0:06 - The Spiral Begins
1:26 - A Call for Change
3:20 - Childhood Memories
7:07 - The Nature of Lying
7:37 - Seeking Honesty
14:46 - Exploring Perfectionism
17:20 - The Impact of Fear
20:37 - Teenage Turmoil
21:14 - Awakening Sexuality
24:30 - The Illusion of Happiness
25:48 - The Struggles of Dating
29:16 - Entering Adulthood
31:45 - Loss and New Beginnings
35:46 - The Rise and Fall of Relationships
36:19 - The Complexity of Intimacy
43:29 - Negotiating Relationships
53:19 - The Split Moral Compass
1:05:21 - After the Divorce
1:11:32 - The Cycle of Love Bombing
1:11:44 - First Encounter After Divorce
1:18:03 - Reflections on Family Dynamics
1:21:36 - Understanding Parental Influence
1:48:28 - The Cycle of Subjugation
1:58:31 - The Burden of Legacy
2:04:31 - The Reality of Relationships
2:23:52 - The Importance of Honesty
In this interview, the caller shares a deeply personal story, revealing the struggles he has faced over many years with anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behavior. The conversation begins with the caller describing a recent incident where he found himself waking up naked in a hotel room after a night where he feels he may have been drugged. This experience exacerbated feelings of pain and discomfort he had been holding for months, leading him to seek guidance. He mentions having picked up a book by Stefan, titled "Real-Time Relationships," which he found enlightening and resonated with many of his personal experiences.
As the discussion unfolds, the caller delves into his childhood and family dynamics, explaining that he was raised in an upper-middle-class household with a critical mother and an enabling father. He recounts feeling a constant pressure to conform and please, particularly his mother, who he describes as demanding and judgemental. This led him to develop a habit of lying and manipulating situations to avoid punishment. The critical environment created a narrative in his mind that he was never good enough and contributed to issues such as low self-esteem and anxiety, which followed him into his adult life.
Throughout the interview, Stefan guides the caller to explore the impact of his childhood trauma on his current relationships, particularly with women. The caller reflects on how his need for approval and fear of rejection has driven him into unhealthy patterns in relationships, often leading him to manipulate and use women as a substitute for emotional connection. He admits that his sexual encounters often lack meaning and fulfillment, reflecting a conflict between his desire for connection and his actions that perpetuate loneliness.
As the conversation shifts towards outlining the caller's latest experiences with women, he acknowledges a pattern of love bombing followed by withdrawal, mirroring the behaviors he encountered with his mother. Stefan highlights that the inability to engage in honest communication stems from his childhood experiences, where directness was avoided, leading to poor emotional relationships as an adult. The caller recognizes that his behavior reflects unresolved issues from his past, leaving him feeling hollow and uncertain.
Stefan encourages the caller to consider reaching out to his mother and addressing the critical aspects of their relationship. He emphasizes that confronting these difficult conversations is key to breaking the cycles of dishonesty and manipulation that have defined the caller's experiences with women. This moment becomes a significant turning point in the conversation as the caller expresses a desire to cultivate honesty in his life and discuss his childhood wounds with his mother.
By the end of the interview, the caller conveys a sense of urgency to take control of his life and relationships, recognizing that he must confront these deep-rooted issues if he hopes to foster genuine connections. The discussion concludes with a commitment from the caller to revisit his family dynamics, using the insights gained from the conversation as a guide to initiate a much-needed dialogue with his mother. The exchange underscores the importance of addressing past traumas to pave a healthier path forward in relationships and personal well-being.
[0:00] All right. Yeah, it looks like we're good to go. So do you want to just stop by reading me the message? Do you want to just chat about it? What's your pleasure?
[0:06] I mean I am good either way I mean I don't need to read the message I kind of know what the message was so I guess I could start there um so yeah um I I would say I've been spiraling for weeks if not months now and it kind of culminated in a experience a little over a week ago where I ended up waking up naked in a hotel room and uh i think i was i was drugged i mean i took drugs and things that i i never done before and don't remember very much at all of anything that happened, um and i'm not sure if you know there was some kind of a rape involved or what but i have felt very uneasy like my feelings of anxiety and depression and stress and just unease were extreme um i got myself home the next day which was a sunday and a friend of mine had sent me information about your book real-time relationships and for whatever reason i think just hitting what I always feel like I hit a new rock bottom and this was just the newest one.
[1:27] I just felt like I need to make a change.
[1:33] I started reading your book, a combination of reading the book and listening to an audio version of it, an audiobook version of it on YouTube.
[1:46] It opened my eyes to some possibilities. It definitely was enlightening about myself. because it felt like a lot of the, I haven't read the whole book yet, I'm going to be honest, but it felt like a lot of the, Um, examples that you were giving in the first half of the book, just referencing like fake people going through fake experiences, those fake experiences are like all my real experiences. So, um, I'm just, I mean, I don't want to label myself, you know, too much. And I don't want to be too down on myself, but I mean, there's a lot of areas that I really want to improve on. And most importantly, I just want to live my life honestly and like be my true self. And I think that living my life in the way that I have, which is purely in conformity and just totally just wanting everyone to like me and just doing everything I can to chameleon myself to be like whoever anyone wants in that given situation has done nothing for me, but caused me to be where I'm at now, which is, you know, probably a diagnosed depressed. anxiety, ADHD person who just is choosing not to take medication because I just don't like pills. I don't want to take pills and I feel like I shouldn't have to.
[3:10] Right. Well, listen, I'm obviously very glad that you called. It seems like a good time to reach out for some help. So for what that's worth, I really admire that and good for you.
[3:21] So I suppose before we get to the present, let's talk about the deep history. What was your childhood circumstances like? How were you disciplined? And what happened when you were little?
[3:33] So I grew up in a upper middle class family on the West Coast. And I had a two parent household. My parents never got divorced. um i would say that my childhood was a combination of like some privilege and then also um a a lot of, a lot of credit verbal criticism like criticism i guess like um i have a very critical mother and my father so my father my parent dynamic was was always different to me than my friends, because my mom was a breadwinner like she was the one who worked and made more money my dad, lost his job at a certain point in my life when i was younger and then he kind of became more of like a stay-at-home kind of dad so the dynamic shift was off and um basically i was just always scared of my mom like i just like i grew up in an experience where it was better to.
[4:55] You know as long as she was happy i didn't get punished right so effectively like i lived my life in a state of always trying to make sure that i was not being punished not be you know so So I grew up, I would say I grew up like being a bit of a storyteller and a liar, you know, like I would, you know, not do my homework and then like hide my report cards and do stuff like that to try to not get in trouble. Um, My father was an enabler, so whatever my mom wouldn't want me to do, my dad would let me do, and just basically tell me not to tell her, you know? So I would just kind of have secret, I'd have this whole secret world with my dad, my brother and I both did.
[5:49] Yeah, so, and then, you know, I mean, there's a lot that I can unpack about my childhood, but, you know, it's a combination of, you know, my mom and dad being there for me for everything I need, everything I needed and loving me more than I wanted. And I also felt like there was a huge amount of criticism. Like I was never good enough. Like my grades were never good enough. I never, like my mom would tell me that I looked like a movie star, but I never felt that way. Like it would never translate to like relationships when I was like of age. So I don't know. I think I just grew up with very low self-esteem, anxiety before I even knew what it was, and stress, and an ability to manipulate and lie at a level that I've considered myself. After reading your book, I feel disgusted by it, but liars really can tell when other people are lying. like i am very good at like reading people and like knowing when they're bullshitting and it's almost like a superpower but it's like the superpower i don't want anymore.
[7:08] Right right right um tell me what you mean you say you're disgusted by uh what you say, we'll call it lying i mean we're just talking about it technically not from a moral standpoint what do you mean uh disgusted by that help me understand.
[7:26] I think what I mean by disgusted by it is the fact that it comes more naturally to me to lie, to say the thing that the person wants to hear than the thing I want to say every time.
[7:37] And literally, the problem I have now more than ever is that I want to change.
[7:43] Hang on, hang on. We're not talking about now yet. We're talking about when you were a kid.
[7:47] Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[7:48] So when I was a kid, I mean... Were you disgusted by the habit as a kid?
[7:53] No. No, it was survival.
[7:55] Yeah, yeah. Okay. just wanted to check on that.
[7:57] I mean i think i think yeah i think as a child i think it was more like a survival technique you know like i grew up figuring out that if i just was the person my mom wanted me to be even if i really wasn't that person that i could get away with whatever i wanted for the most part and then that kind of just continued to develop into my relationships with friends you know like every friend group i ever had and i had a couple of large friend groups, i was always like the like like i was never like the leader or a leader of those groups i was always kind of just like a tag along if that makes sense i.
[8:37] Mean yeah how.
[8:37] Could you be a leader.
[8:38] I mean you were rejected at home.
[8:39] Yeah i didn't understand that i don't i still i'm still i still struggle with that i'm not gonna lie like i understand it i just it's hard for me to understand like how i could how how i mean i guess it could happen because like as i said i've been reading the book and just listening to it it's like so many of the things i was listening last night i wake up in the middle of the night like one or two in the morning every night with like nightmares or unable to sleep whatever and i just turn on the audiobook and listen to it and like last night it was talking about how you were talking, you literally wrote about how, when you get phone calls from your mother, you feel anxiety, right? That is every phone call I've ever had from her, like from the minute I can remember getting phone calls from her. Like I don't answer the phone. Like I don't even answer the phone half the time.
[9:33] And if I do.
[9:34] I'm really nasty with her.
[9:35] What did your mother say? What was she discontented about? What did she attack you for when you were a kid?
[9:40] When I was a kid, it was a combination of everything. She just had this vision of me of perfection.
[9:49] She just thought that I was smarter than everyone, that anything that I tried to do, I would do better than anyone. She just instilled this concept in me that I should be better.
[10:07] And every time that I would disappoint her, it was because I wasn't the perfect, you know what I mean? it's like it started off with smaller things i think when i was younger but then it got to like turn it and then it started turning into bigger bigger lives bigger things you know i started off early on with like homework or like you know saying i did my homework but i didn't do my homework and she'd find out like a week later and then she'd keep me and then then that turned into her calling my friends every night like she would call different friends of mine every night and ask what the homework was she'd call their parents ask them what the homework was and then she'd find out i was lying and then i'd stay up with her until two or three in the morning when she basically did the homework for me and i would be punished or like i remember at an early age she took tv take she pulled the tv out of my room she washed my mouth out with soap as a punishment when I was a kid um yeah I mean there's a lot of verbal stuff that had happened with her I mean I tried running away like three or four times and every time I'd run away my dad would chase me down and bring me back and.
[11:27] Do you have.
[11:27] Something I haven't thought about that in a while I have a I have a brother yeah younger brother.
[11:32] Okay and um was it the same between your mom and him.
[11:38] To a degree i mean he he i never knew how to like my mom and i never really have never really gotten along like he has always been like the baby to her so i think they've gotten along better, i mean we're still talking about just childhood i think he had a more enjoyable childhood with her than i did he didn't get into nearly as much trouble as i did.
[12:05] Okay now the trouble was that mostly criticism around school and stuff.
[12:10] I would say so yeah and.
[12:14] Why what do you think was the motivation behind your mother's perfectionism in this way.
[12:26] I don't I'm not sure I never asked myself that question, I think that, probably has to do with her childhood probably and how she grew up and she was a teacher before she had us and i think that i i don't know i think that she thought she had like a perfect the perfect child i don't know and like expected a high level of perfection out of that child and i never met the bar and well perfectionism.
[13:13] Is uh generally abusive because it's an impossible standard right you can't you can't meet that you can't meet that.
[13:21] And of.
[13:22] Course if she's a perfectionist then the first thing she'd want to do to to get right is not your school marks but her parenting right so if.
[13:33] She's a perfectionist.
[13:34] Then she should want to read books on parenting and, you know, how to encourage your children and how to connect and communicate with your children and how to have your children feel, you know, secure and happy and attached and loved. If she was a perfectionist, then she'd focus on parenting, which is more important than some stupid math test when you're 10 years old, right?
[13:55] I can't disagree.
[13:57] So it's not about perfectionism. It's not about excellence at all. Because, I mean, If you ask to anyone in the world who's, you know, remotely sane, and you said, are you able to say, well, what's more important, you know, getting a good mark on a spelling bee or having a loving relationship with your son, what would people say?
[14:20] Loving relationship with your son.
[14:21] Yeah, of course. Of course. Okay. But it doesn't seem like that was a standard, right?
