp like Like, oh, I want to marry you and have babies.
[48:50] Hang on, hang on.
[48:51] I was totally.
[48:52] Why is that a simp?
[48:54] You know, just.
[48:56] I mean, no, no, no. Clearly expressing desire.
[49:00] Yeah.
[49:01] Is not being a simp, right? I mean, being a simp is. It's giving resources, time and attention to a woman where there's no future. That's a simp.
[49:10] Yeah. And she hadn't really earned that level of like commitment from me, to be fair.
[49:16] Why? what was missing for her, in her?
[49:20] Just... I was always the one chasing her from the entire time.
[49:33] Well, you weren't just chasing her because you got her, right?
[49:36] Yeah. But even then she made it, she, she, you know, just, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't close enough to equal levels of attraction. She had just moved from out of state to the state that I lived in at the time that we had met. And I was kind of aware like she had no friends and that like oh man is like am I in this relationship with her because she like really likes me or just because it's like the only option she has I mean she's a beautiful girl like but there was just always this like question in my head like are we you know do you really want to be with me or is this just like uh temporary and.
[50:15] So she was how much more attractive than you like 20 10 oh.
[50:20] No no no we i'm i'm really i'm really good looking too we were we were even okay.
[50:28] Maybe you were a status uh symbol.
[50:31] Yeah, okay Okay.
[50:41] Okay. So you had this semi-platonic relationship and then she, did she get attracted to another guy or another guy was just more forceful with her? I don't mean violent necessarily, but you know, just like.
[50:57] I don't know. That's a great question. I don't know, but he was definitely like a forceful character from what she told me. So.
[51:06] Okay. Got it got it all right so then she jumps ship from you so she says i'm going to take a break and you said okay and then how long was it between then and her being with the other guy, instantly like next day yeah.
[51:28] Yeah she might have been doing it even before she told me you know been talking to him you know how girls are they got the next lifeboat ready ahead of time.
[51:36] Men do it too sometimes. True. Okay. So, and then this was the guy who she gave her virginity to and then it just got ugly. Is that right?
[51:49] Yes. Yeah.
[51:50] Okay. Yeah. And what was your emotional state over the course of this process?
[52:00] Oh, man. I was overwhelmed. Like young men that go through like that kind of situation really don't have the brain development yet to process it. And I could easily see how so many of them just spiral out of control into madness because they're not getting any coping mechanisms or guidance from their parents. And instead of self-destruction through substance abuse or I don't know, I was so charged up with anger and helplessness that I went into combat sports and weight training like a demon just to have a positive outlet, just to tire myself out so much to take the pain away. And I had done that from 16, 17 until I was 21 and just, just was, I was just brutal. It just crushed me until I was like, oh man, I was like still, still bent out of shape about it till I was like 21, 22.
[53:20] Right. Okay. And of course, you're remaining in the school. And so you can see, like you said, how long did it last this relationship with the guy she left you for?
[53:34] Nine months.
[53:36] And then she went to a stream of other men, right? Yeah. Okay.
[53:43] And then I was propositioning her because she was reaching out to me to maybe get back together with her.
[53:54] And I'm hanging out with her one night at this park. And it's a beautiful night out. It's low humidity. The wind is blowing and she's on the swing and I'm sitting on this bench and we're talking and I'm like 18 years old. I'm still a virgin. And out of nowhere, she just asks me, do you want to have sex? And I said, and this is like the woman that I wanted to marry and be the mother of my kids. And I'm just trying to figure out like where her head's at. And I go without hesitation, no, because you don't love me. So what would be the point and i had been obsessed and infatuated with her for i don't know like the last four or five years and it was everything you know a horny 18 year old young guy wants is like, you know nobody's around in this park um i could take it right now but all i want with you in the the park yeah oh yeah all right and and i'm like uh you know just trying to get back to some level of pair bonding and connection with her and when she asked me that i was just like oh man this is bad right.
[55:15] And it's also it's a bit of a venge a revenge thing it's a bit of a curse on her because i think if again if i miss my guess i miss my guess but i i think that when you say you don't love me so I don't want to have sex with you she's saying that you're giving her the curse that all the men all the boys she'd had sex with were just using her.
[55:35] That's fair. I was just thinking about just being selfless and caring about her and wanting to get back to that feeling of connection was on my mind. But subconsciously, yeah, that all checks out. I didn't feel any pettiness ever towards her. I just wanted to help her. And I've really tried to avoid taking the petty road most of my life because it just doesn't, I don't want that.
[56:08] Sorry, you tried to avoid taking the petty road because you don't want it.
[56:12] Yeah, like just revenge or anything like you had mentioned. Like I said that because I wasn't thinking about all the other guys. I was just thinking about me and her and that we hadn't gotten back to the level of connection.
[56:31] Sorry, I'm sure I'm missing something and apologize if I'm astray. I'm not sure what you mean by you say I've tried to avoid taking the petty route. I mean, the feelings arise within us, right? And, you know, we wrangle and we manage and we surf and we negotiate with the feelings that arise within us. And pettiness is a very helpful emotion, or it's a very helpful experience. So pettiness is saying that small things, I mean, I think the purpose, like, why do we have pettiness, right? I mean, everything that has evolved in us has some value, right? Otherwise, it wouldn't be here, right? So what, what's the value of, of pettiness?
[57:28] To distinguish what is truly petty and disqualify it.
[57:33] I mean, but that still doesn't say why petty... Oh, so pettiness is there to reject pettiness? Okay, so let's go back to your parents when they met, right? So your father would have shown signs of anger early on, right? Rage.
[57:51] Right. Totally.
[57:52] Right. So, you know, there's a sort of meme among women, like, how do you test for a guy's temper? Well, the guy says, I want to go eat at this restaurant, and you say, well, I'd actually rather eat at some other restaurant, like you've named some other restaurant, right? And you see how he handles that difference of opinion, which is, of course, it's a reasonable test, right? Right.
[58:21] So. Sure. So if the guy gets kind of cold and fine, you can go to some other restaurant. Right. And the guy gets kind of, he was not going to start screaming at you right away. Right. It's kind of cold and, and or whatever. He's like, yeah, fine. I guess we'd go to this other restaurant, you know, and he's just kind of punishes you with drawn or whatever. Right. Now for a woman, if you were to say, uh, well, I'm breaking up with you. Because you don't have room in your heart for somebody else's different opinions. Now, of course, the guy would say, you're breaking up with me because, wait, I said we could go to your other restaurant, blah, blah. Like, he would try to make her feel that her reasons for breaking up with him were petty. And you could say, okay, so the guy was kind of cold when you wanted a different restaurant and maybe you'd be going out for a week or two or whatever, right? And he would say, well, that's really, really petty. And part of her would say, oh, gosh, you know, maybe it is really petty for me to break up with a guy just because he's kind of cold when I want to go to a different restaurant. It's petty, right? But oh, my God, would it have saved decades of misery, right?
[59:31] Right.
[59:32] So pettiness is like this early warning sign that something might be awry.
[59:38] Mm-hmm.
[59:40] And the reason I'm scanning for this kind of stuff is your issue is pair bonding right but if you disable your pettiness you disable your early warning system and then you're going across the minefields with no metal detector, right so you don't want to go across the minefields with no metal detector right, so i i'm trying to sort of figure out this slicing and dicing that you have well the pettiness is bad right well why i mean we have sometimes yeah.
[1:00:10] Sometimes you you absolutely have to channel into that and and call a spade a spade and avoid the you know the suffering if you didn't have a metal detector in a minefield at.
[1:00:21] The time the early signs are subtle and then and the people who make decisions based on early signs are often called petty okay right so So, the early signs are important.
[1:00:38] Right.
[1:00:39] And that's why I was sort of asking what happened with your relationship with your girlfriend, right? So, since you've been a long-term listener, I can cut to the chase at this part. The primary reason that you wouldn't be pair-bonded yet is a lack of self-trust. Now, if there's a lack of self-trust, the question is why? And if you say, well, I'm slicing and dicing my emotional life into, well, this is good and this is bad, right? I mean, the word petty is an abusive word for subtle.
[1:01:17] Right.
[1:01:20] Right. So for instance, in a great movie, well, it's a book obviously. And then a movie room with a view, right? This woman is going to get married to the wrong guy and he's kind of selfish and, and so on. Right. And she says, come and play tennis. We need a fourth. And he says, no, Right? And in a very smarmy way, right? And then she breaks off her engagement. And the line is, right, the scene opens, the line is, because I wouldn't play tennis with Freddie! This incredulity that she would break off her engagement with him because he would not join their tennis game.
[1:02:10] So this incredulity, which is to say, your perception of subtlety, is petty well no she's right it would have been a bad marriage because i wouldn't play tennis with freddy like why would you break up do you know what i mean where she's just like no this is the smarmy superior way in which you said you know well you've often remarked that some people are only good for sitting in libraries well i've thoroughly confessed to being one of those people you know there's something like that right and you know that smarmy superior way in which he just I just won't do something that she wants to do that would be helpful for her. You say, well, because I wouldn't play tennis with Freddie. And it's a wild moment because her, I mean, obviously she's had some help from the guy who really wants her, but it's interesting. And when we make a big life decision, we're often asked to give big evidence, right? Yeah.
[1:03:10] But often, like if we say, I'm not going to date this person, or maybe I'm not going to continue this relationship, people say, well, why, right? And do we have to give a big reason? I think we can look for smaller reasons, because if we can't look for those smaller reasons that are indicative of larger patterns, then we kind of have to wait for disaster. Like, you know, the typical story of men who don't want to go to doctors, right? You know, they've had a stomach pain for like three months, right? And they won't, you know, then they finally whatever, go to the doctor or whatever, and the doctor is like, man, you got a tumor. Like, why didn't you come? Do you know what I mean? It's like, well, because the first week, you know, it's just a small pain. I didn't want to be petty. It's like, no, it's just, it's a subtle indication, that something is wrong. And that subtlety is important to navigate in life. You know, like radar, radar is there before you could see the planes right.
[1:04:09] I and and i i think this i i use all this in my life um what i meant by petty when you like you said did you say that to get revenge on her that the other men didn't love her maybe instead of petty i i'm not using the accurate word but it's like Like, I didn't want to be vindictive or...
[1:04:35] Okay, so hang on, hang on. Let's go with vindictive. Why wouldn't you want to be vindictive? I'm happy to hear the case.
