HealthyGamerGG - Dealing with Unchangeable Circumstances ft. Sweet Anita

Episode Date: November 14, 2020

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Don't mind if I do. Yeah, so, Anita, how have you been? I've been all right. Yeah, busy, busy, busy. But getting more sleep and taking a little bit more care of myself than I used to do. So that's great. I'm really happy to hear that. Seriously, I think you deserve to take care of yourself. You deserve to be cared for by yourself. And are you wearing a hat that says simp? Yeah. Can you tell me about that? All right.

So, me and stream elements, we design merch. And I was thinking to myself, what would be really relatable and very appropriate for my chat? And this is how the hat happened. And I just happen to like it and I just wear it day to day. I actually really love my sip hat. So that's the full story. I think it's a good way. Okay, so I guess I can share this story.

Hopefully it's not identifiable. And if the person that I'm talking to, yeah, there's no way that people are going to. So I was talking to someone who was yesterday. I was working with someone who was a little bit concerned about their hair because they're kind of going bald. And the problem is that is. you're going bald? Yeah, I'm losing my hair. That's scary.

Yeah, it's impossible to find out why, because of COVID, because there are, like, doctors and everything, they've got their hands full. So I guess I'll find out sometime. Threw me for a loop there, but let me just finish my story real quick, and then, you know, we can talk about that if you want to. But, so they were feeling, like, pretty anxious because they're losing their hair.

And what they said is that, you know, like, they're prominent in like the streaming esports world. And so they can't show up one day. Like even if they wanted to get a piece like a wig, like they couldn't get one. Right. And so I,

what I suggested to them is that they should just show up one day with one. And then in the middle of like an interview or something, just take it off, adjust it and then just put it right back on. And just let the whole world know that you wear a wig. But anyway, we'll see if they ever do that. Yeah, I feel like owning it takes the power out of it and nobody's committing a crime by losing a little bit of hair.

As well, I think that streaming is about being relatable and being company to people who feel a bit alone. And there are probably plenty of people who watch that person who are also losing their hair. So I don't think it's going to work against them and I don't know why they'd be so afraid. Yeah, so I mean, that's a good question, right? Why are people afraid? and if we think about it so if we wow this is going to get

yeah let me know if this moves too fast for you okay Nina it's fine go for it so I mean I'm a little bit curious so especially being a woman I can imagine it can feel very distressing if you're losing your hair

there's always wigs I'll be okay but the thing is like I know chat latches onto you absolutely anything. So it's not really something I want people to get distracted by. And that's really my own concern with it. I don't have a partner. I don't have anyone around me. I'm alone. It's like 99% of my day. So it's not like anyone's going to bother and I don't really look in the mirror much. So it's not something that really scares me. So for now, I just try to make sure people

don't get distracted by it so that we can focus on the content really rather than my body. because people try to focus on my body a lot during streaming. People take clips of my ass and stuff. So I just try to keep people's attention on the topic rather than me. And that's the only reason why I take any measures to really hide it. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, I think you do a really good job of like owning things and making them more acceptable to people who are ashamed about them. I think that's actually one of the really awesome things that you bring to Twitch.

into this community. I'm curious, what does it feel like to have people kind of be focusing on your body and taking clips of your ass and things like that? I've experienced it my whole life. My whole life has basically been a struggle to make friends with people who are just trying to depth test me. And like seeing dying friendships because I see more and more signs that someone's into me and I try to show signs that I'm not interested back and they don't see them because they have a bias because they want something for me. And so chat is just making, is just a, a another way that I relive that exact same struggle where I'm trying to hold a conversation about everything else and it keeps falling back to their desire to get their willy wet.

And so I'm so used to navigating it that I just poke humor at it now and use it as content because I can't make it go away. I can't control how other people feel or how they behave. So in any way, if I can't control a situation or change it for the better, I try to change its effect on me and others. And so the way I've been managing it is just to poke humor at it and make it a reason for people to smile and laugh in various ways. And that's the only thing I can really think to do about it. Sounds very mature, you know, to approach it that way. I'm surprised you say so, because poking fun at people for being attracted to me

doesn't sound like an initially, like a mature premise for any kind of content. But yeah, I guess if I agree with you that poking fun of, it doesn't sound like that. But that's why when we dig into actually what you're doing, that does sound. mature to me. Right? So like sort of saying, hey, there's something about the world that I can't change and people are going to be people. So I'm going to do my best to kind of focus on what I think is important and steer people in the right direction. And if people want to, you know, focus on something physical, I can kind of just poke fun at it and then kind of focus on what's important. That sounds pretty mature to me. Thank you. I mean, I think surreptitiously, I poke fun at it as well to show people

who are very inexperienced in talking to people they're attracted to that this doesn't work. I try to use like gamer-based analogies to show people that certain things are not okay or not fun and not cool, like pick-up lines. I describe them as when people think there are cheat codes into women's pants that you can just say a generic sentence and you'll be able to sleep with someone. And that's not how people work because they're individuals and stuff. And when you try to use a cheat code to get in someone's pants, you're basically saying, I'm lonely and I want to fuck. about you. If it was about you, I'd say something specific to you that's to do with you,

but I'll just say this generic thing and hope that your panties fall off sort of thing. And these sort of descriptions help me to describe to people how not to hit on people so that maybe one day they'll successfully connect. So I kind of seen it as an opportunity to help people figure out what doesn't work so that they can lean towards what does. I thought I detected a note of anger there. Oh yeah, I mean there's a huge undercurrent of frustration. I want to connect with people long term. I want to have friends.

I want to have really fun interactions. And there's this barrage of lonely dicks between me and all the people that are worth hanging out with the people who aren't trying to fuck me. It happens everywhere I go and everything I do. Like I've gone to social clubs and all sorts trying to make friends because I was desperately lonely. And then like two or three men latch on to me and try to talk to me like interview me for a role in their life. I do not fucking want. and they just won't leave me alone. I'll try to ditch them and go to the bathroom.

I'll come out. They're waiting for me. And whilst everyone else sees that I'm talking to people, they don't feel comfortable talking to me. So all the people who don't want to fuck me, don't get around to talking to me. And I'm just stuck with these people who I know I'm going to disappoint.

And there's no friendship there because they're just waiting to see if I'll fuck them. And I've tried so hard to make friends with people who are attracted to me and been like, oh, I'll make a good thing out of this. And it doesn't work out because they get more and more disappointed and uncomfortable. And it becomes too painful for them to hang out with me.

So I have been lonely and frustrated and angry and trying, ever since I was young, I was isolated and alone. And I've been trying so hard my whole life to make long-term friends. And these friendships keep fucking dying. And I've had female friends thinking, you'll be fine. And they've all hit on me too. So I don't know how to escape it. And I feel really frustrated and alone. I know there are people out there.

I'm not egotistical enough to think that it's just that everyone wants me. It's just that when other people who do are attracted to me are pushy, they kind of barge everyone else out of the way. They kind of inhibit my ability to spend time with people who actually have a genuine friendship with no other intentions. And I want to be worth that to someone. I don't want to be just something to death depth test. I want to be a friend.

I want to support people. I want to see people grow and have kids and get married. I want to be with people long term and have a great time with them. And not just be sad or all the people who come into my life and get disappointed that I don't have more to offer. I want my friendship to be a fucking nut. Bravo. Anita, I think you've grown since the first time I talked to you.

Really? Immensely. What makes you say that? So you told me some wild stories the first time we talked. I don't know if you remember. But I was really confused because you would say, like, yeah, people continuously fall in love with me. And it sounds like sort of like on the surface, much like, you know, the mature comment. It can be kind of confusing, but it sort of seems sort of narcissistic.

to say that, right? But I don't think it was. I think it's genuinely your experience, but I can imagine people would judge you that way. And, and, you know, I, oh, wow. I mean, there's so much there. So first of all, thank you so much for being so authentic. I was, so I, you know, you're a genius with words, by the way. I don't know if you like, you're like a word smith. I just ran it. I, I don't, What did I say that? You said this is one of the best sentences I've ever heard or read in my life. There's a barrage of dicks between me and a real friendship. That's such a great sentence.

It captures your experience so well. First of all, I've never heard the phrase barrage of dicks. You know, it's like it's a new combination in the English language. And I think it really does such a good job. So I spend my days practicing my words. I spend my days. So if you think about human experience, any human experience that's translated into words loses something.

Right? Because I can't, I can use the word love, but like what love feels like in four letters, L-O-V-E, there's like a wide chasm between those. And what I really respect about what you just said is like that chasm got really, really small. You know, when you kind of talk about how incredibly frustrating it is, that you want something and that there's all this crap getting in the way.

And yeah, I mean, I think it was just very well said. And I think it's an experience that I imagine, I mean, I've talked to a lot of women who I think would resonate with that experience. That, you know, they keep on getting blamed for friend zoning people. But they get girlfriend zoned all the time immediately. And so, yeah, I just thought it was well said. And I think the reason you've grown is because the first time that I talked to you, you were just relentlessly positive.

And you still, I mean, you're still a positive person, right? Like, you're kind of like, I can't change other people. So I'm going to do the best that I can to make a world a better place. Like, that's why Anita's awesome. And, but I almost thought that you were too positive. because you didn't give space to yourself to feel negative and to recognize that that's not fair and that that's not okay

and that like you deserve to have friends and now I hear you getting frustrated about it, which I think is actually a step in the right direction. I think it was subsurface anger, and now it's surface anger, but that's how we let things out. And now it's interesting because I feel like sort of embarking on a conversation that I very rarely do,

which is to change other people. so usually we talk about you but i i wonder if there are some things that you could do or we could explore let me just think about how to say this because i get the sense that you do have this like moth drawn to a flame kind of thing going right so you've mentioned to me that there are many people like even female friends of yours that you'll feel close to who sort of wind up kind of falling for you in a romantic way and so there's something that tells me that something about what other people see in you makes them think romance instead of friendship? So, uh, in response, I've got two responses to that. I hope I remember them both.

The first is that, um, I used to go down a very self-blamey route with it a long time ago in my early teams because I used to just walk in the street and guys would panhandle for sex that come up to me like, hey baby, where you're headed? Can I go with you? Do you know a local pub? Do you want to come with me? Where'd you live? What's your name? All these personal details I didn't want to give to a stranger, usually an older stranger. And I was like, this must be something to do with me. I attract these horrible people that I don't want to interrupt my day. I kind of, I want to, so I got changed.

I wore this massive trench coat thinking everyone, like, when people look at people who've been sexually assaulted, they go, well, what were you wearing? And as a kid, I thought that meant that if you just wore specific clothes, no one would bother you sexually. And I got the wrong idea from those questions that I saw people asking anyone who suffered sexual assault. So I was like, fine, and wear a trench coat. People leave me alone.

Nobody can see my body. There'd be no reason to hit on me. And I was wrong and people still hit on me. I tried so many different approaches. I tried being rude to people and distant and people still chased me. I tried to be friendly and warm and people still chased me. I tried everything and every approach I could think of. I put people down harshly.

I was like, I will never fuck you in a million years. And that didn't work. And I would have, I hospitalized boys at school for being too pushy and aggressive. And they'd come out of hospitals. and ask me out straight away with their cast on. Like, I just couldn't find an approach. And I was soft and gentle, and they just wouldn't get the message.

And so, like, I stopped blaming myself a long time ago for people not paying attention because I wasn't flirting. I wasn't, you know, I don't flirt with these people. I pay attention to it. And I'm like, why are you getting these signals? And why, when I avoid you, because you're hitting on me, do you not get these signals?

Like, I can avoid people and they're like, does she love me? I'm like, how are you thinking like this still? Every time you hit on me, I go silent and walk away and you're like, I don't know what she wants. Women are just a mystery. I've even said, like, no, just no, just not ever.

And they're like, is she playing hard to get? What do, why don't they just say when they want me? I don't understand. Women are a mystery. And I just can't fucking find the right thing to say to someone that's beside with you because they're so preoccupied with what they want.

And they're thinking with little brain. So they don't hear sense. And so I don't. I've asked myself my whole life this question. And as well, people think I'm conceited if I ever bring it up so I can't ask people for advice. So it's like a problem that's making me really lonely and desperate for real friendship. It's making me really, really struggle to trust people because people say they're not attracted to me and then spring out on me and then break up as a friend the minute they realize it's not going to be anything more. Like I have so many issues surrounding this.