[14:28] No.
[14:30] So what was the standard? What was the purpose? What was the goal? What was going on?
[14:46] I don't know. Maybe she really didn't like my dad and she saw my dad in me or something and took it out on me.
[14:58] No, I wouldn't say that. Sorry to be annoyingly negative.
[15:02] No, no, it's fine. I really don't. Trying to think the way my mom was thinking or what was going through her head is, it's complicating. I try not to think about my mom that much.
[15:15] Well which is probably why your life's a little out of control right so i.
[15:19] Would say so.
[15:21] Okay so the purpose of interact the purpose of repeated interactions is what it achieves right the purpose of a system is what it does right sure yeah so you know if someone says uh i'm going to do x y and z to solve a problem and it doesn't solve that problem but they keep doing x y and z then they don't really want to solve the problem right right okay so let's look at your emotional state, as a result of your mother's behavior, so outline for me what happened to you emotionally as a child as a result of this judgmental, censorious, and hypocritical behavior?
[16:14] Um, well, I was in fear a lot. Um, I was anxious as a child. I had ADHD. Um, um, I had low self-esteem, overall I was probably just, I was really unhappy and I think I found ways to compartmentalize that really well. Um, I just remember like being able to have like a great day and then a terrible thing would happen every great day. It was just like, it was just like, okay, enjoy the good stuff until the bad thing happens. It's going to happen eventually. Um, yeah, she just put me in a state of constant fear.
[17:20] you know, I think is really what the overarching feeling was I just I remember I remember having so many issues as a kid I remember at one point I thought that I was a schizophrenic because like I would literally have conversations with myself, so what.
[17:42] Sort of age was that.
[17:46] Probably like when I was like pre-puberty till like 14, 15 ish I just remember like almost thinking like a good angel and a bad angel on my shoulders.
[18:01] Right okay okay, and how did things change over the course of your teenage years with your mom.
[18:13] I um, I would say they got I would say they got worse as I got older. My relationship with her got worse. You know, at some point, like, In middle school, towards the end of middle school, I ended up meeting a group of friends that became my close friends. And she liked my friends, but then I would say that 13-ish, 14 is when we discovered pot, like marijuana. and that was like basically like my whole high school career was like you know going to school and then after school smoking pot and hiding it was just i got better at hiding everything i got better at hiding stuff from her so things got a little bit easier to deal with, um i mean she'd end up catching me and like confiscating whatever and throwing it away or i later found out she would keep it and smoke it herself or whatever but um, sorry yeah i think i'm.
[19:27] Just get your pot and then smoke it herself.
[19:29] Apparently that's what she did or something that's what she said or like she tried it i don't know she told me that much later in life like when our relationship mellowed and we like she thought of me as more of an adult i mean she always thought of me as a child like i was a child all the way until like i was basically like moved out of her house which was at 23 ish so um yeah but i would say that like the later years of my relationship with her were more me numbing out, and not and just not dealing with it i mean i was in and out of a therapist's office and psychologist's offices when i was young um i had a really bad temper my brother and i would fight all the time. I remember one point that I think I took a knife in the kitchen and chased him around the kitchen with it because he got me so mad. And anytime he would do anything to me, I would be the one who would get caught doing the bad thing and he would not get in trouble when I would. So...
[20:38] And your dad's just kind of like this shadowy presence in the background here?
[20:42] My dad would be around during the day. Most of the stuff that happened with my brother and I happened in front of my dad, around my dad, or my dad would be the one who caught us doing it. And then he would basically yell at both of us, and then by the end of it, he was like, just don't tell your mom. Let's keep this between us.
[21:05] Right, okay. Got it. all right is there more i have i mean i have a thought of too but i want to make sure i'm capturing as much info as possible if there's more you want to add.
[21:15] I mean, i would say that like the sexual stuff also kind of started peeking out in that age range too, like i have some issues with sex and i'm not sure exactly like where it came from like i've I've been in a program before, in a 12-step program for it, called SAA. And through that program, you needed to write a history. And for some reason, I remember when I was very young, and I can't remember what happened, but I remember either I was touched, or it wasn't by my family, but it was a neighbor or somebody. There was some kind of sexual awakening experience that occurred. But from the minute...
[22:04] What age, roughly? Thank you.
[22:08] I don't i i remember it being before i was like 12. okay like you know so like between like i don't know eight and eight and twelve probably that's when i vaguely remember it but was it like a one-time.
[22:22] Thing or repetitive.
[22:23] No it was like a i think it was a one-time thing like i don't remember much about it like it's really really hazy i i wrote about it as best as i could and it, was really hazy but um that led to like hyper sexualization the minute that i i knew what that was like where like i would like and this was like pre-technology being good right so like access wasn't as good as easy as it is today to whatever you want right so like i just remember a lot of my childhood being on one of those like old pc computers and just like on aol and like in chat rooms you know like in like as a child portraying an adult and talking to adults right like a lot of really risky bad not bad but risky behaviors things that i didn't even understand i was doing at the time but it was just it for me was escapism everything was about escaping like my life like i loved reading books like harry potter anything that would like transport me to the a person who has a rough life but then gets out of it you.
[23:39] Know and like my life wasn't even that rough in my mind because like i got to go on vacations i had i had all the food and all the clothes and all the things that i could want but i think it was more like the mental aspect of it like i didn't understand how broken down i was being i guess i don't know i just remember wanting i remember like having everything like and again i just have this thing where i compare myself to anyone and i don't complain a lot about myself to people very often so like i look at it like oh was my life really that bad compared to someone else's who grew up in poverty like where i live now compared to where i used to live you know like it's no.
[24:21] But money money can make that disconnect worse.
[24:25] True really can.
[24:26] I'd rather live under a bridge with love than in a big house.
[24:30] All day contempt yeah yeah i mean i convinced myself growing up that it was better to be in what the situation i was than to be like a poor kid you know who didn't get to go to like europe when he was you know at whatever age and, Mexico and skiing trips and all the other stuff.
[24:52] Alright so what happened in your teenage years with regards to dating?
[24:59] Not much. I mean, I didn't really date much. I, my self-esteem was extremely low still. And I was like a hanger on in groups. So like my, the group I hung out with was like mostly guys and there was a few girls. And it was like, in those days, I don't, I imagine it's similar today, but like in those kinds of groups, it's like one guy will date the girl and then they'll stop and then she'll date someone else. so i would find my way into a situation here or there with a woman with a girl you know um but like i would say that like through my teenage years i probably dated, one person for like a month and a half.
[25:44] Sorry for how long.
[25:45] For like a month and a half okay.
[25:48] All right and um why did these bite at that end?
[25:54] Because she was really only dating me because she liked my friend.
[25:59] Yeah, that'll do it. What about working in your teens?
[26:04] I worked throughout, I worked from starting at a young age. I think I started working when I was 13. I started working for a catering company when I was 13 or 14. And it was the same catering, it was the same, so I grew up Jewish. so um it was the same catering company that did like all the bar mitzvahs for all my friends i grew up in like a community where like there are some you know more more more jewish people than not so like all my friends were getting bar mitzvahed and stuff so i remember like working for this catering company and then like the bar mitzvahs that i was invited to i'd go to and the ones i wasn't i was working at it was so awkward but that's where i started so i started working at a catering company and then when i stopped working and that was just like a weekend job it was just like friday nights and saturday nights for the most part and some occasional sundays, and then um when i was like 16 or 17 i started working for like a grocery store i was like a, you know not even a cashier's like a bagger guy who stocks shelves.
[27:10] And things like that right.
[27:11] Yeah yeah yeah exactly stuff like that okay and.
[27:15] Then after high school.
[27:19] After high school, I tried junior college. I didn't even apply to real colleges, real colleges, quote-unquote, right? Like four years colleges. Because I probably could have gotten in, but I just didn't. I was scared. I was really scared about rejection. I have always had this thing about rejection, which is probably why I only dated one girl for a month and a half of my teens. but and never went to my prom and never asked anyone to go to my prom and never did any of those things. I just was so afraid of rejection, you know? So, um, didn't apply to any colleges really, um, found my way to a local community college, kind of messed around there, um, went to another community college, messed around again there. Um, and then while I was going to the second junior college, this is probably at about 20 -ish years old probably 20 I got a job my mom got me a job as a mailroom clerk at the company she worked for, so I basically just worked in the mailroom right sorting mail and putting in the right boxes and whatever little projects that they had for me I remember making a lot of rubber band guns out of different things.
[28:41] Um and uh yeah so from there i mean if you want me to keep going from there i, worked my way up in the mailroom to an actual an actual career at the company i mean it took me probably three years probably till i was about 24 ish before like i had to have a come to jesus moment there where they were basically like you to do better or we're gonna fire your ass, So, like, my mom tried to protect me as much as she could while I was, like, fucking around there. Excuse my language. I'm not sure I'm allowed to cuss, but.
[29:15] No, that's fine.
[29:17] Yeah, so I was messing around a lot, not really, you know, the same stuff I was doing in school. Just not caring, not giving a shit about anything. So, yeah, I was just messing around, not really doing anything that I was supposed to be doing. and um you know come to jesus moment and then from there i kind of just took my career seriously, so i got my my head right i understood what a work ethic was i understood that you know if i work harder i can make more money the harder i try the better i do kind of stuff and um yeah i worked my way up from the mailroom to a low six-figure salary at that company where i currently work were.
[30:02] You uh doing a lot of sort of drugs at the time in your sort of early uh early 20s at this job.
[30:10] Sure i mean i wouldn't say a lot of drugs i would say i mean i was i've never i was never really a drinker but um i was smoking pot from the minute i started i was a pothead i was smoking oh every day but i wouldn't smoke when i was working, once i figured out like like yeah more yeah yeah yeah evenings and very occasional like early early mornings okay.
[30:42] Got it and no dating.
[30:46] Not until i was 23 that's that's very bad.
[30:52] That's that's that's that you're very bad at being a sex addict.
[30:55] Well i'm just kidding i wasn't no no no it's funny but i wasn't dating but i was like i mean pornography was a major part of my life you know so i was i was using pornography and i I was also like doing stuff through like Craigslist, like finding one night stands and sexually I was confused.
[31:20] Do you mean like escorts or just hookups?
[31:23] No, like hookups, but like with, at some point like it was like men and women for a very, men for a very short time. Like, I don't know what I was doing there. It was like spiraling again. And it was just like random female hookups. and then it turned into like massage parlors oh like for the.
[31:44] Happy ending places.
[31:46] Yeah stuff like that and then when I was 23 my dad passed away, suddenly just was pulled away in the ambulance one early morning and then we got to the hospital and he was gone about an hour later, I'm sorry and yeah and then i met my future ex-wife at the funeral she was a co-worker of mine who i had known and was friendly with but she spent a lot of time at the house after the funeral and we got to talking a lot and yeah we got together and then i was with her for 15 years wow.
[32:29] And tell me about that.
[32:34] Uh uh um i started off really good you know it started off really really great you know like i had met someone who actually cared about me.
[32:52] Sorry we lost a little audio here the gentleman was saying that he met this woman she's a hairdresser and was also involved and i think living in weekends at the Hare Krishna temple. And then they got together and she didn't want to have kids. He was ambivalent about it, but never told her that he didn't want to have kids. And then eventually a couple of years in, she got pregnant and then had an abortion without telling him. And then she was not allowed to have sexual activity for 30 days after the abortion. And this is where the, her story picks up.
[33:27] We couldn't be sexual with each other, which she was very adamant about so i went and got like a personal, pocket device for myself right thinking that oh this will be me taking care of myself so i don't have to like you know i can respect you know and sorry you mean like an artificial vagina, yes okay get it something like that right and so so i was using that and then i guess one day because I am a self-saboteur as well. I always self-sabotage myself. So one morning I decided to leave it out on the counter in the bathroom after I was cleaning it or something. And she found it, and she broke up with me for 45 days because of it. The first 15 of those days I was broken. I was at my mom's house crying like a baby. and like stalking her online and seeing who she's friending and talking to.
[34:35] Sorry to interrupt. I just want to make sure I understand. So she had an abortion without telling you she was pregnant.
[34:43] Correct.
[34:44] But she draws the line at an artificial vagina.
[34:49] Correct. Oh, she draws the line at pornography.
[34:53] Okay. um but what was her sort of reasoning about is you know which which would be considered more of a betrayal i guess in a more rational universe the having the baby sorry having an abortion without telling you she was even pregnant or an artificial vagina i'm like i'm trying to figure out the moral hierarchy here.