[1:04:45] Um... Because what do we really need here? If there's any possibility of getting this back to a healthy, functional relationship, we need understanding.
[1:05:05] Okay, but hang on, hang on, hang on. So she'd broken up with you for, what, two years?
[1:05:13] A year.
[1:05:14] She'd broken up with you for a year. She was, what, seven months with this guy, and then you said there were a bunch of other guys, or was that later?
[1:05:23] That was a little bit later, but maybe a little bit during the between, too. Yeah, I see where you're going. You're good.
[1:05:30] Okay, so she lied to you. She didn't say, I'm unhappy in our relationship. Let's see what we can do to fix it. She just lied to you saying, I want a break. She didn't tell you I'm interested in another guy. She gets together with another guy right away, not even giving you the grace period, which means she's, you know, very selfish and callous towards your feelings. Right.
[1:05:52] Right.
[1:05:52] Which will make you angry. Nobody likes to be lied to and have people. And also, by the by, it's pretty fucking callous towards your entire reputation.
[1:06:04] Yeah.
[1:06:05] Right. Because, oh, yeah, you guys like two years in like early high school. I mean, that's like 20 years of marriage. Yes sir right so so she she dumps you for the dirt bag the next day i mean what does that do to your reputation it's.
[1:06:23] Especially like 20 years of marriage when you're not even fooling around with the girl at all and you're just like having a pure you know, untainted relationship.
[1:06:36] Well i don't know about pure and untainted and all of that as far as very holy roller as far as as far as.
[1:06:44] Sex as far as sexuality well.
[1:06:46] I know but let's say that sexuality is tainting and right whatever right so uh that's that's a whole other thing which we can get to this this like monk-like purity has within it a disdain for sexual sexuality and i'm not saying you should have been sexually active with her but the fact that you would hold it as a an uncomplicated virtue uh which is not um not necessarily the case in in my opinion but so So this woman broke your heart, this girl, sorry, she broke your heart, went for a dirt bag and destroyed your reputation, and you got so hurt by this, it was like half a decade before you recovered, right?
[1:07:23] Yeah.
[1:07:25] So what would be wrong with feelings of vengeance in that situation? I'm not saying that you would act on it necessarily, but what's wrong with like, I don't want to be vengeful? It's like, well, you are or you aren't, you know? I mean, wouldn't you accept what you're feeling?
[1:07:43] I feel vengeful. Right. But I wanted to focus on a solution more than anything.
[1:07:52] No, no, but you're saying that vengefulness can't be part of the solution.
[1:07:58] Right. Yeah, true. Very true.
[1:08:01] And again, I'm not talking about acting on it in any violent, obviously, or aggressive way, but having the feelings. So you're judging your feelings like, well, this feeling I'm going to give a positive label. But this feeling, I'm going to give it a negative label, and that's unacceptable, and I can't feel that, and that's not productive. And it's like, who gave you God's right to slice and dice your entire atomic heart?
[1:08:25] You're good, man. And I hear this with all the call-ins, too. I'm a really good listener, and you think I'd, you think, yeah.
[1:08:35] So what's wrong? Well, because, okay, we all know what's wrong with vengeance, right? Vengeance is being like your dad, right? And being like your dad is bad, and therefore you can't have these feelings of aggression, right?
[1:08:48] Oh, I do. Sometimes I allow myself. I don't hold back if somebody's got it coming at all.
[1:08:59] So vengeance isn't bad intrinsically?
[1:09:04] No. It could be righteous. The person's got it coming to them, totally.
[1:09:09] Okay, so the woman who, sorry, the girl, she was 16, right? So the girl who broke your heart and slept with other guys and dumped you and turned around the next day with the dirt bag and so on, if you were to say to her something that would hurt her but was true, which is the guys you're sleeping with are just using you and they don't love you, but that's true, right?
[1:09:32] Very true.
[1:09:32] So you're taking a statement that is true and, in fact, helpful, She needs to know that, right? I mean, is it better if she knows that?
[1:09:42] Always. Okay.
[1:09:43] So let's say that you said what you said in order to get across to her the truth that men were just using her for sex. And let's say that vengeance was your motivation. Like you just wanted to hurt her, right? But in your desire to hurt her, you got across to something to her that was both true and helpful.
[1:10:08] What would I say right now?
[1:10:37] Let's say part of the motive is you you're angry with her and you you kind of want to get this across right but it does get an important truth across to her let's say it comes from pettiness and vengeance or whatever labels we want to put on it it still does get an important truth across to her that she's being used for sex and the men don't love her and she doesn't love them, and she's maybe using them for whatever i mean who knows right probably self it's probably a self-humiliation ritual but uh but there's no love involved and and all of that right and you're also saying to her you gave up a guy, who wouldn't who didn't use you for sex for guys who did right there's a lot of sort of complicated you know it's like you zip the file and you send it across email and you unzip it it's like 300 books right and so there's a lot that's compressed into what you said to the girl, when you guys were 17 or so 18 18 sorry 18 right so you're you're saying you gave up a guy who who won't use you for sex in order for guys who pump and dump, right?
[1:11:42] Right.
[1:11:43] So it's also part of, look what you missed out on. In the hopes that she would see that value and say, oh my gosh, fall into your arms. I'm so sorry. I've done terrible things. You always treated me with respect. And I've been trailing after these guys who just use and abuse me. But she didn't do that, right?
[1:12:02] No. What did she do? She just, she doubled down. Like, you know, yeah, she doubled down and she kept, she kept choosing guys like that.
[1:12:13] No, but what did she, what did she say in that moment?
[1:12:15] Oh, she didn't say anything. She went silent, kind of lowered her head and she kept swinging on the swing and just ignored me.
[1:12:23] And then didn't say, I didn't have any response. And then, um, she had driven me there to the park in her car and drove me back to my car. and i went home and it was like one of the last times i ever talked or saw her.
[1:12:38] Right and then she doubled down yeah okay which also broke your heart a little again because you were reaching out a hand right saying is there any truth that you're capable of yes exactly okay and then she kind of so it wasn't just 16 to 21 it was the 18 to 21 when you try it again and then she she trashed out more, right?
[1:13:04] Right.
[1:13:05] Right, okay. And I assume that you felt angry with the guys who were using her.
[1:13:11] For sure. I was angry at my parents too. Like, why don't I have the language to be able to negotiate this better or understand what's going on or deescalate things or compromise or like, why? Like, I have such a good verbal ability, but when I get into these tense situations, it's just that feeling of helplessness in childhood. Like, oh, I can't assert anything, you know?
[1:13:44] Uh so you mean with this with this woman i guess at this 18 that you wanted to be more eloquent, in your conversation with her but you your parents had that not be the case because of the way they raised you yeah okay and of course i mean i assume you know right you know why Why you can't be direct.
[1:14:08] Because when abused kids experience directness from abusive parents, it always comes with a punishment attached to it.
[1:14:17] No, I mean, that's true. But that because you're not an abusive parent, that would be something you would escape. Right. It's because to be direct with violent parents is to risk death.
[1:14:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[1:14:31] Like, if you were to say to your dad, you're terrifying, you're violent, there are times when I hate you, whatever. Like, if you would just have that kind of directness, assuming that that's roughly true. I mean, what would happen if you were direct with your father?
[1:14:44] Oh, sure. Everything you just said.
[1:14:46] I mean, you know that there's...
[1:14:48] He never apologized one time in my... Like, I didn't learn healthy apologies from him. I learned it from you and some other philosophers.
[1:14:58] Right. so you know that in bars if there's a belligerent guy you know that the recommendation is don't make eye contact, if you make eye contact with a belligerent guy what's he going to do what are you looking at, he's going to pick on you that's good yeah it's going to escalate so you're not even supposed to like they become like like a medusa right don't look directly at the crazy guy right, And this is in prison too, right? Why do people shuffle around with their heads down? Because they don't want to make accidental eye contact that's going to escalate. So you have to become so indirect you can't even look them in the eyes.
[1:15:41] You know, it's funny.
[1:15:42] Many years ago, I was like, man, what color are my mother's eyes? And I didn't know. Because I couldn't look at her directly. Because abusive people have a terrible conscience. And if you give them eye contact, then they humanize you for a moment, which rouses their conscience. Because now you are, quote, making them feel bad. You have to suffer. You have to pay. Like, you can't even give them eye contact often. And you're supposed to be there. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:16:21] Because they're fighting back their guilty conscience that if they were truly morally confronted or they had no escape or chance to escalate, if they had to face their immorality and corruption, they would rather hurl themselves off the nearest cliff than answer for what they've done.
[1:16:42] Yeah, dehumanization becomes a survival strategy for the relentlessly cruel. Like, they have to dehumanize their enemies, or their victims, so to speak. They have to dehumanize their victims, because if they humanize their victims, their conscience comes roaring up. And, you know, if you do enough wrong, your conscience is not a guide or a coach, but a murderer and a predator.
[1:17:06] It's just proliferated the culture too as a business owner with hundreds of customers uh 99 of them women um asking you no me oh you asking it yeah just asking a direct like business related question from some of these very traumatized poor women um it's like a language that is lost yeah that directness.
[1:17:31] Really is and also you know the other language that gets lost when you're around abusers is, okay, how does this benefit me? Because everything is there for the short-term benefit of the abuser. And you can't say to yourself, how does this benefit me? Because that's selfish. So normal human impulses are coated in pejorative labels to paralyze their protective mechanisms. So subtlety becomes pettiness. Just anger becomes vengeance. Vengeance, you know, vengeful, petty and vengeful, and having self-interest become selfish and bad. Like, these are all just words that are used to paralyze the defenses against aggressors.
[1:18:22] I mean, we can see these pejoratives all over the place in society, and people just throw these pejoratives around. Like, society's founded on verbal abuse now, right? Well, why is society founded on verbal abuse? Because that generally is the weapon of women, and women run childhoods in the modern world, right? So, yeah, I'm just by the by, right? And listen, verbal abuse is better than outright violence, so I guess there's some sort of progress there. But for you to examine your own self-interest, to accept and work with the subtlety of your instincts, and to be assertive would all feel, I think, vaguely suicidal, especially because you did have a directly murderous parent.
