Esther Perel Returns

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert.

[1] I'm Dax Randall Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Monica Lily Padman.

[3] Hi there.

[4] Hi.

[5] We have an old friend returning.

[6] Oh, my God.

[7] We bring her up, I feel like, every other episode.

[8] Like, she comes up so often.

[9] It was so good to have her back.

[10] Yeah, she's kind of the counterpart to Adam Grant or Eric Topal, really.

[11] Oh, can I tell you something real quick about Eric Topal, sweetest Eric Topal in the world?

[12] He emailed me and he said, congratulations on Spotify.

[13] Spotify.

[14] And now that you guys have people like Barack Obama, I probably will never see you again.

[15] My ass.

[16] Let's get him back ASAP.

[17] I know.

[18] That's what I said.

[19] Okay, great.

[20] We're announcing it here.

[21] We have Eric Topal back.

[22] Dr. Eric Topal.

[23] But today we have Esther Perel.

[24] She is one of the most fascinating psychotherapists, the world's ever known.

[25] She's a New York Times bestselling author recognizes one of today's most insightful and original voices on modern relationships.

[26] Her books include mating in captivity, unlocking erotic intelligence, and the state of affairs, rethinking infidelity.

[27] She has a podcast, Where Should We Begin?

[28] And another one called How's Work?

[29] And right now she has a new game that we will play real time called Where Should We Begin, a game of stories.

[30] Also, I just want to add, I found her breakdown of what people experienced in quarantine to be very novel and proprietary.

[31] I found myself repeating a bunch of the stuff she educated us on since this interview.

[32] Yeah.

[33] Yeah.

[34] She's incredible.

[35] There's no getting around it.

[36] I love you.

[37] I love Esther.

[38] Please enjoy Esther Perel.

[39] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now.

[40] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[41] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[42] So Esther, we were just kind of shooting the ship before we started, and you said you just had your first in -person session.

[43] Was it last week, do you say?

[44] Last week, yeah.

[45] Like where you were with a couple face -to -face?

[46] Yes.

[47] Basically, starting March last year, we did an entire season of couples in lockdown, actually.

[48] Uh -huh.

[49] So that was the theme.

[50] That was where we met them.

[51] It's not just that it was on Zoom.

[52] It's that they were in lockdown in Nigeria, in Sicily, in Germany, in New York, in the height of the pandemic.

[53] So that was, on the one hand, we were literally in their bedrooms and as close to them as possible and as far away as well.

[54] Then we did a whole season of housework also on Zoom.

[55] And now we are starting season five of where should we begin.

[56] And here I am Friday afternoon and I'm going to this office and the people arrived and all precautions taken.

[57] and we meet for three hours, and I was on fire.

[58] It was really, like I had forgotten, the actual experience of seeing people in three dimensions.

[59] There's an energy you can't recreate.

[60] That's exactly what our experience was we hated Zoom at first, then we got used to it, and then we had convinced ourselves, it's virtually the same.

[61] Like, we figured out how to do it with this interface.

[62] And then the first episode back, both of us, and I was like, oh, no, right.

[63] Like, you get high from this when it's good.

[64] So what did you explain?

[65] experience that you realized you had lost on Zoom or had to adapt differently.

[66] But what was your experience?

[67] Like, I just felt like I have so many things I could do with the people in a way that the frame stifles me. Yeah, yeah.

[68] It kind of keeps me in one place.

[69] A, like, if you're paying attention to the person you're talking to, there's all this data at your hands, you're seated on your legs right now.

[70] That tells me you're comfortable in the space.

[71] I like that.

[72] There's all these clues about how someone's feeling, and they're gone in that 2D shoulders -up experience.

[73] And then clearly, I think there's something biochemically that happens to people when they're looking at each other and in proximity.

[74] I think I got different chemicals from being face -to -face.

[75] Because we're having real eye contact.

[76] I look at Monica, and I think I see you, but then when I look at it afterwards, I'm like somewhere.

[77] Yeah, because where do you look?

[78] The camera or their face, that's the whole thing on Zoom.

[79] If you don't align that right, yeah.

[80] And on the other end, Zoom allowed me to go meet people in the midst of the crisis, wherever they were.

[81] So it was a both -hand thing.

[82] And to capture the intensity of that moment of what relationships were like.

[83] Oh, yeah.

[84] So I lost certain things, but I also really scale certain things.

[85] So did you find patterns in what people were dealing with?

[86] Because, of course, I'm going to force you to psychoanalyze me and my situation.

[87] but I'm going to try to be patient before I do that.

[88] Yes, I think that I looked at patterns, but I also try to create a bit of a, not create, but find the right vocabulary that would allow me to understand what I'm seeing and then help people.

[89] I put it in words as well.

[90] So it changes, right?

[91] It changes along the months.

[92] Go back March.

[93] I was here, literally March of last year.

[94] I was shooting the first episode of this documentary on sexuality.

[95] I'm flying back and this is it.

[96] This is the last thing.

[97] So I am literally back in L .A. after my last trip here.

[98] Oh, this is your first time back.

[99] First time back.

[100] First time back.

[101] Weather's still good.

[102] Have you noticed?

[103] That's one continuity you can point to, right?

[104] And in the beginning, it was like sometimes people were already very, very worried and other people were still, now it's far away, it's not here, it's not happening.

[105] I'll wash my hands, I'll buy disinfectant, I'll load up on toilet paper.

[106] There was this notion that you can concretely buffer yourself, right?

[107] So you had the buffers and the accelerators of the pandemic.

[108] And then gradually it becomes New York City in the height of that moment where it's pandemic and pandemonium, right?

[109] Yeah, there's triage in parking lots, there's...

[110] And ice trucks and fear and complete empty streets.

[111] and the city becomes completely paralyzed and locked up.

[112] And we get it first from listening to Sicily, the Italian videos that are circulating and then are telling you, you know, what is happening here is going to happen to you.

[113] And in the relationships, you see people's coping styles begin to exacerbate, right?

[114] Between the more vigilant ones and between the ones who think that they can master the danger and just take the right precautions and all of that.

[115] You can just say Dax and Monica, one of you know us as well which one was which well I won't speak for no you can't you can speak for you it brought up so much childhood stuff that shocked me which was I was immediately skeptical of some of the information that was coming out I didn't believe that there was real consensus I thought that the first message they spread which was this is inevitable but we can flatten the curve by doing these behaviors then we did those behaviors the curve had been flattened yet everything still stayed.

[116] It triggered for me adults who didn't tell me the truth, who had an agenda when I was a kid.

[117] I have a very hard time accepting what parental figures, i .e. the CDC or whoever is just telling me. And I had to work through it.

[118] I'm like, don't be an idiot from all this.

[119] But by my knee jerk was, I'll decide how I'm going to live.

[120] You decide how you're going to live.

[121] It was very individualist libertarian, but I was surrounded entirely by people that, oh, my, almost all felt they were at the apex of being the safest.

[122] Well, also, it was just that, like, no, you can't be on an island right now because you are surrounded by other people.

[123] And if you, whatever, you think maybe it's not as big of a deal and you go see this person, you are inherently putting the rest of us at risk.

[124] And that's not fair.

[125] Like, we don't have a choice.

[126] We have to be around you.

[127] So I did everything you were supposed to do, but I didn't.

[128] want to.

[129] It wasn't my idea.

[130] I, like, joined my group, and I was respectful to everyone's wishes, but it wasn't probably my inclination.

[131] Did it stay like that?

[132] No, I mostly came to accept it all.

[133] It's like, I just was more optimistic about it.

[134] I was not very fearful of getting it.

[135] I was like, yeah, if I get it, I get it.

[136] I didn't have a lot of the catastrophic fears surrounding it.

[137] How about you?

[138] I was more concerned about infecting other people, so I really didn't want it, but mainly because I didn't want to give it.

[139] I wasn't like super concerned about dying from it or having a huge reaction, but it was mainly like, oh my God, if I get it, I'm going to give it to this person and what if I give it to someone's grandma, like really doing the whole, what if I inadvertently really hurt someone with it?

[140] Right, your behavior doesn't just have consequences for you.

[141] Exactly.

[142] It has consequences for others.

[143] And whether you want it or not, you begin to experience a degree of interdependence and mutuality that maybe you would not otherwise do because you say, I'll define reality for myself kind of thing.

[144] And I think what happened in the beginning was that people were still trying to negotiate with reality.

[145] Right, yeah.

[146] And then in relationships, you had somebody say, you're so catastrophic and you make such a big thing.

[147] And the other person said, you don't realize, you don't understand what is going on.

[148] that kind of polarized between it's not so bad and it's really terrible.

[149] And then begins the phase of prolonged uncertainty.

[150] Right?

[151] And the prolonged uncertainty is this idea that it's uncertain, but you don't even know how long it will remain uncertain.

[152] Right.

[153] And at the same time, it becomes also the collapse of all the boundaries.

[154] So now I am sitting on one chair in my house and I am a mother and I am a therapist and I am a supervisor and I am a CEO and I am a podcast.

[155] and I am a friend.

[156] And all these roles are there at the same time, at the same table.

[157] And it's a complete collapse of boundaries for everybody.

[158] And I'm not Zoom schooling, but for many others, that could be added as well.

[159] And that's the next thing that starts to happen is there's no distinction.

[160] We even have people living with us.

[161] Like, you and Anna lived with us.

[162] So you became a pod?

[163] Yes, yes.

[164] We became a pod.

[165] This is shameless, but I just want to add one thing.

[166] Just so I'm afraid people will be judgmental of what I just laid out.

[167] I just want to add, it wasn't that I didn't care about safety.

[168] It's that I was questioning maybe Sweden's right.

[169] Like maybe the cost of doing it this way is going to be all this mental health issues, people not being on their vaccination schedule, people not going to get their heart checked up.

[170] Like the end result of this strategy may be worse than the disease.

[171] So that was the thing I could not stop myself from questioning.

[172] And you were not alone in thinking and asking these questions.

[173] People were seeing that there was not one clear response.

[174] Nobody really necessarily yet knew what is a public health approach to a pandemic, basically.

[175] We haven't had it like that for a long time.

[176] People were comparing it to the Spanish flu.

[177] I mean, in the beginning, there was a lot of this.

[178] So there's nothing unusual to have that question.

[179] What does it mean to put all the focus on physical health?

[180] What does it do to the mental health?

[181] What does it mean to keep children from going to school?

[182] Are they contagious?

[183] Are they vehicles or catalysts for the transmission, et cetera, et cetera?

[184] So I think for a while there were loads of theories.

[185] And what happens, that is the interesting thing, is that when you live with uncertainty, often people mask a false certainty.

[186] Oh, sure, sure, sure.

[187] So they talk like, they know.

[188] The issue is not that you wondered if Sweden had a different approach.

[189] It's like, Sweden is the right, you know.

[190] And you suddenly become certain about stuff you know nothing about.

[191] Yeah, of course.

[192] Because nobody really knows actually where this thing at that moment is...

[193] We still don't.

[194] That's something that I really struggled with.

[195] I just kept saying that over and over.

[196] Like, this is brand new.

[197] Stop looking at that thing or that thing.

[198] We don't know.

[199] We can't compare.

[200] We can't say just because the vaccine before.

[201] It was like, we can't say that you can't transmit it if you have the vaccine because no vaccines have been like that.

[202] Okay.

[203] But we don't know yet because this is brand new.

[204] And I was really hyper -focused on that, like this trying to compare.

[205] to old things didn't make sense to me. We still don't know what the side effects are.

[206] We still don't.

[207] It's still new.

[208] At that time, I was thinking more about what does it mean to go into confinement.

[209] It's this complete redefinition of the way that we typically act.

[210] Hugging, the most important way that we connect suddenly becomes dangerous.

[211] If you go down behavior after behavior, I really look at a relationship thing.

[212] I'm not a public health person, but I am a relationship therapist.

[213] And so I looked at what does it mean when the most foundational experiences that we have take on the opposite meaning.

[214] Instead of going towards, you have to go away when you see people and you walk past them, you have to lower your head.

[215] Some people said it means nothing.

[216] And some people, just every person became the potential of hurting grandma who has moved in with us too.

[217] Yeah.

[218] And then slowly you start to experience that sense of grief.

[219] Right?

[220] The collective sense of grief.

[221] And grief at that point is not yet death only that is there too, but it's the loss of normalcy.

[222] Yeah.

[223] The loss of the world as we knew it.

[224] With it's good and it's bad.

[225] The loss of spontaneity.

[226] The loss of happenstance.

[227] The loss of the plans, the plans, all these events that people had planned in their life.

[228] All the stand still.

[229] And that, I think, was another major, major phase to explain grief.

[230] And then people began to talk about acute stress.

[231] Then you need to explain what is stress.

[232] Stress is multidimensional.

[233] It's not just a thing called stress, right?

[234] And then you name it and you frame it.

[235] Is it sadness?

[236] Is it despair?

[237] Is it fear?

[238] Is it anger?

[239] Is it irritability?

[240] Impatience.

[241] What is it that you are experiencing?

[242] And what are the things you can do to calm yourself?

[243] And then some people went just nature, sports, all kinds of ways to kind of regulate themselves.

[244] The gym, yeah.

[245] How many people go to the gym?

[246] And other people began to really think about ways to anchor, to stay grounded, to not deal with it.

[247] I was overnight, basically, thrown in the category elderly.

[248] Oh, gosh.

[249] Remember that was that time?

[250] It was past 60s, past 60.

[251] And that suddenly is like I'd never tell of myself like this.

[252] And so what did that mean for the triage?

[253] What happens to me if ever I get to that hospital?

[254] And suddenly you experience a fragility of life that to me was very, very palpable.

[255] I was not sure that I was going to just write this true.

[256] And I envy those who were a little more defined or those who like you just said, I am fine, but I'm worried about others.

[257] I definitely, without being really catastrophic, but I did have death anxiety.

[258] Can I have two layers I observe that I thought was really interesting.