[35:10] I i totally understand what you're saying for her one is cheating and, I was, I cheated on her with that artificial thing. And every time I looked at porn, I cheated on her. So I guess what I ended up doing when I had, once I got through the 15 days, I started actually cheating on her.
[35:35] Oh, like after you went kind of crazy with isolation, you cheated on her.
[35:41] Yep.
[35:41] And how many, sorry, how many years into the relationship is this?
[35:47] Probably three. or so. I had gotten my proclivities to a degree under control. From the Craigslist ad stuff and massage stuff, I had gotten that stuff pretty under control for the first three or four years to where it was just like pornography. I thought I satisfied her in that way.
[36:17] Um and and how was your.
[36:19] Sex life.
[36:19] With her as a whole.
[36:20] How was it yeah okay i mean it was it was amazing to me at the beginning because i didn't know anybody you know it was like the first person i did it with like multiple times really you know so like it was i think it was good at the beginning at the same time like i think that my brain is wired you know i think pornography does fuck up your brain wiring as it relates to sex so like it did it for me but it didn't always do it for me if that makes sense like i would do a lot of closing my eyes and picturing other women, from videos or whatever so i would say that it's a combination of it was good and it was also like kind of started me on like a really negative path didn't start me on a negative path but it just continued it.
[37:11] And what do you mean.
[37:13] Um what's that what.
[37:16] Do you mean a negative path.
[37:19] Um i mean a negative path from when it comes to like sexual sexuality sexual acts the things that i i did i mean like once i once i reopened the door because i felt like she like at some point like and i've never really fully processed it honestly the the abortion but that was like the end of the relationship for me like in my in my heart i think it was over in my head it wasn't i don't know maybe it was maybe it's vice versa i don't know right but effectively, she disrespected me in a way that like i didn't i don't i still don't fully understand, took my one chance in my mind of fatherhood away from me without giving me an opportunity to, talk about it or consider it and yeah i mean after the isolation period like you said i think i went absolutely bananas started going down rabbit holes i never thought i'd go down, so do.
[38:35] You mean in terms of cheating or other things.
[38:37] No in terms of cheating and like just sexual activities like i went back to massage parlors and one night stands found my way into sex parties and ended up like, hooking up with some transgendered women, like all of the things every time I would do any of those things I would feel immediate shame and disgust afterwards, every single time it would be like immediately leave, feel like my body It wants to run away from my skeleton. Like that skin wants to run away. And I would just run home immediately and shower. And I was so good at hiding this. I mean, we got back together after 45 days and I was still doing this.
[39:26] Oh, wow.
[39:28] For years. for years and never got caught not once the only things I ever got caught for were pornography and most of the time it's because my brother sent me some stupid video that I accidentally played on my phone, wasn't even actually something I was watching, so this goes to some of that sociopathic stuff that I read about in your book.
[39:57] What do you mean?
[39:59] You know that's somebody who can portray, like, I lived a secret life, right? Like, I had two lives. And I kept telling myself I would cheat, I would do these cheating things because it made me a better person with her. Like, I could be the super nice guy and the gentleman and the little bitch that she wanted me to be, effectively, by being this monster in my other life. And that's how I think of myself. When I'm in that mode, it's a monster.
[40:27] Yeah, I mean, but you didn't grow up with any negotiation as a kid, right? Nobody negotiated with you as a child, right?
[40:37] When you say negotiation, what do you mean?
[40:40] See, I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh, but I mean, that's a question that you have because.
[40:45] I don't negotiate.
[40:47] No, no, no. I get that. I understand.
[40:49] It was purely arguing. It's like a negotiation. To this day, I don't think I negotiate well. I think I argue really well.
[40:56] Yeah, no. In fact, you're not arguing with me now.
[40:58] Those are two...
[41:00] I'm I'm I'm fine I don't mind I don't mind I'm just pointing it out it's fine um, so negotiation is when you try to find out something that's going to be better for both parties and you have your needs you have the other person's needs you find some overlap where you both benefit right.
[41:22] Sure. Yeah, that's what couples do.
[41:25] You have these two separate circles, right? I think a Venn diagram where they don't even touch. You have these two separate circles. One circle is her needs and you get erased, right?
[41:39] Sure.
[41:40] That's your mom, right?
[41:42] Mm-hmm.
[41:43] And the other is your needs, she gets erased, which is the promiscuity, right? Yeah.
[41:52] Correct.
[41:53] So you can't have two people with equal needs in the same conversation. I mean, how could you? And of course, I don't want to put everything on your mom or your dad, but they didn't negotiate, right?
[42:08] No.
[42:09] Right. Your mom didn't negotiate with you. Your father didn't negotiate with your mother. You and your brother fought, as you said, a lot and did not negotiate with each other, right?
[42:19] Right. And my dad and my mom fought all the time.
[42:21] Right.
[42:22] All the time.
[42:23] So, and again, I'm not putting it all on your family because, I mean, we don't see it in movies, right? What do people do? They just shoot each other or, you know, lie or cheat or whatever. So you don't see a lot of productive negotiation going on there. And the other thing, of course, is school. I mean, it's not like teachers negotiate with you.
[42:42] Correct.
[42:44] So when you were growing up, did you see any, any examples of negotiation?
[42:54] No, no, I grew up with quid pro quo. That was, no, I don't, not really. I mean, no. I mean, the closest thing I could think of is maybe with my friends.
[43:10] So what are some examples from there?
[43:14] Like maybe we would, I'd be at a friend's house and we would like decide what video game to play together or he wants to play a video game and I want to play basketball. So we play a video game for an hour and then we play basketball after.
[43:27] Okay. Yeah.
[43:29] Right I mean things really small really low level right but I was able to compromise with people I liked I guess like I wouldn't argue as much with people I liked I just don't think I like my family, you know so it was always and it was always quid pro quo I mean I grew up with I did this for you so you should do that for me that's my mom's mentality forever to this day to this day, It's, but I did this for you. You got to do that for me.
[44:01] So it's like generosity and obligation.
[44:05] Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I, I have to check myself too, because sometimes I do that with people or I don't do it, but I think of it, you know, it's like somebody upsets me cause they won't go an extra mile for me. And I'm thinking, well, it's pissing me off cause I went an extra mile for them, but that's not how it works. You know, that's not how life's supposed to work. You're not supposed to do something with the expectation of something else.
[44:28] Okay, that's an interesting philosophical question. Tell me what you mean.
[44:34] What I mean by that is that I feel like the only, I don't consider myself a very good person. Okay, like overall.
[44:45] No, no, no. See, we're doing a philosophical question, not your judgment of yourself. So what do you mean when you say you're not supposed to do things with the expectation of return?
[44:55] I mean i think you i i believe that that when you do something it should be because you want to do it not because you want to do it with the expectation of a result for you and i try hang on hang.
[45:09] On that's emmanuel kant right that's i'm not saying you'd know the name maybe you do maybe you don't but that's that we should not do anything with any self-interest right it's self-interest corrupts and pollutes things right.
[45:19] I i i want to live that way i don't but why why i do believe i do believe but.
[45:29] Why is that good.
[45:30] Yeah yeah i'm.
[45:32] Not saying it's not i'm just i want to.
[45:33] Know what you're.
[45:34] Thinking is about it.
[45:34] The reason why i think it's good is because selflessness to me leads to happiness this.
[45:45] Well, then, hang on, but then you just contradicted your whole premise. You're saying you shouldn't do things to get a result, but I want to do this because I'll get happiness.
[45:55] Mm-hmm. Oh, I know. I know. That's, I mean, I try to do things selflessly.
[46:04] But in reality. Hang on, hang on. We just brushed over your whole foundational moral premise here. Like, it didn't happen.
[46:11] Okay. Okay, I know. You're good, Stef. You're good.
[46:16] No, I'm not trying to nag.
[46:19] No, no, no. No, no, no. This is the kind of stuff I do with therapists and they let me brush over it and I can just keep skating through.
[46:27] No, no, your verbal skills are off the charts, so I have to slow you down where I don't understand something. So, tell me about doing things for others without expecting return. Why is that good? And also, is that universal? Should they be doing that with you as well?
[46:55] I think... I mean, I think the... I mean... I think the reason why it's good is because it just impacts the world in a positive way.
[47:08] No, that's a tautology. That's not an argument. that um that's like saying something's healthy because it impacts health in a positive way i mean that that doesn't really explain anything that's.
[47:23] True yeah i i mean i'm just gonna be honest the reason i do it is because i get a sense of fulfillment out of helping people like i enjoy helping people because it makes me happy like it makes me feel like i i can't help myself so i can help others.
[47:40] Okay would you say that you're happy no okay so that's not working so let's try again, i mean you didn't call me because you're happy.
[47:56] No dude i didn't call you because i'm happy.
[47:58] Okay so this is really really important right deep down at the base of things where you define what morality is really really important, what is virtue what is goodness now if you're going to say that goodness is sacrificing yourself for the sake of benefiting others that's what is called asymmetrical which means, that you have to be giving you have to be sacrificing and the other person has to be receiving right.
[48:28] Sure. Yeah, sure.
[48:30] Right.
[48:30] Yeah, that makes sense.
[48:31] So your morality comes at the expense of their morality. Because if it's better to give than to receive, then you giving, you're moral, but them receiving, they're not moral. So both parties can't be moral in the same interaction. You rob, in a sense, their morality by being generous.
[48:58] I do. Yeah, correct.
[49:01] So that's not, I'm a universal morality guy, right? That's my, UPB is my universally preferable behavior. It's my big sort of moral thing. So if something's asymmetrical, it can't be good. It can't be that you achieve virtue at the expense of somebody else.
[49:18] How do you do it?
[49:20] So that's a great question, but I really, really want to hammer hard on this. because you know this is foundational to your moral fiber right it's your moral dna yes and it hasn't worked nothing.
[49:38] I've ever tried has worked okay.
[49:39] Good well this is the last protocol so i'm glad you're here okay i hope so so what works of course is win-win so you're in the business world right correct.
[49:54] I mean i yeah of course yeah.
[49:57] Okay so you're in the business world so you kind of understand that price is something that works for both people assuming it's voluntary right, right if you have a used car and you think it's worth five thousand dollars and somebody comes along and says yeah i'll give you five thousand dollars for that then you're both better off right, 100 yeah you have you haven't exploited him because you're happy to sell it for 5k he hasn't exploited you because he's happy to buy it for 5k right.
[50:33] 100 yep happy happy win-win yep.
[50:35] So you can both achieve satisfaction, over the course of your negotiation and maybe you know he goes down to 4500 you go to 4750 whatever it is right some haggling thing right but eventually you're going to end up at a price that you're both reasonably satisfied about right.
[50:55] That's the hope yep.
[50:56] Right well i mean it is the hope because if you can't achieve that the transaction doesn't occur right if he says i'm going to give you 500 bucks for it and you're like no i got three other offers coming over this afternoon not a chance right.
[51:13] So you're cutting in and out a little bit, Stef.
[51:15] Oh, I'm cutting in and out a bit? Let me know if that's any better.
[51:19] You were. I just put my other headphones in. I'm going to try to pull this one out.
[51:22] Okay.
[51:22] I think my headphones are spotty. I can hear you now. But yeah, that's a good example. Yes.
[51:29] Yeah. So that's an example of win-win, right? Of negotiation. And you do this in business, I'm sure, all the time. You hire people. They want salary. They want benefits. They want to negotiate for their vacations and things like that, right?
[51:43] Yeah, I mean, I negotiate every day.
[51:45] Okay. So that's all win-win, right?
[51:50] Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.
[51:54] So why the hell don't you do, why aren't you moral at work according to your moral philosophy? I mean, why don't you just give people what they want and sacrifice your company, your interest, your bottom line, right? Why don't you just give people a million dollars a day because it'll make them happy?
[52:15] Because the company would fail to give everyone what they wanted. There needs to be a compromise, right? Like people need to make what is fair for them. And at the same time, the company needs to make, make enough money to be able to support all of those people plus grow.
[52:36] Okay. So if you sacrifice and pay people a million dollars a day, your company goes out of business pretty quickly, right?
[52:43] Correct.
[52:44] So sacrifice, while it might give you some short-term emotional benefits, kind of destroys things in the long run, not even the long run in that case, right?
[52:54] No, absolutely.
[52:55] Correct. So what is sustainable in relationships is win-win. Win-lose is not sustainable in relationships.
[53:10] Right. No, a hundred percent. That, that I 100% agree with.