[1:19:08] And you had a mother who screamed at the top of her lungs to to broadcast to the entire household that she was only and forever going to think of herself and never anybody else, you know why why did my mother scream in the middle of the night i hate these effing children, that's a sign that's a state like this was the sort of in a sense like the traditional view would be the devil who controlled her who she'd let in and fed fed, was warning us that he was never going to let her go, and she was never going to get free. And your parents did, as far as I understand it, they did not free themselves from all this, right?
[1:19:57] Hi, Stefan. Yo. I had a lightning strike. I turned off my Wi-Fi, and now I'm just on cellular.
[1:20:03] Wow.
[1:20:04] I apologize for the.
[1:20:05] You know, what's kind of funny about that? That earlier we were just talking about Zeus and thunder gods and all of that. So it's kind of funny. And here we are, right? We're talking about the final confrontation of the boss battle, and your entire internet gets taken out by lightning. That's pretty wild. and it's funny too because i was looking at like wait my recorder stopped because i didn't realize that we dropped or anything i didn't get that skype sound but no no biggie no biggie um just tell me what what you remember me talking about and i'll see if i can you.
[1:20:37] Are you are such a professional you don't miss a beat you just keep on rolling.
[1:20:43] So yeah what do you um the.
[1:20:45] Last thing i uh that pettiness and um.
[1:20:50] Yeah yeah no i think i think i i think i sort of recall you.
[1:20:54] Were on a You're on a heater.
[1:20:57] Yeah, I mean, so for you to express feelings of vengeance would have been suicidal as a kid, right? I mean, your dad outright said he was going to murder you, right?
[1:21:08] So you can't express vengeance.
[1:21:10] And you can't have any subtlety because you'll view that as pettiness, right? Or you'll be blamed as being petty. So when we detect someone who's malevolent or untrustworthy or immoral or amoral or selfish, like when we detect that kind of stuff, it's early warning signs. And then what people do is they say, you're being petty, right? And they will have incredulity that we would make important decisions based on such incomplete, tiny information, right? Which of course is the case, right? I mean, so if there's a deer, a zebra, right? There's a zebra in Africa and the zebra thinks she smells a lion, right?
[1:22:02] Well, what does the lion want? If the lion could whisper, oh, it's nothing. It's probably just an old path. You know, maybe there's some scat out here, but it's nothing. Don't be ridiculous. There's no need to run. Come on, right? That's hysterical, right? You're overreacting, right? So the predators always want to discount our initial instincts. But you know what happens. They stick their head up. Now, they don't want to run unnecessarily, but they also don't want to stick around if there's a lion. So they become hyper alert and look for the very next sign. and then when the next sign comes along, they bolt, right? And so that level of caution is what keeps the zebra alive. But of course, if the lion could talk to the zebra, it would try and talk it out of its initial perception so the lion could get closer and eat its ass off, right?
[1:22:47] Right.
[1:22:48] So if you have discounted some of your emotional apparatus, because it's judged negatively, In other words, if you have associated your emotional self-defenses with your father's aggression and abuse, then you will, to some degree, sail through life without particular defenses. Now, if you think about people who are immunocompromised, right, like their immune system is down or lowered for some reason, well, they have to avoid any risky activities, right?
[1:23:24] Big time.
[1:23:25] Now, if you have blunted some of your early warning systems for a variety of reasons, then falling in love, which is a risky endeavor, or attachment dating is a risky endeavor, you're going to be the boy in the bubble because you can't go to the creek. Does that make sense?
[1:23:47] Yes.
[1:23:48] So when was the last time you felt that you fell in love? Yes.
[1:23:55] Not since high school.
[1:23:59] Right. And that's why I was sort of trying to figure out the why of the breakup, right? So it's been, what, close to 20 years since you fell in love, right?
[1:24:07] Yeah.
[1:24:08] What the hell are you doing? Why would you let this little witch completely wall off your heart?
[1:24:15] Well, my dad and my parents were, it got really bad in my family in my early 20s.
[1:24:25] What do you mean?
[1:24:26] Sorry, what do you mean? I was about to tell you.
[1:24:29] Okay, sorry. I just want to make sure you weren't going on and all of that. But what happened? That's right. No narrative, but what actually happened?
[1:24:37] Yeah. Nobody hangs on your every word like Stefan. It's amazing. Usually that's what I do in my conversations, and I love it.
[1:24:45] Good. I just want you to listen to yourself as well as you listen to others, and we'll be set. All right. So what happened in your family at your earliest point?
[1:24:51] So, I was experiencing suicidal depression around 16.
[1:25:02] With the breakup?
[1:25:04] Yeah, but it was no more with my dad. Having to go get my old report cards, the thought crossed my mind. And I'd like, oh, if I just hung myself, then I wouldn't have to experience his fury and I'll have the problem solved because it was that bad. And then I moved out of my parents' house at 21. I got my own place and I had stopped doing my sports because I had a bad injury and I thought it was irresponsible to be doing the sport that I can't make a living with. And I need to figure something else out to get ready to provide for a family that this is just too risky, what I was doing. And I got really depressed at 22 and went on antidepressants for like nine months, 12 months and hated it every second of it. But it was just fighting off suicidality like every minute of every single day and it was the hardest thing i've ever been through in my life compared to the breakup this that that the breakup was almost like a walk in the park this happened.
[1:26:19] After i'm not saying because but this happened after the breakup okay.
[1:26:23] Yeah yeah at 22 and um all my family was essentially on antidepressants Sorry.
[1:26:32] My apologies. So report cards are gone by this point, right? Or is it university stuff?
[1:26:42] Uh, I tried a little bit of community college, but I just, I couldn't, I couldn't do it.
[1:26:47] I couldn't focus. So what at 22 do you think started the suicidality? I know you'd said it'd been constant since the breakup, but it must've escalated.
[1:26:58] Um, I was living on my own. I was very isolated and didn't have, this was around 2000 and 20, it would have been, like 2010 so um i'm living on my own and i'm isolated i'm working for my dad, and i'm just not feeling any chance at like economic prosperity um.
[1:27:29] Still don't follow and living on your own is better than living with your parents isn't it yeah so that's a plus i don't know what you mean by isolated.
[1:27:39] I was living by myself and yeah.
[1:27:42] You keep saying that like it explains something I've lived by myself I didn't feel isolated I enjoyed it I enjoy living with my wife but I enjoyed living on my own so I'm I'm not trying to say that mine is the template but it doesn't it doesn't follow that living on your own means isolation means suicidality right.
[1:28:01] Right pardon me for repeating.
[1:28:04] I was.
[1:28:05] Just trying to process through it and reconnect with memories from about 15 years ago and, uh, give you an honest feedback. Um, um, I was coming to the realization that like my dad, like there was no hope of like ever, um, fixing the relationship is what I was really messed up about.
[1:28:32] What do you think happened that gave you those thoughts? I mean, it was accurate, right? Your thoughts were accurate, but was there anything in particular or a slow accumulation or some big thing?
[1:28:45] Slow accumulation.
[1:28:46] And what were the kind of things that gave you that accumulation, do you think?
[1:28:51] Him just not wanting to talk to me or care about me at all.
[1:28:59] And why did you work for your dad?
[1:29:04] He he had me beat like i whatever he told anybody like in the family to do and even me at that age like i he he owned me like it was the like the epitome of like slave, parent dynamic like i just i was so intimidated by him so he started this a lot of narrative So he said.
[1:29:29] You're going to work for me, kid. And you're like, okay. Yeah. Okay. And when did that, did you work through him throughout like your teenage years or?
[1:29:45] 17 is when I started.
[1:29:48] And were you given any advantages in the business environment because he was your dad?
[1:29:57] No, he made it clear that I was not going to get any special treatment at all. And if anything all the other like employees knew to um they could take advantage of that and it was like it was like a self-humiliation ritual that i stayed there that long okay just like learned learned helplessness it's just like a ridiculous level of like dude snap out of it get yourself out of here like but.
[1:30:24] And when did you leave that employee.
[1:30:26] When i was 28 oh.
[1:30:32] Wow so you did 11 years under your dad yeah and what's the field the general economic field that you were working if you want.
[1:30:44] To say you don't want to say it's fine wholesale printing commercial wide format okay.
[1:30:51] Right so i mean skilled manual labor to some Some degree, right? At the beginning level.
[1:30:58] Yeah. And when I was depressed around 22 and really fighting for my life, I was driving with him during the middle of the day to go to some appointment or something. I can't remember for the life of me what it was. It was either work related or, or maybe we were going out to lunch. Like the one time he would go to lunch with me like once a year, once every two, I can't recall, but he, um, I'm in the passenger seat and he's driving and he says, Hey buddy, you know, I know, you know, you've really been struggling with like this suicidality feeling that way. And, um, you know, I really feel bad for you. But if you really feel like you want like you need to kill yourself I hate to say it man but you should probably just go ahead and do it.
[1:32:01] Yeah, that's, that's, that's shocking and appalling. So he's basically like, no, not K-Y-S, but not the opposite of that, right? He's like, yeah, you know, if you're struggling this much, maybe it's the better way out, right? Right.
[1:32:15] Yeah. And once he said that, I just got it clear in my head, like, oh, you're like a traitor.
[1:32:23] Yeah. Right.
[1:32:26] And that really broke my heart into a million pieces after the breakup with the girl. And then hearing that from my dad and I'm 22, I, I, I hate, I hate the public schools. I hate college. Um, how is, how are all the, how is this life? Like what the, what the hell is going on? Like there's a war going on in the middle East. All my friends from high school got hooked on opioids and went to rehab or jail or both i somehow managed to slip by uh and make it into weightlifting and combat sports and just mostly smoking weed until i was 21 and quit that and then my dad tells me this right to my face like a traitor. And my heart's broken. And I'm 22 now and I can buy alcohol.
[1:33:23] And I just mourn my dad's death for the next three or four years. I'm constantly drinking and crying at night, feeling terrible while still working for him. I went to a therapist that my parents used to help prevent them from getting divorced when they first got married, who was just a total liar. Hire and could just give the bare minimum amount of empathy and listening that he would keep getting hired.
[1:33:51] And I eventually stopped drinking around like 25, 26 and I'm listening to you around.