[259] one being if you were in a situation that was mildly comfortable, for lack of a better word, as we were, we had food, we have a house, we have a yard, we have so many advantages over so many people that were going through it, that always reminding yourself of how good you had it in this bad situation, in a weird way, didn't allow people to actually consider what was going on with them.

[260] Even though they were in maybe idealic surroundings, all this anxiety about the unknown future is still having.

[261] happening, whether you're comfortable or uncomfortable.

[262] So I think, I don't know, it just felt like a lot of people in our circle felt too guilty to even question maybe what they were going through because they had the best version of it, as we did.

[263] And because in order for them to be able to stay in their comfortable houses with the yards and be so at ease, other people had to put themselves at risk to make that life comfortable.

[264] That's right, to go out and still be working.

[265] Exactly, to be delivering the groceries.

[266] Yeah.

[267] So there was like a guilt.

[268] there was a collective guilt for the people that weren't having to brave that.

[269] And then I do think some of that didn't then allow themselves to actually take stock of what was going on with them.

[270] Did you think where can I be helpful?

[271] Who can I help?

[272] What can I offer to others?

[273] Well, in that, we never stopped doing our work, right?

[274] So we kept doing our show and we kept, we had experts on that could help us navigate this.

[275] We had all kinds of people.

[276] We explored what was happening.

[277] So I guess in that way, I felt like, oh, I'm a problem.

[278] part of something positive in this whole thing.

[279] But did I go to a soup kitchen?

[280] No. I felt like the way to help was to not go anywhere.

[281] That's true.

[282] It's like just I'm staying put and that's the best thing I can do.

[283] But I don't know if that's true.

[284] Warfish is something I told myself.

[285] I think it's different for every person.

[286] I remember throwing myself into work.

[287] I thought if I can help others, I feel less helpless.

[288] And so I began to see so many more patients.

[289] I also began to supervise a lot more, my colleagues, my students.

[290] I just thought, if I stay involved, if I help others deal with this, I get less anxious, basically.

[291] So for a while I was definitely, and many, many therapists were experiencing something similar.

[292] And we were actually going through a parallel process as the people that we were working with.

[293] Yeah, right.

[294] We were experiencing the same thing.

[295] So that in itself demanded also that we find ways to take care of ourselves.

[296] Well, you probably heard yourself giving advice that you were like, yeah, I also need to adhere to that advice.

[297] Like, I need to hear my own advice.

[298] A lot of the time.

[299] A lot of the things that I came up with.

[300] We were talking about the fact that we created this game, that it was really that.

[301] It was the kinds of conversations that I'm having with people.

[302] The difficult conversations people needed to have with their parents to whom they could disappear from one day to the next.

[303] Peacemaking that needed to take place in families.

[304] forgiveness that needed to be granted, amends that needed to be made.

[305] I mean, people really fell suddenly, I need to talk.

[306] Yeah, I returned to therapy in...

[307] You did?

[308] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[309] So there was a lot of different pieces inside the family, what it meant when somebody suddenly returned after 10 years of not living at home and not necessarily wanting to live in that at home.

[310] Yeah.

[311] Online funerals, talking about end of life, really helping people to have challenging, difficult conversations.

[312] But then also, continuing to celebrate.

[313] You may not have your wedding, but you may still get married.

[314] You may not graduate with a ceremony, but you still finish school.

[315] Keep the ceremonies going.

[316] Keep the celebrations going.

[317] So I focused a lot on helping people to maintain boundaries, to create routines, and to create rituals.

[318] The routines help them get through the day.

[319] The rituals get them get through life.

[320] And I really articulated a lot of that.

[321] And then I began to think, how do we continue?

[322] to play, because that play is what is going to give us, Frankl used to call tragic optimism.

[323] You can't change the conditions, but you can change your response to the conditions.

[324] You can maintain your freedom there.

[325] And that freedom in confinement always comes through our imagination.

[326] Like your kids probably put a few books on the floor and they became stones in the river.

[327] Their mind took them out of the reality that was so constricting.

[328] And I thought adults need that too.

[329] Yeah.

[330] You know, my wife and I had like a couple real moments in quarantine.

[331] I mean, like, real moments.

[332] Moments is a great word.

[333] Yeah, they passed.

[334] Yeah, but they encompass a whole story.

[335] Yes.

[336] And a couple of things that occurred to me is, A, just the act of getting to drive places to my many commitments, each of those little breaks is a time for me to decompress, to recharge, to be selfish or whatever it is.

[337] But when you do not leave your kids at any moment during the day, there's no recharge moment.

[338] It's just all output.

[339] And I think that started to fatigue us.

[340] And then also, back to your routine point, we were a very well -functioning machine where we saw each other three hours a day.

[341] That worked fine.

[342] But 24 hours a day, zero experience with that, brand new kind of relationship.

[343] Like, oh, we're together now 24 -7?

[344] And you there, too.

[345] At the beginning, at the beginning, yeah.

[346] I got out of there kind of quick.

[347] She made a mad dash.

[348] She's like, I'll get COVID if I can leave this house.

[349] But this, what you describe is exactly what I mean by boundaries, right?

[350] People typically finish an activity.

[351] You go somewhere else for the next activity.

[352] You often go in space to another place and you change clothes.

[353] And the clothes is part of the ritual that prepares you for that next activity.

[354] So you exercise in certain clothes.

[355] in others, you go to dinner and yet others, you play with your children.

[356] Here it was all one and the same.

[357] So that blurring, that domestic gravity blurring, was very, very challenging on people.

[358] And that's a kind of thing where slowly people began to articulate it and then it got a name, it explained it, that these transitions that you talk about are extremely orienting and structuring to us.

[359] When you don't have them, you do get exhausted.

[360] And everybody kept saying it's Zoom exhaustion, but it wasn't just Zoom.

[361] The loss of boundaries, the loss of demarcation is exhausting.

[362] And then together with that, you get a state of what became called enforced presentism, meaning you can't make plans.

[363] Yeah, yeah.

[364] Everything is today.

[365] It's just now.

[366] Usually you have a sense of tomorrow, the day after this summer, next month.

[367] This uncertainty puts you in an enforced presentism.

[368] That's it.

[369] Just right now.

[370] You cannot think and project yourself.

[371] Yeah, everyone louds the present, but I found I had enough of the present.

[372] I've really discovered about myself in this year.

[373] Oh, I have to have something on the calendar.

[374] If I don't have one thing in my mind that I know is coming up, I have a real hard time.

[375] Yes, because when you look forward to something that is outside of now, now has an open door.

[376] If you don't have anything to look forward to, then now is a closed gate.

[377] It's permanent.

[378] That's the presentism.

[379] Yeah.

[380] Yeah, and in my worst, most pessimistic moments, I fall into the trap of however I feel at this moment is how I'm going to feel for eternity, right?

[381] I'm always like fighting that urge to think I'm going to feel, oh, shit, I'm going to feel this is going to be my life forever.

[382] I can't take another minute of this.

[383] Yeah, yeah, I pass.

[384] It's a hard pass.

[385] But yeah, with things ahead in the future, you still have fantasy.

[386] You're still like projecting and all these things.

[387] And, yeah, boy, did I realize.

[388] We were lucky, though, with work at least.

[389] At least there was stuff on the calendar for that.

[390] We had the best version possible, and I still relapsed, and that was the best version that you could have.

[391] Yeah.

[392] Like, I can only imagine the single mother with three kids and Zoom in one bedroom apartment.

[393] It was very, very hard.

[394] Domestic violence went up, addiction went up, unemployment went up, mothers dropped out of the workforce, went up.

[395] We are privileged people here.

[396] Yes, I also worked enormously.

[397] I got a burst of creativity, but I know that my reality is not the overwhelming reality.

[398] And I didn't have little ones in the house, which I know others did have.

[399] And I think that it's not surprising at all that you can say both and.

[400] Yes, I had my job.

[401] We had our creative project.

[402] We had each other, my collaborator here.

[403] And I relapsed.

[404] And I almost, you know, because we were regulated around each other for three hours a day and we know how to leave, to go and do our things, to be seen by other people, to get affirmed by others, to have a different gaze than the one from our partner, to step out of the domestic reality, then to come back in.

[405] That's very different of a 24 -7, one person for everything.

[406] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[407] I wrote this book, mating in captivity.

[408] Oh, I sure do.

[409] I thought I was going to write the quarantine edition.

[410] Yeah, captivity square.

[411] You know, that was it.

[412] Has a new meaning.

[413] Exactly, exactly.

[414] And then also just one last thing, you're with your children.

[415] I was aware the whole time, like, this is so special.

[416] This hasn't happened to anyone where we pause life and you get to observe a year of their life.

[417] So I'm so grateful for that.

[418] And then feeling guilty when it's way too much and I don't want to look at them and I don't want to hear their voices for three hours.

[419] I don't know.

[420] I'm very prone to feel guilty.

[421] So it was like, oh, no, I got to enjoy this.

[422] But I'm like, but this is too much.

[423] So the idea of both end, I'm enjoying this.

[424] And at times it's too much.

[425] And at times I don't think I can have another minute of this.

[426] And at times I don't want this to end.

[427] And if people give themselves the permission, actually, to say this and this and this rather than I should be feeling this way.

[428] Why am I feeling that way?

[429] Then you put yourself into this whole twisted pretzel of guilt that doesn't serve you at all.

[430] And in effect, then you resent them for maybe.

[431] making you feel guilty when because you think that you should actually be enjoying it and you're not enjoying it and therefore it's...

[432] It has to be their fault.

[433] That whole thing.

[434] Instead of, yes, there was a whole range of feelings that were superposed on top of each other and they're not all pretty and some of them are very primitive and they are in rapid succession sometimes and this is actually quite normal.

[435] Yeah.

[436] Okay, so I think people who just live through everything, they're like, everyone's wrapping their head around what the experience was like and kind of debriefing in their mind.

[437] But there's another wave of everything, which is upon us right now.

[438] And I've kind of observed it.

[439] It seems in keeping with the first pattern that emerged when it started, which is like, I'm of the opinion, if you're double -vaxed, it's party time.

[440] Like, let's go.

[441] Let's run to the movie theater.

[442] Like, let's go to dinner.

[443] And I'm seeing around me that some people that I know who are vaccinated are really hesitant.

[444] And my conclusion to that is like, people, they change.

[445] They didn't want to go into quarantine, but I think some people don't want to come out of quarantine.

[446] Like, just change in general is just terrifying?

[447] What are your thoughts on the re -entry process?

[448] So I have different thoughts, but I'm going to go to history for a moment first.

[449] I always asked my parents, when they came out of German concentration camps, what was it like?

[450] Where did they go?

[451] Did they run?

[452] R!

[453] I'm free at last.

[454] Did they walk carefully with their shoulders up because they still were not sure that they could still be one more flight above their head?

[455] Did they go to look for food?

[456] And they always told me this story about how they went to look for shoes.

[457] They found a house that was abandoned and they picked shoes because they had had frozen feet for five years in the camps with newspaper in the shoes and just to have a pair of shoes.

[458] And my mother described how they saw watches and they saw other things and they took none of that because they were so just wanting a pair of shoes.

[459] Some people come out of the bunker or out of confinement or out of a concentration camp and they just feel like you, free at last, let's go party.

[460] But a lot of people, it takes a re -adaptation of the nervous system, of feeling safe again, of understanding that the vigilance that you so honed is maybe not as necessary now and to slowly let it unthall.

[461] So I think you have a real, range of reactions.

[462] Your reaction is one on a spectrum of reactions.

[463] What's your reaction?

[464] Well, I mean, God, I'm so conflicted now because as soon as the vaccines were starting to roll out, like within days, there was five mass shootings in a week.

[465] I was like, oh my God, I forgot.

[466] Reality is scary.

[467] We've taken a pause, and that came with all of this hardship and all this anxiety, but also it was a pause from a lot of the bad shit that was going on.

[468] Or there were wildfires of a caliber.

[469] There was BLM and there were mass shootings.

[470] They were the demonstrations.

[471] There was the election.

[472] I mean, actually, there was a lot of things that happened that didn't stop.

[473] That didn't stop.

[474] That is true.

[475] You're right.

[476] That is true.

[477] But the one you're most afraid of resumed.

[478] Well, the part that I was like, oh, no one can focus on being not violent, but like everyone was really focused on themselves during the pandemic.

[479] I feel like it was so inward.

[480] You had your pods and you had this.

[481] But no one was like, I hate you.

[482] I mean, I guess BLM was, I forgot.

[483] God, I forgot that that was.

[484] And Asian hate crimes skyrocketed.

[485] Yeah, that's true.

[486] Although I think that had been going on also before the pandemic.

[487] That was like, well, oh, no, I guess not.

[488] Yeah, Kong flu.

[489] I really set things off.

[490] Well, I don't know.

[491] I just feel reentry is scary, but not because of, COVID.

[492] I just feel like, oh, yeah, that old way we did things, the old pacing, it feels jarring to go back into that.

[493] And there were parts that I liked.

[494] Like, I liked the slowness.

[495] There was a lot of great fun stuff.

[496] The community, like the being with one group was so lovely.

[497] We loved it.

[498] People talk about slowing down.

[499] People talk about spending more time with their children.

[500] People talk about having time to think and not being up in the air all the time.

[501] People talk about having seen the four seasons.

[502] People talk about having rediscovered connections that had been gone.

[503] People created.

[504] Cooking.

[505] People read.

[506] But there was also massive amount of loss.

[507] Yeah.

[508] Massive amount of loss.

[509] And when you lose a person in a family that doesn't just affect one person.

[510] That is a ripple effect to an entire system.

[511] Yeah.

[512] That's not just the three or four people that are right there in that house.

[513] So I think that if you have not lost physically somebody to death, you have a set of other reactions.

[514] If you lost someone and you couldn't say goodbye to them and they disappeared to you like that and your family relied on them, they were your parents, your grandparents, you know, and more than one person in the family, you have a completely different story.

[515] There are multiple narratives about this last year that are co -exam.

[516] existing next to each other.