I want a fulfilling life and a fulfilling social group. And it's destroying it. Even when I do find long-term friends who say they're not into me and never hit on me at all, right? The minute I have more friends, they get jealous and angry and it starts to show. Or like, I'll have friends around me that are nice and aren't hitting on me, and people around me will assume that we're together and start socially assassinating them and trying to break up that friendship. And a lot of the times it even fucking works.

Like there are so many situations where even if I, even if there's no romance at all, people's romances, fuck it up. And people's attraction to me fucks it up. And there are people in chat right now saying, I think she's making a big thing about being attractive. I don't feel attractive. I don't understand this at all. And it annoys the hell out of me.

I'm not boasting. This sucks. This really fucking sucks. And I'm sick of it. I don't want to have to politely navigate people's intentions and constantly disappoint people. I don't want to feel like a disappointment anymore. I don't want to feel like my friendship is a fucking consolation prize.

I want people to just be happy with it. and like if I have to acknowledge that people are attracted to me in order to find the route to do so, let me do that because I'm not making it up and I'm not boasting about it and it's not fucking compliment that people don't want to spend time with me unless I fuck them. That's the opposite of a compliment. Why do people think that I'd be proud of that? That is the ultimate insult. I'm going to think for a second if that's okay.

Okay, I didn't get to my second point, but I think that's enough. No, let's hear your second point. What was this? I had it in my brain just for a second. It's gone out the window. What was it? Firstly, it's not a compliment and people think I'm conceited and all that stuff, but secondly, I'm not, oh, manipulation.

I'm not trying to fix anyone. I'm done trying to be responsible for other people's lack of growth. I'm not going to try and convince people to value me beyond sleeping with me. If they can't see past that, that's their problem. exhausted. I used to spend so much of my youth supposedly being so mature for my age and people who have problems gravitating towards me, including partners, and they put me in charge of their personal growth. And they also blamed me whenever they could struggle to be good. And they were like, well, if you were more supportive or if you were more confident in the bedroom, maybe I wouldn't

have, and all this sort of stuff. And the minute you start rushing in to help people build on themselves in situations where they're just shallow assholes. You end up struggling and crying and being hurt with them, taking responsibility for their shit. Like, I'm so done with that. I'm a grown-up. I hang out with grown-ups. If they can't grow and be mature and think past their willies, that's their problem. I'm going to find people who can think past their willies. I'm not going to try and change people, not in this respect. And to be honest, the times that I've changed people the most are when I've never tried to change them at all. Just by being happy and being myself, people see solutions that they've not tried before from the way that I exist.

And I'm far more happy with that way of helping people than actively trying to meddle with their minds and their lives. Most often, change doesn't really happen unless people want it to. So it has to be their idea in the first place. And honestly, I'm just so done playing therapist. I was nice to help people grow. I've definitely helped people in the past and really enjoyed it. But I'm exhausted now. I've spent my whole life caring for my mom and caring for other people. and I just want to work on myself and be around people who don't need work from me that are just happy.

You have come a long way, Anita. I'm really happy. Seriously, I'm really, I'm thrilled to, because seriously, like the first time I talked to you, it was like, other people need to come first. Like, you could go back and watch it. It's like other people need to come first. And Anita gets no space in Anita's life.

And then what I'm hearing you say is, I don't exist for you anymore. I'm done existing for you. I'm done being what you want me to be. I'm going to start existing for myself. And there's a lot of hurt around that too because it seems like when you exist for yourself,

people don't like it. Because they like you to exist for them. Anita, change me. Anita, fuck me. Anita, do this for me. Take care of me. Help me. Anita, be the case for me to fix. Be broken so that I can feel better about myself

and make you feel better about yourself. And then fuck me afterward. Right? Yeah. And it's not fair. And I hear you. You say you've tried it all. Because early on people treated you a certain way.

And you were like, oh, crap, I'm being treated because of what I'm wearing or who I am or how I am acting. and so you started wearing a trench coat. And you changed yourself for the sake of other people. Their immature behavior suddenly became your responsibility to fix on your end. That people are acting this way towards you because of what you wear. And you were like, fuck that. I'm done with that. I'm not responsible for their reactions to be, which is fair.

So you tried to change yourself for the sake of other people. And you were like, fuck that. And then what happened is you tried the other extreme, which is that you said, I'm going to stop. So at first you were like, I'm going to transform myself. I'm going to wear trench coat and a hat and glasses. And then I'm going to change myself so that people don't interact with me a particular way. I'm going to stop being who I am. Because when I am who I am, people barrage of dicks.

Then what happens is you went the other extreme. And you said, I'm not going to try to change. other people anymore. Because you try that for a while too, right? You tried to rehabilitate people. You try to transform people. You try to change people. So then it's not about changing yourself. It's all about changing the other person. Help them learn a different way. Try to teach them that you are more than an object for their lust. Try to teach them. Be compassionate. Be mature. Be patient. And try to change them. And you were like, fuck that. That doesn't work either. Try to change yourself. Didn't work.

Try to change them. Didn't work. And now you're here. And you're frustrated because you've tried it all and you're smart. Right? So like when you say you've tried it all, I believe you. And I think you also probably came up with pretty creative solutions. You know, I don't know how many adolescent girls I've ever seen in trench coats.

But that, you know, just shows us that you were probably thinking outside the box. Maybe it was common where you were. I don't think I've ever seen like a teenage girl in a trench coat. Yeah, I was pretty much the only one. Yeah, right? So you did a lot of outside of the box thinking. You're pretty smart and you've tried everything under the sun. And you're frustrated.

And absolutely so. Because for a while you didn't put yourself first and now you're trying to put yourself first. And it's and you've got to let me know if I say this too much, okay? Because I just love the phrase now. It's a barrage of dicks. Mm-hmm. Right? And so now it's kind of like, okay, so like what do we do about this?

Like, what do we do for you, Anita? How can we help you find friendships? I think part of these boundaries because I don't... So a lot of the people around me are people who are trying to get in a relationship with me, and it's a pattern. They'll hit on me a little bit, hit on me a little bit, and I'll go, that's really sweet of you to be so nice. And I'll try so hard to be accepting,

but at the same time, this is anything as he... Am I allowed to acknowledge that this few... feels like he's hitting on me. Am I allowed to? Is that thing I can do? Because it feels conceited to jump to conclusions. So I give them the benefit, the doubt and go, maybe this person is just being nice. Maybe I can still hold hope that people can just be nice for the sake of it. But there's a pattern and I'm already recognizing it. And people are commenting on it and going, I think this person likes you. I think this person likes you. And you're just like, I don't want to, I don't want to face it. I don't want to. Because if this is real, if this is what's happening, then I'm going to lose a

friend. And it doesn't matter what situation, no matter what angle I take it from, I'm going to raise a friend. And then it gets to the point where I have to have the discussion. Thank you for all these things. But I just want you to know and don't take this personally. A lot of people do this. And it's because they're interested in me. And in case you're interested in me, I'm not looking for a relationship right now. I don't make it impersonal. I'm just like, I'm not looking to date anyone. I'm not interested at anyone right now, rather than directing it directly at them. I'm not going to like, these are all the real relationships. since I'd never fuck you because that's really mean and unnecessary.

And usually the response is, oh, I didn't like you anyway. It's not like that. I'm just being nice to you, okay? And then from there, they carry on doing it. And the most common pattern I get is people pretending they're not hitting on me until it hits, until it sticks. They're like, no means no until it means yes, is how people take that. They still hold out hope unless I crush them.

And even if I crush them, sometimes they hold out hope. And so, I'm in this horrible position where it's, It's not appropriate to be cruel or direct anyway. It's not like I could just explode and go, you gave me some stuff and I just want you to know I'd never fuck you in a million years. It's not okay to do that. But the gentle approach doesn't work. And it's really frustrating and trapped.

And they keep pushing and pushing and doing all this stuff I know is love bombing. And I don't know how to say stop. And it doesn't stop. And I just end up really unhappy and uncomfortable all the time. It's happened to me with roommates. It's happened to me with friends. It's happened to me with so many people. and they push and push and they want to take more and more.

They want to take more of my time and they guilt-trip me if I don't spend time with them, if I don't play games with them. They're pushing. And like they want to talk all the time. They know I'm busy. They get angry at me if I don't message back and tell them about my day. Like they start to want more and more and more and more. And it makes me more and more and I pull back more and more and more

because everyone around me knows I'm busy. I struggle to keep up the messages. And even these people who hit on me know this, but they still pressure me. And it really, it's such a struggle because I don't want to hurt their feelings and I enjoy their friendship and I don't want to have to push them away. But they're pulling, pulling, pulling so much that the only thing I have left to do is push. And so the friendship starts to get ruined in increments. I start to dislike spending time with them and feel uncomfortable. And I feel guilty about it and like I can't say anything because they're being nice to me.

And then eventually I have to let them down. And the first time I let them down, they won't accept it ever. Nobody ever does. No matter how I approach it, whether I'm direct or soft, they don't. acknowledge I've said no, and they keep pushing and pushing after, and they start doing weird shit. This is where the weird territory starts to happen, like waiting for me to be really drunk, to try and kiss me, and things like this, you know, all this stuff that gets dodgy. And this is where things, really bad things have started to happen to me as well, from people

who just don't take no for an answer. And the problem with that is that they're usually really nice people. Usually there people no one would ever suspect of being weird and creepy, but it gets like that. I feel like it's my fault for not just deleting them from my life sooner. And I should have done it earlier and earlier and earlier. I knew they were hitting on me. I knew they weren't listening to me. And it happens so fucking much.

And it happens with nice guys that everybody likes that are deep in my friendship groups and people that I don't feel like I can challenge. And it's so hard and awkward and risky and terrifying. And I've had so much happen to me because I just don't know how to navigate this and set boundaries. And I want friends as well. I keep holding out hope that maybe they'll just give up and they'll accept my friendship. And they never fucking do. So the worst case scenario is sexual assault, but the best case scenario is the friendship

dies because they're disappointed and it hurts too much to hang out with me. And there is no middle ground and there is nothing fun about this. And I keep getting my heart broken by people that I try to connect with over and over again. That sounds terrible. It's hard. It's awkward. It's risky. It's terrifying.

I get the sense of sort of like this history repeating itself, this like inevitability. I kind of imagine that like you see, you know, a bright, like a little spot in the distance. And it's like the light of a train. And no matter what you do inevitably, that light grows and grows and grows and grows and grows and grows until that train is like bearing down on you. And that there's a lot of just, there's a lot of like just fate. in what you're saying. That like no matter what you do, whether you change yourself,

whether you change people, whether you try to set boundaries and you're a dick to people or you're nice to people. Like there's just this inevitability of like, you know, the moon coming crashing down onto Earth no matter what you do.

There's an incredible gravity to what you're describing. That's what I'm hearing from you. That's what I'm feeling from you. Is that how it feels? Yeah, but I keep trying. I keep holding out hope and I think that's what's got me

into so many bad situations is that I keep holding out hope that maybe I'm just paranoid or maybe I'm just, you know, like, and then I let it continue for way too long because I'm either telling myself it's not okay to acknowledge it's happening and I shouldn't be so full of myself. Not everyone fancies you and I either. Or like I try to push them away and it doesn't work. Yeah, that's what I was about to say. It's like it seems like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's like either you're mean to them and then it ruptures the friendship or you're kind to them and they start pushing boundaries and wait until you're drunk. So, Anita, I have two options for you. Okay, I'd love to try to help you with this. I do think that you can be helped, by the way. And oddly enough, the reason that I

have hope is because there's a pattern. So in my experience, where there's a pattern, there's room for understanding. And once there's understanding, then you can change. We certainly see a pattern here. So let me start by this. I've got two options for you. One is the the smart option. It's the logical option. The other is the shot in the dark. It's the thing that's more likely to be wrong, but may actually be

potentially helpful, but the chances of that are very low. You want to go for the shot in the dark, or the more reliable thing? Let's just talk about both, because for me, I've tried so many options and failed that, you know, maybe... Which one

first? I'm curious about the shot in the dark. Okay. So there's a lot of negative space in this conversation. Okay. And what I mean by negative spaces, you're talking a lot about one thing. And what we're, what I'm, I'm hearing a conspicuous absence that actually once I mention it, hopefully this makes sense to people. And I don't really know that this is where the money is. In fact, you're pointing really, really hard in one direction with where your problem is and what you want. And what I'm noticing is that the harder you drive in one direction, the more you're moving away from something else that seems like the very

opposite of where the answer is. So that is this. Do you want a romantic relationship? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I've been on the odd day here and there that's not worked out. So I think there is a part of me that wants to, but I'm also really, really, really happy on my own. And I do so much better in life on my own. I'm much happier on my own. And so, you know, it feels like I'm content where I'm at, but if the right person comes along, I'm happy to, you know, bring someone into my life. But unfortunately, a lot of the people that are attracted to me

are not very healthy or good for me. Like a lot of these people are gravite. I tend to, a lot of people who are very dark in their behavior tend to gravitate towards me. And so, yeah, I've been on a few days. they didn't work out and that's about as far as it's gone. I've been alone for quite a while now. Okay.

