HealthyGamerGG - Love, Broken People, Relationship Advice ft. Mrs K

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Stream Schedule: https://www.twitch.tv/healthygamer_gg on Twitch. Youtube: https://youtu.be/s5cjlHMkOUM for VoD Archive. Support us at https://ko-fi.com/healthygamer if you enjoy our content and would continue helping making it accessible to everyone! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, let's get to questions. And we're going to start with the first question and then I'm going to go make a tasty beverage. Okay? I'm excited. So let's do this. I dress for a vacay. I don't know if you can tell. All right.

So first question. Let's see if we can present. There we go. Hi, Dr. Kay and Kruthi. I hope this is relevant to the topic. Talking with my boyfriend is very hard. He has severe social anxiety and so communication doesn't come easily for him. Some days go by and he doesn't ask me anything about my day or how I'm doing.

A lot of the time I don't feel, I don't really feel loved. How can we work together to find a way for me to, for me to feel appreciated? Asking him to talk to me more makes him upset with himself and doesn't usually end up being productive. So I'm not sure it's directly the solution. I can relate to this. I know you can. Yeah. Because we've been in a similar situation.

All right. What do you think? Well, I remember I used to ask you, like, especially like during residency in medical school, you know, we'd like finally see each other and be like, so how is your day? And you would just look me dead in the eye and be like, do we really have to talk about our days? I was like, maybe. I don't know. I feel like we should. So, I don't know.

There's feeling appreciated and actually being appreciated. So I would kind of start there in my. answer to you. What do you think? That's a keep going, giving your answer. Okay. So, um, if you are not appreciated, that's a different thing. But if it's a way for you to feel more appreciated and talking, like him initiating a conversation about you is difficult for him. I would say that like, you know, for this to work and maybe help him find that to be more natural, like kind of model the behavior, ask him about his day.

Hopefully he doesn't shut you down the way Olog used to shut me down. But I think even then it would be, you know, I would kind of tell Oloak like, well, yeah, I think it would be nice if we just knew what was going on in each other's lives. And then I think that kind of opened the door. Also, sometimes just like, how was your job? day in particular tends to be like a automatic it was fine the end kind of conversation where it might be better to like have a conversation about something like hey did you see this headline what do you think about this um i wanted to i was thinking about checking out this other place

for dinner one night what do you think about that like kind of narrow the scope a little yeah so So I think I kind of agree with Gruthy. So I remember specifically like when I was in residency, right? Like I had seen, I had been, let's say, like on a call for 24 hours dealing with homeless people who wanted to kill themselves and didn't want to detox off of alcohol. So like when you're doing that for 24 hours in a row, it can feel pretty exhausting. And so I get home and, you know, I'm actually really happy to be home because I get to see my wife whom I love. And the last thing that I want to do is like spend time like here I am at home like with this person that I really enjoy spending time with. The last thing that I want to do is like spend my mental energy recalling this bruiser that I've just been through. But those were always the best stories. No, they weren't always the best stories. Oh, they're so good. No, that's because I shared with you the ones that are entertaining. I didn't share with you 99. I would share maybe one story a night, but there's like 23 other hours of my day that sucked.

Do you remember that one time? So there was this time where we were, this is when we lived in Boston and it was at downtown crossing. And I remember walking to work and I was like, that guy is going to end up in like Alloaks unit. And like I knew Alloq was working. And this guy was like trying to have sex with trash can basically in the middle of downtown crossing. So.

Yeah. So this is kind of a funny story. So at Massachusetts General Hospital, we have an internal hip protected document that has, like, records for the residents. And so, like, I don't know if you guys know this, but when you go to the, you know, when you go to the emergency room, there's something called a chief complaint. So it's like when you walk into the emergency room, you get checked in. Like, someone will ask you, why are you here? And so someone will say, oh, like, I'm having chest pain or, like, I've been vomiting. or I'm suicidal, right?

So people will have a chief complaint. And so, like, that's how the emergency room doctors know, like, okay, who do I need to take care of first? Like, if the chief complaint is, like, gunshot wound and another chief complaint is, like, my dog died, those are like, it helps us triage. So the interesting thing is that if you're looking at the board, so as a psychiatrist working in the emergency room, you're going to get consulted for certain things. So you can look at the board, like even before you get called by the board. like even before you get called by the emergency room docs,

you can look at the board and see like based on the chief complaints, like how busy you're going to be for the next couple of hours, right? So it's kind of like you like, you know, the ED folks see them first and then you know who they're going to call you for. So one day I was like, I was, this is the same night. And the chief complaint for someone was man having sex with trash can. And I was like, that one's going to be mine. Like, that's coming to us.

Because I'm pretty sure if I'm an emergency room doctor, And I get someone who comes in for having sex with a trash can that I'm just going to call the psychiatrists and let them sort it out. So, you know, anyway, she turned out, she turned out to be right. And it was a bizarre coincidence that that person did wind up. Well, I remember I was walking with, I think, my sister or a friend or someone, they were like, so what? Your sister. Yeah. And they were like, well, what is emergency psychiatry?

I don't get it. And I was like, that guy. Yeah. Anyway, so going back to, yeah, so I think kind of going back to the question, I think there's an important point here, right, that Grutti brought up, which is there's a difference between being appreciated and feeling appreciated. And so I think it's hard in a relationship because like, I know it sounds kind of weird, but like, you know, to a certain degree, you're responsible for your feelings. And then the other person is responsible for their actions. and a lot of conflict in relationships come because, you know, I'm, I am trying to express appreciation, but it may not land as appreciation on the other side.