[1:34:00] Every single day when I was 22 and 23, like 320 days a year. And I scaled it down every year until I was about 26, um, just by marking it on a calendar and, and keeping account of it and consciously trying to pay attention until the point where I didn't have the urge for it anymore. And I saw you pop up on the Joe Rogan podcast for the first time. And it was like a guardian angel's voice. I can still remember over 10 years ago when you did that and this thing that you said that just stabbed me in my heart as far as I have to follow this guy. This is the truth. You said to Joe, you asked Joe, do you know the two things that prove like, and forgive me if I don't remember it precisely, but it was something to the effect of, do you know the two things, Joe, that can predict the healthiest outcomes for children? And he said, no. And you're, you said the presence of the father in the home and free access to, or play in nature and something even like that simple. And just the way that you said it and being able to just pick up that, like, you're the real deal. deal, I was, I was hooked and I was still in a lot of pain.
[1:35:22] And I didn't know, like I had this like shitty therapist, but I'm trying to pull myself out of like two heartbreaks on top of each other.
[1:35:29] And then you asked me like a couple of minutes ago, like, what have you been doing? You're in your mid thirties. I got a business going when I was 28.
[1:35:37] I just been dating.
[1:35:38] And Yeah. And, um, just been terrified of the culture around me, uh, not being, um, which is the point of this calls trust in myself. Right. Um, that I, that I wasn't prepared enough. And, um, I just didn't want to make a mistake and marry the wrong woman and repeat my childhood onto my kids or, or marry the wrong woman. And I've been dating like a maniac for like the last several years. And, um, I mean, I'm even got a date tonight and, um, that's what I've been doing.
[1:36:19] Right. So your father says maybe you should kill yourself and you decide to start drinking yourself to death.
[1:36:27] Yeah, exactly.
[1:36:29] And so then after this, you spend another six years working with your dad, working for your dad. And then what gets you out of that?
[1:36:39] My mom, who was in the dog grooming industry, had noticed that I had a fondness for pocket knives. Not like a weird knife guy, but I was the only person in the family that always carried a pocket knife. I worked with my hands in this manual labor skill job. And she said, hey, there's this guy. He has this mobile sharpening business. He drives around and he sharpens all of our beauty tools. Is that something you'd like to do? And at first I was hesitant, but I showed some healthy curiosity and she, I got hooked up with, with this opportunity or around, uh, it almost happened when I was 24 with one of the sharpeners, but that was a bad business deal. And then fast forward four years later, I, I got in touch with another guy. And as soon as I got that opportunity, I've been a hundred percent in, in that business since January, 2017. Okay.
[1:37:38] Yeah. got it and did you date in your 20s i.
[1:37:46] Did but it was a constant like um lust not delaying um sex hooking up too quick and then being you know disgusted by the girl and just repeating that mistake and not actually like i was so dissociated from what i had gone through that to call what I was doing dating would be like an insult to dating.
[1:38:10] What was the longest relationship you had in your 20s?
[1:38:16] Two months.
[1:38:17] Two months, okay. And how many women do you think you slept with in your 20s?
[1:38:22] I'd rather not say.
[1:38:24] And did that put...
[1:38:26] But I stopped having casual sex completely like four or five years ago.
[1:38:32] Oh, so this went into your 30s, right?
[1:38:36] Right at like 30, 31.
[1:38:38] Got it. And would you have like a date a week, two dates a week, a date a month? Well, how did that go?
[1:38:45] Oh, just, it was, it was sporadic. There was, there was no a date a week. I could go, I could go six months without having a date or even longer sometimes.
[1:38:54] And did you meet these women mostly over the internet or other ways?
[1:38:59] Both, but a lot of them over the internet, but I did ask some girls out in person. Okay.
[1:39:05] Oh, I guess you're a traveling knife guy, right? Right. Okay. And then what was it that happened in your turning 30, 31 that you ended the casual sex stuff?
[1:39:19] It had been accumulating in my conscience, even while I was participating it all through my 20s, but I was so dissociated. I wasn't listening to my conscience enough that this is wrong. What would you say about your conscience?
[1:39:35] Like, so your conscience is saying maybe you should stop this. And what would you, how would you reframe that in your head? Like, don't be a prude or like what, what was it that you use to wave your conscience away?
[1:39:49] I don't even know if there was a phrase, if it was just raw dissociation.
[1:39:53] So, no, but you said you were feeling uneasy over your twenties about sleeping around. Out yeah so you felt the unease and what would you do with the unease because if you were really dissociated wouldn't even feel the unease right so you you feel the unease and what do you do with it.
[1:40:17] Bury it down and give in to my lesser impulses i suppose.
[1:40:21] Yes but bury it down based on what right so you have because earlier like i was sort of saying that you you would have feelings of anger and you'd say well i don't want to be vengeful or you know you'd have feelings of subtle danger and you'd say well i don't want to be petty right so there's there's a language that is associated with dismissing our feelings that usually comes from the abusers so what would you say about the unease that you had how like to what i guess did you identify the unease as being associated with sleeping around? Yes. So what, there's a language that we have that we use to dismiss our feelings because the feelings are organic and they can only be opposed by the inorganic, which is language, right? So what would you say about your country?
[1:41:07] Can you say, can you, can you repeat that? The language organic, the feeling, can you say that one more time?
[1:41:11] Yeah, so the emotions are organic, right? They come from our biology, right? And language is inorganic. It's conceptual. It's in our head, right?
[1:41:23] Right.
[1:41:23] So in the battle between the body and the brain, the brain wields language to dismiss the organic, right? So the artificial and the inorganic, which doesn't mean false, right? Language is valid, but it's not organic. It's not part of our body in the way that our emotions are. So we wave away the body with language is dead thought.
[1:41:47] Right?
[1:41:47] Every word that we use almost almost every word we use is invented by people long dead right so language is is dead thought which is one of the reasons why it's hard to drag society forward with language because language is a bunch of dead dead thought from people from hundreds of years ago usually a thousand sometimes so yeah we we wave away life with dead thought and that's, talking ourself out of feelings right.
[1:42:11] To answer yes and to answer your question i probably i I probably told myself nihilism, like nothing matters, like your life doesn't matter, like my parents' abusive voice in my head, like what's one more casual sexual encounter, like oh, you're hurting yourself, you don't really matter, what difference does it make anyways because you don't even matter to your parents, maybe just self-erasure, I told myself.
[1:42:46] Because self is not just the body, right? Otherwise we would be completely interchangeable as I guess we are to the rulers of mankind, right? But so, so self is not just the body. So when you treat your body just like meat, then you're saying I don't exist. So your body can be alive if your brain is dead, right? They hook you up to the right machines, right? So you can be brain dead, but so you're gone, right? And I don't know if you've been around this sort of situation, but one of my best friends from my youth, his mother had a terrible stroke and she was in hospital and they said her brain is gone and he had to make the decision to unplug her body because her body could have stayed alive for whatever, who knows, right? Months or years. So our identity is our, it's in our minds and it's supported and interwoven with the body and the instincts are part of us as well. So if you're treating your body like a piece of meat, then you're saying that you as an identity, as a personality don't exist. And all that matters is the physical lusts and the biological copy and paste of reproduction, right? The act of sex.
[1:43:50] Right.
[1:43:51] Right. Okay. So it's a form of self erasure. Sure so it's tied in with you might as well not be here which is what your father was saying it's like okay well i'll erase myself with alcohol and sex yep got it and then so then you're saying yeah i'm treating myself as a piece of meat because that's all i am i don't deserve any better i'm not you know so to refrain from that would be an act of self-affirmation and then that happened at 30 or 31 right and was that an accumulation or was that one bad experience or No.
[1:44:21] It wasn't one bad experience. It was an accumulation. I had really done a huge service for myself by starting my business as far as giving me hope for the first time for a family and for a future that there was light out of the tunnel of what I had gone through in my 20s. And I started to really pay closer attention to how I was disassociating and make a conscious effort to listen to my inner self.
[1:44:51] And sorry, I can't remember exactly where the Joe Rogan stuff was. I was on three times, I think. But when did you first start listening? Was it 12 years ago or something like that?
[1:45:02] Like 11 years ago, I believe.
[1:45:05] Got it, got it.
[1:45:08] So you then have a bit of an awakening, you stop the casual sex, and what happens then?
[1:45:17] Um i got more into philosophy and got rid of my parents and i found um friends in an adjacent philosophical community that were like-minded and just started dating like a madman going to, singles events asking girls out at the grocery store at churches at church single events um joining matchmaking services i got engaged to a girl that was um unfortunately had gotten the covid vax and i found out too late and canceled that it just really wasn't even the right fit kind of similar to your experience of almost marrying the wrong woman is is um what i was going through and um i had gotten out of that engagement last summer and i've just been And sorry.
[1:46:14] How long was that relationship?
[1:46:17] Eight months.
[1:46:18] Oh, wow. So you, you went from dating to engaged and close to marriage in eight months, right? And how old was she?
[1:46:28] She was in her mid-20s.
[1:46:33] And with regards to the vax, is it the mindset behind getting the vax or was it physical effects of the vax or something else or both?
[1:46:43] Okay.
[1:46:44] And had she had hidden that from you? Is that right?
[1:46:48] No, she hadn't hidden. I had probably not been direct or assertive enough in asking her. And uh it was so hard to come by even a decent enough girl nowadays that's you can, even like it's just it's pretty brutal i'm sharing the dating market that i i didn't uh i wasn't assertive enough and lost eight months and.
[1:47:19] Uh she have and we don't have to talk about her in any detail but i'm just curious if she herself had had any negative effects from the vax, that she knew of.
[1:47:29] Uh not that she knew of.
[1:47:33] And that was last year was it yes okay so dating like mad i guess if you're beyond the casual sex stuff that just means looking for compatibility and so on right yeah.
[1:47:46] Looking for for virtue a virtuous.
[1:47:49] Woman and And how many women wanted to continue that you didn't want to continue? Like, in other words, they would say, let's keep going. And you'd be like, no, something's not right. Or you'd end it.
[1:48:08] Hmm. You probably less than like probably less than five or 10% of them because, um, I just started getting way more, um, direct with my assertiveness and standards and what I'm all about. And so I was doing the majority of the disqualifying.
[1:48:41] Okay. No, I get that. But how many, how many women, um, if any, if any, if you'd say, I don't think this is right, she'd say, no, it is right. And here's why. And now you need to listen to me. I'm also qualifying. Here's where I think you qualify here. I think there's some incompatibility. Let's sat down and work this out.