[53:14] Now, so you accept this in the business world, right?
[53:18] Completely.
[53:19] So why would you not accept that in the world of love, romance, sex, and family?
[53:30] Because I don't know how in that world. I know how to do it in the working world. I'm a different person. Not even a different person. I care about the people that I work with more than I care about myself. So it's really easy for me to find win-win solutions because my whole goal at the end of the day is to make the company and make the people successful. Right? So if I can take somebody who's struggling in one area and put them into another area where they're going to be successful, so give one team, one less person who's hurting them because he's not doing the job they need him to do, right? And give him to another group where they can utilize him and get him to be a more valuable asset to the company. That's like a, that's my world, in my world, that's a win-win. If that makes sense.
[54:27] Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Makes sense to me. so why is that why does that not translate you see you have two different moral spheres one is win-win in the business world which is successful and you say you make you know six figures plus and at least you have sincere early mid-20s so good for you so why is it much.
[54:45] Later that was more recently.
[54:46] Still nonetheless good for you um so why is it that in the business world, that all makes good sense but in the world of and you said in friendship right so you're friendship you've got business where you negotiate for win-win right.
[55:07] Yes i think yes i think i i would say i'm better at it at work than i am even in friendships.
[55:14] I think in friendships yeah but whenever your balls get involved that all goes out the window, correct whenever win-lose whenever.
[55:26] That gets involved whenever that gets involved or whenever my family gets involved.
[55:30] Right.
[55:30] It's always win-lose.
[55:31] Right. Right.
[55:33] Correct.
[55:34] Now, the problem is not that things are win-lose. The problem is you have these two opposing moral environments. That's the problem. The problem is you've got this virtue of selfishness, virtue of trade to mutual advantage in friendship and business, and then you've got this exploit or be exploited in the realm of family and romance, right?
[56:04] That is a great way to put it.
[56:06] So that's your split. And that's why one is working and one is not.
[56:14] Right.
[56:15] Of course, in sex and love and romance and family, of course, you should trade to mutual advantage. Of course, you should. Because we can't split ourselves in two and have completely opposing, you know, moral systems. That's, I mean, I don't want to say that's schizo, because I remember you talking about having concerns about that in sort of early mid-team, but it's definitely dissociating, right?
[56:45] 100%.
[56:46] Right.
[56:47] Yeah, I mean, that's a great word. That's a word I didn't use, but that is a word that I can relate to on a consistent basis.
[56:55] So one is the world, and I'm going to, you know, be, I guess, mildly gender stereotypical here, but it seems like it's kind of working that way. So I'm fairly comfortable with it. So one of these situations, the work and friends, is masculine adult trade. And the other is feminine exploitive manipulation.
[57:23] Mm-hmm.
[57:29] In one you are treating people as equals in the other you're treating people either as if you're a slave or they're your slave.
[57:37] Correct and i never thought of it that way until i heard it in your book but yeah it was more like object.
[57:45] Right uh what's your relationship like with your mother and brother at the moment.
[57:55] What's my mother my mom and brother's relationship no.
[57:57] No your relationship with your mother and your brother.
[57:59] My my relationship with my mom is better than it was when i was younger i live 3 000 miles away from her for the last three years and i haven't seen her physically but once in those three years so it's got a little better how often do you communicate I don't, maybe once every two weeks. She wants me to FaceTime her every week, and then she doesn't have power to make me do it, so I don't.
[58:24] Okay. And your brother?
[58:29] Far less we only talk we only talk when he's all he he lives near my mom he's also 3 000 miles away from me oh sorry sorry.
[58:39] Did you say sorry my bad did you did you say far left or far less.
[58:43] Oh far less okay sorry far less yeah no you're fine no no no politics involved here yet, um um no he uh he had a very bad year last year that coincided with a very bad year for me too, and i tried to help him and i tried to have a friend of mine help him and it all went really backwards to where he was threatening suicide for about three months calling me and screaming that he was going to drive off a cliff in his car and this was all going on at the same time were like my work life because like as you can tell like my family life and my personal life were kind of a mess so my work life you got to have like a balance somewhere and my balance got totally screwed up when my company changed dynamics fired people the closest person I was with they fired and then put me underneath a woman who is a micromanager psychopath bitch so um yeah my life got turned upside down and the capacity that i had for my brother to try to help him.
[59:50] Was non-existent anymore so i just stopped answering the phone like i was just like telling my mom she need to call the police and just have him committed i still think that he probably needs that at some point but um my relationship with my mom right now just to answer your question directly is is is mediocre is medium to bad okay and my relationship with My brother is worse than medium to bad.
[1:00:17] Yeah, yeah. Sorry to hear that. I really am. So what happened with Hari Krishna haircut lady?
[1:00:26] Ah, our Christian haircut lady. Well, we, we, we survived living on the West Coast together and then decided to move to the Midwest together right after COVID in 2021. Partially for me, for work and partially because she wanted to have a farm and like a house and we couldn't do that in the area we're in from affordability standpoint. So I bought, I bought an acre and a half house and it was amazing and six months into moving out here she found a receipt in my pocket for a massage place that was the first time she'd ever caught me and she didn't even catch me it was from like five years ago 10 years ago or something crazy it is one of those self-sabotaging moments right and uh she found a receipt and then well it's a bit of.
[1:01:21] A long game to say you self-sabotaged from a decade back.
[1:01:24] I i that that is fair but i i am when there's where there's a will there's a way you know and you know so anyway she uh found it and confronted me about it and then wanted to know everything because she's like there's no way this is just a one-off and through my program i talked to some brothers and i was like you know what maybe this is the time you know it's a fresh start i needed to tell her everything so i literally told her everything that had happened like i gave her like i basically read my sexual history to her, which was a mistake in retrospect probably should have done that with a therapist present or something not at the kitchen table you know 10 hours after she found a receipt and was furious, but um 24 hours after that for 24 hours she was kind and generous and holding my hand and telling me how much she appreciated my honesty. 48 hours after that, she wanted to not sleep in the same bedroom as me anymore. We tried to work it out. Six months later, we were still trying to work it out, and she wanted to get a dog, and she said a dog would fix it. I said, no, a dog's going to make it worse. We got a dog. Made it worse.
[1:02:37] She ended up telling... My mom and stepdad... My dad passed away, obviously. My mom and stepdad came to town. They drove all the way from where we lived to here to bring some of the last of our stuff with them. This was about eight months after we moved out here. So about three or four months after this whole thing went down. And, um, they were here for two days before my ex was telling me that she wanted me to kick them out. She didn't want anything to do with them in the house. So I actually had to like put them in a hotel room for the last three days they were here and then they flew wherever they were going to go and then went home. I haven't seen my mom since.
[1:03:15] Uh sorry go ahead and then no and then we were doing couples therapy and then eventually she asked me for a divorce when she caught me smoking pot again i quit smoking pot for like three years, but you know needed advice i guess so i smoked some pot down in our basement and smelled up the kitchen or something and she smelled it she's like you're smoking pot i'm like yeah she's like we're going out in 30 minutes i'm like yeah i know she's like you're gonna drive high i'm like, done it before I just didn't give a fuck anymore like I didn't give a fuck anymore honestly like at that point I was just kind of like over it, then she asked for a divorce I got really upset for like 24 hours and then I went through like the stages of like grief or whatever I went from like you know, all the guilt to angry to sad to dealing with it yeah and then, September of 23 we got a mediator and she took me for half of what I was worth, wow that doesn't seem very very zen, well I mean she'll tell you that I broke her Hare Krishna part of her I'm the reason you know no it is what it was even blaming.
[1:04:36] Others for your own choices does not seem very zen.
[1:04:39] No I don't know what she would say in relation to that I think she would say that she deserved it because of everything I put her through and I took away the best day reserved for life, as I'm sure you've heard before in places she did say that to me in the mediation, after she said she wasn't going to give me back my engagement ring that I gave her which was my great grandma that I had built around like a very old diamond, and then of course once you get into mediation. She's like, I want the value for the ring.
[1:05:12] Wow.
[1:05:14] Yeah, that was like the cherry on top. That was the moment I knew I was like, I ain't going to have a relationship with you ever again. No friendship, no nothing. I'm done with you.
[1:05:21] And how long ago was that?
[1:05:25] September of 23. We text once in a while, like very rarely, and it's mostly just about like, you know, there was a fire near my mom's house, so she just wanted to ask how they were or, you know, like we have we had four animals together three cats and a dog and she took a dog and a cat and i got two of the cats so sometimes like i i if my cat had my kind of surgery like six months ago so i let her know just out of like the goodness of my heart because i felt bad wanted to let her know right okay but i don't i don't correspond with her anything like that there's no relationship.
[1:06:05] Okay, and what's.
[1:06:08] Happened I feel like you're gonna ask me what happened since the divorce and, everything I thought I wanted when I was with her I want to be single I'd be able to have so much fun and do all these things, I I devolved i'll say since the divorce in some ways evolved and devolved some way, go on i've slept with more women than i can name i really can't even picture some of them anymore this isn't even that long a time you know if.
[1:06:55] You had to.
[1:06:55] Um you.
[1:06:56] Had to estimate or guess how many.
[1:07:02] Over 30? Maybe close to 50?
[1:07:07] You meet them online?
[1:07:09] Dating apps, at the bars. I'm a decent talker now. I am more easily able to portray confidence these days. Don't actually have confidence. I get all my confidence from flirting. Literally, I flirt for confidence.
[1:07:26] You kept your hair, didn't you?
[1:07:30] I kept my hair and my teeth.
[1:07:32] You have your hair and your teeth, yeah. Those are important things in certain areas of the world. Sorry?
[1:07:39] Yes, and those are important things for certain women in certain parts of the world.
[1:07:42] Yeah, I know.
[1:07:43] It gives me a leg of, yeah, I mean, you can tell I can talk. So, yeah, I can talk my way into whatever I want. It's just pure manipulation now.
[1:07:53] Yeah, got it. Okay. Do you think that the women who sleep with you, the 30s since September 2023, Do you think that these women want a relationship?
[1:08:05] I think more than some of them have quote unquote fallen in love. Yeah. I think they all, I think a lot of them have. Yeah. I'm very honest though with them from the start, except I'm not. I say, I do a lot of like, I want it to be organic and I want to take things slow and I'm not ready for a relationship. And that's just, I just want to have fun. and if it's not fun, then we shouldn't be together. I get a lot of girls to ghost me on purpose afterwards.
[1:08:41] Sorry, those two are very beginning and end. I'm not sure about the middle.
[1:08:51] Oh, I try to be as upfront and honest as I can, but I'm actually not honest or upfront. I don't walk in saying I just want to like F you and that's it. You know, I go in portraying myself as someone who they could potentially be with, but at the same time letting them know that I have some major yellow and red flags that I was just divorced so I'm not ready for a relationship and I need to take things slow and I'm not looking for commitment and I don't want labels and the whole thing.
[1:09:20] Right, and that does provoke a kind of I can fix him gene in women, some women.
[1:09:24] Well, I have no idea what it does, but I mean, it gets me what I want in the short term and it doesn't get them what they want in the long term. So I feel like I'm just using them.
[1:09:37] And how does it play out usually?
[1:09:43] However i want it to usually so most of the time it's like a once a week thing for a few weeks and then i get bored or someone else pops up in one of my apps right that's i think it's prettier or something more interesting whatever and you know i'll start chatting less with that person And so I'll, I'll, I'll be, I'll be very attentive for a period of time. And then I'll start slowing, like, like, it's like you give somebody like water to drink and then you start slowly giving them less and less. Right. Kind of concept. So I just wean people off of me. I'm like a drug.
[1:10:29] Okay. And you're in your forties, right?
[1:10:32] I just turned 40. Yes, sir.
[1:10:33] Just turned 40. How old are the women you're dating?
[1:10:37] Oh, I wouldn't call them dating. they vary in age ranges as young as 26 and as old as 51.
[1:10:49] Okay got it, And I remember the.
[1:10:58] I remember the, I remember the, the pole sets. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's pretty good. I can't remember the names for that, but I can tell you the youngest. God, I'm a horrible human being. Continue.
[1:11:14] And I don't suppose since the divorce that you have met anyone that you want to date, right? Like have a relationship.
[1:11:22] I met one girl, one girl. And she, and I have now found out what it's called because I do it too. It's this term called love bombing. Never know. I don't know if you've heard of it.
[1:11:32] Oh yeah.
[1:11:34] Yeah. So apparently I never, it's never happened to me. Maybe it did with my ex, but so this girl who I met, she was like the first person I met after the divorce.