So I'm going to repeat back your answer as I heard it. And I want you to tell me whether you answered the question. So I asked you, do you want a relationship? And you started off by saying, I've been on a few dates. It tends to not work out well. I'm somewhat content. And if the right person comes along,

I'd think about it. But generally speaking, the wrong person comes along. Did you answer my question? Yeah, I think I don't know. If the right person comes along, then sure is an answer. I'd say that's the closest thing to the answer, right? So I think it's interesting because you said, I don't know, and then you kind of talked about your experiences.

And I wonder whether there's value. So, like, I'm just going to ask you the question again. Do you want a relationship? No, I don't think I do. Why not? I think if you'd ask me this question, like, a month or two ago, I said, yeah, I want a relationship, because I was trying to keep an eye out. I think I settled into a mentality very recently where I'm just like,

this is actually pretty awesome. Like, I'm noticing more and more that I'm making room for myself to, read, to learn, to do stuff for my stream, to spend time with animals and, you know, really grow and do all the stuff I've wanted to do and made excuses not to. And I feel like I'm discovering what I'm capable of all over again. I did that when I started doing animal rescue work and it was really dangerous and scary and I pushed through a lot of fear. Did a lot of stuff that made me feel great. I was like, wow, I'm capable of a lot more than I thought. And I feel like being alone, especially in lockdown and not really seeing anyone, I've really enjoyed it,

just having some space and time to actually attend to stuff my own needs for once and not think about pleasing anyone and, you know, all this messy stuff with boundaries and people hitting on me. I've enjoyed the respite from it. And I don't think I need anyone in my life right now. And I think it would be bad to have, I feel like if you have holes and you're lonely, if you should fill it with your own shit, I don't think that you should get with someone because you have needs. I think you should get with someone because you're happy and you have some extra time and love to give someone the failable. Rather than it just being like, I need someone because I'm bored. I'm scared. I'm alone. I need someone to love me because I don't love myself. I think I'm in a good position to have a partner. But because I'm in a good position to have a partner, I don't actually need one. Once again, a lot of wisdom, Anita. A lot of wisdom coming from you today. Thanks.

No, I don't think I want a relationship. And yeah, I'm perfectly happy living my own life. Okay. I'm going to just think about what you said for a second if that's okay. So here's what I'd say. So I think that I love your answer. Right. So you're learning to be with yourself.

you've prioritized other people over you, whether they be your mom, the animals that you take care of, your bunny, your gigantic bunny. You have a gigantic bunny still? Yeah, he's been compared to me. And, you know, the random friends that, you know, lean on you for support and stuff, you're learning how to be with yourself. I do think it's very, like, it's like one of these profound, you know, statements where you're kind of like, I don't need someone. And that's why, in a sense, maybe I'm ready. because I can be with myself. Yeah. I think that there's a lot of merit there. I wonder on some level whether there's something under the surface there too. I think it's maybe not worth digging into, but there's still, I'm getting an undercurrent of like something left underneath there.

I don't think we need to get into it. But I'm curious whether, you know, if we end up talking again like a couple months from now or things like that. Or if you actually do wind up, actually, I think this becomes relevant. if you wind up in a relationship that you want. Maybe there are other feelings. I'm just getting the sense that there are some feelings there that are left unaddressed. And it sort of makes sense. And I'm glad that we could move you from an I don't know to a no.

Because I think it's important to kind of like map that out. Because the implication of everything you've been saying is that you don't want a romantic relationship. You're saying like, I want friendships. I want people who want me for me. I actually don't want to, like you've been saying this whole time, I don't want a romantic relationship. which is why it sounds kind of weird that like maybe I just went out there and asked the question, but just to confirm, like, let's be clear that you don't want one.

And then the reason why not is that you're basically working on yourself for now. And you're learning to prioritize the things that you've neglected in the pursuit of taking care of other people. Anita is taking some much needed me time. Right? And that's fantastic. I can support that. Any questions about that? Or do you want to talk further about this? should we switch gears to the more important part?

That's good. What's the more important part? So here's the thing, Anita. Let's just assume for a second that everything that you said is exactly as you said it, okay? That you are someone who seems to attract men and women and they sort of continuously fall for you and want everything from sex to love and, a deep, meaningful, soulful relationship. So the first question is, are you, is that different from most people's experiences? Yes or no?

What do you think? It's not very different for my mom's experiences. My mom gets this a lot too. And I watched her struggle with it her whole life from a young age. Guys used to bump heads trying to kiss her hand at the same time. And they'd get so distracted by her that they'd get caught in the bus doors and be dragged by buses and things. Like there were always women who were trying to tear her down and socially sabotage her because they're jealous that their boyfriend fancied her and things like this. My mom's always had people stalk her and things like this.

She had like a herd of stalkers. One of them carved her wooden dildo. We now use it as a self-defense stick if in case of emergency, which is hilarious. But there have been, yeah, my mom's the only person I know in my life. She's like this to you. But me and her temperament and the way we engage with people is so different. my mom is very blunt, very no bullshit. And after everything she's gone through, I don't blame her.

Like, I'm a lot more gentle with people. Like, my mom, I confide in her about it. I'm like, what do I do? And she gives me really good advice sometimes because she's experienced so much of it. But at the same time, she's like, I would make this recommendation, but you're too much of a nice person. Like sometimes she's like, the way that I'd approach this, you wouldn't do. And so I often end up feeling stuck in situations because I know that her approach.

is a lot more, let's say, direct and angry sometimes. So I ask. Yeah. Just kind of, I'm going to restate my question, and I'm going to repeat the answer that I heard. Is it a normal experience or abnormal experience to have people continuously want you, fall in love with you, et cetera? And you said, well, it seems similar to my mom's experience. Right?

And then you went out to point out some differences between your mom. fine. So fine, so that you and your mom share an experience. Cool. That's actually a really important data point that we'll visit in a second. Is it a normal or abnormal experience compared to other people? I mostly hang out with dudes and I don't know any of them who go through this, except one. I know one dude goes through this. So most of the people I know don't go through this. Okay. So I would say that, you know, if you talk to women on the internet, many of them will say that some of this behavior is common. And so we've had streams about that. But I also have never met anyone who has been unable to find friends or have their friendships, including their female friendships, continuously wrecked by whatever this is.

So in this sense, I think you're an outlier, right? So we're going to approach this scientifically. And we're going to start by forget about psychology and all that kind of crap and like, do you want a relationship? Oh, my God. What's going on inside? Do you put yourself first? Do you put yourself second? Like, forget about all that.

Let's look at it and look at it scientifically. So first thing is like, is this, are you an outlier? Right? And what would you say? Yes or no? I'm actually unsure. I would want a larger sample of women's experiences before I could say. Okay.

Because I know it's uncommon among men and they're the people that I mostly hang out with. I have some female friends throughout the past, but most of them I lost to this situation as well that I'm in. So let me ask you this. Or is it a common experience for human beings to be unable to make friends? Yes, just not for this reason. It's hard for any adult to make friends. But for this reason, probably it's unusual. Maybe, I don't know.

I am actually genuinely unsure. That's totally fine. So I'd say you're an outlier. So the word, like, so Anita, you're a siren. You know what a siren is? You know what a siren is? I do, yeah. Right?

So what's your understanding of what a siren is? What do you? She sits on the rocks and she sings beautiful songs and men, you know, seamen get enchanted and they crash their ships on the rocks. Sound like you? I think the difference between me and a siren is intent. Absolutely. Completely agree.

But like when I see you and I hear your story, it sounds to me like a siren, right? Like there's like something weird. You have some musk or there's something going on with you. where people are drawn to you and they start out as like you've tried everything in the books, right? So let's think about it scientifically. You've tried to be an asshole.

You've tried to be nice. You've tried to set boundaries. You've tried to be very clear with people and say, I'm not interested in this. You've tried to just be friends. You've tried to fix people. You've tried to change yourself. And none of it's working,

which tells me that there's some kind of siren song. So then we say like, okay, so if none of that stuff is working, then like, why are these people drawn to you? Because what I'm hearing is that people that are drawn to you. It's not even like something you're doing, right? If you think about a siren song, sure, there's intent and they want to crash. And so maybe not a great example.

But what I'm noticing is like the word, it's not that you're doing something. You're not luring them. They are drawn to you. Does that make sense? Like, I'm just observing this based on what you're saying. And I think there's an inhibiting factor of like, I don't see myself the way that these people do. And it's difficult to try and understand it

because I don't feel particularly attractive or interesting. I don't feel like I'm the kind of person that's worth making this much fuss about. In my situation, if I fell for someone and they didn't reciprocate, they didn't want to be with me and they were saying no a lot. I wouldn't keep trying. I wouldn't go, nah, you're making noises if you have a choice.

But you'll like me eventually. I can earn it. Like your attention can be, reward if I'm just epic enough, you know. And I just, I wouldn't think like that. If I have to try to get someone to like me, I'll move on to someone who actually likes me effortlessly. I don't understand why people think that it's worth being degraded and pushed away and just being rejected over and over. For me, I'm not neurotypical. I'm a pain in the ass. Like, most of my friends have to enjoy the odd slap or or asmack or like punch or whatever because of my ticks. And, you know, they're very patient and

And I can't see how having to tolerate someone who's now allowed and brash and annoying and embarrassing to be around. Like the kind of ticks I have, like, we'll be playing chess in a calf and stuff. And I'll be like, do you like dick? And before they've even answered, I'll be like, he likes dick. And just shouting to everyone else in the room. Like, people have to be so patient with me. And I can't see any reason why this happens. And it feels wrong to ask and go, why do you like me?

Why are you willing to go through all this? Why are you willing to put up with all of this? why is it worth putting up with the rejection me not liking you? Why is it worth putting up with my condition? I feel like a very bland and mediocre woman. Do you know how many brunettes with brown eyes

like small? I'm a very average looking person here in the UK. It doesn't feel like the way that people are reacting to me. Nothing that makes sense to me. Nothing that feels usable or changeable. What's their answer? The most common one is that there isn't anyone like me. What do you think about that?

Literally fucking one. What do I do with that? Everyone's unique. It's the most generic aspect of any living being ever. We all have unique experiences. We all have unique personalities. We're all individuals. I literally can't do anything about that. Doesn't help me at all. How does it make, so sure, you can't do anything about it. How does it make you feel? defeated. Why? What's defeating? Because if they could give me an answer that I could use to change the

direction, the shipwreck, if we're going to go with a siren analogy, okay. It's actually a good one, right? Because it ends up as a shipwreck. Yeah. And it's like, I'm not singing because I want the semen to come and crash on the rocks. I'm singing because I'm alone and I want to enjoy something and have fun and be myself. I'm singing because I like the song, not because I like them. They're the ones throwing themselves at me. And the only other option is to sit there silently alone and not be myself, which would make me miserable.

And so I kind of feel like I want to sing my song. I want to be myself. I just don't want it to be a shipwreck for everyone around me. And none of the answers I'm getting are helping me avoid it. I'm going to need to think about that. Is that cool? Mm-hmm. Someone just said, wait till you're in your 30s.