[517] And I think sometimes the tendency is to think my story and the people that I lived with is the story.

[518] It is one of the stories.

[519] And this year, for those for whom police brutality reaches them really close, it's another story that is a central chapter for them.

[520] So I think I'm very careful sometimes.

[521] And I think what happened to me is just a tiny little sliver of a story.

[522] But we all have a story.

[523] We all have stories to tell about this year.

[524] And that I wanted to capture.

[525] What are the stories?

[526] What do we emphasize?

[527] Right?

[528] And what do we want to keep from this?

[529] At this point, the reentry anxiety for many of the people is because we got a little socially atrophied.

[530] Yeah.

[531] We lost certain habits.

[532] We lost the notion of being physically close.

[533] Many people were in physical hunger.

[534] They were not in a part.

[535] They were alone and experienced a degree of isolation and aloness, like no two.

[536] Prisoners.

[537] Dogs, pets, cats, birds.

[538] I mean, people really needed so desperately to connect with other living creatures.

[539] And that touch hunger, that is the first thing you see now.

[540] Like we just met, can I hug you?

[541] Can I touch you?

[542] Can we hold?

[543] And people are holding long, longer than just the tapping on the back, you know?

[544] that it is so common here.

[545] They're dehydrated.

[546] They need to refill.

[547] That's a very nice expression.

[548] So I look at that.

[549] Then I look at so much of the time people were doing risk management and risk assessment, right?

[550] Especially if they were with other people and their behavior may have consequences.

[551] So now it's the same kind of, can I, is it okay?

[552] This whole approach avoidance slowly.

[553] And then there are people who realize I don't necessarily want to go back to what it was.

[554] May I say this out loud, can you?

[555] Right?

[556] Is it okay?

[557] Because I seem to be in such a groove before.

[558] And so we're not going back.

[559] This is not a return to.

[560] We will all remember this.

[561] This will stay as a part of our body memory, our physical memory for all of us.

[562] And depending on what we experienced, it will metabolize very differently.

[563] For some of us, it will have been a really traumatic experience.

[564] And for some of us, it will have been an adaptive experience.

[565] Yeah, character building.

[566] Do you know the term cherry picking?

[567] Yeah.

[568] Okay, good.

[569] I'm going to cherry pick right now.

[570] Yeah.

[571] I'll never have another person on the couch better to field this theory.

[572] So I have many times said publicly, fidelity for me is low on my list of requirements.

[573] If I had to pick the things I would want my partner to give me, fidelity would be pretty low on the list.

[574] I'd weigh rather they were kind to me. I way rather they met my needs.

[575] A lot of things.

[576] And I do believe most people, at least in America, they would put fidelity at number one reason they would break up with someone or dissolve a partnership.

[577] And what I think is really interesting in a data sense is that this year most certainly had the lowest cases of infidelity that have ever been recorded, or at least in the last hundred years.

[578] And we are seeing the highest rate of divorces.

[579] So I think there's actually data now to support that it's not the most important.

[580] Or let me give you another lens.

[581] First of all, do you like this observation at all?

[582] Interesting, given what you deal with it.

[583] I like the fact that I can give you another way of looking at it.

[584] I like to change perception.

[585] But also, I would want you to distinguish between exclusivity, fidelity, and loyalty.

[586] Mm -hmm.

[587] Yeah.

[588] So I want someone to be loyal to me. Right.

[589] Absolutely.

[590] But let's go to your question.

[591] Oh, okay.

[592] Let's go to your question.

[593] Because I think you kind of want to know, is it so that often disasters will bring more babies and more divorces, basically, right?

[594] What happens when you have a disaster or a pandemic is that they function like a relationship accelerator.

[595] Life suddenly is fragile.

[596] Life is short.

[597] It can happen.

[598] It can end any moment.

[599] any time.

[600] Therefore, what am I waiting for?

[601] Let's move in.

[602] Let's have babies.

[603] Let's get married.

[604] Let's whatever.

[605] Or what am I waiting for?

[606] Life is short.

[607] I've waited long enough.

[608] I'm not spending another 20 years like this.

[609] I'm out of here.

[610] And so what you're trying to say is why are so many people splitting up even when they were not unfaithful and forced monogamy, basically?

[611] Yeah.

[612] Yeah.

[613] Yeah.

[614] The issue is that this is not what stimulated the divorces.

[615] What stimulated the divorces is that people's patterns were either exacerbated or new tensions got created.

[616] And basically, all the cracks in the relationships became very visible.

[617] And so did also all the light that shines through the cracks became visible for those who say, this was an incredible year for us.

[618] I was so else, but my partner, but my friend, but my brother.

[619] But let's say in the romantic sense, for the others, the notion is life is too precious to want to deal with some of these situations and I will leave.

[620] And now is where we're going to start to see the wave of those people.

[621] Because they had to sit together sometimes because they had children, families, others that they were in charge of.

[622] And so they managed.

[623] They held it together till they can come out.

[624] And once they go outside, that's when they take action.

[625] Yeah.

[626] What do you think of that story?

[627] I love it.

[628] And yet I also think that what people found out was that fidelity wasn't the most important thing.

[629] That, in fact, there were many things much more important because they had fidelity in spades.

[630] Yet now these more, what I would consider really important, how does someone treat you?

[631] How do you interact?

[632] How do you communicate?

[633] All these things.

[634] I just think it maybe forced people to go like, oh, shit.

[635] Okay, well, I guess number one maybe shouldn't be number one.

[636] Like fidelity isn't enough to hold an entire relationship.

[637] Nor did it even improve, I think, for most people.

[638] That has always been quite clear to me that it is very important, but it is not enough.

[639] There are plenty of systems of surveillance that make people be completely faithful.

[640] That doesn't mean that a relationship.

[641] is nurturing, caring, respectful, and the like.

[642] Yeah.

[643] So, yes, I think you have a good point, but I don't know that that's the way people articulated.

[644] Yeah.

[645] They don't say it like that.

[646] Well, and I love how you articulate it, and I agree, people have a tolerance for discomfort.

[647] And I'm not saying this is my case because it wasn't.

[648] But let's just say, where I saw Kristen three hours a day, let's say I didn't even enjoy that.

[649] Well, I can get through three hours a day to live in the same house my children live in.

[650] But can I get through it 24 hours a day to live in the same house?

[651] house my children lit?

[652] That becomes just a much different proposition.

[653] Again, that was not my case.

[654] I didn't dislike being around christend for three hours and then hated her for 24 hours.

[655] But certainly some people are managing not having the partner they necessarily want in limited doses.

[656] It's like when people talk about lonely or alone, they often think of it as a person is on their own.

[657] But there is also the experience of living with somebody and experiencing a sense of a loneliness and loneliness that it feels worse.

[658] Yeah.

[659] Because if I'm by myself, well, I have no expectations of anybody.

[660] But if you're standing right here and I can't long, I can't receive from you, the degree of rejection, of exclusion, of loneliness, of this affection is unbearable.

[661] Mm -hmm.

[662] This is months on end, right?

[663] Yeah.

[664] If I am continuously made to feel unappreciated, if any time I do something, I'm defect, I'm inadequate.

[665] I'm incompetent.

[666] I'm criticized.

[667] After a while, I either check out, which then makes the other person again feel alone.

[668] So now you start to get these feedback loops.

[669] Or I begin to attack and counterattack, you know, because you're relentlessly critical of me. Yeah.

[670] Let me give you a taste of this.

[671] It's these kinds of feedback loops.

[672] It's not just that you spend time with the other person.

[673] It's what happens in the relationship is how does the dynamic between these two people play on each other.

[674] One of the things I used to say in the beginning, I said, try as best as you can to really make a point of being appreciative when your partner does something nice.

[675] But that's not just to say, thanks for making the coffee.

[676] It's more important if you say, thanks for being thoughtful.

[677] Yeah, yeah.

[678] Because the thoughtfulness is something about who you are as a person.

[679] the coffee is the task that you just did that makes me feel good and since you don't have other people besides those three hours that you normally go to see who would tell you all kinds of nice things I'm sure with your team you make a point of saying three times thank you when they do something nice I tell Rob how good looking he is at least once a week I doubt his wife does so when he comes to you he feels good about himself and then when he goes I'm not saying this is a little.

[680] But then you understand, so many people get other feedback from others when they go outside that was suddenly a closed faucet.

[681] And then let me add, too, when you leave your home, you also get perspective.

[682] So whatever I'm dealing with, I have a coworker who's married, and I find out, oh, you're dealing with that, huh?

[683] Well, A, I guess this is normal.

[684] My terminal uniqueness is a play.

[685] And, oh, I don't want that.

[686] That sounds worse than what I. Like, getting out in chat.

[687] Adding about your problems in the world, it's so helpful.

[688] And if you just have yourself to go to bed and...

[689] But did you not reach out to France and actually...

[690] Well, yeah, I'm in AA.

[691] I would go to meetings on Zoom still.

[692] I'd get to hear other men dealing with all this stuff.

[693] I felt so...

[694] When made you relapse?

[695] So many things.

[696] If I can ask.

[697] Yeah, yeah, so many things.

[698] It would be untruthful to say it happened on an event because it didn't.

[699] It started eight years into my 16 years.

[700] I was dealing with my father who was dying of cancer.

[701] He had opiates.

[702] I had a prescription.

[703] for opiates because I had a motorcycle accident, but I didn't bring them to Michigan because I have Kristen give them to me because I don't trust myself with them, but now all of a sudden I had them.

[704] And I had a prescription at home.

[705] So I took them with my dad.

[706] And I was like, that's not how you're supposed to do this.

[707] I admitted it to Kristen.

[708] She said, you know, you could tear everything down or you could go, yeah, you got high with your dad before he died, keep it moving.

[709] And I did.

[710] Then I race motorcycles.

[711] I've had many surgeries over the years.

[712] All gray stuff.

[713] Oh, you gave me six pills i'm supposed to take them at this time but i kept three and i didn't take them so that i could take four at one time right so i'm on a path of i'm not doing it whatever then i have two back -to -back surgeries in quarantine very bad and i'm on a ton of opiates and at some point in that process i go i'm not going to get off these like i'm managing everything i interview people i'm with my kids life is fine i know what unmanageability is that's when i drink and do cocaine i'm gone this is not that I stopped taking them at this hour so I can go to sleep.

[714] I take a stool softener so I don't have constipation.

[715] Like, I'm falling for the illusion that I have control over it.

[716] And then I start buying them illegally.

[717] And then I get to a point where it's very obvious I'm going to detox very badly.

[718] And I'm on a tremendous amount of them that just ramped up so quickly.

[719] Again, with little notice, Monica obviously was hip to it a couple times, several times.

[720] I lied to her.

[721] I lied to Kristen.

[722] And then I stopped lying.

[723] and I said, here's what's going on, and I'm in the middle of detoxing, and that's what's happening.

[724] And then I had to tell everyone in my meeting, and the whole thing started all over again.

[725] Wow.

[726] Yeah.

[727] Thank you.

[728] Yeah.

[729] Because I don't know you well.

[730] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[731] Yeah.

[732] But can I back up?

[733] Yeah.

[734] It would also be incomplete to say that I just used because they were in front of me, and once I was on them, I make the decisions an addict makes.

[735] Rule number one in the big book of Alcoholics, Anonymous is we can't afford to have a resentments.

[736] We are not built to have resentments.

[737] They will make us use.

[738] And I had some resentments that I wasn't acknowledging I had.

[739] So then became the process of like, I need to confront these.

[740] Yeah.

[741] Of course, my inclination would be to say, you.

[742] I was very resentful about your success and how well -spoken you are and the credential.

[743] Yes, you're the reason I relapsed.

[744] No. She kind of believed you for a second.

[745] Yeah.

[746] What's he talking about?

[747] Well, my resentments, I'll keep private.

[748] I've worked through them with the people that it was necessary to work through them with.

[749] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[750] We've all been there.

[751] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[752] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[753] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[754] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Bollin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[755] It's called Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries.

[756] Each terrifying truth, story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[757] Follow Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[758] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon music.

[759] What's up guys?

[760] It's your girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season and let me tell you it's too good and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest.

[761] Every episode I bring on a friend and have a real conversation and I don't mean just friends.

[762] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[763] So follow Oh, watch and listen to Baby.

[764] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[765] It is tricky to navigate.

[766] Another principle in AA is acceptance, right?

[767] Acceptance is the cure to all my problems, which I believe.

[768] But that can get tricky in interpersonal relationships.

[769] Like, what am I accepting?

[770] Am I accepting this is how this person is and I'm at peace with it?

[771] Or am I accepting it, not fighting it, but I'm building a slow resentment towards them?

[772] It's hard to navigate for me at all times with total clarity.

[773] Because I think some things you should accept.

[774] Some people are the way they are.

[775] I'm the variable in the equation that can change, and I believe that.

[776] And then there's some that no, you shouldn't accept.

[777] And then?

[778] And if you don't accept, then?

[779] Then you need to confront it.

[780] And you need to say, this is kind of a deal breaker for me. I'd prefer to not be in this relationship if this is part of the relationship, which is hard to do.

[781] I think that plenty of things you learn to live with.

[782] That doesn't mean you accept them.

[783] You come to terms with them, you find a different meaning of them, you reinterpret them, you don't accept them, but you live with them.

[784] And one of the most important things when you are, and if I turn it around, if you are with someone who has an addiction or addictions, is that you cannot control them.

[785] It's one of the most challenging things, right, is to be next to someone who's self -destructs.

[786] Yeah.

[787] You want to stop them, but you can't stop them.

[788] I can only imagine you've been in that situation.

[789] It's very hard.

[790] You have to fundamentally accept that the other person is going to do to themselves whatever they decide to do.

[791] And you can't watch it because it doesn't allow you to live with yourself to let them do this to themselves.

[792] This is one of the most challenging things.

[793] It's not just addiction.

[794] Self -destruction is very powerful in that sense because your humanity, your love for the person wants you to help them.

[795] because otherwise you have a moral crisis if you don't do anything.