[1:49:05] Oh, I haven't, I haven't had that conversation. No, no, that's being on the receiving or something. Right. Right. But I haven't been engaged in that, gotten it to that level at all.
[1:49:15] Sorry, you wouldn't get it to that level. That would be the woman's choice.
[1:49:20] Right. I haven't experienced that from a woman, to answer your question.
[1:49:24] So you can't arouse in a woman that level of commitment where she's just going to say, no, I don't accept the, I don't mean stalker stuff. I mean, no, that's like, let's work it out, right? Let's see where the gaps are. Let's see what we can do to close them off, right? We're both in our thirties or we're both adults, you know, like this, this just waiting for the right key and the magic right lock isn't working. It hasn't worked for you. It certainly hasn't worked for me. So let's figure out, you know, we'll draw the diagrams. We'll make the lists. We'll figure out where our compatibilities are. We'll figure out whether there's anything that is not negotiable and we'll negotiate what can be negotiated. But let's, you know, like you're such a great guy. I'm going to fight for you.
[1:50:11] Yeah most women are very flighty and they've got their finger on the trigger and they're they're just as they're so ready to disqualify as well that it's a really delicate dance of uh of of um, trying to get to that stage of compromise let's work it out let's draw the diagram well.
[1:50:37] It's all women for you isn't.
[1:50:38] It because you said you haven't experienced.
[1:50:40] A woman who's Going to fight for you.
[1:50:43] Good point.
[1:50:45] So for you, all women are commitment phobic. Women won't fight for you. Or women don't fight for anyone?
[1:50:59] No, not at all. Just not one that I've come across yet.
[1:51:04] Okay, so let's make it personal. Let's make it personal, right? Right. So if you can't close a sale and you close a sale because the customer wants to buy it, right?
[1:51:18] Right.
[1:51:18] So if the customer doesn't want to buy, why is that? Why is that happening?
[1:51:30] A failure on the salesman's part to close the deal.
[1:51:33] Well, sure, but you can't sell a meal to somebody who's already full, right? So it's not just the salesman's failure to close the deal. It's the compatibility of the product to the customer's desires, right?
[1:51:50] Sure.
[1:51:51] You can't sell a book to an illiterate person, right?
[1:51:55] Right.
[1:51:55] So it's either a product, it's either a problem with the product or the pitch, right?
[1:52:00] Right.
[1:52:01] Now, you're a charismatic guy. Your language skills are fantastic. You've got a lot of experience with women. So it's not the pitch, right?
[1:52:12] It could be.
[1:52:13] No, it's not the pitch. You're a smoothie, right? You know how to talk to women. You've had a lot of experience with women. So it's not the pitch.
[1:52:22] If you say so, I'll follow what you put down.
[1:52:25] No, listen, if I'm wrong, I'm certainly happy to hear it.
[1:52:27] I'm just open.
[1:52:27] But you've slept with a lot of women, so you know how to pitch yourself to women, right? You go on a lot of dates, so you know how to approach women and pitch yourself.
[1:52:35] Right?
[1:52:36] So let me put it to you this way. So if you're in the grocery store and there's a free product sample, right? Some piece of cheese on a cracker or something like that, right? So you can get women to taste the cheese and cracker, right? You can get women to talk with you, to go on dates with you, to sleep with you if you want, right? So you can get the customer to sample the product, right? And you can do that however many times, dozens or hundreds of times, right? So you've got, you can get the woman to sample the product, right? You just can't get her to buy the product.
[1:53:14] Right.
[1:53:15] So that's not a problem with the pitch, right? Try this cheese and crackers. Oh, I'd love to, right?
[1:53:21] It's a problem with the product.
[1:53:23] It's a problem with the product, right? So that's what we have to get to, right? Because if the product isn't right, only the weakest people will buy it.
[1:53:33] Right. I had this story, I don't know, some like last year or something about buying a bunch of ruts in Morocco, which I didn't need, right?
[1:53:42] Right.
[1:53:43] So the problem is with the product and it's easy to blame the market, right? So you're blaming the market. You're saying women are flighting. Now I have 20 years plus, so whatever, but so I can't change, I can't change the market. I can only change the products, right. Or encourage that.
[1:54:09] Let's go. Yeah. That's why I'm here.
[1:54:11] So why are women not fighting for you?
[1:54:17] Oh, a lot of them. I'm noticing they're so dissociated and.
[1:54:22] Um, back to the women. Frankly, you're blaming the customer again.
[1:54:26] Oh, okay. Why are they not? Oh, you're right. Right, you're right, you're right. Thank you.
[1:54:30] And this is a habit. And again, like everyone tells me, oh, the women are blah, blah, blah. The dating is blah, blah. I can't do anything about that. I can't. No, you're... But the best thing you can do is work on the product. Because if you blame the market, you're helpless.
[1:54:45] Yes, amen. Yep.
[1:54:48] And then there's nothing to talk about. I'm just like, well, I don't know. Good luck, man. But I don't think... And listen, I had women who wouldn't commit to me. I had women that I couldn't commit to. too. And, and right. So it's not, it's not like I've never experienced this. It's not like life has changed massively to that degree. Right. Particularly if you go into places like churches, all I guess the churches have changed a little bit too, but we at least need to figure out if there's a problem with the problem.
[1:55:12] There's been some massive changes in 20 years. There's been some massive changes.
[1:55:16] Yes, but not in human nature. Yeah.
[1:55:20] Okay. There have been massive changes.
[1:55:21] And the other thing too, the other thing too, is that you called me, right? And you know I've been married for 20 plus years, right? So you called me and so calling me is, by calling me just as a whole, right? By calling me, you can't play the you don't date card, right? So you're calling me for relationship advice, knowing that I haven't dated in over 20 years. So you can't then say, well, Steph, it's the market. Because if it's the market, you wouldn't call me, right? So you're calling me because part of you thinks it's not just the market, and it's not. I mean i'm not saying your friends all have perfect relationships but you did say earlier in the call that your friends are getting married.
[1:56:10] Yep now.
[1:56:13] Maybe it's i'm sure it's not perfect but it's not because there are women out there just too flighty right.
[1:56:20] Yeah yeah yeah yeah it is possible to pull it off so.
[1:56:24] What's wrong with the product why are women not fighting for you.
[1:56:29] Oh yeah this is why i call too like um what i'm known for yeah i'm sorry i kind of like man i got kind of like hypnotized by like how awesome this was to talk to you and getting a massive flood of curiosity from stefan molyneux about my life wow i kind of pardon me this i had written this down too um what i what i'm characterized as and um my friends tell me this and i even get this feedback from some girls is that i'm too intense, no no direct direct product direct product feedback yeah that's.
[1:57:09] Not it though.
[1:57:09] Okay that's not it um okay stretching my mind okay what.
[1:57:20] Do women commit to What is required for a woman to commit to a man? What does she hook into? What is she looking for? I mean, we can say virtue and all of that. I get all of that, but that's not enough.
[1:57:33] Trust.
[1:57:33] Okay, trust. So what is required for a woman to trust you?
[1:57:48] Empathy.
[1:57:50] I like how you just asked you that. Let me grab a word from my Scrabble bag and see if this one passes my- Right.
[1:57:56] Right, right, right. Right, good catch. What is required for a woman to trust a man?
[1:58:03] Because a woman, obviously, she's going to get pregnant. And we're talking about the biology, right? Forget the language. But the biology. She's now going to be completely vulnerable. She's giving up all other men because she's going to have your children. and she needs you to provide for her even when she's fat, bloated, pregnant, breastfeeding, irritable, moody. You're going to have to provide and take care of her for the next 50 years when she's getting older and uglier and you're getting wealthier and retaining your looks and could trade her in for a younger model. So how is she going to trust you to do all of that?
[1:58:38] Tell me.
[1:58:41] No, you're too smart for me to tell you.
[1:58:47] Okay yeah um she's gonna require um.
[1:58:55] Well let's try it from your side what do you what do you require from a woman who could divorce rape you in an instant right what do you require from a woman oh great right what do you require from a woman who could uh get married to you have a couple of kids and then take half your shit and throw you in a car to live right what do you require from a woman to trust her, or do you or do you even know what you're looking for in that in that regard.
[1:59:43] I mean, I'm kicking around in my mind right now that they have some sort of commitment to abstract moralities or higher standards or that I'm probably, it's probably right in front of my nose.
[1:59:56] Well, you can't just.
[1:59:57] Hang on, you can't just.
[1:59:58] You can't just trust words because the meaning of words comes and goes and, you know, she might say, well, I'm passionately devoted to virtue, but then some feminist comes along and redefines what virtue is, right? Right. So, so that's a bit more.
[2:00:13] You truly, the emotion.
[2:00:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Emotion, emotion, emotion, passion, individuality. You have to be fucking irreplaceable for her to fight for you. And she has to be irreplaceable. Like so, and, and to be irreplaceable means you have to be emotionally available, fully expressed and, and, and fully available to her.
[2:00:37] Self-actualized.
[2:00:38] Well, I guess it's just another word, which, which means a lot of things to a lot of people, but the woman is going to connect and commit and trust you when she knows that you are passionately devoted to her and she's irreplaceable to you, right? Monogamy is you're not replaceable by definition, right? Are you open and vulnerable and passionate enough, that you're irreplaceable? Or are you a dissociated smoothie that someone else can come along?
[2:01:10] Oh, no, no. I am. Oh, sorry. Can you hear me?
[2:01:18] It doesn't sound great.
[2:01:21] Sorry about that. I might have run out of battery. I'm here.
[2:01:25] That's good. Okay.
[2:01:26] Oh, no. I'm not a dissociated smoothie. I'm open and vulnerable, and I make an effort to be that way.
[2:01:32] Why not in this conversation, then?
[2:01:36] Oh, wow.
[2:01:38] Because you've got no emotion in this conversation. None. Like, not even a shred. Your voice is not caught. There's been no particular sorrow. I mean, it's not exactly AI, but it sure as hell isn't the opposite of AI.
[2:01:51] I had a couple moments. Are you giving me credit where credit's due? I had a couple moments of emotion when I was opening up about some of the horrible things that happened.
[2:02:10] I mean, I'm pretty sensitive to this stuff. I'm not perfect at it, of course, but I remember it just be like, holy crap. Like this, this is like reading a cereal box here.
[2:02:23] Right. But this is like stuff that I've worked on and, um.