I am in my 30s. owned get wrecked people was like oh it must be so hard people liking you all the time boohoo and no one empathizes with me but the thing is as well I had this illusion that it was all going to end it's kind of tragic how as well because when I was like nine or ten

like I would go to like parties and stuff and like people's people who were had wives in the next room were hitting on me in their 40s. And I thought, and it was creepy and uncomfortable. And what I learned from it was, oh, there are a lot of dudes who crave young people. Like, when I'm

a young teenager, when I've just hit puberty and stuff, this is going to be a problem. But when I'm a grown-up, people won't even like me. Even if I get a husband, they won't even like me, and I'll be free. And I watch this go on and on and on for my mom. She's now 50. And it's still the same problem.

And I'm losing hope because I'm 30, and I have more people doing this to me than ever. Okay. Man, there's just so much here. Okay. Hmm. So many directions. Let me try to tie one thing up,

just something for you to think about. So here's what I see. I see like, as a scientist, I'm making observations. And what I see is that you and your mom seem to be sirens of some sort. Right? So the interesting thing is that the fact that there's something going on here and it's not just the way of the world.

and there's something either that you were doing or exuding that causes people or influences people to react to you in the way that they do, I think the fact that your mom does it or it's happening to your mom makes it more likely that there's something going on here. Right? So either it's genetic or it's like behavioral and because we internalize the mannerisms of our parents. Right. So like, you know, my kids do some of the things.

things that I do, and it's kind of like, it's weird because I'm kind of academic and then, you know, my kids will sometimes be like academic with me. It's kind of bizarre. But like, we pick things up from our family. So I think you've picked something up or there's some sort of genetic pheromone kind of business going on where like we can sort of accept that in a bizarre way, in sort of an outlier way, that men and women even. So that's the real thing, right? It's like, you can have female friends who will fall in love with you and become sexually attracted to you as well. And so there's something going on here. So if there's a phenomenon that is an outlier, it's my experience as both a scientist and a clinician, that there's a pattern there. There's

like some kind of like order to that. And if we try to look at it, we may find something. With me? So, and I'm going to toss out one thing, which maybe I've talked to you about before, but I think one potential hypothesis, because I've seen this in women before. So I worked with a few women who are, you know, the men just seem to be, like, drawn to them, like moths to a flame. And what I tend to find, actually, is that some of these women, I think, you know, this is going to sound kind of weird, but I'm going to use some terminology from, like, the system of, like, yoga and the Hindu tradition, because I think it captures, it's a way of describing the world that I think we don't really have good words or concepts in the West.

So in the tradition of yoga, more specifically tantra, tantra, they sort of talk about a feminine energy. And so that like if you think about the capacity to create life, like comes from women, it doesn't come from men. So the male contribution is generally speaking minimal. And that like if you really think about like, you know, creating a new organism is primarily something that women do, men don't do. And so they sort of equate this to like this kind of feminine energy, which is also like sort of maternal in nature. And if we kind of think about like anthropology and sort of the idea of like maternal figure as like figures and sort of like feminine

energy, like maternal energy, we can even think about it like, you know, we call earth a mother. Right. So it's like mother earth. And so like that which gives life and that which sustains us. You can kind of look at it in a literary fashion. You can look at it sort of in an energetic fashion, which is kind of how the East looks at it. My sense is that you have an energy, right? Because it's weird. It's like it's not just in your behaviors. If we look at it scientifically, we can say it's not the way you look because you look average. It's not what you wear because you've changed that. So you've adjusted all of these variables. And despite any of those variables being adjusted, it makes no difference. Therefore, those variables are

not, those are independent of whatever this thing is. And the best words I can give you is that you've got a particular energy. And I've seen this before because sometimes what happens is like, you're just this authentic person. And that's the answer that you get when you ask people, why are you in love with me? And they say, you're just you. Right. So there's something incredibly pure about what you give off to other people. And so I think that frankly, a lot of men are so starved for authenticity and acceptance. And like, you accept them as a pure friend, right? Like, you don't think about them in lust, in terms of lust.

You don't think about them in terms of rejecting them for being a romantic partner or accepting them for a romantic partner. You treat them for who they are. and you want just a pure friendship with nothing else on the line. And that kind of like authenticity and almost like maternal acceptance, right? It's almost like you're like a mom who's like, you just be you and I'll accept you for who you are. All of your flaws. I've tried to fix people and that shit doesn't work.

So I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm just going to take you for who you are and we can hang out from time to time. I won't judge you. I won't fall in love with you. I won't expect you to buy me dinner. I won't do any of that. I'm just going to be me and you're just going to be you and it's going to be cool and we're going to hang out and we're going to have a good time. And there's something incredibly refreshing about that because

that's not the world we live in. Right? The world that we live in is one of judgment. And you're not good enough. And I want you to be this. And I should be more of this. And I should be less of this. Social media. I should be taller. I should make more money. I'm on Tinder and I'm 5'8. and there are all these profiles that say if you're under six feet, no need to apply. And along comes Anita. And Anita accepts me for who I am. And then this is kind of unfortunate for you. But then what happens is like these dudes get confused.

And what I mean by that is that like, my gender oftentimes doesn't understand what we feel. and we've actually been conditioned to like equate some things like pure acceptance with a romantic relationship. Can I? Yeah. I agree with you, but I found a different path to the same conclusion a while back. Tell me. You see, for me, I don't really believe in femininity and masculinity. I think that if we deny the men are nurturing and caring, then why do we let them be fathers?

Like I think paternity is a thing. I think that the differences between the male and female broad. brain are usually socially conditioned because we live in a society that benefits financially from diverting 50% of labor to an unpaid group. And if you make nurturing and expectation, you get free caring for the elderly and young. You get free nurses. You get you get to pay them a low wage. Yeah, this is your job.

You're a woman. You're supposed to take care of people. They become the therapists and the cleaners and the people who you just maintain shit in the home. if 50% at the workforce is an unpaid or lower paid group, and particularly all the fields that women dominate are a low paid, then it benefits society. I noticed that pattern, but then there are loads of studies that we enforced it.

If you put people in a submissive position, tell them they're not as good or lower them in some sort of way, they immediately adopt feminine traits, regardless of their gender. So they'll start grooming, taking care of people, sucking up to people. It's a thing that people put into a group of submission do, not specifically a female thing. I read lots of studies by neuroscientists who are saying, like the differences between the male and female brain are being overrepresented

and that, you know, I don't think it's because women are naturally nurturing. I think that it's because we don't tell dudes it's okay to feel. From a young age, we point in them and go, big boys don't cry, shut up. This is beneath you. Only women do this. But you're strong, you're better. You're a man. You don't cry.

You don't emote. And we don't give dudes the permission or the space to explore their feelings and verbalize them from a young age. And a lot of people grew up going, I don't know how I feel. sometimes I feel angry, sometimes I feel lust. And these are the two most represented male emotions in media. They beat up their problems and they fuck all the women. And so we give permission to be horny and we give permission to be angry or in control, but we don't give permission to be vulnerable.

We don't give permission to self-assess to talk about feelings. And a lot of people, there's much more suicide among men than women. And when you listen to them, they're saying, I didn't have room to speak. I didn't, I felt like people would call me a pussy. I didn't have room to be vulnerable. I thought I had to be a protector. And so when you put men in this position, In their friend groups, if you talk about your feelings, you're a pussy, and people are scared to speak up.

And from that position, that socially conditioned position, when you make a friend who lets you talk about your feelings, when you make a friend who isn't vying for dominance, when you make a friend who doesn't expect you to be a man, they expect you to be yourself, you see it as a form of intimacy. And the thing is, that's so different to a female friendship. Because when I'm with girls, we talk about our feelings and our dreams. We're allowed to be vulnerable. nobody cares, nobody judges. In that environment, it's fine. And so when women take that level of friendship that they've grown up being used to and do that with a dude, they're like, I've never had this before.

This person cares what I have to say. They're invested in my feelings. They don't judge me. And it's a unique kind of friendship. And to a woman, this looks like friendship. And to a dude, this looks like a form of intimacy they've never experienced before. And so it feels like a higher level of closeness than a friendship. And I've seen this happen a thousand times. Even with other people's friendships, I've seen that mistake. And I know it. I know where to exist. I know that King at the Hill without it is such a relief and that friendships where you get to have a break where you're not judged and you are loved and you do have a space to talk about who you are and discover who you are. Some people are, like, I didn't know who I was or I didn't know how I felt about things until I met you. Giving guys space to be themselves and judged is a really favorite

thing of mine. Tell guys they're beautiful. Compliment the way they look because they don't hear it enough, that sort of thing. But I make it clear from the beginning that I do this with all of my friends. I do it to other friends in front of them so they know it's not floating. I also talk about how it gets misconstrued as flaying so they know that this is a thing and they'll still overestimate the way they feel around me and assume I feel it too even if I start avoiding them when they try to indulge it. And so look, I've communicated about this aspect. I'm not going to drop the way I'm friends with people. I think it's important to show people that they can be supported whether, no matter what dangly do-duds they got going on in their pants. I'm going to

treat a dude the same way I treat a woman and that's fine and I'll let them know it often gets misconstrued and if they still misconstrued it, that's fucking on them. But I swear to God, I make sure they have all the information there and they still do it. And like, I've literally told every male friend ever that I have to tell guys to stop hitting on them. And that if I want to be with someone, I'll make it known first. And I hate it when people hit on me. And they still do it. Okay.

So then let me ask you a question. So if you make things crystal clear for them, what effect do you think that has on all the societal stuff? talked about. None. I don't try to change that. No, no, but like you're saying they're, they've been conditioned, right? And so you tell them, hey, I'm just going to be like friends with you. This is something we discuss things that are emotionally sensitive. I do it with all my friends. I'm going to do it with you too, because that's who I am. And then they discuss their emotions. You guys become an intimacy of a different kind. And then what do you, how do you, how do you, do you expect them to respond?

Well, the thing is, I expect them to see it as friendship because I've laid down how I am friends with people. And they know this is how I interact with people. Great, right? So I'm going to give you an example that's sort of like a bizarre counter example. So sometimes I work with men and women who, and unfortunately, I think this is harder sometimes on women, but they'll have friends with benefits. right? And then like oftentimes what happens is people will be crystal clear at the beginning. And they'll say like, hey, we're just friends. And from time to time, we're going to have like sexual relations. We're going to be friends with benefits. But I don't want to date you. I'm going to be super transparent.

I'm not in love with you. And then both people agree. And then oftentimes what happens is like one person catches feelings. right? And then like the other person gets kind of frustrated because they're like, hey, we talked about this ahead of time. Like we said this was just friends and benefits. We had a conversation about it. I was very clear that I'm not interested in a relationship. And then the other person is now pushing for a relationship. Does that scenario make sense to you? I mean, I know that you tend to be in the opposite.

Yeah. See, what I see there is that you don't choose how you feel. and that if you put yourself repeatedly in a situation that people do often feel in love, that it happens. And the sad thing about emotions is they can escape logic. Like, you can understand how something works and still end up feeling it. Sure. Absolutely, right?

So, as you said, if you put yourself in a situation that people usually feel love, then, like, logic can kind of go out the window and, you know, the emotions can start to take over. So if we look at your relationships where you're emotionally intimate with people and you kind of explain to them for the get go, hey, this is what this is, this is not what this is. And then you do something that is they've, that men are sort of conditioned to feel a particular way. Because usually that kind of emotional intimacy comes hand in hand with a relationship. Then we can kind of see the result, right? Just like you said, it's sort of like you're putting yourself in this situation where, or they're putting themselves in a situation where even though you've explained things,

all that logic, which may be on some level they understand, can kind of go out the window once they start catching feelings because that's what we're talking about, right? Is that they become really, really irrational with the way that they start relating to you. And so I think that there's something to be understood here. Now, I'm not saying that you need to change the way that you interact with your friends because you're allowed to be you. But I can sort of see, like I think if there's a pattern here, there's there's got to be a reason for it.