[1:11:44] And like, she was beautiful to me and like love talking to her. We could talk for hours and hours and hours about nothing. It was great. and then she love bombed the shit out of me had me come over and stay there and i would stay in there like multiple nights and at some point she got drunk and said she loved me in the jacuzzi and i was just like like the first time i heard it from someone i really wanted to hear it from and i didn't know how to handle it you know so i made jokes about it but then she turned out to be nuts like like almost like borderline like actual crazy like where like she just decides she wakes up one morning and she's like i need you to leave i'm just like what did i do and she's like, my daughters are unhappy with our relationship i need you to go like okay and then she finds her way back into my communication channels like once every four months since then or so.
[1:12:43] She is the only one, though, that I've actually considered dating dating. I was with a 51-year-old woman for four months fairly recently, but it never was real to me, ever. So it was really more like we just enjoy spending time together, and she seemed kind of lonely, and she was very attractive. and I enjoy spending time with attractive women who show me attention.
[1:13:20] How pretty was your mother when she was younger?
[1:13:24] My mother when she was younger, well, she was much older when she had us. So she was in her, she had me when she was almost 40, in her mid-30s, late 30s. but when she was younger, the pictures I've seen of her as, as like a teenager in her twenties and stuff, she was pretty, she was a pretty woman.
[1:13:47] Did you ever get a sense of what your father found valuable about your mother? Like why he was with her, why he stayed?
[1:13:59] Honestly, I think that he stayed. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think she was she supported him like you know like she supported him through all of the stuff he needed support through, he could be an alcoholic without her noticing because she was totally oblivious, I think he stayed with her because of us first and foremost he loved me and my brother more than anything in the world loved us.
[1:14:37] Loved you what do you mean.
[1:14:38] I mean he would do anything for us he made sure we got to every practice every sporting event he he would sneak us mcdonald's and my mom wouldn't let us as a jew you're not allowed to have certain things during certain high holidays he would like take us to mcdonald's on the way to temple the last day so that we could have because we were starving we had a fast so he'd take it to mcdonald's to get like food like like he just, he wanted us to be happy he wanted a happy family and he thought the only way he could do that was by neaking us what we needed to make sure that we didn't piss my mom off, and and he would take all of the hits for our stupidness with my mom almost every week I can remember a massive fight that they were screaming at each other in the room with the door closed.
[1:15:38] But he was a spineless alcoholic, wasn't he?
[1:15:44] Yeah, in a lot of ways he was, yeah. I mean, I worked at a store.
[1:15:50] Not to diss the dead too much, but if he loves his children, if he loves his son, shouldn't he not drink? Agreed.
[1:16:01] Yeah, I had no representation of a man. I know that now. there's a reason why i don't understand like like i still i struggle with like the male presence in a female in a relationship with a female.
[1:16:19] Yeah no i get i get that's that's good therapy talk but i'm talking about something more elemental which is that now you're 40 years old and you're trying to tell me that your father just loved you and your brother while he drank himself into oblivion and failed to stand up to your mother failed to protect you from her bullying and verbal abuse how the fuck is that love help me help me understand no.
[1:16:40] No i mean i think in his way he protected us the way he knew how which was hiding stuff what she doesn't know can't get us in trouble.
[1:16:47] In his way he protected you the way he knew how, how do you know that's mind reading right oh.
[1:17:00] 100 yeah i don't know i can't ask him.
[1:17:04] I mean, he'd retreated into his addiction rather than protect his children.
[1:17:11] Yeah. Yeah. And he would take out his frustrations on like McDonald's workers, on like the average worker at a store. He would berate and yell at them if they messed up something. It was so embarrassing.
[1:17:23] He was a bully too.
[1:17:25] Uh-huh. Yeah. Like I remember almost every time we go to McDonald's and they would give us something, he'd check it and it was wrong and he would like throw it at them. he also got caught stealing from the store the grocery store that i worked at when i was working there he tried to steal some lunch meat i guess i think he was drunk at the time forgot it and just like went back and was like i'm just gonna take it fuck it whatever but like i had to walk up to the counter and like the manager of the store had to tell me what happened he had to let me know that because I work there, he's going to give my dad a break, but that if it ever happens again, that they're going to call the cops.
[1:18:04] And I was like, okay, thanks for letting me know.
[1:18:08] And, you know, as you said, he died kind of young. Did he not take care of his health?
[1:18:12] He did not die young. So my dad died when he was 74.
[1:18:18] Oh, okay.
[1:18:20] But I was only 22 at the time, 23.
[1:18:23] Okay, got it.
[1:18:24] So you can do the math. And he was much older than my mom. My mom is now, I think my mom just turned 75, 70, no, 80? Am I just turning 80?
[1:18:39] Yeah, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Okay.
[1:18:41] It doesn't matter.
[1:18:42] But, you know, handing you snacks under the table while drinking himself into oblivion is not ideal. It's not necessarily love.
[1:18:52] It's not what I would do if I was a father. Let's put it that way.
[1:18:55] Right.
[1:18:56] At least I want to believe that. I believe I would do all the opposite things.
[1:19:05] See, I don't know if you got to that part in the book, but in what I write about, there's the parent who's the obvious problem, and then there's the parent who gets the endless excuse cards.
[1:19:17] Yeah, that was my family.
[1:19:18] I'm afraid you're not breaking the stereotype there that your mom was negative, but your father was put upon and did the best and loved and blah, blah, blah.
[1:19:28] There's a reason why your book has helped me I know it's been a little over, it's almost two weeks since the incident occurred and that was just the latest incident in a line of incidents, but finding your book really, it has changed some of my thinking not enough to where I feel fixed by any means at all but there's just so much in it that speaks to me Like that just, it's like me, you know, and it's not the person I want to be. So I'm trying to be like, I've, I've tried every day to be more honest. Like I told multiple people, like I told my good friend who turned me onto the book about what happened that day. Like, and in the past I would have never told anyone. I mean, that was the big, you know what I mean? Like it's all about isolation when you're in addiction. Right. So like keeping it to myself perpetuates the behavior. to go.
[1:20:28] So, you know, releasing it to my friend and then I released not as much of it. I told him everything, but I released not as much of it to another friend of mine who I spend time with on a daily basis. And I do believe that like the reason, like after reading your book, it's so funny. I'm like, why am I friends with this guy? Like, why am I really good friends with him? Because we're so different in the way we think about the world. And the reason that I'm friends with him is because he really is a person with integrity.
[1:21:00] He's the good that's the part that boggles my mind I wanted to ask you if I had you maybe not now sorry.
[1:21:07] I gotta stop you so I don't know.
[1:21:09] If you got this rapid.
[1:21:10] Pressured speech going on because you're trying to lead me away from your dad.
[1:21:15] Oh probably yeah probably okay I'll stop.
[1:21:22] Alright so give me the criticisms of your dad because when we imprint like whatever we imprint on if we don't criticize it we just become.
[1:21:32] What are the criticisms of my dad.
[1:21:37] He never stood up for himself except for with people who he deemed he would never he could not stand up to himself with anyone that he respected or felt like was above him, right he could he treated people below him like shit, he enabled me and my brother I'm not going to talk about my brother I'm talking about me he enabled me, in so many ways he didn't give me any of the skills that I now understand would have been very helpful for me even basic skills like how to ride a bike how to, work on a car or fix something in a house or hang a fucking painting or a picture, you know just like the basic stuff that like I've met so many people who have like just this ability to just do stuff you know and I'm like I need to google everything and you know so there's that.
[1:22:46] He died before I could actually have a real conversation with him, which really pisses me off you know like I wasn't at a place where I could actually talk to him in a real way like I could only ever complain about my mom to him or like yell at him for being an asshole um.
[1:23:10] He wasn't a man to me. He made me feel like men, like that's what a relationship is supposed to be. He made me realize, he made me think that that's what a relationship is supposed to be. He also made me, to a degree, hate women. Because my example of women is my mom and the way that they interacted, it's like, why would I ever want that?
[1:23:35] So do you understand the hostility to your mom and your sex addiction, right?
[1:23:41] To a degree i've crossed some of those lines a little bit but.
[1:23:45] I've never really uh the foundational answer i.
[1:23:49] Would like anything that you have to say.
[1:23:51] Sure well your genes are here to reproduce right and to reproduce they need to get a woman now the more you dislike your mother the more your body turns up your sex drive really yeah because you have to find value in women Can.
[1:24:09] I repeat that, please?
[1:24:11] Yeah, yeah.
[1:24:11] Really quick? The more you dislike your mother, the more your body turns up its sex drive?
[1:24:16] Yeah. Because if women are generally negative, you know, difficult, obstructive, bullying, manipulative, whatever, right? Yes. Then the people who didn't have their bodies turned, like if you're around negative women, right? Then the people who didn't have their bodies turn up the sex drive, those genes just died out. in other words your sex drive is compensating for negative female characteristics.
[1:24:45] Okay and that's why i hate love them.
[1:24:48] Well you your genes just want to reproduce and if women are negative then they can't offer you anything morally emotionally anything like that, right? Fair to say?
[1:25:02] That is fair to say, yeah.
[1:25:03] So the only thing they can offer you is sexual release.
[1:25:09] Yep.
[1:25:10] So the sex addiction is an attempt to get you enough adrenaline to jump the chasm of negative female behavior and have sex.
[1:25:20] Yeah. And does that, does that explain why I don't enjoy sex that much.
[1:25:25] Well, certainly at this age, your body is going to start to say, well, wait a minute, we've had a lot of sex. Where are the children? The purpose of all of this was to have children. And there are no kids, right?
[1:25:41] No, I never had kids. No, I mean, that's, that makes sense. I just, that's, I mean, I guess it's built in, right? But you're saying it's just part of it.
[1:25:56] Oh, yeah, yeah, it's totally built in. Yeah, it's totally built in.
[1:25:58] It's like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not thinking of, like, the reason I'm not enjoying it or I'm not able to enjoy it, whatever, right, is, I'm not thinking about because I'm not having kids with you, but the reality is, is that this is just a fruitless endeavor and I'm just another endeavor upon another endeavor is boring.
[1:26:17] Well it's um.
[1:26:19] There's no i'm not getting the real value out of this that i'm supposed to be getting which is the opportunity to procreate and to leave something i'm leave something on myself, right yeah.
[1:26:35] I mean your body is recognizing that the increased sex drive is not producing the children.
[1:26:39] Right so.
[1:26:42] That's a law of diminishing returns and the fact that it's happening around your 40th birthday is probably not coincidental.
[1:26:48] It's been happening before that dude.
[1:26:50] Right right right okay.
[1:26:52] I mean but roughly since.
[1:26:54] Since the divorce right.
[1:26:56] I would say i would say yes i mean yeah i mean i think it's before that too i mean i was deprived of sex for 18 months before the divorce so well.
[1:27:08] You mean sex with your wife.
[1:27:10] Sex with anybody i didn't cheat on her since i moved she thought i did multiple times you didn't.
[1:27:16] Cheat on her since since when.
[1:27:18] Since so in 21 at the end of 21 we moved from the west coast to the midwest, oh and then you didn't have sex i never i never i yes we we had so we had sex a little bit in the first couple months but then she found the thing right the receipt right right and from that point until the point you divorced me and you never had sex again.
[1:27:37] Right.
[1:27:37] And I also didn't do it with anyone else through that period of time.
[1:27:42] How intelligent would you say the women are that you're betting?
[1:27:49] Is this an opinion?
[1:27:51] Yeah. I'm not sure you're not giving them IQ tests. So yeah, it's an opinion.
[1:27:56] It should. So my new pickup line, take this IQ test. If you score over this, we can date. I would say low to medium.
[1:28:10] And certainly not wise.
[1:28:12] Anyone with high intelligence probably wouldn't date me. That's not true. You know, there's been a couple of smart, of pretty smart women that I've gotten with, but yeah, no, I would say it's not smart. No, no, definitely more in like the middle range of IQs.
[1:28:30] Yeah. Because I mean, any woman who messages you and finds out which she should to vet you, she finds out you just recently, you know, you were divorced a year and a half ago or a year ago, whenever you would be talking with her from a 15 year marriage relationship or a 15 year relationship. should we never date you.
[1:28:52] I mean you wouldn't be available on that is what my that is what my friend said, those are almost his words verbatim right like any girl that wants to be with you is insane so you should run away I wouldn't go quite that far but yeah I'm sure you've got your charms.