[2:02:34] But if you're telling the greatest horrors, telling the greatest horrors in an unemotional tone, what does that do to somebody else?
[2:02:42] Yeah, yeah, you're right.
[2:02:44] It forces dissociation on the other person, right?
[2:02:47] Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah, thank you, yeah.
[2:02:52] And that's why the narration I was saying is between you and the feeling.
[2:02:59] Right.
[2:03:01] See, working on distancing yourself from this stuff is alarming to other people, I think, or dissociating for other people, because, this shaped your life. And I think you said, like, robbed you of years, and right, so, I mean, you experienced intense, brutal, sadistic, cruel, violent horrors, with your father for three decades and your mother. Right.
[2:03:41] I'm really proud of myself that they didn't fucking finish me off.
[2:03:45] Absolutely. That's magnificent. And you get medals the size of Jupiter.
[2:03:51] And I've been listening to you for like 10 years and you're like this cult figure in my head and i don't i i'm flattered i i.
[2:04:00] Never know no no no we're talking about your feelings here stop trying to dissociate.
[2:04:05] Me we're cool.
[2:04:06] No no no stay in the conversation don't talk about me and the cult figure in the head and the right that's taking us out of the conversation so if i had been at war for five years right and i was like yeah well Well, we, you know, we ran up this hill and then, you know, my best friend got his arm blown off. And then, uh, yeah, I remember running out of ammo that one time. And, uh, yeah, then I, I tripped over a body that was so bloated with gas that it exploded and showered me with innards. And then, uh, you know.
[2:04:37] You proved your point. You prove your point, you know? Right.
[2:04:40] So like, you understand if I'm going to talk about horrors without experiencing any of the horror, it dissociates everyone. And I think that for you, distance from the demonic is salvation. But distance from the demonic is distance from your history, which means it's tough for people to connect with you.
[2:05:16] Now, for me, again, I'm not trying to say I'm sort of templated. I'm just telling you my own personal experience. I had a surprise conversation the other day where my childhood came up. I could feel my heart rate increase. It's been 40 years.
[2:05:34] I mean, it's wound into my being. And it's, you know, it's a lot of what drives me forward in a positive way and so on, right? Right? But when I think about my childhood, and certainly when I communicate about my childhood, it's very vivid. It's very deep. And if I shield myself or others from the feelings, while talking in a very neutral tone about the facts, I think what communicates itself to women and is something like this. While I went through so much horror, I've had to abandon my emotions. I've had to abandon my connection with my emotions. And so you can't access my passions, because I can't. And you can't access my passions, therefore there's nothing to fight for, because I've had to sacrifice my individuality in order to survive my brutalities. Whereas if, you know, You can talk about things in the past without sobbing, crying, and screaming, but with that sort of emotional connection that says, I went through this stuff, and I have refused to abandon my own passions. I've refused to let my abuses define passions.
[2:06:59] The girls that I went on the most dates with, like back to back where there was potential, I did get emotional when I eventually like on like the fourth date, like, and it's appropriate to really unleash like your childhood, not like on the first date, but, you know, and that was a girl that really wanted to work things out with me.
[2:07:22] Okay. Right. Because a woman needs to know, like, the male-female relationship is fundamentally about the body, right? I don't mean sex, but I mean it's about literally producing more bodies, right? About having kids. The amount of vulnerability that a woman engages in to choose you, give up, forsake all others, right? To give up everyone else, to give up her youth, her physical attractiveness to a large degree, to give up her figure to be dependent upon you financially. And the higher status you are, right, and you say that you're very successful, I fully accept that. You say you're very good looking. So you're a high status guy. So for a woman, a high status guy is desirable and alarming because he can choose someone else like that, right? It's not like after Brad Pitt got divorced, he had trouble getting dates. So how does a woman trust a high status guy well he has to be passionately devoted to her.
[2:08:27] In order for her to trust him enough to surrender up her womb and start, birthing children which is the end of her romantic life and so she has to say i'm so irreplaceable to to my boyfriend, that he'll never leave me. Now, if she's not deeply herself and emotionally available, then you can't commit to her. And if she senses you can't commit to her, she's not going to fight for you because that's just going to be disastrous, right? Because then she's going to marry you or get pregnant, have kids, and then you're just going to like wander off. And so we go back to you at 14, 15, 16, right? Right. Why did she not commit to you? Now, your answer has been she had a bad childhood, she made bad decisions, right? And all of that's true. And all of that's outside of your control.
[2:09:33] Why did she not commit to you? Or to put it another way, why didn't you choose a woman or a girl who could commit to you or who would?
[2:09:49] Because I was dissociated and not expressing my real emotion with that girl and hiding who I really am. Therefore, it was easy for her to say, like, you're not even really here. And I'm just going to go for the next guy that's more passionate and is here and is passionate about me.
[2:10:15] Well, I mean, you talked about only kissing for two years, right? Right I mean didn't that drive you insane.
[2:10:26] Oh hell yeah man okay.
[2:10:28] But you see it was completely I was.
[2:10:29] Trying to get in her pants all the time oh.
[2:10:32] You were so you oh you were trying to have sex with her and she said no.
[2:10:36] Maybe not sex but just fool around you know.
[2:10:39] Right right second base whatever right yeah so you were trying and she said no, okay that's not what I got from earlier, Because you were talking about wanting to maintain the purity and.
[2:10:54] I said we were.
[2:10:56] No, no, not we. You were trying to get into her pants.
[2:11:01] Right.
[2:11:02] And she said no.
[2:11:04] Right.
[2:11:06] Like if someone doesn't want to hire me, I don't get to say I don't want the job. I mean, I guess I can say that, but it's not really true, right? Here's the trouble with narrative, right? The trouble with narrative is it often contradicts. Now, facts don't contradict, right? If I say I was born in Ireland, I don't later say, no, I wasn't, right? I mean, so this is why I'm always asking for facts, right? So the problem in narrative is the way there were three things, and I'm not trying to pick anything apart here, and it's no criticism, I'm just sort of pointing it out, right? Right. So you said, you know, well, you know, uh, we, we only kissed and, and you didn't mention anything about how you wanted to do more than kiss, but she kept saying no. Right. You didn't say, oh man, I was desperate to get into a bra and, and she kept pushing me away and, and like that, that, right. And then, so you said, well, we, all we did was kiss and all of that. Right. And then you said, well, you know, but it was pure and it was, it was uplifting and it was, you know, good and all of that kind of stuff. And, and, and all of that to some degree is narrative and and now again i'm not trying to catch you out or anything here i'm just saying this is the problem with trust right because now you say well i was trying to get into her pants but she kept saying no right right.
[2:12:26] But i was also enjoying the fact that we didn't end up fooling around like yes.
[2:12:32] I it drove me crazy if you if you try to get into her pants you're not simultaneously enjoying the fact that you're not getting into her pants, This is what I mean by language is tough, right? The biology is, look, and I'm not saying you should have gotten into her pants, and I completely understand that at 16 you wanted to, but that was a fact, right? And then, so then if you say, like, how is someone supposed to, how is a woman going to trust you if you say, it was good that we didn't fool around, and I was constantly trying to fool around?
[2:13:05] Right. Fair.
[2:13:06] How is she going, like, if you can't even commit to what happened, and you have a multivariate view of what happened, then what she senses is that you can talk yourself in and out of things.
[2:13:19] Right.
[2:13:20] Now, if you can talk yourself in and out of things, you can't commit.
[2:13:26] Yeah, because you're telling two stories.
[2:13:29] Well, I mean, so it's like, oh, yeah, well, you know, I can completely convincingly say that we had this pure relationship that was kind of asexual. And then you can say, I was really constantly trying to get into her pants and you don't seem to notice the difference or the opposite, right? Because I was like, I was going to circle back on that, right? I have it in my notes here. I was going to circle back on that. Like, what do you mean you were a 16-year-old guy with a completely hot girlfriend, and you were quite content to only kiss? And again, I'm not saying you should have gotten into her pants, but I mean, that's the biological imperative, isn't it?
[2:14:04] Sure.
[2:14:05] So that's something that I found disorienting. Now, do you, have you noticed, and again, I'm not trying to catch you out or anything, have you noticed a difference?
[2:14:18] No, you're fine.
[2:14:19] Have you noticed a difference between it was good that all we did was kiss to I was constantly trying to get into her pants?
[2:14:28] Ask it again.
[2:14:29] Have you noticed a difference between, or do you notice a difference between it was good and right and holy and pure that all we did was kiss and then I was constantly trying to get into her pants?
[2:14:41] Oh yeah, of course.
[2:14:42] Like you notice that difference, right? Of course. No, but you say of course, but you didn't notice it when you said it.
[2:14:49] Right.
[2:14:51] So you say of course, but do you understand that that's a contradiction? It's a pretty big one too, right?
[2:15:00] Yeah.
[2:15:01] So.
[2:15:03] I'd take it in stride, like we don't exist in a vacuum, like, you know.
[2:15:09] No, no, no. I don't want to need those abstractions. they're driving me crazy okay that's do you do you you see you see the difference here right like this is a contradiction and you don't notice it so it means that you have narratives that are detached from each other right and and don't collide but you see it's when it's when your narrative meshes with the evidence and is consistent that's when you can be trusted it. If you don't notice that you're saying opposite things about important topics within an hour and a half of each other, then it's tough to trust. I mean, if you had a salesman who said, confidently, I sold a hundred knives, and then an hour later confidently says, I haven't sold any knives, you'd be pretty, you wouldn't trust that salesman, would you? Because it'd be like, wait, hang on. You just said you sold a hundred. Now you're saying you didn't sell any. Well, obviously, yeah, obviously that's different. And then he just wanted to move on to some other abstract topic. That would be tough to trust, right?
[2:16:24] Right.
[2:16:25] So why did you tell me, and again, not accusation, why did you tell me that it was a virtue that you and your girlfriend didn't kiss?
[2:16:36] Didn't fool around?
[2:16:37] Around sorry sorry that you didn't fool around that you only kissed for my apology sorry yeah why did you tell me that it was a virtue and again just open curiosity why did you tell me it was a virtue that you and your girlfriend only kissed to.
[2:16:49] Give her credit that um she was able to, um turn away my advances and also when the tables had turned and she wanted um um, um, sexual activity with me that I was able to turn it down as well.