[796] Right.

[797] Yeah.

[798] And on the other end, they have the power to basically deny you and defeat you because they're going to do whatever they're going to do.

[799] Well, they don't have control over themselves.

[800] So the notion that they would somehow be able to control themselves by your wishes or whatever your version of that would be.

[801] So the same thing happened in the pandemic, where one person would say, I'm going out.

[802] Right.

[803] Yeah.

[804] Yeah, yeah.

[805] It was that.

[806] It was the dynamic was very similar, where one person's actions that they thought were not defiant and not dangerous and not risky at all were experienced by the other person as deadly.

[807] And you can debate the rationality of it or not.

[808] It doesn't matter.

[809] Right.

[810] It doesn't matter.

[811] And so it's like, I can't let you go.

[812] I can't let you travel.

[813] I can't let you go on the plane.

[814] I can't let you go visit your parents.

[815] And then on the other end, you are going to do.

[816] whatever you are going to do.

[817] And so this issue of acceptance of how you come to terms with the otherness of a person on how you find a way inside of you to live with it.

[818] I can't even say it's not just acceptance because sometimes you don't accept, but you decide that in the bigger picture, you will live with that.

[819] Well, can I give you an example?

[820] My wife does not close cabinets.

[821] She doesn't put tops on pill bottles.

[822] That's not a deal breaker.

[823] I'm not getting divorced over that.

[824] And I'll either go bananas for the rest of my life and say like, Han, you want me to close that, right?

[825] I could do that for the rest of my life.

[826] Or I could accept I live with someone who leaves doors open.

[827] And so when I see it, my expectations should be exactly that, that I will come downstairs and there's cabinet doors up.

[828] That should be my expectations if I accept who this person is.

[829] They're not going to change.

[830] I tried.

[831] I tried for years.

[832] So that to me, I can accept that.

[833] And then I can stop having resentments about it.

[834] I can have better expectations.

[835] Now, if that thing becomes something that's more of a need of mine, right?

[836] Oh, she doesn't prioritize birthdays, let's say.

[837] Not that I actually don't care about birthdays.

[838] She actually loves them.

[839] But let's say that.

[840] Now, maybe that's something I shouldn't accept.

[841] That's what I'm saying, like, what are cabinet doors open?

[842] And what are things that you need and are entitled to say, I can't accept this?

[843] I think that's a hard delineation.

[844] You're going by the subject.

[845] You're going by the item.

[846] And you categorize the cabinet.

[847] and jars versus birders, you know, if you experience leaving the cabinet open as you don't respect me, you don't care about me, you diminish me, you don't pay attention to what I ask you, then it doesn't matter if it's a jar, a cabinet or a birthday.

[848] It's not by item.

[849] It's by the experience that you have about how much you matter, about how much the other person cares about you, et cetera.

[850] If you simply say she's messy, then she's messy.

[851] If you experience her messiness as she's purposefully disrespectful after years of me trying to tell her she still doesn't pay attention if she really loved me blah blah blah blah then the whole thing is a different experience don't go by the item right right the item isn't what you struggle with in the acceptance it's if you actually are able to say she loves me deeply and she's totally messy and she expresses it differently and she never remembers a birthday but she has a way of always whatever you know thinking of me when she's in a store of stuff that I care about and like, you will have a different interpretation.

[852] If you anticipate not being cared for, that's another lens.

[853] And you interpret these things as, this means that I am not worthy.

[854] This means I'm not lovable.

[855] This means that the person that is supposed to care about what I care about isn't paying attention.

[856] This becomes your lens.

[857] And then it doesn't matter if it's because they cooked hot dog instead of a nice chicken.

[858] You will have the same filter we always kind of talk about it in terms of like we have a story about our partner so my story is my wife always forgets my birthday and she leaves cabinets open so i have to clean up after her so because that's my story about her and that's my theory on her i only look for data that supports my theory of course it's good confirmation i miss yeah and i miss the thousand cabinet doors she probably should probably yeah yeah right yeah also just to be clear so there's not a headline tomorrow this is all theoretical christian's great at birthdays yes she's incredible and that is not having anything to do it uh slalomed in and out of real and hypothetical but i do want to go back real quick to the relapse and the codependency element because i think one part of it that maybe people don't talk about very much is it's also selfish in some ways like the reason i want to help the reason i want to stop that from happening is because my emotions have gotten tired to his.

[859] So if something is going on with him, I feel it.

[860] And I don't want to feel sad, scared, whatever.

[861] So it's almost more about me. It's like your actions are having an impact on my emotion.

[862] Again, like the pandemic, very similar thing.

[863] Like you going out has an impact on my sense of safety.

[864] But that is as it is.

[865] That is how things are.

[866] We are interrelated people.

[867] doesn't mean co -dependence.

[868] What you do affects me. We are attuned to each other.

[869] When you feel joy, it brings joy inside of me. Nobody thinks that that's codependence.

[870] Yeah, that's true.

[871] Yeah.

[872] You know, that we think, of course, if you're smiling, that brings a smile to my face.

[873] If you're radiant, I experience that too.

[874] Well, if you're sad or depressed or irritated or reckless, I feel that.

[875] And that, to me, is part of how attuned we are to each other.

[876] And that is not.

[877] And that is not pathological, that is not problematic.

[878] That's interesting.

[879] I would find it very weird if you actually said the reverse to me. Yeah.

[880] Yeah, I think the time it would be relevant is like if Monica found herself always having friends who were addicts, right?

[881] So then at that point we would go like, this is a pattern.

[882] I probably search this out.

[883] That's not your pattern that I know of.

[884] I think that there is a thing where it becomes problematic, but that doesn't make the whole thing a problem.

[885] Right.

[886] You're saying, I'm attuned.

[887] to him and I pick up on a vibe.

[888] Yeah.

[889] And when he experienced a certain things, it has an effect on me. That doesn't mean I feel the same thing as him instantly.

[890] It's not because he's cold and I'm cold and it's not because he's tired that I'm tired and it's not because he's scared that I'm scared.

[891] I have my own feelings.

[892] I have my boundary and I know what I experience and it's not, it's where I stop and where he starts.

[893] But the fact that it has an effect on you, I think, is a good thing.

[894] It means that you are related.

[895] True.

[896] I would not do away with that.

[897] that we should not conflate the whole thing.

[898] Yeah.

[899] Well, I like that perspective.

[900] Yeah, me too.

[901] Okay, so I imagine people regularly think I wish I had Esther Perel in my life.

[902] Like, I want to interact with her.

[903] I want someone to ask me the questions that she would ask and start conversations that she knows how to start.

[904] And I have very good news for you because she solved this dilemma.

[905] I'm holding, can I first talk about the packaging?

[906] Yeah.

[907] It's so gorgeous.

[908] It is.

[909] You're holding a box.

[910] I am holding a box.

[911] Let's start there.

[912] It looks almost like a chocolate box.

[913] It does.

[914] It does look like a chocolate box.

[915] I'm Belgian, you know.

[916] Did I tell you the last time we met?

[917] Probably not my grandmother's Belgium and she cooks these fucking cookies over an open flame.

[918] Well, we just lost her this year.

[919] I shouldn't say that.

[920] But forever, she cooked these cookies one at a time and she turned them over and held them in front of a burner.

[921] And she cooked these waffle cookies this way.

[922] And you'd go to Christmas, and there were hundreds of them.

[923] And I would think, how many weeks was she making these cookies?

[924] Have you ever made those cookies?

[925] Do you know what ones I'm talking about?

[926] I know.

[927] Okay.

[928] So, yes, it looks like a beautiful box of chocolate.

[929] A very beautiful blue, same blue as Monica's car.

[930] Oh, yeah, pretty much.

[931] Did that immediately?

[932] It didn't, but it should have.

[933] It should have.

[934] And it's just elegant.

[935] I love packaging.

[936] I'm kind of obsessed with packaging.

[937] And what's written on the box?

[938] Where should we begin?

[939] Which anyone that likes Esther probably knows.

[940] Oh, yeah.

[941] A game of stories.

[942] A game of stories by Esther Perel.

[943] So what prompted you to create a game?

[944] If I had a guess, like, Esther's got a new endeavor, right?

[945] You wouldn't think about game.

[946] I probably wouldn't think of you as a game creator.

[947] That's because there's a lack of vocabulary.

[948] I call it a game because I don't have another name for it.

[949] Right.

[950] But it's not a game.

[951] Okay.

[952] It's an activity for people to do it.

[953] Yes.

[954] It's something that we come together around.

[955] So I am in the middle of the pandemic.

[956] The fact, even though I have people around me, I do feel lonely because my world has completely become restricted.

[957] I miss intimacy.

[958] I miss my dinner parties.

[959] I miss those endless conversations, unified conversations around the table where you ask a question and 16 people answer with completely different stories.

[960] And I love stories.

[961] That's why I tell the stories of where should we begin in the podcast and how his work.

[962] I think relationships are stories.

[963] I think children grew up with stories, cultures transmit through stories.

[964] Storytelling is essential to our communal life.

[965] And I start to ask questions to people.

[966] I think because we were having the same conversation.

[967] It became very boring for a moment, right?

[968] And I start to say, no, I want to ask these conversations.

[969] I'm thinking about my own parents and all the things I'm.

[970] never got a chance to ask them.

[971] And I'm thinking about my patients who are talking about the people that they have just lost and wish they had had those conversations with, wish they had had a chance to ask a question.

[972] And so I say at one point, I'm not just going to talk to people about how we maintain a sense of playfulness, of celebration, of ritual, of community and communal experience.

[973] I'm going to create something that's going to bring that.

[974] And so I began to basically say, let's be at the dinner table and let me ask the questions.

[975] At first I had a time.

[976] At first I had thousand questions.

[977] Every question that I could have taught about that I drew from my work, my therapy sessions, my books, my podcast, my blogs.

[978] And then I began to play with people I have known for 25 plus years, my own friends.

[979] And I began to see which are these questions that make us tell stories about ourselves that we thought we know everything about each other and not at all.

[980] And not at all.

[981] And so I kept 250 of those.

[982] I threw out all the boring ones.

[983] we just kind of began selecting them and we kept what I thought were some of the best.

[984] Now, I say questions but it's not true.

[985] They're not questions.

[986] They're open -ended sentences that prompt storytelling and they are in the first person.

[987] Because a question just has an answer.

[988] Whereas these begin the story.

[989] A story.

[990] A dream I have never said out loud.

[991] A time when I changed my mind.

[992] The worst date I've ever been on.

[993] The person I learned the most about love.

[994] I read a bunch of them.

[995] I brought a bunch to play with you.

[996] I know, we're going to do that.

[997] I had to think.

[998] What do I want to ask this guy?

[999] I'm kind of real time getting over the reality that I'm not in your think tank of people.

[1000] You asked the questions.

[1001] Did you have any jealousy when she's had that?

[1002] No, that's appropriate.

[1003] I just, I wish I had been one of the people you were workshopping at the dinner table.

[1004] Yeah, yeah.

[1005] I wish I were in your circle of people that you tested questions.

[1006] That sounds really fun to get a question from you.

[1007] Was it done by email or you would FaceTime someone?

[1008] So I did a different version.

[1009] A lot of it was on Zoom.

[1010] A lot of it was I would hike and I would walk with people and I would ask all kinds of questions.

[1011] And then I brought together at some point when we could already be outside.

[1012] I brought a number of my closest friends together.

[1013] And then I brought strangers together too that I had never met that didn't know each other.

[1014] So I went everywhere I could put people that were far enough.

[1015] but could play together.

[1016] Because I started to think play is what helps us.

[1017] No, I put it this way.

[1018] Play is what gives you the permission to talk about all kinds of stuff that you're dying to talk about but wouldn't do in the literal sense.

[1019] Play is a container to take risks.

[1020] Play gives you the boundary for structure and then allows you to be spontaneous, mischievous, curious, all these ways.

[1021] And I thought, I watched play and I thought, that's what happens at my dinner table, is that we have this conversation and people leave and they don't remember a thing about what they ate, but they definitely remember the stories that we're told.

[1022] Yes, I think people succumb to inertia like anything else.

[1023] So it's very hard to get that ball rolling.

[1024] But once it starts rolling, you can feel the pent -up desire to be doing that, to exploit.

[1025] So we have a friend in our pod, Eric Richardson, and he's virtually this game.

[1026] He says something that, oh, offend half the people.

[1027] All right, Kristen, she loves dogs.

[1028] Kill all the dogs on planet Earth to sit, right?

[1029] Some hypothetical that's so crazy or whatever it is.

[1030] And then the lid just explodes.

[1031] Like his question really never ends up getting answered, but then everyone's perspective coming in on top of it, I value him so much for that role he has.

[1032] He does a lot of thought experiments.

[1033] Tons of thought experiments that really start engaging people rapidly.

[1034] And it's so fun.

[1035] And again, if you don't have.

[1036] someone like that in your life that's spurring on these crazy things.

[1037] So what's the little bag part?

[1038] When you play the game, there's different versions, but when you play the full game, there are three pieces.

[1039] There are story cards, all these stories, all the potential stories.

[1040] And then there are prompt cards.

[1041] The prompt card can say, share something risky.

[1042] Share something you would never tell your mother.

[1043] Share something they've never said before.

[1044] Share something embarrassing, cringe -worthy.

[1045] And you match the story card with the prompt card.

[1046] The prompt card gives you the lens to which to tell your story.

[1047] So if I say, what's the worst date you've ever been on?

[1048] The prompt card that you got is share something crazy.

[1049] You're going to put these two things together.

[1050] Okay.

[1051] Yeah, if it said like heartbreaking or sad, it'd be a different date story.

[1052] And then we shared the cards.

[1053] Everybody has seven cards in hands.

[1054] I throw the card to you.

[1055] It's your turn.

[1056] You're the storyteller.

[1057] we each submit a card to you.

[1058] You read them out loud.

[1059] And on one of the cards is the one that I really want you to answer.

[1060] The thing about me that I've been lying about my whole life.

[1061] And then those tokens...