[1:29:09] Okay, so what happened to that you can remember or two weeks ago?
[1:29:22] I had a very bad experience. I mean, you want to know the play-by-play, kind of how it happened?
[1:29:25] Nothing too detailed, but yeah, just generally.
[1:29:28] Okay. So, I mean, the incident occurred on a Saturday night. The Friday before, I mean, I have been spiraling with work where usually I get good self-esteem from work because I do a good job and people really enjoy working with me. I haven't been getting any of that. And in fact, I'm getting the opposite because the person I work now with is very much a, uh, she's a very, she, she, she's like my mom, but worse. Okay. Like another mom in my life that's like micromanaging me and telling me how bad I am at stuff. And, um, so that, so that Friday, at that Friday, the long story short is somebody got fired from our group and there was the, there's rumblings that it could be just the first one, right? So I was already like very stressed out about that because I can't lose my job, right? And she came to me in the middle of the day questioning... whether or not i was actually doing my job right like a direct shot that's.
[1:30:33] The bad boss.
[1:30:34] Yeah this is a bad okay and my response to her was where are you hearing this from that's not right at all can we get on the phone and she was like no i don't want to talk about it today, i didn't have really any any avenue to like talk to i don't really have any avenues anymore since they fired my ex co-worker um and changed everything so like i just kind of sat with it um i was messaging this this girl who i had met before uh during the day and we're supposed to meet up that night and then she flaked on me that night so it was like i was like trying to soothe myself with like sex addiction that night and i didn't get it right and then saturday, the spiral was real like i was just like in a really shitty mood when i woke up and i was just like all over the place and I started.
[1:31:25] Messaging randos like people that I wasn't really interested in but people who had messaged me, and this one girl messaged me back and then I ended up meeting up with her late Saturday night, and went for drinks and met up with some of her friends and it was a combination of guys and girls and maybe some trans people I don't even know like it was a group of people ended up at a hotel where she gave me something that she said was pot I smoked it it was, not marijuana, the best way I could put it. And I would say, I kept getting it blown to my mouth, I can remember. And then I remember just taking my, either taking my clothes off or someone taking my clothes off. And like, there's not a lot after that. I woke up the next day, which was Sunday morning, naked in a hotel room. There was nobody in the hotel room at the time. There was a lot of stuff everywhere. People had left their stuff. And I just quickly grabbed my clothes and got to my car and drove home. Took a shower immediately. I'm still concerned that there may be some kind of ramification medically. I have no not experiencing anything per se but I just.
[1:32:49] Don't know what happened and um yeah I showered I cried a little bit in the shower and then I got in bed and kind of got emotional, and found your book, and I read like the first I don't know 100 pages without like I kept rereading stuff over and over and over again and highlighting stuff with like my phone so it probably took me like 4 hours to get through like 100 pages or whatever it was that night, and it made me feel like I was on a better track I guess, I'm glad to hear that And then from there, it's kind of just been one day at a time trying to, you know, I spend a little time each day listening or reading some of the book. I do a lot. I'm going to be honest. I do a lot of going back and just re-listening because I don't feel like I comprehend it. I feel like I need it to like, I'm trying, I want to sear it into my brain. I'm trying to sear it into my brain to rewire my brain in the way I think. But it's just a slow process. I mean, I have 40 years of thinking a certain way and I'm trying to fix it.
[1:34:12] And your concern is like STDs or something like that?
[1:34:16] I mean, that's my immediate concern. I also, bigger concern is I never want to be in that position again. yeah i never i don't want to put i don't i don't ever want to like like i want i want a good life like i feel like i have whatever happens happens with the std side you know like whatever it is i'll handle it i'll deal with it it'll you know i'll survive i'm alive today which is, more than i could say is probably what's possible considering um but i'm also 40 and um part of the realization that I had that next day wasn't just that I want to be a better person. It's just, I don't, I don't have a lot of time left to be a better person. And, um, I have two paths in front of me and I already know where one leads, you know, cause I've been there and that's the path that I'm, I've been on. And I really, I want to do everything I possibly can to get on the other path, like the path of honesty and, and integrity.
[1:35:25] More for myself. All for myself. So that I can, be a happy person, regardless of what people think of me. I shouldn't need to get self-esteem from women, or from my friends, or from randos. That should be inside of me. And I'm not a bad-looking guy. I obviously have the ability to like communicate. I'm, I'm fairly intelligent, you know? So like I have stuff that's going for me. I'm just fucking it up in every way possible.
[1:36:04] And you said you've done some therapy before, right?
[1:36:07] I've been in and out of therapy for almost my whole life. Yeah.
[1:36:11] Okay.
[1:36:11] More recently, I've been in therapy since I moved out here.
[1:36:18] And what do you think is not working for you in therapy that you're getting smoke blown into your mouth by some woman in a hotel room?
[1:36:26] I think. I think. I don't even know how to say this without coming across like arrogant and like a prick. but I'm from a, if I don't want to get real stuff out of therapy I won't get anything out of therapy I've spent most of my therapy sessions, over the last like 12 months talking about my ex talking about my family situation and talking about how much I hate work, and the women that are coming and going in my life I get some decent suggestions, but i don't actually solve anything and as you can tell just from our conversation today, when i get uncomfortable about something i'm very quick to work to change the subject oh.
[1:37:23] Yeah you motor mouth left with the best of them yeah.
[1:37:25] Thank you thank you remind me to charge myself later so So I can do it.
[1:37:33] And what is it that you want? What would be a win for you out of this conversation? What is it that you want?
[1:37:43] That's a hard question.
[1:37:45] Another way of saying it, what would be successful in your life?
[1:37:51] Successful in my life?
[1:37:52] What would you consider success in a couple of years in your life?
[1:38:00] I would say, either finding a person that I can live my life in those win-win situations being able to understand win-win situations being able to, negotiate effectively being more real and more honest, figuring out what I actually enjoy in life what I'm passionate about I couldn't tell you asked me what I'm passionate about I couldn't really tell you, and maybe starting a family if, you know someone wants to bless me with something like that I mean, I'd like to I like to be successful in my life, and I feel like I'm not that. I'm the opposite.
[1:39:04] So, how honest have you been with your mother about the issues you had with her growing up since you were an adult?
[1:39:13] That's complicated. I would say up until last year, not very honest with her about stuff. We get into arguments and fights, but with everything that happened with my brother, because my mom and I were both kind of dealing with it. She was dealing with it in person, and I was doing it on the phone. My brother said a lot of stuff to her that really broke her in a lot of ways. Some of it was true, and some of it wasn't, in my opinion.
[1:39:49] Sorry, how would you know what your brother said that wasn't true?
[1:39:54] Because she repeated it all to me, and he repeated it to me. He's like, don't you remember this, or don't you remember that? I'm like, Adam, you're remembering it wrong. okay so I mean but effectively through that process she was asking me a lot of direct questions about growing up and whether or not and, I have never let's just put it this way I have not been honest with her like I have never told her that when she calls me as an example from your book I have not when she calls me I don't answer the phone and say mom I just want you to know that when you call sometimes I feel anxious all the time, you know like I don't I don't tell her how I'm feeling. And if I do tell her how I'm feeling, I always do the because concept that you mentioned, right? It's, I always have to, it's not just good. I need to get better about just saying how I feel and allowing that to be a conversation versus I feel this way because you did this, or I feel this way because you always do this. I do that all the time. Like, mom, I'm going to hang up on you. You never, you always, you always have to, and she still brings up my ex. So like those are, it's just, she just knows how to trigger me and it triggers me all the time. But I can, I'm trying to figure, to understand that the only thing i can control is my own self.
[1:41:17] Yeah yeah that's so that's another how i react cliche so what's the most honest thing that you could say to your mother about your experience of her as a child like if you were to give her that speech if she was on the phone.
[1:41:32] Oh man i don't know.
[1:41:33] But you do.
[1:41:38] Uh i mean something along the lines of that you know i appreciate how much you love me.
[1:41:44] And no no no no no that's sentimental the issues not that not the positives, what what would you criticize when you say when i was a kid you did this that and the other this was negative for me here's like here's what it did to me here's how i feel like the issues not not the i know how much you love me this is a hallmark card right so what what would you what's the most honest stuff you could say about the issues um.
[1:42:10] That you criticized me she criticized me on about everything from my looks to my intelligence um she made me feel that nothing i did was ever good enough for the most part uh, All I remember is like some of the best memories I have of our vacations are broken because of punishments that you deemed necessary because of some acting out that we did. I think overall you know, you, I think overall she you like, she skewed my understanding of the opposite.
[1:43:07] Okay, that's all, sorry, that's all very abstract and analytical, and I appreciate that, and I'm not trying to nag you. No, you're fine. You said that you spent your childhood in anxiety, fear.
[1:43:18] Yeah, yeah, in fear, yeah.
[1:43:20] What is it like to spend 20 years in fear?
[1:43:25] It was horrible. I woke up every day thinking about what I was going to get in trouble for that day. I changed my entire way of thinking because of the fact that I didn't want to get in trouble. I lived my life by punishments and not punishments. so I think that you know that amount of anxiety and fear as a child, reduced my self esteem to a zero to where I had to lie I had to fake my own self esteem in order to pretend that I was a normal child, and yeah just, I feel like she broke me go on feel like she, tried to make me her.
[1:44:31] No, I don't think that's it, because she was very confident in her criticisms, right?
[1:44:37] Yeah.
[1:44:38] So that's not it.
[1:44:46] She, I don't know, maybe she wanted me to be a woman, I don't know. Maybe she wanted a daughter, and she tried to turn me into her daughter, I don't even know.
[1:44:58] That's a reach and a half. Okay.
[1:45:01] That's a reach and a half. I don't really know. I'm struggling here to... It scares the crap out of me to try to put myself in her head because I don't want to be there. I don't like thinking about her that much.
[1:45:16] Well, you're assuming you have a choice, right? It either happens consciously or unconsciously.
[1:45:25] I think that's the thing I'm starting to learn is that I can't just suppress stuff and pretend like it's not bothering me. It feels like I can, but, you know, alcohol and marijuana are really helpful with that.
[1:45:37] Right. right i mean i have some thoughts i don't want to interrupt if you have more no.
[1:45:47] No i got i got nothing i mean i i would love to hear a neutral perspective someone who's just hearing it and has advice.
[1:45:58] I mean yeah there's a sort of a powerful this is a strong term but it's a powerful concept called soul murder now this is probably attempted soul murder but the way that you perform the soul murder is you consistently put children in absolutely impossible situations, absolutely impossible situations you need your mother's approval can't get your mother's approval you need your mother's love she's always hyper conditional, you want to be close to your mother but there's a maze of inaccessible approvals that you have to get through you can't get away from her because she's your mother she's home and everything that occurred it seems to me in relation to your mother is an impossible situation, and impossible situations tend to breed paralysis right so you think of a a rabbit and it's being hunted by a fox. Well, there's fight, flight, or freeze, right? Now, of course, the rabbit can't fight the fox. The rabbit can certainly try and run. But if the fox is close enough, the rabbit generally just freezes, right? Can't fight, can't run, paralysis.
[1:47:22] Right.
[1:47:23] And you were abandoned in the sort of grim battle with your mother's endless imposition of impossible situations, you were abandoned to that by your father. And what was even worse was that you saw your father throw French fries at McDonald's employees because then you know, he has the capacity to be aggressive, obviously in a horrible way, but he just won't do it with your mom.
[1:47:52] Right. Right. And I never even thought about that. So no, he absolutely could. He could be a bully when he wanted to be.
[1:47:58] No, it's like your father is saying, well, I can't play with you because I'm in this wheelchair. Right. And then you see him playing baseball out in the field somewhere. right like what yeah i never thought of it i.
[1:48:08] Never put i never put that shit together man i've never put that together like thinking of it that way like why did it why did it embarrass me and piss me off so much that he would get mad at like fast food.
[1:48:20] Employees or.
[1:48:21] Like people at random but yeah i mean that's a that's a really good point i never thought about.
[1:48:28] So then your father felt trapped and subjugated by your mother now it could be because sexual access probably has he aged it was because of you know she could make his life difficult you nag or complain or divorce him and take half his money or whatever right social standing could be any number of things right but your father clearly i think felt browbeaten and beaten down by your mom right 100 right, so your father was a slave to the female, and you my friend are a slave to the female.
[1:49:13] How do I break that cycle?
[1:49:15] Hang on. Everybody does the same thing. Now you're new to call-in shows. I give somebody a big insight, and immediately it's like, what do I do about it? How do I fix it? Right?