Yeah. Right. And now we get to what you said earlier, which is sort of like, I don't know what to do about it, right? Because you're not willing to compromise some things. And this gets back to the idea of like self-blame for attraction and responsibility for attraction and things like that. And this is where I think you have to be really, really careful, Anita, because I think there's something going on here, which I don't even think we've touched on.

and I'm not sure what it is. There is some part of me that honestly thinks that given your upbringing, there is some part of you. So when you have a child whose needs are not met, right? And what I mean by that is that like, it's not that anyone was abusive towards you or anything like that, but that literally like there was someone in your household who demanded a lot of your attention

and you had to become a mother very early. right? And so when you have a situation like that, I'm not sure if any of this actually applies to you because I can't actually detect it. I'm just letting you know oftentimes what I see is that like there's a there's a starving for affection or there's a starving for love or there's a starving for something that that child carries with them. And I suspect that the thing that we may be missing here is that in some way you were starved for what. the people are giving you. Because I think the really crazy thing is that any time I see a behavior in someone that seems really, really harmful and maladaptive, there's usually a damn good reason for it. Well, here's the thing. My response to that, though, is that I think I've already taken that part of the journey.

Because when I was a kid, for a start, we had a, we had like, my mom had boyfriends who'd come in and out of my life. I had like a father figure up for a while, but he would snap. He would turn from, he was in our lives for nine years. I was glad we pushed my, like, we pushed away from my dad. I was happy with that decision. I was surprised they stayed together as long as they did. I saw his impact on other people that he ended up raising.

I'm really glad that we stepped away from him. I do not crave a father figure. I did not crave a father figure. I was glad of the space. I've been escaping people my whole life. Usually people were very dangerous. I used to go and break out of my house in childhood and just go walking in the graveyard at like 3am just to be away, further away. No one was bothering me just to be further away from humans.

I was very comfortable, even though I was lonely, being away from people and pretty much seeing them as a threat. And then I did feel very lonely for a while and agoraphobic and scared and sad and alone. And I got in a chain of relationships, one for a year, one for six years, another for six years. And so I coped by putting all of my needs on one person. It was very codependent and unhealthy in a multitude of ways, and it made me put up with a lot of abuse that I didn't and shouldn't have needed to. I came out of that developing a sense of self, proving to myself what I'm capable of and looking for just friends.

And in this, whenever I make friends with people, I don't crave attention. I'm not the kind of person who immediately reacts to DMs and needs to know what they say now. I'm not the kind of person who chases people. I never chase after people. I'm kind of a really lazy friend when it comes to arranging things and seeing people. I can not see someone in months and still feel good that I know them. And so I don't pursue people and I don't feel particularly desperate for attention. And so from that perspective, I don't feel like these people fulfill a need.

The only need I have now is I want platonic friendships. I kind of feel like I don't need the attention and I feel very, very comfortable without it. I spend a lot of time alone and I don't get bored of it or desperate for affection or attention. But I do think that I did go through a time where I had that need and I used to seek it in relationships. I saw how unhealthy it was. I worked through it. I got out of that situation. But with me, I kind of feel as well,

I don't think that these people do fulfill a need. I feel endlessly like they don't fulfill a need because they are looking to fuck me. And it feels too conceited to recognize what's going on early. So I go through this place where they keep pushing my boundaries and I'm trying to make them start. Let me ask you a question. So this is really helpful.

do you think that's being someone who continuously needs to be fucked and and being really frustrated? Does that feeling of who you are fulfill any kind of need? What do you mean? What? It's a weird-ass question. Yeah, absolutely. So not their behavior, okay? But their behavior makes you feel like a particular kind of person.

Right? So you feel a particular kind of person. way when they treat you a certain way, right? And that way, that way feels painful. Yeah. Right? I know it sounds really weird. Really, really weird. I'll give you an example in a second. Does feeling that way feel comfortable or right to you in some way? It feels familiar. And I know that people tend to do this awful dance with things that feel familiar, even if it's not really what they one. Yep. It's called a life trap. People get trapped in a pattern of behavior where they don't want it, but they've known it their whole lives and don't know how to be anything else. And this is why

people who were as sexually abused as children are more likely to end up becoming sex workers, even if it's a very painful thing for them and they don't really want to be there. It's so familiar that it ends up being a life trap. And this is one example of many people who relive something. Freud recognized it as repetition compulsion. And it's one of the few things that he threw out there and it actually stuck. He was wrong about a lot of things, but repetition, compulsion is still something that therapists recognize and work around

and, you know, point out in people to this day. And I knew about this from a young age. I read about it when I was like 9 or 10. I'm going through some pretty horrendous things myself. This is why I felt like I avoided that sort of life trap where I'd end up in a lot of the positions that people with fucked up lives do because I knew that there'd be a risk factor for it

and the familiarity with it. And so I know exactly what you're trying to point out here. am I purposely and wittingly putting myself in positions with that are familiar as a trap, almost like a repetition compulsion. That's literally what I was thinking about. I've already explored this. And what's your sense of it? So I think this was the reason why I tried so many different approaches at interacting with people

and to loads of different people. I thought if I hung out with people who were generally very nice, that maybe mean people wouldn't hang out with me and, you know, I wouldn't end up in the Sliap on all sorts. No, no, no, no, but that's why you tried to do what you do. What do you think about, though? Do I think that I'm in a situation of repetition, compulsion? Yes.

I think I would have to be able to accurately assess why people like me to be able to induce it purposely. I feel like it's difficult to pin, where I went with that is like, can I pinpoint a time where I try to make people attracted to me, where I've hit on them or done things that might seem seductive, and then looked back on it and blamed myself and being like, yeah, my bad, whatever. I can't find anything that suggests.

So here's the thing. So first of all, it may not be repetition compulsion, but it sure as hell sounds like it. Okay. So let me explain to people, because fucking, hey, you were really smart. I mean, I'm very impressed. So here's, here's, so this is why I'm going to just, lay it out for you, okay? So a lot of times I have to like, like, lead people to it or try to catch them with it or something like that, but it's great. So I was absolutely leaning towards

the repetition compulsion. So let's talk about it. So the first thing is that you have a pattern in your social interactions, right? You're an outlier. Your mom is an outlier. So what does that tell us? So either you have something, either, you know, there's either there's a cognitive bias where you're not really an outlier, or there's something going on that is causing people to treat you a particular way. And then what happens is that you say like, okay, if I'm the issue, then I'm going to change myself. And you tried that because you're a scientist at heart. Right. So you tried wearing a trench coat. You tried doing this. You tried doing that. You tried doing this. You tried to change yourself. And then you're like, fuck this. I'm going to stop blaming myself for people being

attracted to me. It's not on me. It's on them. Then you went the route of let me try to change them because that's where the problem is. And that didn't work either. Right. And so then you're like, okay, well, now I don't know what to do because no matter what I do, I find myself in the situation. If I change myself, it doesn't work. If I change them, it doesn't work. I'm screwed. No matter which way I do it, it's incredibly frustrating. I'm incredibly angry. And then you say, okay, fine. So if this is the repetition compulsion, what I need to do is look at people that I'm attracted to, whereas I think that's actually this is where hopefully I can help you.

I don't think that's the case that you need to look at. In fact, I think it's the exact opposite of the case that you need to look at. What I would suspect, okay, and by suspect, I don't necessarily think this is true. I mean,

this is a hypothesis that needs to be tested. Okay? So I'm going to put it to you plainly. I want you to find a case where you do have a friend, where you really have a friend, because what you're telling me is that the relationship evolves over time, right? At the beginning, so sure, there's the barrage of dicks,

but the real tragedy, sure people dehumanize you, all they want to do is get their willy wet, whatever you want to call it. There's that camp of people, but the real tragedy, Anita, really, the place where my heart goes out to you, is that there are some people who don't start out in that camp. And then suddenly they transform on you.

And that's what sounds like it real sucks a bag of dicks, right? that's what's really awful is that you have people who are your friends and then like this beast comes out of them where they like turn into everyone else the explanation I've heard is that they had the intentions from the start they just didn't feel comfortable expressing them and so yeah I wonder how many are people that grew an attraction and how many people were just playing the long game because I've had people throw tantrums, you know, the supposed nice guys who are like, I listen to your problems, I hung out with you.

I bought you a coach at one time. Yeah, and they're like, I'd like to cash in. I'd like to cash in all of those things now. Yeah. Turning in my tickets. Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. And, you know, you get a lot of people who, this is why I always get scared about talking

about demasexuality. I made a video about it explaining what it was. It took demosexuality. Who was that? I'm not attracted to people at all. I am unreceptive to visual stimuli. I thought I was asexual for so fucking long. And it turns out that I need a longstanding emotional connection

and a sense of familiarity to see people through a sexual lens. I can't feel attracted to strangers. I've never had a crush on a celebrity. Nothing. It just does not work. Ladybone does not happen to porn. Nothing. Turns out that there is a group of people like this.

Most people are capable of crushing. We're not. I have never felt attracted to anyone I didn't know. and it's usually people I've only known for a few years that I've ever been able to see in a sexual way or be attracted to, ever. And so this is called demisexuality so that people can connect with people

who are like this too, because it kind of feels alien in a society where Tinder exists. And you look at people's face and you swipe and you know whether or not you want to sleep with them based on that one trait alone from the start. And so a lot of people are lacking that.

And I just am lacking it. It's dead. I don't know what happened. I was just born without the ability to just be attracted to strangers. can. And you wouldn't think that was an unusual thing. Plenty of people, oh, I prefer a connection too. But you can watch porn and you can like have a celebrity crush and shit.

Like you're capable of a superficial attraction. I'm just not. And it comes with trials and tribulations, but I'm so scared about talking about it. Because it makes people play the long game. So like I, when I make new friends with guys and stuff, I don't say it. I don't talk about it. And, you know, people ask me what I look for in a man all the time. in chat and I'm just like, why would it tell you what to pretend to be to get close to me?

Like, I'm so wary about it. But, yeah, I do have to wonder, like, it's so hard. I know where you're trying to lead me here, and I've thought about it too. Where am I trying to lead you? Well, you're trying to lead me down there. Well, what makes people suddenly be attracted to me during a friendship? And it's so hard to collate the data on whether that's actually the problem, or if a lot of people disguise their attraction to me and wait because they know it takes a long time for me

to know whether I'm attracted to anybody in the first place. And so it's very, very difficult for me to assess reliably at all, whether or not it's true that friends fall in love with me or if people just play the long game. So I think that's actually like a great answer because that tells us, I think, where the darkness and potentially where the answer is. Right? So like you're saying it's hard for you to assess. And I think that's exactly why you're in this situation.

Because one of the hypotheses, so there's a number of hypotheses, right? And I would say that given everything about your history, this reeks of something like repetition compulsion or something like pheromones. And I tend to put more stock in the former than the latter. And what I'm really, really curious about, I would love to see if there are interactions that you have with people who are potentially friends, which you unwittingly push into a weird space, right? And that may be something as simple as someone who actually could be a friend of yours. You, or like, it could be like a weird kind of selection bias where you say you're not really good

at keeping up with friends. And so there may be like, let's say that there are 10 people that you encounter and you're not good at keeping up with friends. So the ones that would actually end up being friends you sort of don't keep up with and who's left are the people who are secretly obsessed. Yeah, that is something that has been a running theory of mine for a while. Right. Yeah. Yeah, people who wake up every day and ask how you're doing in the morning and stay good night at night.

Like most of my friends aren't like that, but the people who are interested in me will try to talk to me every single day, even if they don't always rely. Yeah, so, so, I mean, there are a lot of things going on here. here, which I think like, whether wittingly or unwittingly, like, there are influences, and this is kind of what I was saying, where I'm not saying that you should blame yourself for, like, being in this situation, sort of. It's not really about blame. It's about recognizing that if there's a pattern in your life, thinking about it critically, looking at it critically, which clearly you've done a shitload of. And I think that's why, I mean, it's amazing,

Anita, how far you've come, given the hand that you're dealt. And that's what actually, frankly, is so gratifying to me about having this conversation is because I've seen people who are at every stage of where you are, but I've never actually seen someone at this stage. I've seen people who are in the six-year codependent relationship because their mother was sick when they were growing up and they learned how to be like a mother at a young age. I've seen that. Right? I've seen a kid. Right? So you've been all of those things. And now you're in this really weird kind of situation where unfortunately one of the real challenges in life is that when we solve the, as we solve they start to get more and more subtle, right? So you've done a lot of personal growth. You've

developed a lot of confidence. You've tried to change yourself for other people. You've tried to change other people. You've figured out, no, that stuff works. So now we're getting to, and this yoga talks a lot about this, that like the most difficult problems to solve are the subtlest. And I think what we're really dealing with is like really, really small stuff, probably in the early stages of your potential friendships, where either there's a selection bias or you steer things. And a certain way, or there are unconscious reactions that you have that cause you to deviate

towards the familiar, right? And then there's also like really, really simple epidemiologic stuff, which is like you're a Twitch streamer. So you're going to attract a certain kind of person. But what I'm hearing from you is that doesn't seem to be that big of a deal, because it sounds like you have a lot of interactions outside of Twitch

and stuff like that and you should run into normal people. But and the last thing is that you do use the word friends. So it sounds like you actually have friends. which has been confusing me for a while. So I have my editor. I've known him for 10 years. He's amazing.