[2:17:12] So you, so you, you wanted to show how strong will she was in rejecting your advances to, to go further than kissing, but that doesn't make any sense, right? Because if you wanted to elevate your girlfriend's virtue by rejecting your advances, then why wouldn't you tell me that you made advances? Yes.
[2:17:41] I'll try to be more thorough.
[2:17:42] No, no, it's not a question of thorough. Like you gave me another narrative here, right? Which is, well, I wanted to make my girlfriend look better, but you didn't because you didn't tell me that you had made advances that she'd rejected. So that's not, that can't be true. Yo, yo.
[2:18:05] Hey stefan hey.
[2:18:07] Sorry i don't know the gods really don't seem to want us to have to get this conversation done but that's all right something happened to my computer i don't tell me.
[2:18:14] About it um so.
[2:18:15] Why okay so no let me let me get back i just want to finish my thought that i was sort of talking about right so this is a childhood thing and i i have massive sympathy for it really really massive sympathy for it okay so when you were a kid would your father demand answers, which you would be hugely punished if you didn't have an answer right away big time, okay so give me an example.
[2:18:41] Oh, well, why, why, why aren't you studying harder? What the hell, what's going on? Are you, did you do your homework?
[2:18:53] Okay. So, and this would be under a massive threat, right?
[2:18:56] Yeah.
[2:18:58] Okay. So you had to be really fucking good at making shit up on the fly, right?
[2:19:04] Yeah.
[2:19:05] Okay. So that's a real challenging habit, right?
[2:19:09] Yeah.
[2:19:10] Now, I mean, massive sympathies for you as a kid. Oh, yeah. No question, right? No question. No question. I mean, everybody would do that. Now, so when I say, why would you tell me that, or why would you withhold from me that you were trying to get into your girlfriend's pants in your teens? And you have an immediate answer, and it sounds really good, right? But it's not true. And again, I'm not calling you a liar or anything like that. I'm just saying that you have a habit of you got to have an answer or you're toast. But rapid answers tend to be incorrect.
[2:19:52] Right.
[2:19:56] So in that moment, you're like, you come up with a really credible answer. Well, I wanted to show my girlfriend, I wanted you to see how virtuous my girlfriend was. us but that doesn't hang with the facts right that you still didn't tell me that you were trying to get into her pants I don't.
[2:20:12] Know I'm kind of like cloudy brained right now I'm just trying to follow your lead.
[2:20:16] And just be.
[2:20:17] A good listener.
[2:20:22] Yeah that's I mean a bit more distraction talk so, do you know why you didn't tell me you were trying to get into your girlfriend's pants when you were first telling me this story or subsequent to, okay so i i don't know either right but that's interesting right right if you have answers that are both immediate convincing and wrong you can't be trusted that's fair and so and i'd say this great sympathy right great sympathy that for what's the price of not having an answer death, Right. So this is the problem. So the narrative aspect comes from, narrative means, and I've sort of noticed this pattern, right? I keep saying, well, why did this happen? Why did that happen? And you would give me all this narrative, right?
[2:21:19] Right.
[2:21:19] Or I'd say, why did this happen and what happened and so on. I get narrative and I kept saying, well, the narrative is in the way of the feelings, right? So what happens if I ask you a question, you know, maybe a sort of minor authority figure in your mind or whatever, right? So I ask you a question and you say, you know what? I did not tell the truth and I did just contradict myself and I have no idea why.
[2:21:45] Boom.
[2:21:48] You're going to get a giant fist to the head, right? In your past, right?
[2:21:52] Mm-hmm.
[2:21:54] So can you admit contradictions and can you say i don't know.
[2:22:00] Yes but.
[2:22:03] I don't think you can easily.
[2:22:05] Not easily but uh if you know if uh somebody can reason with me you know i can you know but i'm reasoning with you and yeah Yeah.
[2:22:18] Right. You haven't even admitted that what I said, you haven't said what I said was contradictory.
[2:22:25] Oh, well, what I said was contradictory and, and, and I don't know why. And that's really interesting that I can just, uh, that I'm capable of that.
[2:22:35] Well, Hey man, we're all capable of that. We're all capable of that. So don't, I don't want you to feel alone in that, but that's a really interesting question, right? So I've got stuff that doesn't hang together. I have to have an answer. I can't admit contradiction. And that's what I mean by smooth, right? Like you have really convincing answers that don't hang together. And I sympathize with all of that because you were massively punished for telling the truth and being consistent. Right? If your dad says, why the hell aren't you studying? and you said, because I think school is bullshit. I don't care. It doesn't matter. And I'm too terrified at home to concentrate because you're a big, scary testosterone ape. Then what?
[2:23:32] Right?
[2:23:34] You're going to get held over a balcony, right?
[2:23:37] Mm-hmm.
[2:23:47] The I don't know is where other people can contribute, right? So, and this is why I was resisting, because I remember I said, like, all of your narratives haven't worked in your dating life, right?
[2:23:59] Right.
[2:23:59] So, when you keep giving me these narratives as if they're true, functional, helpful, accurate, and working, I know that that can't be the case. Does that make sense?
[2:24:07] Yep. Bingo.
[2:24:08] So, if you're absolutely certain about your life, its causality, and so on, and you have all the answers, then there's no input from other people that's possible. They can't make an impact on you. They can't leave an impression on you. And if they can't leave an impression on you, you can't bond with them because pair bonding is when I'm way better with this other person in my life, which means they, you know, this, you complete me crap is, is kind of, kind of nauseating, but my life is way better with my wife, like infinitely better with my wife in it and that means she has things to say that i don't see she has a massive input that hugely changes my life but if you have all of the answers then people can't add much to your life and if they can't add much to your life you can't pair bond very easily if that makes sense.
[2:24:56] Oh man and i feel this like in my core like i like i think about this this this dark side of me like this like uh have all the answers and it's like Like, very good job.
[2:25:12] And your dad had all the answers, didn't he?
[2:25:16] Oh, yeah.
[2:25:17] He even had the answer to you being miserable. Kill yourself, right?
[2:25:23] Yep.
[2:25:24] So your dad had all these answers and was totally wrong. And because he had all the answers, he then transferred to you the need to have all the answers. Because if you didn't have an answer, he'd beat the shit out of you. Instant certainty, no matter what. Instant answers or death. And that doesn't give room for other people to give input. So if I say, I don't know the answer, maybe we can sort of theorize, it's not particularly important. I mean, it's important to you to know that answer, but it's not important for this part of the conversation to know why, you didn't talk about trying to get into your girlfriend's pants right at the time and so but but to me the connection is holy crap i did say this and i'm saying kind of the opposite, and i don't know why like then i have something to add but you gave me all these other answers well i did this it was because of this like all these other instant answers and that walls people off.
[2:26:30] Right.
[2:26:30] Well, he's got all the answers. So what can I contribute to his life?
[2:26:39] What's the point of even calling in?
[2:26:43] Well, and I know that you're calling in for me to dislodge you from your father's curse of instant answers.
[2:26:50] Bingo.
[2:26:53] I don't know why I did that. And listen, I mean, I've been into self-knowledge for like 40 years. I still don't know why I do some stuff. And I talk about it with people and it's interesting. Right? right? And they have things to add and we get closer and all of that, right? But you've had to be a self-sufficient, eat your own urine guy to survive. And to not have an answer is an invitation to closeness. You can't empathize with someone who has all the answers and knows everything. Because what can you add? And you have, I mean, amazing things to offer. You have amazing things to offer. I mean, the world, a woman, children, you have amazing things to offer. You're very smart. You're very verbal. You're very skilled. You're good looking. I hate to say it matters, but it matters. Right you have a lot to offer but for a woman to trust you you have to really really need her, which means the answer to your life is to a large degree her but if you already have all the answers what do you need her for yeah does that make sense oh it's very abstract but again you're you're smart enough no i feel.
[2:28:22] I feel it more than even thought like yeah it's internal.
[2:28:30] Because I think you're communicating your childhood with all the answers. Well, this happened because of this, and I know all about this, and this happened because of that, and so on. But if it's emotionally disconnected, I think it's not inviting to people. I think it's alienating to people. I mean, you have a lot to be sad and angry about, and I really feel for that. I really feel for that massively, and I do want you to get that sweet connection with another human being. But to complete yourself with someone else, you have to be incomplete without them, and part of that is the answers.
[2:29:09] Right.
[2:29:11] I don't know why my mother was the way she was. I don't know. I mean, I've thought about it for 50 years. I don't know why my mother was the way she was. I have some theories, but I can't ever validate them because she's crazy and won't give me honest answers. And I don't know. I mean, part of it's free will, part of it's, and that's an ex-mystery. Part of it is her childhood. Part of it is her looks. Part of it is the culture. Part of it is the legal system, right? I mean, the legal system, really. I mean, and the welfare state, she didn't have to grow up because she got free money. And so she remained half an infant for her life. And so, but there is no answer. And so people say, well, why was your mother the way she was it's like i i don't i have some ideas i don't know i mean i even gave you one of the answers sort of earlier with the looks and this and the other right but that's as much of a question as an answer because then the question is and they always go back forever right now my mother placed too much emphasis on her looks well why why did she play someone i mean there are pretty women who are deep so right anyway so i i think that if you have all the answers it's not a conversation. And if you're like, well, you know, I don't know. I mean, we still don't know why you got suicidal in your early twenties. I don't know the answer to that. And where you don't have the answers, you tend to move on to a distracting topic. And that's like when you grow up with a volatile, angry person, you get to be an expert at distraction, right?
[2:30:39] Yes.
[2:30:42] Because if you don't have an answer, you've got to move them onto another topic and quick.
[2:30:48] So my answer about that I had realized over an accumulation of time of experience of bad experiences with my dad, that it had finally settled. It had finally clicked in my mind in my early twenties that like, oh, like he's really like, like he's not the, you know, the, I like, there is no hope. Like this is only going to get worse. And like, I realized that's not.
[2:31:16] An answer either. You know why?
[2:31:19] No, tell me.
[2:31:20] Because you worked for him for another seven fucking years.
[2:31:24] Yeah.
[2:31:25] So when you say, well, I finally realized this about my father, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I kept working for him for another seven years. Even that answer doesn't hang together.
[2:31:34] Right.