[1:49:27] Obviously, I do call-in shows all the time. You can tell.
[1:49:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So don't worry about that. Yeah, don't worry about that. Don't worry about what you do.
[1:49:34] Okay, okay.
[1:49:35] Don't worry about what you do yet.
[1:49:35] Okay, okay.
[1:49:37] First thing is to understand. First thing is to understand. if you had 20% of your sex drive, how many of these women would you spend time with?
[1:49:58] 20% of them.
[1:50:01] Don't be, come on, don't be glib.
[1:50:04] Okay. If I had 20% of my sex drive, probably none of them.
[1:50:08] Right.
[1:50:10] Probably none. I'd probably just want one that I can connect with.
[1:50:16] Right. But even your judgment on that is terrible because when the woman said, I love you, you were in the hot tub or something. And then a couple of days later, she's like, get out. My daughters don't like our relationship. She's nuts, right?
[1:50:30] Oh, 100%.
[1:50:32] Right.
[1:50:33] 100%.
[1:50:33] Right. So you are trapped in a cycle of trying to get love and affection from people incapable of love and affection. And like most people who are in search of love and affection from people who can't give love and affection, all you can get is an orgasm.
[1:50:58] Yeah.
[1:51:01] Now, the orgasm is supposed to be the result of love and affection. It's no substitute for it. you know the orgasm is the icing on the cake of the dessert of monogamy and you can't just live on a steady diet of occasional icing right.
[1:51:19] You're painting a good picture here yes that is very true you're pretty good at this.
[1:51:27] And, it is because you can't criticize your father that you have become a slave to lust, a slave to the pursuit, a slave to conquest, a slave to the female, the dysfunctional female. Your father married the wrong woman. and stayed married to her for too long and gave her two children that he subjected, you and your brother to your mother without intervention or protection, your father was how old were you when he ended up being stay-at-home dead.
[1:52:23] I was a teenager.
[1:52:27] Your parents should have absolutely noticed that you came back from some neighborhood house having been touched in some sexual manner i know it's hard for you to remember but that's something that your parents should know right they should know the difference in your mood your affect your feelings about that yeah.
[1:52:45] I mean i like i said that's such a gray thing that like it's almost like, did it happen or did it not? You know? I still really am not sure. It's almost like just being in that program, like hearing all the stories, it almost like gave me visuals of something that I couldn't touch or see.
[1:53:03] Right, right.
[1:53:05] So you're not wrong.
[1:53:08] Um... So, we have no authority in relationships where we cannot be honest. Dishonesty in a relationship is a sort of bottomless mark of subjugation. And so your mother continues to exercise dominance over you, because you can't be honest with your mother. because if you're honest with your mother your fear is that the relationship or the pretend relationship will not sustain, right?
[1:53:50] Yeah.
[1:53:51] So you can only get what you want from your mother through lying and manipulation.
[1:53:58] Yeah.
[1:53:58] And you can only get what you want from these women through lying and manipulation.
[1:54:06] Yeah.
[1:54:07] The same pattern, right?
[1:54:09] Mm-hmm.
[1:54:12] If a relationship can't survive honesty, it's not a relationship at all.
[1:54:19] That's a scary true statement.
[1:54:21] Yeah, it's just win and lose.
[1:54:22] Scary true statement, yeah.
[1:54:23] Just win and lose. Now, your mother, of course, should be, she's in charge of the relationship, she runs the relationship. So your mother should be pursuing honesty in her relationship with you. She should be like, ah, I'm getting a sense that we're not connecting much. which I get a sense that maybe you're avoiding me a little bit. I'm not blaming you, but, you know, let's, let's talk about this. Let's try and sort it out. Let's work on it. Right.
[1:54:49] Yeah.
[1:54:52] So she's not doing any of that. She's, you know, and your father, he said, Oh, he loved me and my brother so much, but you know, your father raised, you know, one son who might've been roofied and assaulted and another son who's suicidal last year. Right. how does love produce that how, it doesn't you and your brother are not products of love brother, cowardice, bullying, impossible situations attempted soul murder, subjugation humiliation, And you're playing out that paradigm, fortunately, of course, not in your business or friend relationships, but certainly in your sexual relationships.
[1:55:55] Certainly.
[1:55:56] I have to rely on looks, money, charm, glibness, falsehood, manipulation.
[1:56:05] Mm-hmm.
[1:56:08] And the damage this does in the world is prodigious. and the damage it does to you is prodigious and you've got to stop. What are you feeling?
[1:56:21] What's that?
[1:56:22] What are you feeling?
[1:56:27] I'm feeling a lot. I would say sadness. Feeling a little sad. not depressed but sad no one lonely, um scared a little bit.
[1:56:56] You were saying that you were feeling some some scared some scared um but not not depressed right.
[1:57:05] Not depressed sadness like it's kind of like a feeling of sadness and like some, like, like a weird feeling of relief a little bit, but it's not like relief. Like, Oh, I feel better. It's like, I don't know how to put out a plat a place. I guess it's hearing the way you put, Everything. It's like, what the fuck? You know, I'm not angry, but I'm also like, just like, I never thought of it the way that you said it. You know, with the end result being one son who almost committed suicide and the other one and almost got raped. Or maybe did. I'm pissed. No.
[1:58:08] Your brother doesn't have any kids, right? So your parents, you know, it's the end of the line. The whole four billion year march of life, 5,000 year march of Jewish history plus or whatever, right? Like it ends if you guys don't sort this out.
[1:58:31] 100%.
[1:58:43] And I want your precious genes to continue.
[1:58:45] Are you sure after talking to me for two hours? Maybe the world would be better off if I didn't.
[1:58:50] Absolutely. No, no, no, no. Don't say that. Don't say that. You've got a lot to offer. You've got a lot to offer. You're smart, successful, good looking, charismatic, good sense of humor, great communicator.
[1:59:05] I want to be someone who contributes to the world in a positive way.
[1:59:10] Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, I mean, you're doing contributions in a negative way, right? You know that at the moment, right?
[1:59:18] Yeah, yes.
[1:59:19] Because you're harming women's pair bonding. You're harming their trust in men. You're using your high intelligence to exploit the less intelligent. Kind of Marxist in a way.
[1:59:34] Right. But I tell myself that I'm leaving them so much better off than I started with because they've all been with guys so much worse than me.
[1:59:43] Well, but that's actually terrible, right? Because then you raise their standards, but they can't maintain it.
[1:59:51] Correct.
[1:59:52] It's like making somebody prince for a day and then casting them back into their life.
[1:59:57] No, that's exactly what I do. That is literally what I do. Make them feel like the princess for a day, and then it's like, okay, now go find someone like me, but not me. Bye.
[2:00:09] Right, and that comes out of hatred. right because it hurts people it's vengeance.
[2:00:16] I don't think of it that way but yeah i mean okay no but it is because it harms.
[2:00:22] Right it harms.
[2:00:23] It harms absolutely um absolutely.
[2:00:29] So, let's see, I'm trying to figure out, so there's something you're doing with women that's reproducing this impossible situation from your mom. Your mom puts you in this impossible situation. You couldn't navigate your way forward, oh yeah, there it is, okay. So, what you do is you love bomb these women to the point where they think they've got it made and they've met the one, right?
[2:00:52] Yep.
[2:00:53] And then you rug pull them without any explanation. which gives them full of anxiety, doubt, self.
[2:01:04] Maybe. I mean, I don't like to think of it that way.
[2:01:07] What did I say?
[2:01:08] I don't like to think that I pulled a rug out from under them.
[2:01:13] Sure you do. I feel like, I mean, from what you told me, I feel like you're aware that you, go ahead.
[2:01:20] I tell them from the very beginning that we're not in like a relationship and that as long as it's fun, well, it's fun. And then, you know, at some point, it's not fun.
[2:01:34] Well, but, but, but, you know ahead of time where it's going to head.
[2:01:44] Uh, kind of.
[2:01:48] Okay. What's your total body camp, roughly?
[2:01:55] I don't know. Do you want an estimate?
[2:01:59] Yeah and include let's include the massage parlors.
[2:02:04] When we include that then it's over.
[2:02:06] Mm-hmm.
[2:02:10] Triple figures plus.
[2:02:13] Like 300 plus?
[2:02:16] I don't know. So I would put it somewhere over 100.
[2:02:21] Okay. Got it. So, and you didn't start in your teens, right? You just had one 18 to six week relationship in your teens, right?
[2:02:31] I did. No, I started when I was like 19.
[2:02:36] Okay. So 20 years, 100 plus girls, right?
[2:02:41] At least yep yep.
[2:02:43] Okay and you've got the 18 months of none right so it's a oh 18 18 18.
[2:02:51] Plus a year when we were actually in the west coast.
[2:02:54] Okay there.
[2:02:56] Was another year during that where we didn't.
[2:02:59] So you're saying that having slept with or had sex with or orgasms with 100 plus women you just don't know where things are going to go it's a complete mystery to you, seriously you're not going to try that are you.
[2:03:18] No it's going to end up with you know be moving on to the 100 plus one.
[2:03:24] Right, so you put them you you raise you raise their expectations and you say you're the best they've ever been with right probably wealthiest maybe the best looking maybe whatever right definitely not charming definitely.
[2:03:42] Not the wealthiest come on i'm not rich but.
[2:03:45] Okay but i do.
[2:03:47] I do have a don juan complex sometimes yes.
[2:03:51] Okay so the impossible situation is you arouse in them a desire for a relationship, And, you know, women do this, right? You know that, right? I'm sure you've seen, like when you were in high school, some girl likes a guy and she's drawing his name in puffy letters all over her binder, right?
[2:04:11] Uh-huh. Of course, yep.
[2:04:13] Women daydream about this stuff. They dream about weddings and babies, right? They're willing and eager to pair bond, right? You know that.
[2:04:22] Yeah. Okay. I do.
[2:04:23] So you play that?
[2:04:26] I don't. Subliminally, yes.
[2:04:32] I know what women want to hear you know what women want to hear and you also know yeah but you also know that if you tell them the truth they won't sleep with you.
[2:04:49] What's the truth.
[2:04:51] That's what you told me earlier you said I just want to fuck you or whatever it is right I have no interest in a relationship probably going to sleep together a couple of times then I'm going to gradually ghost you.
[2:05:03] I would say that most of them probably wouldn't be amenable to that conversation. Correct.
[2:05:08] Right. So that's what I mean. Like you're, you're dangling.
[2:05:11] I do. Yes. Right.
[2:05:15] And would you pick him up in a nice car, take him to a nice, what's it? Kevin Samuels used to say, we'll, we'll go out for dinner. We'll have some steak and shrimp and I will blow your back out or something like that. Right.
[2:05:26] I, I'm more subtle than that, but yeah, sure. You know, like, Sure. Like I am, I think of myself as a perfect gentleman.
[2:05:39] Okay i.
[2:05:41] I thought of myself like in those moments i'm saying like i obviously am not thinking of myself as a perfect gentleman stuff but you know what i'm saying.
[2:05:49] Like that's.
[2:05:51] My shtick in those moments i'm like like my mom raised me right like if my mom knew i would treat a woman bad she'd come out here with my ass and stuff you.
[2:06:01] Know i don't know why the perfect gentleman has to be a southern redneck but all right well.
[2:06:05] I am in the midwest so i'm just pointing to my stereotype here.
[2:06:09] Yeah so so then i would say that, you are putting these women in an impossible situation because you arouse their desire and then reject them in the same way that you your mother aroused in you which is inevitable and kind of baked in to being a human being aroused in you a desire for her love and approval affection and connection. But then she withheld it.
[2:06:39] Yeah. Yeah. I can see that.
[2:06:42] And you're angry at that, but you're still in pursuit of that. So you're still in pursuit of your mother's approval, which means you still manipulate women into wanting you, into wanting your approval. Your mother keeps rejecting you. You keep rejecting these women. And the only way to break that cycle is to man-lookup and have an honest conversation with your mother. she's just a woman she's just flesh and blood.
[2:07:09] And what's that conversation consist of when you say an honest conversation like i'm not kidding you're funny because you're so verbally dexterous.
[2:07:20] And you're so you're you're a motor mouth when you want to be but then when i say this basic statement you go all rubber bones right.
[2:07:26] Yeah i did because you said the thing that as you talk about gives me like makes me clam up you know like makes every my skin crawl and makes my makes me like feel like a child again okay.
[2:07:42] So what uh what happens let's let's play it out right what happens what's the what's the worst case scenario of you having.