He's never hit on me ever. He's always gone for a different kind of person, which has been oddly comforting to me. We've done a lot of rusky work together, but we don't have a close friendship. And a behavior, well, we do in some ways, but not most. So what I consider a close friendship is someone I spend a lot of time with, and I find it really, really difficult to do that with people.

One of the reasons why I'm underinvested in friendships is because if I feel like I spend too much time with someone, that it can fall apart. Like you give more room for mistakes, for misunderstandings, for bitterness, this sort of stuff. So if you hang out with someone once every couple of months, you play a few games with them here and there, they are at the right distance

where they can't get over-invested in the friendship and start hitting on you. But you also don't actively annoy them. And if you are mildly annoying, like once or twice, you won't happen loads and loads in a week and you lose them. So I do hope people at that distance. Yeah, but that's what I'm fucking talking about. That's like, this is what I'm talking about.

Like, you know this shit, right? And you're like, why don't I have friends? And you're like, it's because I hold people at a distance because I'm afraid if they get too close, then they're going to fall in love with me. Yeah. I have a handful of friends that I've known for years and I love them deeply.

And I feel like it's partly because I've kept them at just the right distance. I feel like I get to hang out with them, really love those days they spend with them. Do you want to spend more time with them? No, because then awful things might happen. Okay, so see, that's where, so you do this thing a lot where I sometimes ask you what you want, and instead of answering what you want, you talk about what's going to happen. True. But those are, there is what you want, and there is what's going to happen.

Absolutely. But I'm just saying it's important for you to not confluence. the two. I'm not disputing that that's what's going to happen because that's been your experience. But I suspect that something around this realm of stuff, right? Like, if you have a pattern that repeats in your life, are you responsible for it? Like, should you blame yourself if men are attracted to you and change what you wear and stuff like that? Like, I don't want to go down that road. But at the same time, I do feel that as a human being, you have some degree of agency and control over your life. And, in fact,

fact here in your story, I think exemplifies that principle, that you were a particular way, and you started to make changes in the way that you treated yourself. You started to make changes in the kinds of people that you hung out with. And you're no longer in codependent relationships with arguably abusive people. And the next step, I think, is one of subtlety, where you found that, okay, you keep people at arm's length and they're kind of friends for a while, and if you're too emotionally intimate with them too quickly, they tend to fall in love with you, and some of them play the long game. And why, you're, and some of them play the long game. whatnot and whatnot and whatnot. All that I think is perfect. But I think you just keep on moving in that

direction. Keep on paying attention to yourself and try to accelerate a friendship a little bit more. And be careful because I suspect that sometimes, so there's old pattern territory, which is like emotionally intimate friendships. And then there's new safe friendships, which are kind of temporally distant or geographically distant or emotionally distant in like drips. and drops at regular intervals that doesn't cross the line into the old familiar territory. But I think the closer you get to that border and the more you pay attention to yourself, there's no fucking way, Anita, that if you don't explore this more, you're not going to learn something valuable.

I just don't buy that. The one thing that I have absolute confidence in is that if you understood the repetition compulsion at the age of nine and you grew up with your mom and then you had a toxic amount of positivity and self-deprecation and putting other people first and then you show up a few months later pissed at the whole world. That's an immense amount of growth. I think if you just keep yeah. I don't know. I think it's hard from this session to really understand what is a jump and what's not. I kind of feel like, so I do think that my generosity is real. I do think that my urge to connect with others and be beneficial to others is real. I don't think it's an issue. I don't think

that just because I grew up a carer, that altruism isn't fucking real. I don't think that it's a floor with me. I don't think that I'm deranged. I don't think that I donated a thousand pounds to you because I'm hot potatoing other people's generosity. I think that there's something intrinsic in all of us that feels good when we do good and it doesn't have to benefit us directly. I think that's real in people that have suffered just as much as people you haven't. I think it's real in me even though I had a fucked up childhood. I don't think it's a symptom. I think it's an aspect and a positive aspect of me. And I think that the more that you, I know it's very easy,

there is this risk when you're a therapist that you draw false correlations sometimes because you're so used to this pattern. And I do it myself, even though I'm not being a therapist to others, but one of the common things is like a lot of therapists who receive children who've been put into foster care or have been, you know, have lost both their parents. They tend to think that people who've lost both their parents

tend to be criminals or have issues. Or people who've been, no, a bet one is people who've been abused in childhood. They think that it unanimously makes people abuses because most of the people who come to them are people who have negative results from that childhood experience. But the people who grow up to be healthy, the people who grow up to be great, and the people who grow up without issues and, you know, get past it, never show up a therapist door, so they never see them.

And so there's this idea that a higher percentage of people who have childhood trauma have issues, than actually do. Because believe it or not, sometimes people go through hard shit and get over it. What are you hearing you say? I'm hearing you say that this is somehow my fault,

that this is a psychological phenomenon, that my generosity is a result of being a carer and be, not having my needs met. And that the reason why people fall in love with me is because I'm just repeating some traumatic cycle. But at some point, I've got to stop taking responsibility for other people's problems.

And I'm definitely not the only fucking woman, who gets hit on and says no one doesn't get heard. Because a dude's thinking more about his dicks than the way he's affecting the people that he's attracted to. I definitely think that is something that I've experienced and it's part of it too. But also I think that if I keep on switching my behaviour and constantly adjusting myself

so I don't trigger the weak wills of some people, male or female, that I won't have any room to be my fucking self. Because I'm so preoccupied with how people are reacting to me and what they might or might not do, that I won't be able to just enjoy connecting with people and being myself. So I think that has to be room for the idea that maybe not all of it is me,

because other people do experience this too. There is a problem with men respecting brownries and thinking the friend zone is a zone and not just know. Like people call it cute zones so they can be all creepy and go, I don't have to listen to this. I can make you like me

because it's just a cute little zone I'm in and I can step out of it, not consent or anything. I'm not a weirdo ignoring your consent. And I'm so tired of these conversations. I'm seeing it in chat and I'm just kind of exploding a little bit because everyone's like, you just don't understand biology. Dudes can't be friends with whammon or you need to change this about you.

You're just whining about being attractive. Oh, boo-hoo. I don't sympathize. Fuck you. And I'm so tired of being hated on and blamed when people hit on me, when people fucking try to feel me up when I'm drunk and shit. I'm so tired of being blamed when other people do this stuff because they ignore what I'm saying. And I'm so tired of adjusting myself.

being this, being that, being cold, being soft, being warm, being friendly, fucking punching people in the face. I'm tired of wearing this, wearing that. I'm tired of being held responsible for the way that people behave. When the truth of the matter is that my no is not a zone that you get out of, it's a fucking no. So let me clarify. So you're saying that I'm saying that this is your fault and that you create this because of some psychological thing that happened in your childhood. that your altruism is a reaction to some sort of psychological trauma. That's what you're hearing me say.

It is. Sometimes I feel like you're directing me to a sense of responsibility for other people's actions when we don't control them. And it's not always because I'm attracting people. I am thinking the roots that you're taking me. I've spoken to therapists in the past. And I've talked about how I interact with people. I've talked about why. I've talked about why with people that I've stopped being friends with.

I've had very sober, cold conversations with people who turned into fucking creeps and gone, why did this happen? I don't want it to happen again. And I have also talked to therapists about why. And what I hear from you sometimes is that you're diagnosing not just my altruism, but other people's disrespect of my boundaries, which I'm far too accommodating of. I let it go on for too long and that's on me. I know it is.

But I do give clear signs that people should listen to along the way. And I do think that it's not just me. I do think that there are things that other people have to take responsibility for to, and it's something it took me a long time to recognize. Yeah, so just curious. So thank you for clarifying that. And I apologize for conveying that sentiment. So I just want to make sure I want to apologize appropriately. So I want to make sure I understand what am I diagnosing you with? So you see it as a repetition compulsion that there's some aspect of my behavior that traps me specifically. in this loop. That there is an active aspect of my behavior that makes people behave in a way that they shouldn't. Okay.

So I actually, I agree with some of that. So let me try to clarify. And then you let me know if an apology is appropriate. I'm happy to because I, this conversation just took a turn that was really not where I was intending to go. And if I made a mistake, I'm more than happy to apologize for it. I just really want to understand what that mistake is. So the reason I brought up the repetition compulsion with you is,

so let me walk you through my reasoning and then you let me know whether an apology is appropriate or not. So generally speaking, human beings tend to encounter common situations in life, right? Like we run into the same problems over and over and over again. And here's what I heard you say. So I heard you say that you run into this problem over and over and over again and it's hard for you to make friends because they don't respect your boundaries. and sometimes you're overly accommodating and things like that. Fine. I accept that. I accept that you're

in the situation that you're in. I accept that it's very difficult for you to make friends. I accept that people start with friendship and then ask for more. I accept that you have tried to change yourself to accommodate them, right? You've tried to transform yourself to control their behavior. And that's not fair to you. And that's not the right answer, which I agree completely. You've also tried to change them, which isn't your... a fucking responsibility because it's their job to change themselves. You're not responsible for changing someone else. I completely agree with that. And so then we end up with this reality, right? Because that's what you're telling me, Anita, is that irrespective of you trying to change

yourself and irrespective of you trying to change other people, you're fucking stuck and people don't respect you. They don't respect your boundaries. Either they're just looking to get their wheelie wet or they're playing the long game or at the end of the day they start out as friends and then something happens, and then even though you've been crystal clear, you wind up in this situation. We are on the same page there. Is there anything about that

that you think I have done wrong or unfair or that I should apologize for? So far. No, not in that aspect. Okay. The parts that I catch you with were the parts where you start using words like at some point you have to take responsibility for, you know,

this pattern and those sorts of words where it's, still my fault that some people can't respect boundaries because this is a mountain to stuff that's very, very serious that most people know is wrong regardless of my behavior. I could cartwheel down the street naked and I still don't deserve to be assaulted and stalked. Completely. Yeah. So let me try to add some nuance to that.

And if that still feels like it's wrong to you, please let me know. Okay. So here's the challenge. So I'm stuck between a rock and a heart place. because as a human being, I accept that you are who you are and I think you should accept yourself for yourself. I also accept that I don't control other people's behavior

and I'm not responsible for other people's behavior. And so then the question becomes, what is my role in life? What do I control? What is the part of my life that I have agency over? And what I find is that the more that people accept, that you do have some influence in it. Right?

Like at the end of the day, if I find myself in a situation over and over and over again, I would hope, and part of what I absolutely try to do is to help people understand that you have some power to change this. Because Anita,

if there's one fucking thing that you've demonstrated to me, it's that you have the power to change your life. Think about where you grew up. Think about the co-revevellinger. codependent relationships you have. Think about where you are now. Think about all the way you've come. What do you think? You think other people did that? You did that? Right? The person that you were

started to shine through and you helped her out. I don't think that I think your altruism is absolutely genuine. I think it's part of what makes you amazing. I think you're incredibly authentic. And I think it confuses the shit out of some people who have been societally conditioned in a bad way. I don't think that's your fault. I don't think you should change who you are. And at the same time, I have to acknowledge and I really do believe that you have some agency over your situation.

I don't think that woe is me is like, like absolutely woe is you. But if anyone has the capacity to navigate this tricky shit, it's you. And I do believe that you have some power here, that you have some control here. And I think when I say that, what either consciously or unconsciously, I'm signaling or what you're receiving is that it's your fault. And that's a really tricky place to be in, right? Because like, if we accept that we have power to change something, then it becomes, in a sense, our fault.