[1062] I just got a shock.

[1063] I want you to answer that too.

[1064] A story you've never been truthful about.

[1065] And now I say, Dax, I want that one.

[1066] And then I take the token and I put a little social pressure on you.

[1067] And then Monique has to be.

[1068] says, I like that one too.

[1069] And so she takes her token and she puts it on that card.

[1070] And we basically say, this is the one we want you to talk about.

[1071] Whether you want to or not.

[1072] So, yes.

[1073] You can refuse, but it's not in your interest.

[1074] So when I learned about it, I thought immediately this could result in the most stimulating hangout ever.

[1075] Slash, this could be career ending for a lot of people in relationship ending.

[1076] So I did it like that.

[1077] There's sex questions.

[1078] You can play the game just with the sex questions because you're on a first date.

[1079] Oh, okay.

[1080] And you can take them completely out because you're playing with your kids or with your colleagues or co -workers.

[1081] Right, right, right.

[1082] There are light questions.

[1083] They have codes.

[1084] They're light questions.

[1085] And so you can make it more easy with people that you're trying to get to know and you don't want to go too deep.

[1086] And then they are, they drop.

[1087] They're not going to make you be vulnerable.

[1088] You're going to tell the story that you choose to tell.

[1089] Right.

[1090] But I can tell you, I just did it in SLN this weekend.

[1091] People are rolling.

[1092] They're laughing.

[1093] It's like the stories that come out.

[1094] And because we all have a storyteller within, each one of us.

[1095] And we don't typically tell the story like that.

[1096] And in a conversation, often there is one person who will talk more and other people who don't say anything throughout the whole evening.

[1097] This puts everybody on an equal footing.

[1098] Yeah, that's great.

[1099] And it has the dynamic because you decide to take a card, but you and I want Monica to actually tell.

[1100] There is something different.

[1101] So we put a little pressure on it.

[1102] These are cool.

[1103] It's my token.

[1104] When I imagine playing this with everyone, of course, I go straight to the people who are not oversharers in our group that I'm dying to hear.

[1105] Their answers.

[1106] Yes.

[1107] Like I don't think of me or Jess or Eric, right?

[1108] Like we already say too much.

[1109] We already know all the stories.

[1110] Yeah, yeah.

[1111] We've already exhausted everything.

[1112] But yeah, all the people who I would love to know more about.

[1113] I'm excited to play with them.

[1114] This is really cool.

[1115] See, the thing is that you can do so simple version for the non -sharers.

[1116] Okay.

[1117] You can take a very, a very, uh, very, uh, oh my gosh, gold envelopes.

[1118] You can, this one is open, so you can actually take a closer look.

[1119] I think yours is still wrapped.

[1120] It is.

[1121] It is.

[1122] So this is me and this goes to you.

[1123] Okay.

[1124] Oh, boy.

[1125] I'm not even.

[1126] No, no. No, but I'm going to...

[1127] This could be the last episode of Armchair X were ever recorded.

[1128] Can I move?

[1129] Can we move the mic a little bit?

[1130] Yeah, you can come closer to...

[1131] So, okay, Esther pre -picked for us.

[1132] Oh, I'm scared.

[1133] No, because, so you take, basically, we take our carts, we hold them in our hands.

[1134] By the way, I give you some rules for how we played, but the beauty of playing is that you break the rules.

[1135] make this fit the way.

[1136] So it's going to be Monica's turn first.

[1137] Oh, gosh.

[1138] So you have a blue prompt card.

[1139] I do.

[1140] What does it say?

[1141] It says share something out of character.

[1142] Out of character.

[1143] Oh, this should be excited.

[1144] So now...

[1145] It doesn't mean to have to do a character tax.

[1146] Now we look at our cards.

[1147] Including me or no?

[1148] Including you because we each are going to pick one.

[1149] Oh, I got it.

[1150] And you put them down in front of her Okay, I like this one, I like this.

[1151] Yep.

[1152] And you put one down yourself as well.

[1153] This is presumably one she would want to answer.

[1154] I guess.

[1155] Or not.

[1156] When you want her to answer.

[1157] Now turn them around and read them out loud.

[1158] Okay.

[1159] So in this situation, Monica's our storyteller, correct?

[1160] Yes.

[1161] Monica is the storyteller.

[1162] Each person saw the prompt card that said, share something.

[1163] out of character.

[1164] Share something out of character.

[1165] Each person submitted a storyline for you.

[1166] Okay.

[1167] I can't believe I got away with.

[1168] A lie I'm tempted to tell about myself.

[1169] If I could see into the future, I would want to know.

[1170] So now I put down and you guys put your token.

[1171] Hold on.

[1172] I can guess which one is yours and Esther.

[1173] I guarantee it.

[1174] Your card that you put down is see into the future.

[1175] That's a safe one.

[1176] Yeah, I'm very protected.

[1177] So, first of all, I actually...

[1178] I think it could be crazy.

[1179] It's weird, though, that I knew.

[1180] I accept whichever one you pick.

[1181] I don't need to put a token.

[1182] I'm going to go with whichever one you pick.

[1183] Are you going to put a token?

[1184] I only ask that you get rid of the one you submit it.

[1185] Fine.

[1186] Okay, well, what did you submit?

[1187] Well, hold on.

[1188] Esther, am I allowed to say that?

[1189] Of course.

[1190] Okay, she still has 50 -50.

[1191] Yes, yes, yes.

[1192] She can always say no. Okay, yes, yes.

[1193] No is encouraged.

[1194] Having boundaries and respect for oneself.

[1195] Okay.

[1196] Yes.

[1197] Out of character.

[1198] Huh.

[1199] I think I'll go with that one.

[1200] A lie I'm tempted to tell about myself.

[1201] Hmm.

[1202] Do you know which one is Esther's and which one is mine?

[1203] Yours is a lie I'm tempted to tell.

[1204] Yeah.

[1205] See, it's already fun.

[1206] We are three, but you could be four, five, or six, right?

[1207] Or two.

[1208] So then you don't know immediately.

[1209] who put the card true but even that is fun i'm already having fun yeah yeah yeah yeah and since he took away mine i'm taking away his so it's kind of yeah all right so i'm going at each other okay so i'm gonna do an eye for an eye i can't i can't believe i got away with and from the perspective out of character okay yeah i can't believe i got away with it's hard things that you don't typically do right right right definitely things that i've done i wouldn't be proud of perhaps because i have a lot of integrity so sometimes let's see uh it's funny being your best friend i know some of them you do well like the girl with the mole on her leg well that's that's but you didn't get away with that oh you're right i got caught okay um you paid the ultimate price but you can always say i thought i had gotten the way with it?

[1210] I mean, I guess this feels like a cheat.

[1211] Tell me if it's a cheat.

[1212] I'll go a different way.

[1213] But when I was in first grade, I was really, really, really horrible, like, tortured the kid who sat next to me. And he was black.

[1214] And he was probably the only black kid in the school.

[1215] And so it was extra bad.

[1216] It's probably why I did it because I didn't like.

[1217] that I was brown.

[1218] And so I was, like, lowering him in my mind.

[1219] And I was just so mean to him.

[1220] But I never got in trouble for it.

[1221] And I never know.

[1222] He never told on me, sad.

[1223] Oh, no. And but then, I mean, this is a turn.

[1224] I mean, I guess that's the story.

[1225] But also then his dad came into class one day.

[1226] And I thought he was so attractive.

[1227] Oh, really?

[1228] I was really attracted to his dad.

[1229] And then I started to want to be.

[1230] iced to him.

[1231] Like then the switch flipped for me that I was like, oh, but his dad is so handsome and he had a mustache.

[1232] And I remember it very clearly.

[1233] I liked him a lot after that.

[1234] But then I regretted it because, yeah, but I mean, I was like really horrible.

[1235] But I was little.

[1236] Is that a no?

[1237] I was afraid to a kid who was weaker than me. Yeah.

[1238] And I took it out on him because he could not defend himself.

[1239] Oh no, it's way worse when you say it.

[1240] No. It's the way worse.

[1241] It's the way you, but I...

[1242] But it is.

[1243] Well, it's a story about hurt people, hurt people.

[1244] You felt other.

[1245] And now this kid was bringing out your worst fear.

[1246] He's even more other on some sliding scale.

[1247] And he made you uncomfortable.

[1248] And it is out of character for me now.

[1249] Because that's the, I'm like, I'll stand up for all the people who are marginalized.

[1250] And I would hate to say that I was a part.

[1251] I think none of us get through it with neither being bullied or not bullying.

[1252] Were you ever on the other side?

[1253] Of being bullied?

[1254] I mean, definitely made fun of a lot of like werewolf farms and lunch smell and all.

[1255] Yeah.

[1256] Indiophobic.

[1257] But they didn't even know.

[1258] I wonder if my mom ever came into class and then everyone was like, she's so hot.

[1259] She's so pretty.

[1260] So I was just thinking if I were Esther listening to that story.

[1261] There's a lot there.

[1262] Well, Esther's, she's been on Monica and Jess.

[1263] She knows the whole gambit.

[1264] I know, but there's just two really big leads there as a therapist.

[1265] There was the shaming the kid that's even darker than her and then being attracted to a 30 -year -old man in first grade with a mustache.

[1266] I mean, that's some fertile ground for you to go to work.

[1267] But I'm not working.

[1268] I know.

[1269] It's his playtime.

[1270] I know, but I was just thinking about the...

[1271] I thought it was very courageous of you to just simply say, I acted terribly.

[1272] But I own that.

[1273] And luckily, I'm not in that same place.

[1274] But you remembered it very, very well.

[1275] And it's probably served you a lot.

[1276] Yes.

[1277] Yes.

[1278] And it served you many times.

[1279] It probably holds you with integrity today.

[1280] That's true.

[1281] So what's interesting is you had no idea that that's the story we're going to tell.

[1282] Well, in compliments to the game, I've known her for nine years now.

[1283] And I feel like I know most stories about her.

[1284] I've never heard that story.

[1285] Yeah.

[1286] It's a bad story.

[1287] I don't like that story.

[1288] But that's what makes people, I don't know.

[1289] Let's continue.

[1290] Yeah, okay.

[1291] Okay, who next?

[1292] Your turn.

[1293] Okay, these are, share something you've kept secret.

[1294] Oh, this is painful.

[1295] Because you know the card immediately I thought of when it said that I'm judgmental of.

[1296] I'm the most judgmental when it comes to, it's people lying.

[1297] Are you going to put that in your thing?

[1298] I guess I will.

[1299] I guess I have to.

[1300] Oh, that's mine.

[1301] This one, yours?

[1302] Yeah, I think so.

[1303] Okay.

[1304] Esther, did you put one?

[1305] I am putting that I've kept secret.

[1306] Oh, there's a few here I would love to.

[1307] An embarrassment of riches?

[1308] Yes, exactly.

[1309] Okay.

[1310] I have my three.

[1311] Okay.

[1312] And again, these are, you've kept secret.

[1313] I'm the most judgmental when it comes to you.

[1314] I burned a bridge when I, the taste of power makes me. You want a little token?

[1315] They're both good.

[1316] Should we do tokens?

[1317] It's hard to pick.

[1318] And it's through the lens of...

[1319] I've kept this secret.

[1320] Oh.

[1321] You've kept secret.

[1322] I'm going to put my token on burnt bridge.

[1323] Me too.

[1324] Well, now I'm just embarrassing stories about...

[1325] I was just thinking of one when they...

[1326] But it didn't burn the bridge.

[1327] When I think about burning a bridge, I think about a no return.

[1328] Yeah.

[1329] Something, a mistake that was irreparable.

[1330] A breach, a relationship that broke beyond repair.

[1331] Something that I can't undo.

[1332] Yeah, in general, I don't have a pattern of falling out with people, but I immediately know that there is one human being that swore to never speak to me again and then never did.

[1333] And I can only think of that one.

[1334] Yeah, and this is certainly a secret.

[1335] So I was with my long -term girlfriend, and I had moved, so we had opened up our interpretation of what was allowed because we were living 3 ,000 miles away.

[1336] and I'm sure the assumption was if you're at home and something happens, whatever, or if you're in L .A. and something happens.

[1337] But in fact, I started a relationship with a girl that also lived in Michigan, and then she moved to Washington, and then I was having to both go now to Michigan and to Washington, and that got very complicated, and over the course of six months in me not meeting any of the second person's needs.

[1338] We were talking on the phone, and I'll never forget, I was in the bathroom when we were talking.

[1339] And she said, so look, you caused me nothing but pain, and I don't ever want to talk to you or see you again for the rest of my life.

[1340] And for me, who wants to be liked and loved, it was brutal.

[1341] I think about it all the time.

[1342] I owe her a huge apology and amends, and yet she rightly won't ever see.

[1343] speak to me again, nor does she probably need to hear my amends.

[1344] I'm sure she feels fine about it.

[1345] But yeah, that was the most nuclear kind of departure I've ever had in any interpersonal relationship.

[1346] And that was that.

[1347] And we had been friends for years and had been in a relationship for a while.

[1348] And then that was that.

[1349] Did you know?

[1350] No. I don't think so.

[1351] Like, I'll tell people I had a thing with this girl, but I don't really say how it all ended in that this person.

[1352] Yeah, I don't I don't think I heard she said, I can't speak to you again.

[1353] I mean, it's really interesting how we live with shadow parts, right?

[1354] It's like parts of ourselves that are totally cringe -worthy.

[1355] Yeah.

[1356] And they are part of us.

[1357] And we hopefully changed and we began to act more decently, et cetera.

[1358] But when you remember, it's like, ooh.

[1359] Yeah, yeah.

[1360] Stay tuned for more armchair expert.

[1361] If you dare.

[1362] I have so many drug addiction stories, and they're all generally comical, in my opinion, because I lived through them.

[1363] And I'm the victim in all those stories, so they don't bother me. But I think if you're an addict, I think you at least believe you get really good at compartmentalizing all these sectors of your life.

[1364] Like here I'm a student, no one knows this.