[2:07:51] She starts crying she's she starts crying and having a whole breakdown maybe a heart attack.
[2:07:58] A heart attack.
[2:08:00] Yeah she's I'm good at home.
[2:08:03] Okay. Let's give it a try then. You play your mum, all right?
[2:08:07] Okay.
[2:08:08] I'll be you.
[2:08:09] Okay.
[2:08:10] Are you ready?
[2:08:12] Yeah, I'm going to try not to do a Southern voice right now. Go ahead.
[2:08:15] Just be your mom. Mom, I need to have a chat with you. Some pretty important stuff's been floating around in my head about my childhood. And it may be a bit of an uncomfortable conversation for you, but I really do need to talk about some stuff that happened when I was a kid to do with you. I mean, I had some stuff to do with dad too, but he's not around, obviously, so. I think the major issue I had was that, you know, I felt like I spent most of my childhood in like fear. Fear. Anxiety. Tension. Stress. Because I always felt like I couldn't get anything right. I couldn't do things right. I couldn't please you. I couldn't satisfy you. I was always short on something or other didn't do the right thing didn't i don't know get good enough grades something like that i mean i just always felt that i was constantly running up to a trying to catch a bus that just kept going faster and faster away and i think it's left me with some pretty, messed up things in my head as as an adult do you remember that like that i just was never quite i never really good enough for you honey.
[2:09:31] What are you what are you talking about um And I remember that there were, I remember that you would lie all the time and that you would, you know, force me to have to punish you because that was how we lived our lives, you know, consequences. And, you know, there was good consequences and bad consequences. And the bad consequences, you know, you just, you just remember more than the good consequences.
[2:09:58] Why do you think, why do you think I lied? Was it just a bad kid?
[2:10:06] I think you didn't want to get into trouble. And I think that your dad told you not to tell me a lot of stuff.
[2:10:13] Well, why do you think I lied rather than, quote, sort of, as you say, get into trouble?
[2:10:27] I think you were just. I think you were just a, I think, I just think that you were a lazy kid that only wanted to do is watch TV and, and only, and like, and just, you know, you were all, you were all about the self-gratification, the, the easy win, do the thing that you want to do and, and don't do the hard thing that you don't want to do. And I was trying to instill responsibility into you.
[2:11:05] Okay. Why do you think I preferred to watch TV than spend time with you?
[2:11:18] Fuck. That's a good question.
[2:11:24] I mean, most kids, if they have a good relationship with their parents, they'll want to spend time with their parents, right?
[2:11:31] Yeah.
[2:11:32] So why... And it's interesting that you went straight to, like i'm lazy right like this is the kind of negative judgment that is really interesting to me it hurts obviously but saying i was lazy irresponsible wanted the easy way out and so on like that's really critical of your own kid i.
[2:11:53] Really wish i could talk the way you do to her.
[2:11:56] Go on what would she say what's that what would she say.
[2:12:02] To that i i honestly don't know i really don't know.
[2:12:08] Okay so then i would say mom i mean so you're accusing me of laziness and i don't know at the age of four or five or six or whatever stuff you're talking about so do you think it's easier to try and understand your child's motivations or is it easier to just put a negative label on the kid, in other words if i'm lying is it easier to try and figure out why i'm lying or is it easier to just call me a liar or lazy or something like that.
[2:12:40] I mean it's always easier just to just to label somebody.
[2:12:44] Right so when you labeled me as being lazy you're being pretty fucking lazy mom. How dare you? How dare you? Label me lazy, which is about the laziest fucking thing a parent can do. You understand the concept of projection, right, Mom?
[2:13:11] Mm-hmm.
[2:13:13] So you were being a lazy mother. I don't ever remember. I don't have a single memory, Mom, of you anytime I was a kid. It's all the way near my teens. I don't have a single memory of you sitting down and saying to me, hey, son, you seem to be doing this. What's going on in your mind? What do you think your motivation is? Or you seem to be watching a lot of TV, or you're playing a lot of games, or you're online a lot. You don't seem to want to spend much time with the family. Sitting down and trying to figure out why that was happening for me.
[2:13:42] But I put you into therapy for that.
[2:13:49] Isn't that a little lazy, Mom?
[2:13:54] I'm not trying to be funny, but like, you know what I mean? You're not, yeah.
[2:14:02] I mean, you could have just asked me, right? but why didn't you ask me what my thoughts and feelings were as a child why did you just label me in these horrible horrible negative ways why not just ask i.
[2:14:15] Don't think it i think every time we had a conversation about anything was an argument when you were that age.
[2:14:20] Well who's in charge of the relationship when i'm five who's defining the relationship am i in charge of it, nope no okay so if we end up in an argument that's on you because you're the adult right, yeah so you can't blame me for having arguments with me when i'm five or seven or ten right.
[2:14:48] I guess not.
[2:14:49] So why wouldn't you read books or go to therapy yourself and say gee, what's the best way to communicate with children?
[2:15:01] Because I thought I was communicating fine.
[2:15:04] No, you just told me that we got into an argument every time and it was your fault. So that's a lie. It's funny because you said that I was a liar. Like you're just lying to me now, right? Like you literally just told me that you were in charge of things and we had arguments when we had conversations. So now when you say, hang on, hang on, still talking, mom. so when you then say to me well no i i uh i thought we were communicating fine that's just a lie like you're just lying to me that that's not good is it.
[2:15:37] Okay, I'm going to pause this right now for a second. You are, I would love to be able to speak to my mom the way that you're speaking to me now. I wish I really want to be able to do that. That'd be amazing. Simultaneously, my mom is 10,000 times better than me at arguing. so i just the shit that she's going to say is going to be like so far beyond what i'm thinking through.
[2:16:08] Well do you have any thoughts about what she might throw at this.
[2:16:13] I i it's hard she goes to the lowest denominator i mean she just might like pull the emotional harshly how can you do this to me right now after.
[2:16:21] You're everything going through how unhealthy yeah just stop using your name well and so if she starts to make it about her i would just say you know mom i'm up here i'm over here let's not make this about you this is my topic my issue right so just you just take a deep breath have a seat okay um just take a deep breath just focus on me this is not about you this is about me trying to get information from you and talking to you about things that i have that i have issues with you know all parents and children have their issues and we haven't really talked about ours much i mean well you've talked about yours right so so you've called me i mean just in this conversation lazy um taking the easy route um i can't remember this one other but so you've given me some very negative feedback just in this conversation so obviously if you can give negative feedback you should be reasonably expected to take it as well, right?
[2:17:19] Great point.
[2:17:20] So, let's not get overly precious when you can insult me at the age of five, but I can't bring any criticisms when you're 74. That's not very reasonable, right?
[2:17:31] That's a great point.
[2:17:34] Now, the challenge is though, when she did lie, right? Because she said, we fought i was in charge but i thought we were communicating really well none of those things hang together right right then the question is what do you do or what does somebody do when they're confronted with complete falsehood that's that's like you can't even wish that one away my usually they escalate or hang up or like they just will cut off the conversation, mm-hmm, And the real-time relationship book is about sort of how to stay firm or honest or direct in the face of that kind of provocation, if that makes sense.
[2:18:20] It does.
[2:18:22] And the only way is to just be honest. And, you know, she starts collapsing in on herself. Like, and now you just think I'm the worst mother ever. It's like, no, no, you're not listening to me anymore. Now you're just talking to yourself. So let's have a conversation, right? You have two people in the conversation, right?
[2:18:38] And I've never known how to deal with, because she says that stuff. I've never known how to like handle it. The only thing I can do is, is go the, she gets what she wants out of me, which is like, now I console her.
[2:18:50] Yeah. Yeah. So she says, well, I guess I'm just the worst mother ever. It's like, no, no, but let's not make this about you. Right. Don't, don't, don't, don't manipulate me. Right. Come on, come on, mom. Like, don't put me in a position where I then have to say, oh no, you're not the worst mother ever. Right.
[2:19:06] Mm hmm.
[2:19:07] No, I mean, literally at times you made me feel like the worst child ever so let's not get overly sensitive and precious about this right.
[2:19:18] Yeah no i mean yeah, the way you're talking is how i can talk when i'm not emotionally invested.
[2:19:33] Yeah when you want to get laid you can be as good when you're confronting your mother you get tongue-tied right completely.
[2:19:41] Like i it's like three-dimensional versus two-dimensional.
[2:19:45] Well if it's any consolation right if it's any consolation i mean i was not this glib and easy with my mother.
[2:19:54] I i appreciate that as soon as you were just you know honest from birth stuff.
[2:19:59] But yeah i certainly did sit down for a series of conversations with my mother and just say look here are the issues i have and they're real issues and i want to talk about them.
[2:20:11] So you think that that's the starting point for me?
[2:20:15] I'm just reflecting back to you, brother, what you said to me earlier. You said, I want to be more honest and authentic. Do you remember that?
[2:20:22] 100%. Yeah, 100%.
[2:20:23] This is where you do it.
[2:20:29] Okay.
[2:20:33] This is where you do it, because I think that this is the relationship that is the least honest in your life. i'd agree and the problem is having a dishonest relationship or an avoidant relationship with your own mother means that quality women will not spend time with you because they sense that they, women with intuition and wisdom and virtue they'll they'll sense that right away and they'll they'll avoid it.
[2:21:01] What's can you could you tell me what, a successful version of this conversation looks like.
[2:21:12] Like, well, you can only define success by the honesty that you bring to the table. You can't define success by what happens in the conversation because your mother has her own choices to make, right?
[2:21:26] Right.
[2:21:27] So for me, I can speak for myself personally. And of course, I've talked to a bunch of people about these kinds of conversations. The most successful conversation is the one where you get a resolution. Either you break through and you say you have an honest conversation about your mother's frailties and flaws, or she escalates, gaslights, manipulates, dodges, hangs up, screams, right? Pulls every trick in the book, right? And then maybe you let things cool off and then try having the conversation again. I think I did three with my mother. Yeah, I did three. Yeah. and after the third, I'm like, okay, well, I've given it my all.
[2:22:14] But you felt better afterwards about it?
[2:22:18] What do you mean?
[2:22:21] Like, did it change your perspective? Like, did it...
[2:22:26] Well, of course it's going to change my perspective.
[2:22:27] I'm not asking for a magical... No, obviously, part of me is asking for the magical fix-it button.
[2:22:34] No, no, no. You are looking for a hedonistic reward. Do you feel better? Did you feel better? and this is from the guy who says you do the right thing without reward right, I would say I certainly felt some pride at being honest, for sure and facing down a highly dysfunctional relationship where I was not allowed to be honest, and that was good, and yeah i mean i i can't imagine that i would be married to the woman that i married to 23 years i can't even remotely imagine i'd be married to her if i hadn't had that confrontation with my mother that's what i'm trying to.
[2:23:24] Get out i guess i guess i guess that's what i'm getting at right like.
[2:23:27] I can't imagine my wife meeting my mother i can't comprehend it.
[2:23:35] Right right and I and everything I think about every time I blow a girl off is I can't introduce you to my mom she'll think like she'll just say I can do better.
[2:23:48] Oh your mother would say you can do better.
[2:23:51] Every time yeah.
[2:23:52] Well a quality woman would meet your mom and say you can do better.
[2:24:02] Oh lord of that.
[2:24:12] So I would, I mean, you can read through to the end of real-time relationships, and you can listen to some more call-in shows, particularly around parents, which there's quite a few. And, but yeah, I mean, just direct honesty with parents is absolutely essential to forward progress in life.
[2:24:34] I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, everything that you're saying is making sense to me.
[2:24:40] Good, good, good. All right. Well, is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
[2:24:50] Honestly, at this point, I think I have a lot to think about. I mean, I'm going to have a conversation with my mom. I just need to kind of... I mean, I guess I just need to rip the bandit off.
[2:25:09] Yeah i think uh you don't have much time left if you want to have a family so, um you probably want to do this sooner rather than later.
[2:25:19] Yeah um no i i really appreciate your time and you uh, listening and all the advice i really appreciate it.
[2:25:30] You're very welcome and listen man i hope you'll keep me posted about how things are going i'd love to know how it plays out.
[2:25:37] Yeah yeah i can definitely reach back out after the conversation and you know i'll check in with you i mean i'd appreciate i mean i'll check in as much as you're willing to let me so.
[2:25:46] Yeah i appreciate that you can just let me know on skype how it goes okay i will thank.
[2:25:51] You so much Stef i appreciate.
[2:25:52] You you're very welcome take care bye.
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