So I think that your interpretation of my words is sort of inappropriate. It's just not meant to be blamed. It's just like you can't have agency without responsibility. The two come hand in hand. And the emotional response that I got from you, which I've seen emotions, which I think is completely authentic. And now I'm not trying to like, oh, you emotionally responded, therefore you're wrong. So like, don't take it that way. But I think there's something really important there, right?

I don't know what it is. And what I'm really trying to say is that there's a road for it. I have to hope. Like so anytime I sit with someone in need that, I don't, part of what I try. try really hard to do. Part of what I try to have agency and control over in myself is to hope that your situation can get better. And in what ways can your situation get better? And that's why I talk about the fucking psychological shit, because I think you already understand this stuff. And I think that you're a human too. And what I see is that you've exhausted a lot of really good options.

You try to change the way that you dress. You try to fix other people and neither of them worked. So I think there's something in the middle there, right? And we kind of see it in your patterns of friendship that either people get overly invested in your friendship or you keep them at arm's length. And that makes me sad because that's not what you want. You want something between those two things. Right? And so then the question is what I'm encouraging you to do and what I'm really saying that you should do is over here is safety but emotional distance and over here is intimacy and people. misconstruing what you say. There's something there in the middle. And as you move towards

something in the middle, I want you to really understand. And if this is something that you take issue with, please let me know. As you navigate that tightrope in the middle, I absolutely believe you have some control over how that turns out. Yeah. Someone in chat saying something really interesting about this, and I don't normally, we'll talk, I don't normally bring up, but someone saying, I think the disconnection here is partially as a result of the implied default dynamic associated with therapy. Therapists specialize in individual problems, but what Anita seems to be struggling with is more of a societal problem.

That being that men are rarely discouraged from overstepping their boundaries. I don't think Dr. Kay is going to, I don't know what the zooming to first, is going to, going out of his way to downplay that factor in this conversation, but is his profession. And I do think there is an intersection here between the fact that this is not something that is entirely controllable or influence. easy to influence because there is a societal aspect at play and it is impossible for it to be consistent as well because the overstepping of boundaries can vary so much this is why I was looking

for patterns so I could interrupt the pattern absolutely so so I think that person is spot on and this is frankly why the deck is stacked against you and this is why I think that you haven't figured it out already right because it there is like finding that balance is really hard because there is this societal conditioning. And that's what I was like, the whole maternal Shakti thing that I was kind of talking about is like this idea that I think you are giving someone an authentic version of yourself and they've been conditioned

to interpret that a different way, which is not your fault. And I don't think you should change who you are. I think who you are is awesome. And what I'm saying is that in the middle there, it behooves you to think about this psychological shit like the repetition compulsion. Because one of two things is going to happen. On the one hand, sure, maybe I'm judging you and I'm saying,

oh, this is the repetition component, blah, blah, blah, blah, fraud, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is what's going on with you, Anita. I have it all figured out. I don't give a shit about that. I don't give a shit about figuring you out. What I'm saying is if there's any mileage to be picked up there to get you in the direction that you want to go, if there's even 1% of the repetition compulsion that lets you walk that tightrope, fucking look at it.

And rather than me analyzing it, you're the one who used the phrase a repetition compulsion. so I'm like, damn right, Anita, see if that's what's going on. I can't give you answers, Anita. I can't give you conclusions. The most I can do is give you hypotheses. Yeah. And there's something here where I think that you should be authentic. You should be who you are.

And you've got the deck stacked against you in terms of societal conditioning. And I choose to hope that you don't have to be trapped in this situation together and that you can move one step closer to that midpoint. And I think doing so is going to involve looking at not the drastic sets of your behavior, but really studying how you interact with people. Because I think any relationship is a two-way street. I also know that first-person perspective, it's very easy to miss things that the person perspective would get far more easily. It's like my aim is terrible when I'm first person, but when I'm third person in a shooter, I can suddenly actually connect with the headshots and click hits. And so I think I've asked my closest friends who are with me when things

have happened and gone, did I do anything to make him think that I'm attracted to him? Did I do anything to make him think that this was okay? And so far, the resounding aspects that I, I don't miss this, I see it, but I don't know how to avoid it. It's like they were saying, well, he pushed boundaries here and here and here. And normally, I'd have gotten pissed off, punched him, kicked him away, you know, kicked him to the curb. And you were forgiving. Like you did say, you know, yeah.

See, that's one of the things that really, really frustrates me because I think like that's, the problem there is that I don't, if you're a forgiving person, like, I think that's a good thing. Right? I'm looking for option C, which is not for you to be less forgiving or for him to not put, Like, I want you to continue to be who you are and find some road through this. And I completely agree with you with the first person, third person stuff. So I think actually what you've got to figure out, Anita, is why this happens to your mom.

Yeah. Well, when I look at my mom, because I thought about that too, and I look at my mom and she's very, very capable. So, like, everything about her is just genuinely admirable and awesome. And there are aspects of it that don't apply to me. For example, pretty much most of her boyfriends have been gay, like, completely. completely gay, like never had a girlfriend before or after her. And the thing is, like, she has our own life traps and things like that. And she's helped me learn to escape a lot of bad things just by learning from the lessons

of her life. I'm grateful for her failings as much as her, like, positives just because it's helped me to grow in many ways and navigate the world. But, like, so I'm not going to fault her for them. I can understand how she ends up in some of the situation she's in. But I also think that she's just generally a brilliant woman. She really is. She's very impressive in many, many different ways. She looks young frayed. She's very beautiful. She's like really unique. She's like this goth. And she has like really great makeup and really

great personality. And she's interested in all these cool things. She's a fantastic artist. She's a scientist. She's a photographer. She was a dancer. And she has a myriad of other. She was a kickboxer. And she competed against men and won things because she was very, very good at it. Everything she tries a hand that she's amazing at. And to this day, she's really crippled by a very, very debilitating illness. And she still finds ways to create beautiful things and do very impressive things. She's just very, very amazing in every respect. And a lot of guys don't just look at her and think, I like her. They think, I want to be her. This is why so many gay guys like her as well, because they don't just like her. They want to be her. She is the, if they could be a woman,

they would be her sort of thing. And so there's a lot of admiration involved. And I've noticed that because I see it on Twitch chat a lot. A lot of guys don't have to be attractive. They can be very average and be huge on this platform. They don't have to be attractive. And the thing is, when guys are young, they're not taught to relate to women. Nobody dresses up as Princess Leia when they're kids.

No dudes are allowed to dress as women. It has a stigma attached to it. And so when people aspire to be us, they're usually women, other women. Not a lot of dudes actually relate to us as if they want to aspire to be like us because there's some sort of mental block there, where admiration equals attraction.

And so usually with me, people don't usually relate to me. They aspire to be with me. When they see positive traits about me, they confuse it with attraction rather than just relating to you or taking inspiration from another human being. It's a trap that a lot of female streamers fall into where we get heavily policed for behavior

that big male streamers don't. Men can be toxic and it can be fun to watch. But when women are toxic, nobody wants to be with a woman who is toxic. So it's not as entertaining because it puts you off them. Whereas if you found us generally, relatable if you were trying to relate to us rather than possess us, these things wouldn't get an entirely different reaction from the audience. And so I see it manifest a lot in Twitch,

I see it as a very, very big thing. And so a lot of people don't just, a confusion with admiration and attraction. I see. And so a lot of guys conflate admiration with attraction if the person they admire happens to have female genitalia. It's very, very difficult to separate the two. And so when it's the opposite sex or the sex that you're attracted to. And so a lot of people admire my mother. And so they can flate that with attraction. It becomes attraction because that's how men are comfortable admiring women. They're not encouraged from a young age to admire women from an aspirational perspective.

And my mom is very, very admirable in every sense of the word. Are you? I don't know. I don't admire me. But my mom is just like different to me. Let's just think about what you're saying, right? So what I'm like if I put, so I'm going to create a constellation out of the stars that you laid. So this could be my interpretation.

So you let me know if this is fair or unfair, okay? So I'm interpreting something here. So people conflate admiration with attraction. So you're saying that your mom is very admirable. I asked you why does this happen to your mom? And then you went on the on this thing about admiration and attraction. Fine. Okay.

Cool. Let's accept that. So therefore, the reason that people. you know, bump heads when they try to kiss your mom's hand is because they're conflating admiration with attraction. And now what's happening is you're talking about Twitch. And then you segue to Twitch. And you segue to, you know, double standards between female streamers and male streamers. Totally get that. And so now what, what I'm, if I kind of put that consolation together, because those are parts of the same conversation, which started from the question of why are

people attracted to your mom. And what I would piece together is that part of the reason that people are attracted to you is because they admire certain qualities about you, and then they conflate those with attraction. I don't know if that's true. I don't really see myself as a very admirable person. Right? So like, let's think about that, right? So like, I don't know. Okay, so I'm going to try to be, okay, so I asked you a question. Why are people attracted to your mom? And you said they conflate admiration with attraction. And then you talk. talked about Twitch and then you are like, you know, like people. Anyway, so I think there are a lot of qualities about you that are very admirable. And if you're confused about why people are attracted

to you and why this keeps happening, like my point is that this confusion can be understood, right? Like, your confusion about why this pattern happens, I believe, as a scientist, generally speaking, if you look into patterns, you can find answers. That is also a fault of my profession, because my profession is filled with unfalsifiable hypotheses. Right? So I can dig into like whatever kind of theory I want to and you can say whatever you want to and I can still convince myself that I'm right and you're wrong.

That you're just in denial. That's the trump card of the therapist. My patient is in denial, right? So I have to watch out about that cognitive bias, which is why I'm laying it out to you and I'm trusting you and Ida because you've fucking come this far. You haven't done this shit with my help. The best I can do is give you hyperboise,

hypotheses, and then like the person that you are that has gone from where you were when you were a kid to the person that you are now, I have faith that that person can figure that shit out. If I can help him out a little bit, great. So here's the last thing I'll leave you with, okay? Maybe the reason that it's confusing that people are attracted to you is because you don't see what they find admirable. You don't see yourself as admirable, whereas they find you is very admirable. Maybe you're actually a really admirable person. right maybe maybe you can talk about your mom and how she creates art and this kind of stuff and you have some kind of standard in your mind whatever but that if i were to tell to you and and i was going to sound weird but like let's just lay this out right you're an authentic person you genuinely care about people you go out of your way to try to help people you care about animals you often times put other people ahead of yourself you're intelligent you think about societal problems you're self-reflective you're a streamer on twitch you're charismatic you're when people attack you with toxicity, you respond with humor. You wear a hat on your head that says simp. You joke about being bald and then normalize that experience for other people. You take something that is one of the most shame-inducing things in the world for men, let alone women. If you want to talk about double standards there, talk about baldness.

And then you scratch your head when people think you're admirable. Well, thank you. I don't think there's a lot of room for women to see themselves as admirable. I think it's very, very difficult because there are songs about how the most attractive thing about a woman is when she doesn't know she's attractive. There are bits in TV shows and sitcoms, find a girl with low self-esteem because they'll do more in the bedroom. People don't like women who have good self-esteem.

The minute you ever try to like yourself, people try to rip it from you constantly and call it narcissistic and conceited will chisel and carve a beautiful statue of a woman. woman and we'll call it beautiful. But if we put a mirror in her hand, we'll call it narcissism. We'll call it vanity. That same statute because she's admiring the same view everybody else is. It's so difficult to build any self-esteem in this environment. And I think a lot of guys are very heavily intimidated by the idea that someone might know their worth because a lot of people are insecure and they think if you like yourself, you'll realize that you deserve better than me. And I've seen that and I've had men say it to me. I've had my, I've battled with my self-esteem,

my whole life. And it's very, very difficult to even look for long enough to come to any conclusions because it feels dangerous. Everyone will hate me if I ever admire myself. This is a scary line of thought. I don't know how to compliment myself. I don't know how for it. How it can be okay. I don't know if this is a safe thing to talk about. Let's change the subject. Because everyone compliments you, but nobody wants you to believe it. And people get offended and take it back if you ever do. If you ever want proof of this, there are whole compilations of women accepting compliments on the internet where guys are like, oh, I didn't know you were full of yourself. I take it back, you know? And so I don't know if it's something that I am ever not going to find confusing

because I don't live in a world and a space where it's safe for me to ever admire myself. I don't think it's comfortable to sit and think about myself positively. I'm really, I feel panicked when I do. You know, like when you're in a stealth game and slowly you get more and more noticed, like you're off in the distance and the NPCs can't quite see you yet, that there's like a rumble pack letting you know that you're about to be seen and you need to hide. And if you stand still long enough, everyone panics and knows you're there and starts attacking you. I feel that little rumble pack warning emotionally, anytime I try to think about anything positive about myself. And I know where it comes from and I see it in other women and I don't think it can be

remedied. I don't think I'm in a position to ever not find this confusing because it's not not safe for me to be okay with myself, to have any self-esteem, let alone compliment myself. And I know that's an issue which makes it really hard to assess what you're putting towards me. You're asking me to see and assess any positive attributes of myself. And I'm saying that emotionally in society, societyly, I'm not in a position to do so. If this is the answer, it's going to be the hardest hurdle of my life to ever clear because I have to accurately and comfortably see positives in myself. And it's just really fucking scary and hard.