[1365] Here I'm at the groundings.

[1366] I'm a comedian.

[1367] Here I'm a fucking, just a hoover for drugs.

[1368] I just suck them all up.

[1369] And no one knows.

[1370] And so I just like through living your life.

[1371] life in all these compartments.

[1372] I convinced myself I could do that with other human beings and you can't with other human beings.

[1373] And I think, whereas a lot of people have shame over their history with drug abuse and that, my shame's all with women.

[1374] It's just all like, oh, there were all these victims of you feeding your ego and your desire and you were using them exactly like drugs.

[1375] And then yet there's real humans that are left after that.

[1376] And I think, that's the most.

[1377] I'm not one that believes in regrets, but I would say therein lies all my regrets are generally with other women that have been unfortunate enough to love me. So I'm good.

[1378] I'm friends with most of them.

[1379] So maybe I'm harder on myself than maybe they are.

[1380] But regardless, I definitely know that.

[1381] Well, you're able to be honest with yourself and have accountability and not come up with excuses.

[1382] I was drunk.

[1383] I was drug.

[1384] I didn't know.

[1385] At that time, I was irresponsible.

[1386] You actually take full responsibility and you know that it was shitty and you hope that she has a full life and that you didn't basically linger around in an aftertaste.

[1387] Uh -huh.

[1388] I'm so happy for her that that was her solution to it.

[1389] I find it very impressive.

[1390] Because you actually got what you deserved.

[1391] Yeah.

[1392] Yeah.

[1393] A thousand percent.

[1394] That was probably the hardest thing for her to do in the moment because...

[1395] She seemed to like me. Our stories are very That's our kind of stories, though.

[1396] Oh, my God, do we get to hear you?

[1397] Yes, and then we're going to add a few cards.

[1398] So every time a storyteller has finished, we add a new card so that we get some refreshers.

[1399] All right.

[1400] What's your share?

[1401] My card says, share something crazy.

[1402] Oh.

[1403] Oh, God.

[1404] This is exactly what the doctor ordered.

[1405] Oh, yeah?

[1406] Oh, I know exactly which one.

[1407] I guess I don't even need to.

[1408] To pick my own, right?

[1409] Well, you just, you probably don't even need to read mine.

[1410] I'm sure.

[1411] Turn the cards around.

[1412] And then, I was never the same after.

[1413] I missed the days when I could.

[1414] Oh, that's a good one.

[1415] When it comes to initiating sex, I prefer.

[1416] Yeah, I wonder who you get those.

[1417] Yeah, I wonder so too.

[1418] I think you should be allowed to throw one out and then I think we get to pick.

[1419] Okay.

[1420] What do you think?

[1421] All right.

[1422] Let's go.

[1423] We play the rules.

[1424] Okay.

[1425] Which one are you going to throw away?

[1426] I'm going to throw away.

[1427] I was never the same after.

[1428] Oh.

[1429] That was mine.

[1430] So that means that she can add another card?

[1431] No, no, no. No, we're just narrow.

[1432] Like you got to get rid of one you didn't want to answer.

[1433] Well, I know that you want me absolutely to answer the one about sex.

[1434] Of course I do.

[1435] But I'm also evolved enough to know that there's probably a better story in the one you picked.

[1436] Because I like the other question a lot, too, that you're holding.

[1437] That you Esther picked.

[1438] Yes, which is, what is it again?

[1439] I missed the days when I could.

[1440] Yeah, I want to hear the stuff you miss, that's crazy.

[1441] Yeah, I do too.

[1442] Because can I just say one of my favorite things you've ever said that has stuck with me so much, and I've repeated all around everywhere I go is, often when someone's cheating, they're not cheating with a person as much as they're cheating with a previous version of themselves that they miss and long for.

[1443] I think there's something so profound about that observation.

[1444] The way I've often said it is sometimes when people go elsewhere, it's not because they want to find another partner, but they want to find another part of themselves.

[1445] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1446] I don't think of it with the word cheating per se.

[1447] Oh, right, right, right, right.

[1448] It's not that they want to leave the person that they're with, but they want to leave what they have become themselves.

[1449] Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's so, it's so wonderful to depersonalize.

[1450] it in a way.

[1451] It's one of the scenarios.

[1452] There are multiple.

[1453] But this one really was one of the most important ones that came back again and again when I wrote a state of affairs.

[1454] Of course, I'd betrayed, but that wasn't what I set out to do.

[1455] My goal was not to betray.

[1456] My goal was actually to recreate a different relationship with myself.

[1457] I felt like I had betrayed me for so long.

[1458] That kind of turbulence.

[1459] But if I was to think about I missed the days when I could and crazy.

[1460] I've never been big time crazy.

[1461] I've not done reckless crazy in that sense.

[1462] But what I did think about recently because I thought, what is the most anti -pandemic behavior that I've ever done?

[1463] What's the other side of being so careful, so vigilant the whole time?

[1464] My first time when I came to the States, I was 17.

[1465] I was just after high school and I hitched hiked across the U .S. for almost two months.

[1466] Oh, my goodness.

[1467] That is the opposite.

[1468] Yeah, getting in a very confined, airtight space with a stranger.

[1469] And I was also a busker.

[1470] A busker.

[1471] I sang on the streets.

[1472] Oh, with a can.

[1473] Really?

[1474] Oh, my goodness.

[1475] Oh, my gosh.

[1476] He's saying on the streets.

[1477] You're virtually a hobo.

[1478] Homeward bound.

[1479] So I didn't busk in the States.

[1480] I busked much more in Europe when I would hitchhike in Europe.

[1481] I loved meeting other musicians and busking on the streets and creating like this impromptu performances.

[1482] But the hitchhiking in the U .S. is for me, I mean, I saw America like I will never see it again.

[1483] I was taken in by the kindness of strangers who took risks on me. I took risks on them.

[1484] I mean, I saw all kinds of people that today I would be probably sometimes too prejudiced to actually interact with.

[1485] But because I just went with the kindness of stranger rather than who...

[1486] Accumulated.

[1487] Yes, all kind of demographic details about them or what car they drive or where they live or what religion, what race, what background, what class.

[1488] It didn't matter.

[1489] And so I got into the homes of people.

[1490] Basically, I never went back to a YMCA after that.

[1491] People invited us to stay in their homes night after night.

[1492] Okay, you were with a boyfriend.

[1493] A boyfriend.

[1494] Oh, good.

[1495] Okay.

[1496] That's a little bit different of a scenario than when I was a man. No, no. I was a 17 -year -old version of you.

[1497] Not alone.

[1498] Not alone.

[1499] I was with a boyfriend.

[1500] We didn't speak too well English.

[1501] But I mean, everything, everything.

[1502] And it started right here in L .A. And you moved east.

[1503] Well, it started in L .A because we arrived here and we stayed at the YMCA for a week and visited it.

[1504] And then we basically hitched hiked from the YMCA to the Greyhound Station.

[1505] Because at that time, I thought we're going to do this on Greyhound.

[1506] And as we arrived at the Greyhound Station, July 4th, I will never forget, we realized that we forgot a little bag.

[1507] And it was the bag that had our passports, our travel checks, everything.

[1508] Travel checks, do you know, if you're not.

[1509] I remember that such a thing existed.

[1510] We lost everything.

[1511] And here we were in downtown L .A. You know, everything closed, and we have to reorganize ourselves.

[1512] And they were super nice.

[1513] We stayed in a rat -infested place in downtown.

[1514] We waited for the next day.

[1515] We got the Greyhound people to give us a new pass.

[1516] We had to go to the consulates, et cetera.

[1517] And suddenly I said, let's call the why.

[1518] Because one guy, we had taken two cars.

[1519] The first one, I didn't tell him where we were coming from.

[1520] The second one, I said, we stayed at the YMCA and we are continuing our trip.

[1521] I said, he knows where we stayed.

[1522] Let's call the Y and find out.

[1523] And basically they said, this guy called for you.

[1524] He has your bag.

[1525] Oh, wow.

[1526] Call him, you know, 10 cents pay phone.

[1527] Oh, my God.

[1528] We call, the guy picks us up in his car and brings us from the Greyhound Station to his place in Bel Air.

[1529] No. Where we stay for another week.

[1530] Oh, my gosh.

[1531] And this began this trip.

[1532] Oh, wow.

[1533] Like, we went from one extreme to the other extreme.

[1534] Oh, my goodness.

[1535] And from that moment on, it continued.

[1536] I mean, everything.

[1537] It was from Baton Rouge, trailer houses, to hippie communities in Colorado Springs to Mormon families in Utah.

[1538] Everything.

[1539] Oh, man. It was like a discovery of this continent.

[1540] Yes.

[1541] Wow, that's cool.

[1542] What did the gentleman in Bel Air do for a living, do you know?

[1543] He was a lawyer turned producer.

[1544] Oh, yeah, that checks out.

[1545] Film guy.

[1546] And for us, that was like the movie.

[1547] Quintessential L .A. This house above UCLA, like, you know, I had only seen this in American films.

[1548] I had never been in such a house like that.

[1549] I had never seen a house with a...

[1550] I had seen none of this stuff.

[1551] Everything was new.

[1552] Everything was new.

[1553] Oh, man. This just came up.

[1554] We were considering going to Europe.

[1555] People were saying, where should we go?

[1556] Someone said they love Barcelona.

[1557] And I immediately went, oh, I was only in Barcelona once.

[1558] And it was backpacking when I was 19, and we stayed at this terrible hotel.

[1559] that we loved because we were in Barcelona.

[1560] And I thought, oh my God, it would be so weird to return there and be able to stay at a nice hotel and eat what I wanted.

[1561] Like, I was on such a budget that there feels like, maybe it's just a story you're writing about yourself, but like to be able to go back, it kind of gives you a sense of where you started and where you're at, I guess.

[1562] There's something neat about it.

[1563] I mean, it's both ends.

[1564] You go back, you really give a little bit, you tell the story.

[1565] I've told the story of the hitchhiking on various occasions, but this time, because I was so, so locked in.

[1566] And every stranger was so what you were avoiding.

[1567] I thought, I was a time when I just sat in the cars of every stranger possible.

[1568] Yeah.

[1569] Wow.

[1570] And this is the way I arrived here.

[1571] And I have to say, I had a renewed energy to that experience that I have told on occasion, but I would love to do that thing again, you know?

[1572] My thumb up.

[1573] Uh -huh.

[1574] Yeah.

[1575] Would you hide the boy, yeah.

[1576] Put your boyfriend in the bushes?

[1577] Of course.

[1578] Oh, of course.

[1579] Did any of them turn skis of all those?

[1580] Only one time.

[1581] Only one time the guy took us to a place supposedly where we could stay and it was really, really shady and we found our way out of there.

[1582] No, I have to say, it's like it was a diversity of experiences that I have never seen again afterwards.

[1583] I will never see it again with that.

[1584] Plus you knew and everything is different.

[1585] Most people didn't know much about Belgium and AM radio in those cars where every five minutes you listen to the weather.

[1586] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1587] You know, the weather was described with such pathos, you know.

[1588] It's like the most important news you could hear.

[1589] Everything was...

[1590] Exciting.

[1591] I want that kind of experience.

[1592] That real curiosity, insatiable curiosity.

[1593] Yeah.

[1594] I would put it the word, I was crazy about that kind of curiosity.

[1595] Yeah.

[1596] I was bountiless.

[1597] I'm reminded that I used to pick up hitchhikers around that age quite often.

[1598] I drove these two guys.

[1599] Yeah, my friend Jamie and I drove.

[1600] these two guys from the Michigan border to Tennessee.

[1601] They were homeless dudes, but it was just Christmas.

[1602] They were in Chicago, and they had Will Work for Food Signs up.

[1603] This was 1992, and they had made like $3 ,500 in the week leading up to Christmas, and they got a really nice hotel room, then they got drunk, and they were out of money again, and now they were hitchhiking in Tennessee.

[1604] It was a whole thing.

[1605] But you know, what I was going to say that I didn't explain before is there is no winner.

[1606] Right, right.

[1607] There's no winner here, right?

[1608] The winner is, sometimes it's just the compelling story is the winner.

[1609] Yes, but can I tell you something?

[1610] Yeah.

[1611] You're in the lead.

[1612] I know you just said that, but your story was the best so far.

[1613] So I'm declaring you the winner thus far.

[1614] Don't play with Dax.

[1615] He makes everything a competition.

[1616] Oh.

[1617] You tell me, do we want cringe -worthy that's changed your worldview, that you wouldn't tell your mother.

[1618] Now, mine is the opposite of you, so I will take that one.

[1619] Okay, great.

[1620] Because it's the one that I had picked at first.

[1621] Okay.

[1622] Okay.

[1623] You wouldn't tell your mother.

[1624] My most embarrassing sexual mishap.

[1625] That was mine.

[1626] I know you threw her.

[1627] She looked directly at me to hear about it.

[1628] I know.

[1629] I was a tricked me. I'm the most judgmental when it comes to.

[1630] In my family, sex is.

[1631] Two sex options.

[1632] Yeah, we needed a sexy option.

[1633] Although I got to say I have a perverse curiosity about what Esther is judgmental of because I think as a therapist in theory, one would think like, well, you should, you're not judgmental.

[1634] That's the comfort of a therapist as they are not judgmental.

[1635] So I guess knowing that you're a human that's judgmental is appealing to me. You know, it actually ties in with the story that you just told.

[1636] Both of you, your story with the boy that you bullied when you were six, your story with the girlfriend that you bullied in a way, right?

[1637] I think when people tell me things like that, often you can have an inclination to want to make them feel less bad about themselves because they feel bad, right?

[1638] Either they feel regret, either they feel shame, either they feel, I can't believe I did such a thing.

[1639] In those moments, I actually feel very comfortable.

[1640] I feel like this is life we carry inside of a stuff that kind of makes your neck cringe -worthy, really like that.

[1641] And really, I think coming to terms with who we are is accepting those parts that are anything but very noble inside of us.

[1642] The place where I get judgmental is when people own nothing.