[2:31:40] And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with anything you did. I'm just saying that the answers, while credible in isolation, don't hang together. That's because you were rushed into answers as a kid, and the punishment for not having answers was extreme and so on, right? You know, if I ask my daughter sometimes, why did you do that? She says, I don't know. You know, we'll talk about it. You know, the thought usually precedes the, you know, whatever, right? But she's, you know, she doesn't know. That's fine. That's the beginning of a great conversation.
[2:32:17] I mean, this whole, it's funny. So this whole show is, is founded on shit. I don't know. Right. Like, I don't know what right and wrong is. I don't know what truth and falsehood is. I don't know what good and evil is. Right. So I really try and work out these things. So this, I refuse to give answers that I don't know. Right. So, so why are you doing what you're doing? I, there's some theories and so on. I can't give you any definitive answers. People say to me, Steph, what should I do next? What I always say, I can't tell you what to do next. I don't know. Right so this whole show is founded on curiosity and yet i think a lot of your interactions both the self and others is based upon a kind of false certainty and the reason i know it comes from trauma is that you don't notice when things contradict i was done with my dad in my early 20s well i did work with him until i was 28 and that's fine but if you'd have said to me something Something like, yeah, you know, I realized in my early 20s when my dad told me I might as well kill myself that we were done, right? That it was all over, that I could never reform him, I could never change him. And then, of course, what's going to be confusing to you, Steph, is why I continued to work under him for another seven years.
[2:33:30] Oh, yeah, I totally own that. That's still not an answer. Like, what the hell? Why didn't you just leak that?
[2:33:34] Well, no, no, but you say these things without saying, without acknowledging to the other person that there's a contradiction. Like you didn't say, you know, well, I did talk about how great it was that we never kissed, but I mean, now this is going to be kind of confusing for you, Steph, but now, you know, but I was constantly trying to get into her pants. Does that make sense?
[2:33:54] Yeah, yeah.
[2:33:54] Or you say to me, I was totally done with my dad in my early twenties, which makes it all the more confusing that I worked under him until I was 28. Right. So you say, I was totally, I was done with my dad. It was, you know, I recognized it was never going to progress, never going to get any better. And then, you know, later you say, well, I worked with my dad until I was 28 with no connection between these two things. And if your stories don't connect it's tough to pair bond right if your stories don't connect how well can you connect with others because when your stories don't connect or they contradict each other then other people are like well wait a minute didn't say this hang on what hang on and he doesn't even notice his contradiction what the hell yeah.
[2:34:45] It's a real.
[2:34:46] And it's not like what a bad guy. Nothing like that. It's like, wait a minute, am I crazy? Does this not make sense? Doesn't this just contradict? And yet you're so eloquent and so convincing that you move on to some other topic and people are just left with this vague, huh? Like, what? Like they're watching some kind of show rather than connecting with a person, right? And none of this is a criticism, of course, you know that, right? I'm just saying that, that, you know, I want you, you have so much to offer. I want you to pair bond. I want you to connect, but you gotta, you gotta write some of this shit down and, and you've got to scan like crazy for contradictions.
[2:35:23] Yeah.
[2:35:24] And you've got to work to try and resolve them.
[2:35:27] I'm under pressure being on the call with your level of accuracy. I mean, you take full command of the conversation, the pace that you set.
[2:35:37] Nope, nope, nope. Now you're abstracting. You're abstracting. And you're also kind of blaming me. Well, Steph, you're in full command. And it's like, I didn't make you contradict yourself.
[2:35:48] No, no, no.
[2:35:48] I'm not in full command. I'm not setting the pace, whatever the hell that means. I'm just asking questions and you're giving me contradictory information and not noticing it. That's you and I'm not blaming you But don't try and put it on me.
[2:36:00] I didn't mean it like that at all Well.
[2:36:03] Then why would you say Steph you're in full command and you're in you set the pace and like you've given me the reins right.
[2:36:08] No, you just I'm just It's just the first time I've ever talked. It is a Stop giving no.
[2:36:17] No no listen. It's fine that you contradicted yourself self i that's why i'm glad you did because otherwise the call would be kind of baffling, like if you had a perfectly consistent story and you couldn't connect with women in a pair bonding kind of way that would be bad news that would be really bad news is this i'm totally fine that you contradicted yourself i do it sometimes too it's it's something we just need people to point out right so that we can resolve this kind of stuff so right so you're you're reacting in a way as if i'm the bad dad who's going to get mad at you for contradicting right so now you're trying to distract me or praise me or tell me i'm in charge of everything and i'm so intimidating and and you're so in awe and right i'm the cult in your brain or whatever right so i get all of that rather than just yeah hey you know you you caught me and that's really interesting and and like i'm not i'm not as repeatedly said i'm certainly not attacking or blaming you i'm And pointing out these contradictions as a sign of trauma, which is keeping you from connecting with people in the way that you want. And to me, this is just good news. There's nothing wrong with anything you did. I'm certainly not mad. I mean, there's actually kind of relief when you find some causality that makes sense, if that makes sense.
[2:37:39] So that's why I keep saying I'm not trying to catch you out or anything I'm just pointing out that these contradictions that you appear to be.
[2:37:49] Blind to is making up answers because of prior punishment and therefore you're not having a conversation with someone you're still appeasing your father and if you're appeasing your father, people can't connect with you and also of course as you know if you are and i'm not saying it's a huge degree here it's a little bit right but if you are appeasing your father you're putting the other person in the role of abuser.
[2:38:20] Right.
[2:38:21] Which is not good for the, it's not fun for the other person, if that makes sense.
[2:38:28] Yeah, it's wrong.
[2:38:30] Well, it's a little unjust, right? And again, I understand it, but, you know, it is, you know, what your father did 10,000 times, right? Which is he put you in the role of somebody who'd harmed him and was going to get you before you got him and all, right? To a tiny, tiny, obviously a very, very tiny, tiny degree, there's some of that injustice can transfer, right? Right. So when a woman would get upset with me, right. And I would start with my sort of manic appeasement and distraction and, and, and avoidance mechanisms because of my mother, it's like, you can't get mad at me because my mother was insane. It's like, well, no, you can get mad at me. You can be upset with me. You can be frustrated with me. I'm not going to, you're not my mother because you have emotions. So it's, it's not letting the parents own the the emotions and saying, well, the only way I can not be like my father is to not, be upset or, or frustrated or, or angry or hurt or like that. That's like, if I had to say to a woman, you can't ever be upset with me because my mother was.
[2:39:32] Full of rage. I'm saying that my mother is going to run our relationship. Now, Now, how sexy is it for a woman if you say, hey, my insane mother is going to be totally in charge of our relationship. Want to make a baby? No, that's not right. I'm not going to let her own that. And the fact that you contradict yourself in your narratives, yeah, that's fine, right? But you wouldn't want to let your father own that and say, go into sort of fight or flight defense avoidance, more stories, distraction mode, because you've contradicted yourself. Self be like oh okay i've i've contradicted myself that's interesting i wonder why, as opposed to well i can't admit it and i've got to distract people from it and i've got to make up a new story because otherwise i'm going to get dangled off a balcony or something that is letting your father run the conversation and and and own, the possibility of knowledge the possibility of knowledge arises from self-contradiction right because that's usually where something very important is right Right.
[2:40:35] Oh you got a thunder strike I heard in the background.
[2:40:38] A little bit yeah Zoos Storms are raging, So does that, does that help us as I would, you know, if I were in your shoes, I've got these contradictions, right? And you can listen back to this and you can, you know, more of the contradictions than I do because, right. And this is why, this is why for me, I'm always asking for facts, right? I'm always asking for the facts because the facts, the narratives can free form. They can flow back and forth, contradict each other, and they're tough to catch. And they're impossible to catch really without the facts. So that's why I start with the facts. And then if there's a break from the facts with the narrative, then I can point that out. Because if we're fully in touch with the facts, we're almost limitless in our power and connectivity. But if we are lost in narrative, we are shielded through contradictory language from others. And And that which is contradictory can't be consistent. That which is not consistent can't be trusted. That which can't be trusted can't be fallen in love with. And I want you, you know, you say you last fell in love 20 years ago. My gosh, it's time to get back to that well, brother.
[2:41:41] Oh, yeah. And to answer your question, you've provided tremendous value. And facts versus narrative contradictions, you've given me a lot to chew on. And like you said, to write it down and go back to that well.
[2:41:56] All right. Will you keep me posted about how things are going?
[2:42:00] How you always ask people this and they never do. You've, you've made a point.
[2:42:05] I don't know. It's no, I, it's not, I've never said they never do.
[2:42:10] Not, well, you're so fast and quick on the draw. You're like, no, it's not.
[2:42:14] It's not, it's just a statement, right? I mean, when, when I say to people, keep in touch with me, how do you know how many people keep in touch with me?
[2:42:20] No, well, I'll answer you. So I've heard you say in a show before, correct me if I'm wrong. I asked so many people to stay in touch with me. And you asked the audience, the chat, you're like, do you guys know how few people actually do that? It's like a very small person.
[2:42:35] No, sorry. And you're right about this. I have said some people, like a lot of people don't get back in touch with me, believe it or not. And I'm so sorry. You're absolutely right. And now I'm contradicting myself. So yes, you're absolutely right. And that is a contradiction. Since I have talked about that, I don't know, six or eight months ago, a lot more people have been getting back in touch with me. So you're totally right. I think I have said, yeah, I asked people to get back to me and they generally don't. You're totally right. I do have a whole page of the testimonials on my website. Site. You can go to freedomain.com slash donate for anyone. You can get to all the testimonials. So you're totally right. I have complained about people not getting in touch with me as much as I want. They've been doing it more lately. So hopefully that resolves the contradiction. But yes, you're absolutely right. See, I said everyone does it. So yeah, what you heard is accurate. And so if you do want to, you can, of course, just email me the same email call in at freedomain.com or you can email me at support at freedomain.com. But yeah, I'd certainly love to hear how people are doing.
[2:43:30] The, the email that you emailed me with originally, I can respond right back to that.
[2:43:35] Oh yeah. Yeah, totally. Totally.
[2:43:37] Yeah. To answer your question, I will give you a response and let you know how it's going. And thank you so much for, for asking that. It's so generous.
[2:43:50] And you are very welcome. And I really do appreciate the call. You did a fantastic job.
[2:43:54] Thanks, Stefan.
[2:43:55] All right. Take care, man. Bye-bye.
[2:43:57] Take care.
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