So I need it. You've put me in an interesting position. You've put me in a position where having faith in you burdens you. Right? Because my instinctual answer is, I'm glad you understand it. My instinctual answer is, if I have faith that you can do it, it can to be hard? Absolutely. Is society running against you? Absolutely. Do you live in a world where you're not allowed to do that? Absolutely. I won't disagree with any of those things.

And now we get to the bias of an individual person, a psychiatrist versus a sociologist. So the person in your chat was spot on. So my experience has been that if you want to change the world, this is just mine. I'm not saying it's the only way to do it. My way of trying to change the conditioning of the world has been through self-reflection. Walk this journey yourself and then just let other people watch. And there's a part of me that says it's scary, it's hard. It's insensitive me to say, just try anyway. Because if it's too hard, it's too hard.

If you're never going to be able to do it, then that's cool. That's fine. I accept that. If you choose that you don't want to try, I accept that too. what I don't accept is that it's going to be impossible for you because Anita if there's one thing you've demonstrated to me it's that you've defied the impossible you've done a lot of things

that I've talked to a lot of women who say this is impossible I've talked to a lot of women in an abusive unhealthy codependent relationships and literally you know why they don't leave because it's impossible to leave yeah people feel trapped absolutely And so who am I going to put my money? I'm going to put my own money on fucking you.

Because you felt trapped before and you've come out of it again and again and again. And so I recognize. Yeah, go hope. Go for it. How do you balance self-esteem? Because this is something that I think a lot of people would benefit. A lot of people that are watching us right now are going to be. The demographic for Twitch is American dudes in IT.

Most of them are people that, you know, are not going to relate to the issue of me having too many people fall in love with me. But what they are going to relate to you, I think this benefits everyone listening to you right now is how do you reliably house self-esteem? Because people don't buy shit unless they feel of shit. The whole world has a whole economy based on making us feel inferior and insecure because it makes you buy shit to fix it and solve problems that aren't really there. We're all told from a young age we should feel insecure. you. And I have the additional aspect of like everyone's like your whole value is to be attractive and you should try to be attractive. But if you feel attractive, we'll hate you and that's unattractive. So you have to be attractive and you have to be awesome and perfect and have

a great personality and be fun and like computer games like me and do this and do that, right? And eat loads of food but simultaneously stay really slim. I love a luck girl who eats so long as she's like anorexic. So like there are loads of double standards that are so hard to live up to. It's so hard to feel like you're on the right track because people criticize you. ever stuck as a way? How do you have good self-esteem? And then if you do manage to like something about yourself, you hold onto it in a world that just hates you if you ever acknowledge it. It's a very good question. It's the right question, which is more important. Because I think that applies to everyone here. I don't, I barely know anyone who genuinely is like,

fuck yeah, I'm awesome. Can I think about that for a second? It's a hard question to answer. Okay, Anita, so I don't know if I can answer the question generally, but I think I can answer it for you. So the first thing is that I think you're actually well on your way. You are walking the path that in my experience leads to self-esteem, which is in the first phase denial, right? Like, oh, I'm not angry. Other people are better than I am, things like that. I'm using psychological terms that can be judgmental, but just a,

if you go back and watch our first interview, it was like, I'm not worth it. Right? and now you're saying something else, which is that I do deserve this, and it's frustrating that I'm not getting it. And to me, you feel very different today than the first time we talked, because you are so much more transparently angry, right? Which I think is actually great. And I think that I actually, I don't want to say this. I think you're going to find your way there because you're saying all of the things that I think people need to do. Because you're saying that I've been alone and I feel it's fantastic.

I get to be with myself. I get to prioritize myself. You're building self-esteem with each one of those steps. You're saying, I'm going to do what I want to do. You're learning how to not give in to other people's boundary violations because they're not right for you. Right? Because you used to let people trample you and now you're like frustrated because you tell them to go fuck themselves and you end up with, you know, terminating the relationship and then you feel really sad and frustrated. But at least you're drawing that boundary.

Right. you can't draw that boundary unless you have some esteem for yourself. Because you used to put them ahead of you and you just let them cross all over it. But you stopped doing that. So I think that the bizarre thing is you say, how do I have self-esteem? I don't have it. And this is the part of me where now I get to be real arrogant. I think you have more self-esteem than you realize.

It's just so fucking foreign to you. You don't know what it looks like. True. It's not consistent yet. There are still people who cross my boundaries and I still flounder a bit. It's not fully there yet. Sure. I'm still struggling.

But I have no idea of like that this is unacceptable and that's new. So what I said is that you're on the path. Right? And I think if you keep doing what you're doing, you'll get there. Right? Because I have faith in the person who has brought you this far. Because she's in your corner and she's caring about you. She learned how to care about herself.

she learned how to put herself above other people, right? And that person also willingly puts other people ahead of her. It's not like a good thing or a bad thing. Like you can be genuinely altruistic. It's totally fine. And I think that as you learn to continue to navigate yourself, as you start to look at your relationships more closely, as you start to navigate what agency you do have in relationships,

I think that self-esteem will grow. and you you still accept what I say about you as a compliment. You say thank you. The question is, do you believe I'm right? I have a mental block there. Like, I keep trying to access the thought and it shuts down. Okay, right? So that's what we need to work on.

Yeah. And we'll work on it. We'll work on it. It takes time. It takes time. And if you can't accept it as true, like sure, I'm, you know, I accept that. it you don't accept it. And I'm going to continue thinking that about you and I'm going to continue

feeling that way about you, even if you don't accept it for yourself. Well, thank you. Right? Because you don't get to control my feelings. I get to feel about you the way that I want to. And you get to respond to that however you want to. You get to say, I'm never going to talk to you again because it makes me uncomfortable. And you get to do that. That's your line in the sand to draw. Well, thanks. Well, at the very least, you've identified the bits, because usually these mental blocks where every time I try to access the thought, it doesn't let me. I've had that before. I used to have him with anger, things like that.

Oh, I'm telling you. Yeah, go ahead. No, tell me. Dude, you feeling angry is like, I'm so happy for you. I'm telling you. It's coming out. You've got to clean out that trash. Right?

You've got to take it out of the trash can and it'll come out. And you're entitled to that anger because you've had to deal with this shit for so long. And let, you know, just let, like, feel that, baby. Just feel it. And let yourself be wronged because that's what's happened. Right. But you can't know that you're being wronged unless you, on some level, know that you deserve the right. And so that seed of self-esteem is already there.

A lot of people blame women in abusive relationships. didn't you leave? And it's like, if people are raised to never know that they can expect respect or what respect looks like, how do they even know they're being wronged? A lot of people in abusive relationships don't know that it's wrong. And so, yeah.

So I think, yeah, you're right there. And I think, yeah, it's a hard place to be. This is really difficult to do live. There are lots of people who get like a tiny snippet of the conversation, let their bias fill in the rest. They're like, arrive for like two minutes and they judge. There are lots of

armchair psychologists who come up with bullshit. Lots of sex is bullshit about men. Like, men just can't be friends with women and women are this and men can't be that too. Like, I believe in men. Men can be decent people and friends. Sure. Yeah, no, I don't have this awful stereotype that men can't be friends with women and shit. I wouldn't be friends with men if I thought that it was a thing that they were just too

primal to do. So, like, I think I have a little bit more faith than men than Twitchchette does, but I'm still being called lots of awful things, like a man hate. right now, which is very odd. It's so difficult to have these sorts of conversations live. I'm getting so much judgment. And it's so funny. Like, it will bounce between she's so wrong.

She doesn't understand basic biology. And there'll be people going, could you fart for me? In between it all, it takes a lot of practice to be very calm and kind of indifferent to all of the weird, weirdness of Twitch chat. So any of the last thing I'll leave you with is that I want. I commend you for having this conversation. Right? It's an important conversation that the haters are going to hate, whatever.

But I think that there are a lot of people out there who are really listening in hearing something that they need to hear. Second thing is, I want you to cut yourself some slack if those people get to you, right? Because it is hard to deal with. And you deserve to not be perfect. You deserve to feel judged. You deserve to feel weak. You deserve to feel all of those things.

Even if they aren't true, I don't think they're true. But social media and the internet does that to us. They make us feel small. And I think one of the biggest problems that we run into is that we judge ourselves for being weak when we're allowed to be weak. And so we beat ourselves up for letting them affect us. And then suddenly we're on the same team with them. They're beating us up and we're beating ourselves up. So don't be on that team.

and if you are on that team, that's okay. That's just how we're conditioned. Good luck to you. Thank you. I feel like we didn't get enough time to answer people's questions. I'm sorry about that. I know.

I know we didn't get enough time, and I'm so glad. Because I think that this conversation, I don't know how other people are what are other people going to think about it, but I think your growth has been really remarkable. And I mean, You may not see it.

You may not feel it. I know that you're feeling potentially more negative emotion than the first time we met, but like it's just part of the journey, right? Because now you know you're angry because you deserve more than what people are giving you. And that, like, that's the fucking essence of self-esteem when you know what you're worth. Anger is a hopeful emotion. It's when you don't stand for how things are and you hope that they can be better. I mean, anger would be useless.

But anger, if it wasn't that, anger is why women have the right to vote. Anger is why so many slaves were freed. Like anger is when we don't like how things are and we want it to change. I understand that it's a positive thing when used maturely. I was writing off everything, every bit of anger as immature. And yeah, I do think that oddly anger is something people deserve to feel. Not in a malicious way. I don't mean, you deserve to be angry fool.

I mean, yeah, like the way you said it, I think the way you said it's beautiful. People deserve to feel vulnerable and angry and all those things. have the right. You made me cringe a little bit. I hope you let yourself be angry in an immature way, too. Don't be a perfect version of yourself. True. True. True. Yeah. I'm glad you can't find that one. Yeah. Just it's got to be careful. Yeah. Yeah. You get to be inappropriately angry. You get to just have a bad day because people are mistreating you and take it out on other people. You should apologize afterward, but you get to feel that way. I'll try not to, though. Yeah, try not to. Try

not to. But don't beat yourself up if you slip up from time to time because it's a process. It's a journey. Cool? Yeah, definitely. I'm sorry if I did that with you. I mean, I'm under a lot of pressure right now. There are thousands of people blaming me for the situation I'm in right now. So it felt like a little bit much. But I hope you didn't feel disrespected during this conversation because I have a lot of respect for you. No, I didn't feel disrespected. In fact, I'm really, really glad that you shared that with me. Because Anita, telling me that I did

something that was not fair or judgmental is not disrespectful. This is my whole point. You get to say I'm disrespectful if I'm disrespectful. And I have to listen to that. Right? It's not like I can't fuck up.

Like, you get to say that. You get to say, Dr. Kay, you're being an asshole. you're being judgmental. And then we sit down and we look at like what's going on there. Like you get to say that, man. Woman, sorry. It's fine.

All right. Anyway, I really enjoyed this. Good luck to you. Good luck on your journey. Thank you. And thanks a lot. And, you know, haters are going to hate. I don't know what to say.

There are a lot of us out there who are also rooting for you. So. Thank you. Send the haters our way. We try to talk to him. and see where they're coming from. Thank you. Well, good luck.

Take care.