[1643] People who blame everybody who always have circumstances.

[1644] It's never their fault.

[1645] They've never done anything.

[1646] If they're mean to somebody, it's because they've had a tough day.

[1647] If you're mean to somebody, it's because you are a nasty person.

[1648] Everything for them is circumstantial.

[1649] Everything for you is characterological.

[1650] I have a real challenge with deflectors like that who just dump on everybody but will never own a thing themselves.

[1651] That sometimes I really need to kind of sit back in my chair and just kind of, you know, and I think some of it comes because some of the people in my family, he's my mother.

[1652] Sure, sure, sure.

[1653] It wasn't very good sometimes at admitting.

[1654] Never apologize.

[1655] Am I right in that that's one of the defining characteristics of a narcissist is that they can.

[1656] can't apologize or accept responsibility.

[1657] It is one of them.

[1658] It's a piece of the puzzle.

[1659] I don't know if it's a defining characteristic, but it comes, yes, there is that.

[1660] But why?

[1661] Because if I admit something about me, then it's not like I admit something about me that is slightly flawed or slightly regrettable.

[1662] It's that I instantly am not perfect.

[1663] I instantly narcissus looks in the water and sees his reflection.

[1664] And if the reflection isn't perfect, then it instantly chops a part off of me. So I can't own anything.

[1665] I can't say I made a mistake because it instantly means that I am bad, wrong, lesser, weak.

[1666] So I have to throw it out immediately.

[1667] And therefore, if I can't make a mistake, I am always defensive and all the mistakes I'm made by others.

[1668] Yeah.

[1669] So I hate people like that too.

[1670] You didn't use the word hate I do.

[1671] I can't stand people who can't own their own shit.

[1672] It drives me bonkers.

[1673] You can't get sober unless you do that.

[1674] But I guess a compassionate view of it would be this person's so certain that people won't love them unless they're perfect that they can't possibly admit they're not perfect because then no one would love them.

[1675] I mean, that would be maybe a compassionate view of what they're going through.

[1676] Yes, of course.

[1677] But it's hard.

[1678] No, I mean, see, it's one thing when I work, it's one thing when I'm with, if I'm with a friend or one of my kids or my partner or it's different.

[1679] In work, actually, it's very, very beautiful when you see someone who can't own anything to actually develop real confidence, not false confidence that is defined.

[1680] And that allows them to see themselves as flawed while they're still holding themselves in high regard.

[1681] That's kind of the definition of confidence, as my friend Terry Real often reminds me. I think that when you get the person to understand that, so how do you, you know, who made it impossible for you?

[1682] to ever make a mistake.

[1683] Who belittled you?

[1684] Who shamed you?

[1685] Where did it come from?

[1686] So I get, for me, what brings the compassion out is when I get the history, when I get the story behind the story.

[1687] What happened to them?

[1688] Because when I know what happened to them, then I know why they're doing this to others.

[1689] If I just see why they're doing it to others, it's really challenging.

[1690] But couples therapy is often two people that arrive, especially when they're in a negative escalation, they're blaming each other.

[1691] They're coming to drop off the other person and to say, you know, you fix my partner because the problem isn't with me. Yeah.

[1692] And when you have one of the people who is continuously, you can never say anything because they defend, they defend, they defend.

[1693] I definitely, that is a place where I got to check myself.

[1694] Oof, oof, oof.

[1695] I don't like rigidity.

[1696] I deal better with chaos than with rigidity.

[1697] Yeah.

[1698] Well, you'd fit in around here.

[1699] There's plenty of chaos.

[1700] Okay, I just want to say, where should we begin?

[1701] Is beautiful, entertaining?

[1702] And a great way to find out two things about your friend, Monica, you didn't previously know, which I love.

[1703] So fun.

[1704] So fun.

[1705] Thanks for playing with me. Yes.

[1706] This is a first for me, you know.

[1707] I'm just coming out with this baby.

[1708] This is my new baby.

[1709] I'm going to project onto your husband.

[1710] This is where this question comes from.

[1711] So I imagine you're super busy.

[1712] you have a couple podcasts, you have a practice, you are busy, busy, busy.

[1713] And you have wonderful explanations for while you're busy because this is your career.

[1714] Now, when quarantine happened and you found a way to get busy in quarantine, did he feel like, oh, it's not about those things.

[1715] She's always going to be busy and I'm never going to be the number one focus.

[1716] Did he have those feelings?

[1717] Honestly, I think that sometimes one should ask him the question directly because sometimes I think I know the answer and I don't.

[1718] But I get tremendous support from Jack for what I do.

[1719] And he's enormously proud.

[1720] It's rarely between being busy and attentive to other things and then the focus on him.

[1721] As I said, I had a creative burst, but he got into painting massively.

[1722] during the pandemic, during quarantine.

[1723] And so he really sustained himself by throwing himself into his art and nature.

[1724] We had never really been slowed down enough to watch four seasons in detail, in granularity.

[1725] And he also worked intensely because he's a trauma expert.

[1726] He actually deals with collective trauma, with large -scale trauma.

[1727] That has been his field for, you know.

[1728] His book is called collective trauma And collective resilience, that is his world.

[1729] Oh, so this is, this was his time to shine.

[1730] He was shining.

[1731] He was called upon from everywhere.

[1732] So it was like, wow, he had used that vocabulary long before it became popular and he's quite a visionary.

[1733] And so it was really both of us trying to use what we know and call upon all the other people who we think are knowledgeable in this field.

[1734] Yeah.

[1735] And gathering resources.

[1736] So he created this.

[1737] whole website of the resiliency website where people could go and gather resource for themselves, for their community, for their jobs, for their families.

[1738] So in that sense, we are enormously collaborating.

[1739] It's not work versus us.

[1740] We share those interests very much.

[1741] Okay, yeah.

[1742] Well, that's why I own the projection.

[1743] It had bared no resemblance to what I was imagining.

[1744] No, there's never been one of us things that the other one is working too much or not.

[1745] It's bring me in.

[1746] It's interesting.

[1747] What are you working on?

[1748] What are you thinking?

[1749] I'm recognizing that really, I guess I went to a place where my mom worked a ton.

[1750] And if there was a pandemic and then she got busy again, I would go, oh, she was saying it was about work.

[1751] But no, it's not.

[1752] I think that's my own baggage.

[1753] You know, I come from family business, right?

[1754] I come from parents who work together.

[1755] We have that too.

[1756] And we share an enormous amount about.

[1757] about the work, doing the work, but also the ideas, how we sound things out with each other.

[1758] Yeah.

[1759] And I think we felt that we have something to offer.

[1760] They were essential workers who were literally on the front line outside, and mental health workers became their own version of essential workers.

[1761] Yeah.

[1762] I think we both found tremendous purpose.

[1763] Yeah, I was going to say you had a shared purpose, which is kind of everything.

[1764] And then at night, we would take walks together.

[1765] We had never done that, this kind of new ritual of walking together.

[1766] together every night and kind of unloading on each other so that we could take care of our own levels yeah that's really what the pandemic the quarantine was like for a good amount of months yeah i think jack's a perfect partner for you yeah yeah it sounds like a perfect partner we have 40 years that we know 40 years longer than monica's been with us on planet that's right that's right oh wow you were but an inkling in your father's eye when they met well esther We love you.

[1767] I feel so lucky and grateful that we get to have you come talk to us sometimes.

[1768] It's so great.

[1769] If I leave the box, would you play?

[1770] Of course.

[1771] This is exactly the kind of thing we do.

[1772] Like, can you imagine yourself having friends come over and say?

[1773] A thousand percent.

[1774] Yeah, we will.

[1775] Deck you see out there in the midst of all that construction regularly has 11 adults gathered around a fire.

[1776] And I can't imagine a more fun way to kickstart, especially if Eric's not there saying really offensive stuff that we all have to.

[1777] Let's keep him structured with the game.

[1778] So you asked me in the beginning, I completely invite you to add questions.

[1779] I'm actually, we will create new decks based on questions that people will be sending us.

[1780] Oh, good.

[1781] So if there's something you say, I'd love to have this thing.

[1782] We have 250 of them, so I don't know if it's already in, I will tell you.

[1783] But you may have questions that we didn't think about or took out.

[1784] And then, so it's going to be called the spin.

[1785] Oh, I like that.

[1786] Yeah, I want to be somehow creatively involved with what you're doing, I guess, is what I'm saying.

[1787] Oh, welcome.

[1788] Okay, I'm at your disposal.

[1789] Esther Perel, you're so fantastic.

[1790] I want people to play.

[1791] Where should we begin?

[1792] And I want them to learn weird things about their friends.

[1793] It's juicy.

[1794] On esterparell .com.

[1795] That's where you find it all.

[1796] There's nothing tricky about your name.

[1797] I don't need to spell it.

[1798] Well, there's a name.

[1799] E -S -T -H -E -R -P -R -R -R -R -E -E -E -S -E -E -E -E -E -S -E -E -E -E -E -E .com.

[1800] everyone should go and everyone should listen to your stuff it's so incredible oh my god in fact i think after i interviewed the first time i went through this huge tear of all of them and i just i've never had a listening experience like your show or i just keep thinking oh my god i can't believe i get to be in the room hearing this level of honesty and vulnerability it's incredible should we say what it is yeah where should we begin yes and how is work, both feature real -life couples therapy sessions that are anonymous, but raw, unedited.

[1801] It's incredible.

[1802] And you get to be a fly on the wall in real time.

[1803] Yes.

[1804] And what's so great about it is regardless if you are dealing with, let's say, the topic is the infidelity, that and you're like, well, I can't relate to that.

[1805] I'm not unfaithful or whatever you want to label it doesn't matter everything they're dealing with that leads to that moment is so relatable anyone in a relationship it's hard to listen to an episode and not identify with someone even though the actual issue in quotes because there's many many different issues so you always find something yes i hear people say that a lot that even if it's not my story in every episode there's something i can i can connect with the only thing i can compare it to is like being an a like getting to go and hear 12 men speak honestly about their life is such a unique, rare experience.

[1806] And this is similar to that.

[1807] And then, of course, yes, you hear your own story and other people nonstop and you feel less crazy and alone and scared.

[1808] It's so wonderful.

[1809] Where should we begin is specifically the show I binged.

[1810] Esther Perel, love you.

[1811] Thank you.

[1812] We will do it again.

[1813] We will.

[1814] My goal is to have at least five questions in the next issue of this game.

[1815] Oh.

[1816] That's what I'm setting for myself.

[1817] Yeah, committed, for sure.

[1818] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Badman.

[1819] Again, we're still some thousand miles apart.

[1820] Nothing's changed.

[1821] This always feels so embarrassing when I do this, but I do do it, which is I listen to our show sometimes.

[1822] And I like it, which feels really egotomaniacal, narcissistic.

[1823] But as I've told you in the past, sometimes I can't really enjoy what the guest is doing when we're recording.

[1824] Uh -huh.

[1825] But I wanted to hear Kate today to see if it was as good as it felt when we recorded it.

[1826] And I'd argue she's even better when you're just listening.

[1827] She was so mind -blowing.

[1828] She really was, wasn't she?

[1829] Yeah, I was blown.

[1830] My mind was blown.

[1831] A lot of commenters said that she's up immediately in like a top five all -time kind of situation.

[1832] Uh -huh.

[1833] That's how I felt.

[1834] You know, we talked about this a little bit after that episode, we took our pitcher and as soon as we took our picture together, I was like, oh, it's like what Quentin Tarantino said about Brad Pitt.

[1835] He's like, I don't, I'm not taking a picture next to him.

[1836] Like, I don't want to do that.

[1837] That's kind of how I felt.

[1838] And then I felt like, that's bad.

[1839] Yeah, you're mad at yourself.

[1840] Yeah, that's bad.

[1841] I don't, I don't like, I don't want anyone else to feel like that.

[1842] Well, it's a nice one to punch for first you feel ugly and then you feel bad about feeling ugly.

[1843] It's a nice, it's a. It's a. It's a. It's a, real nice thing again let me be blatantly clear i don't believe there's a disparity between you two so let me just start there but i can so relate to the feeling you have which is i spent a good portion of my career next to ashton i know and i had to do something in my head to to manage that and what it was like i look at pictures of he and i and i'm like that guy is so beautiful he's an angel yeah he is but then i go and look at me i'm like um Beauty and the Beast.

[1844] Oh, my God.

[1845] I'm a big, but I get into that.

[1846] I'm like, oh, yeah, look at this rough customer.

[1847] He's ugly, but he's kind of good looking because he's so heterogeneous and monstrous.

[1848] And then I just say, oh, it's a different creature next to Ash.

[1849] They're not even the same creature.

[1850] And one's pretty dangerous.

[1851] So then I don't feel inferior.

[1852] I feel equal, but just in a different version.

[1853] Gosh, I don't know what to say because I like that you've come to some sort of good place, but that's all crazy.

[1854] You know, we're just so insecure.

[1855] We are, God.

[1856] Which I think is, I think it's human, though.

[1857] Maybe it's relatable.

[1858] I can't be the only person in the world who stands next to Cape Beck and thinks like, oh, no. Okay, Esther Perel, Esther Perel.

[1859] Esther.

[1860] Well, is there anything from your trip that you need to update us on?

[1861] Yeah, sure.

[1862] So, a couple things.

[1863] I brought my weights with me. Uh -huh.

[1864] You know, I posted a picture of it.

[1865] What I quickly discover is, wants to see a picture of me lifting weights.

[1866] I came to regret it.

[1867] Really?

[1868] Yeah, I thought, I think, I was, um, my goal was to show just me working out in a parking lot, which I thought was funny.

[1869] Uh -huh.

[1870] But then I think it just seemed kind of, um, vane.

[1871] Braggie.

[1872] Yeah, vein, braggy.

[1873] I, I post, like, a, a story of something inane, I don't know.

[1874] And a lot of my friends will comment.

[1875] I pose a one thing of me doing dead lifts, and no one even wanted to acknowledge that.

[1876] And I realized, oh, this is a pretty good hand.

[1877] don't do that.

[1878] I'm trying to learn.

[1879] Yeah, I'm trying to learn as I go.

[1880] You're taking in context clues and information moving forward based on that.

[1881] Yeah, there won't be any more of that.

[1882] But yesterday, oh, here's an update.

[1883] So yesterday, you know, when I, you would know better than anyone when I go on vacation, a Dairy Queen is like, I'm not on vacation until I've had a Dairy Queen.

[1884] Exactly.

[1885] And in fact, one of the children asked yesterday while we were at Dairy Queen, is there one in L .A.?

[1886] And I said, you know, if there is, I don't want to know about it.

[1887] It's just a vacation thing.

[1888] Yeah.

[1889] So anyways, we went, I got my bananas to a blizzard at Heathbar and a peanut buster parfe.

[1890] Mm -hmm.

[1891] And then after that, we went to a little park in town and we just laid on the grass while the kids played.

[1892] And it was major Michigan vibes.

[1893] I realized there's not nice grass in the West at all to just sit and lie on it where it's actually really comfortable to lay in it.

[1894] Yeah.

[1895] And I got real nostalgic for Michigan.

[1896] And I realized soft grass is a big thing.

[1897] thing for me. Okay.

[1898] Okay.

[1899] You learned something.

[1900] To feel like I'm on vacation.

[1901] Yeah.

[1902] I've learned something about myself.

[1903] Well, just like the Dairy Queen, maybe if you had soft grass here, it would not be good on vacation.

[1904] Like you wouldn't even think about it.

[1905] So maybe it's good that we don't have soft grass here, just like we don't have Dairy Queen.

[1906] That is true.

[1907] What are your updates?

[1908] You haven't been giving me if I can air a grievance as much gossip as I would like.

[1909] The problem might be there is none.

[1910] But just for me to be out of the group for so long, I just want, like, I want some gossip, like, someone poop their pants or someone, someone got in a fight, or, you know.

[1911] Hot goss.

[1912] Yeah, and there's really, maybe there's none.

[1913] I mean, I want to give you what you want, but I just, oh, well, here's a, okay, this is kind of relevant.

[1914] This isn't gossip.

[1915] But yesterday, Eric and Molly came.

[1916] They had an anniversary.

[1917] Oh, 15 years, right?

[1918] Yeah, they had a 15 year anniversary, shout out.

[1919] Yeah, congratulations.

[1920] Congratulations.

[1921] And Eric was listening to the Obama episode.

[1922] Mm -hmm.

[1923] And he said, Monica, I'm really glad you didn't tell him about the chair thing.

[1924] Mm -hmm.

[1925] And I was like, why?

[1926] And he was like, well, it's just always good to be.

[1927] humble.

[1928] So then this like kind of spurred a conversation and I, I felt really defensive about it.

[1929] This comes up in this episode.

[1930] This is a big ding, ding, ding.

[1931] This comes up in this episode that we have a friend Eric who says most provocative things ever.

[1932] Exhibit A, where he's like, you know, and just in front of everyone like, Monica, I'm really glad you didn't do that.

[1933] And I, I feel protective of him because I know he also just like wants to start conversation.

[1934] And But I was just getting very defensive of it because I don't think if I had said, oh, I pulled this chair up.

[1935] I mean, maybe people don't know what we're talking about.

[1936] The president said, hey, Monica, how did you get, how did you get that, how did you end up in that chair?

[1937] How did you end up in that chair next to the big guy?

[1938] And then, and I think he just said him, but yeah.

[1939] Oh, maybe he called you big guy before.

[1940] Okay.

[1941] He did call you big guy, but maybe that was a sentence before.

[1942] You are a big guy.

[1943] You're a big boy.

[1944] Big boy.

[1945] A were a werewolf.

[1946] And I told him the story, you know, oh, I started as a nanny and then this is, whatever.

[1947] And then later, I thought, like, oh, I wish I had answered that differently.

[1948] I wish I had said like, oh, I put this chair here.

[1949] Right.

[1950] And I don't think saying that would make me arrogant or not humble or.

[1951] It would not.

[1952] And it's not saying he's doing anything wrong by asking that.

[1953] No, there's a lot of things that are true simultaneously.

[1954] So I think the point Eric was making, which I do agree with, is Obama would have gotten self -conscious at that moment.

[1955] He would have gotten defensive.

[1956] And I think particularly in this moment in time where, and again, no one needs to do weep for us guys.

[1957] But as a guy, you are constantly going like, oh, fuck did I just did the thing.

[1958] So I do think he might have been like, oh, fuck, I shouldn't have said it that way.

[1959] and do you want to guess 20 minutes in feeling defensive and worried he just fucked up?

[1960] So I think that's one point that maybe Eric was making or some segment of his point, which I agree with.

[1961] And you shouldn't need to worry about a man's feelings by telling the truth.

[1962] I created this show with that.

[1963] So I think a lot of things are true at once.

[1964] I think you're right.

[1965] And I guess I just have a little bit more faith that if I had said that, he would have been like, fuck yeah like that he wouldn't have been defensive that he would have been like oh good for you you you could be right about that i think if i said that i think i would feel really bad if someone then pointed that out like oh my god why did i you know fuck i should assume she created this which again this is the situation it's just like your ethnicity where you got to console people after they're racist it's not fair that you he didn't do anything wrong i don't want to make that very clear i know I'm just saying, maybe not with him, but I think with a large number of men, myself included, I would have been like, oh, fuck, why'd I say that?

[1966] That sounded stupid now that I realize what I, you know, and that's not your responsibility.

[1967] But he did, but again, I'm not saying he did, like, if I was a girl, I was a guy, I was anyone, he might have said, hey, how'd you end up there?

[1968] Like, if Aaron Weekly was next to me, I think he would ask, yeah.

[1969] It's not that he didn't have the right to ask, but, but, but, I don't.

[1970] I had also the right to answer truthfully and boldly.

[1971] And I don't think, I don't, it shouldn't be like if I do that, I'm belittling what he did or making him feel like he did something wrong.

[1972] Like he didn't do anything wrong.

[1973] And he asked me a question and I could have answered it a different way.

[1974] Right.

[1975] It just says a lot about me and Eric.

[1976] Eric and I would have felt like, oh, shit, I just, I mismanaged that.

[1977] But I do think part of it, and maybe this is why I got really in my head about it, I'm like, how do we retrain all of our brains so that that's allowed without it being a shock?

[1978] Right.

[1979] Again, I bet Eric was listening going like, oh, shit.

[1980] Had I said that and she said that, then I would have been like, oh, my God, I'm an idiot.

[1981] And that's all I'd be thinking about now.

[1982] Of course.

[1983] And I'm glad I didn't put him in his head before we started.

[1984] Again, I just, I personally have a little more faith that he would have probably liked it and then respect to me even more.

[1985] Yeah.

[1986] But.

[1987] I get it.

[1988] Yeah.

[1989] It's like when I told you, you know, I don't like it when you refer to me as your babysitter.

[1990] Like I was just very upfront with you like, hey, I don't like that.

[1991] I mean, not again, this isn't the same thing at all.

[1992] But instead of being like, oh, I'll let Dax do whatever he wants.

[1993] Like, I was just like, oh, I have a, I mean, this was early on with us.

[1994] Oh, God, yeah.

[1995] That was like a year into knowing you, I think, yeah.

[1996] And, and.

[1997] Oh, God.

[1998] Now, see, so I'm there right now.

[1999] Because, like, what I want to explain to Armcherry's is, I didn't do that a year ago.

[2000] I didn't even do it in real life.

[2001] I did it on a podcast because I was, I don't know if they know this.

[2002] Okay, okay.

[2003] Because I personally was a shame to say we have a. nanny.

[2004] Of course.

[2005] And I thought it was very relevant that you were, quote, under our employee, and I was urging you to do mushrooms because that's kind of what the bit was.

[2006] Yes.

[2007] But I certainly didn't walk around the world saying this is our babysitter Monica.

[2008] No. But definitely I did it in that moment.

[2009] Yeah.

[2010] And again, you didn't do anything wrong.

[2011] I was just making it known.

[2012] Hey, I don't like that just so you know.

[2013] And I appreciated it.

[2014] I think you did.

[2015] I think you did.

[2016] I did respect me more for doing that.

[2017] And it was a really great starting point for you to understand all the vanity and insecurity that caused me to do.

[2018] Like, it wasn't really about you as much as it was about me. Exactly, yeah.

[2019] And my fear that people think I'm a rich person who's, you know, oblivious to the real world.

[2020] Yeah.

[2021] That was my fear.

[2022] Okay, Esther Perel.

[2023] Okay, Esther.

[2024] Don't you wish she could be like your real therapist?

[2025] I wish I had a weekly with her.

[2026] Me too.

[2027] I trust her way more than I trust me. Her kind of her processing of things.

[2028] Yeah.

[2029] Okay, here's the only fact.

[2030] And really it's not a fact because I'm asking you a question.

[2031] Do you think the cookies that your grandma made, are they called strupe waffles?

[2032] Let me look up a picture of that and tell you if that's, in fact, what it is.

[2033] Okay.

[2034] I'm going to say it out loud and I'm going to pray.

[2035] Well, no, I can't say it out loud because this is hooked to the boom box outside.

[2036] It's spelled like this.

[2037] S -T -R -O -O -P -W -A -F -E -L -S.

[2038] I see it?

[2039] That's 100 % what she made.

[2040] Wow.

[2041] Now, in the photos that I've brought up, some of them have been made into a sandwich with some caramel in between or some honey.

[2042] Sure.

[2043] But these were just the waffle, the crispy waffle.

[2044] Their simplicity is so misleading.

[2045] They're so good in robust, in full -bodied, and a flavor profile that, gives and gives it doesn't dissipate they're very rewarding cookies now let me ask you do they remind you at all of the bis cough cookies on delta no okay no but you know what else is really cool is again she made them one by one over a flame so there's nothing's uniform about the every cookie's a snowflake oh my god ding ding ding it's like us all every cookie is the only version of itself.

[2046] Oh, that's beautiful.

[2047] Yeah, and in that, that fingerprint is, it's just really special.

[2048] Also, ding, ding, ding, I love cookies.

[2049] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[2050] You sure do.

[2051] It is, when things are handmade, like that, like the handmade pasta, when it's, like, rolled out by the Italian grandmas, it's so much better.

[2052] I mean, it's just that you can taste the love.

[2053] You can.

[2054] So that's pretty much it.

[2055] that's that i you know i i talk about my bullying in this episode oh and did you leave it in yeah i think the thing i'm always trying to beg people is to acknowledge that they're on a spectrum and they could get better so to hear someone that is a person of color who was living in great fear of being exposed as a person of color reacting in a way they're not proud of because someone else was a person of color i just think it's helpful i know it feels like a A mark on your character, but I think it's the path out of the whole thing.

[2056] I don't know.

[2057] It's that story's horrific.

[2058] Like, it's so mortifying for so many reasons.

[2059] One, the just bullying.

[2060] I mean, that's just already horrible.

[2061] Yeah.

[2062] Strike one is just, you know, you shouldn't bully.

[2063] But as I said, I've admitted, I bullied some kids.

[2064] I felt powerless at home and I took it out on kids at school.

[2065] Shameful, but it happened.

[2066] And then, of course, the worst part of it is that I obviously picked a person that I felt the most, I mean, really the most connected to.

[2067] Yeah, absolutely.

[2068] Because he was black in a minority, and so was I. And I hated that about myself.

[2069] So I hated it about him.

[2070] Yeah.

[2071] He reminded you every time he looked at him.

[2072] Oh, he's different like me. Yeah, which is so awful.

[2073] Also, what do you, 10?

[2074] No, like five or six.

[2075] Oh, my God.

[2076] I mean, how can you be this mad at your five -year -old's?

[2077] You've talked to Delta.

[2078] If Delta had some feeling and you witnessed it, we'd hope she could learn and evolve from it, but she does not have an agenda.

[2079] She would just be responding.

[2080] I know, but I would really want to talk her through that.

[2081] For sure.

[2082] And help her grow out of it.

[2083] I guess you're right.

[2084] Like some of these things are a little more universal, but you have to teach yourself to be better.

[2085] I guarantee you there are a bunch of black and brown people, just like you who have had a similar experience and feels so guilty about it.

[2086] Yeah, I mean, probably.

[2087] I guess just gross.

[2088] There was one other werewolf in my school, and I tortured him.

[2089] Really?

[2090] No. Oh.

[2091] But I wanted to help you feel better.

[2092] Yeah, that was a nice try.

[2093] That was a nice try.

[2094] Yeah, no one's, I've made some mistakes.

[2095] That's right.

[2096] Yeah.

[2097] Oh, on earth, would you grow if you had not made mistakes?

[2098] Yeah, it's part of it, part of the process.

[2099] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2100] Anywho.

[2101] Again, this is what, like, I think there's a lot of scared people, primarily white people, that think, oh, fuck, oh, now I got to live perfect.

[2102] I got to be perfect.

[2103] No one else has to be perfect.

[2104] I have to be perfect.

[2105] And I have to have historically been perfect.

[2106] And if it's revealed that I wasn't perfect at one fucking time, I'm getting taken out.

[2107] And that is not the new norm.

[2108] The new norm is we grew up in the water.

[2109] We're learning what that water was.

[2110] And we're going to make conscious decisions to make the water better.

[2111] And no one spared from that.

[2112] Yep.

[2113] Even the Duchess of Duluth.

[2114] Oh, boy.

[2115] Oh.

[2116] Well, I love you.

[2117] I love you.

[2118] This has been so fun.

[2119] I'm having the best vacation, but I do miss being in the attic.

[2120] Oh, me too.

[2121] We're going to get back there when in a week?

[2122] Yeah, yeah.

[2123] Okay.

[2124] All right.

[2125] I love you.

[2126] Love you.

[2127] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcast.

[2128] You can listen to every episode of Armchair, expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts.

[2129] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.