The other interesting thing that what I was kind of thinking about, there was a point in our relationship where we were long distance and Gruthy was just like, I need like five communications from you every day. Like, I need five text messages or phone calls or something. Like, I need five points of contact where like, you know, like I need to be a part of your thought process. I need you to think about me five times a day. And so I think that that was just kind of our way of like, you know, I couldn't control her feelings, but I could certainly modify my actions to help fulfill an emotional need that she was having at the time. And so there's

a part of me that just sort of says like, you know, if you're a boyfriend, sometimes you have to just step up, right? Like it's not just being a boyfriend, but like sometimes in a relationship, you have to step up and do things that you don't want to do. And like sometimes you just got to step up, right? And it's something that I didn't place a whole lot of value in, but like a relationship is about, you know, you acknowledging that there are some things that you may not value or that may be hard for you that you still need to do for your partner.

And I think what's also important here is like maybe this person needs to step up too, because when you ask him to talk to you, he, like, it makes him upset. So, like, maybe the way that you need to step up is in recognizing that, like, you know, getting your emotional needs met in this relationship may come at the cost of his emotional needs. So that's where you sort of have to step up and sort of figure out, like, okay, what can I actually, like, learn to live without because it costs my partner something to give it to me. And at the end of the day, I don't think, I mean, I don't think there were many days where I texted

you like five times a day, right? No, I got five coms for me a day. But not consistently. No, because I don't know if you remember, but there was something in it for you. I don't know. Yeah. Because if you... Yeah, I had to take me.

No, no, no, you can't say that in that loud. No, never mind. Not on stream. Because there have been many things that have been in it for me. And I don't know which one you're going to say. And we have a particular... I'm the cult leader. You can't just...

I'm not just... Okay, can me? No, no, later. I'm going to fix your... Well, the point is, like, it was somewhat reciprocated. Well, I mean, so my recollection, my recollection was that, what? There was something in it for you. Okay, fine.

So, good point, right? So, here I am talking about stepping up. I guess I forgot that there was like, you also have to incentivize the right behavior from your partner, right? I mean, so this is where, you know, more practically, I think, I think I should make a tasty beverage. I think this is going to be more fun of a tasty beverage. Okay.

Okay. So let's just go back to this real quick. So hold on. Let me see. So let's just kind of take a quick look at this thing again. So talking with my boyfriend is very hard. He has severe social anxiety. So communication doesn't come easily for him.

Oh. What? Um, communication or talking because I think maybe that was part of what was helpful for our arrangement was like, you didn't, we didn't have to like have a conversation. It was like, just sporadic thinking about you, text here, like an email there, like a, and also allowing you to be like, hey, I don't really want to have a cool conversation right now, blah, blah, blah, the end, bye. And it was like maybe a seventh second phone call. all. Yeah. So I think that's a good point, like communication, right? So communication doesn't have to be

words. And I think you've got to be careful here because if someone has social anxiety, if the root of that social anxiety is that you feel inadequate, you can get into this tricky cycle where you tell your partner, like, I need you to be better. And then, like, they feel inadequate. And then you tell them, like, I need more from you. And then that actually causes them to feel more inadequate. They're like, oh my God, I can't step up. I'm so worthless. And then they like retreat into their shell even more. So you have to be a little bit careful because sometimes that can happen. Right. So asking him to talk to me if it's hard for him makes him upset with himself. Right. So he's like, oh my God, like here's this person that I love and I can't even talk to them. I'm so worthless.

Like any idiot should be able to talk to this person, especially when there's this amazing. And I can't do it. And then they get more in their head and more in their head and more in their head. So this is a really good observation that this person made that sometimes like asking people to step up can be hard. And so this is where I'd say, you know, like communication, like maybe there's nonverbal communication where a lot of times like, you know, if you need to feel appreciated like you can just ask for a hug. And that can work really well. Yeah. And yeah. So how can we work together to find a way for me to feel appreciated?

You know, I would say at the end of the day, just talk to him and say, hey, you know, sometimes I feel this way. But like, when I, yeah. It's really helpful, I think, if you tell them when you did this, that was really nice. Like, give them good examples that were, like, you want more of. And, like, in the moment, you know, you can be like, this is really nice. I appreciate this so much. Okay. Yeah, great.

I forgot what I was going to say. But I'm going to go make a tasty beverage. Can I show you how to. I have a high five. Yes, of course. I'm sorry. You just needed a high five. I just needed a high five.

This is my need. What do I get? What's my reward? Oh, Jesus. So, can I show you how to change, operate this while I go make you a tasty beverage? Sure. To express my affection for you and my love. Yeah.

So sometimes instead of communications, what you need to do is make tasty beverages and also make delicious meat. or other foods, cupcakes, etc. But not in the Tondor. Am I right? Okay, so let's do, okay, so you know how to operate this. We're going to click that. You can just click that. This is a PowerPoint.

Yep, this is a PowerPoint. So you can go up and down. Powerpoint, I know. Okay. Stream labs. Stream labs. So then when you want them to see the screen, you click teaching with chat. And then when you want them to see your face, you click Live Plus chat.

So I think what you can do is read out the question. and then move back to the face, and then when you're ready to, if you want to read it again, you can go there. Okay. Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Do you want me just take this question solo? Yeah, take it solo. Okay. And then you fill me in on what the questions were. Okay. I think Zach wanted me to do a little bit of a mini spieling. Did you already get a spiel about the foundation versus the company?

Oh, spoiler alerts. If y'all all read a spieler. know the difference between Healthy Gamer and the foundation, then I will skip it. If there's any confusion at all, like, this is like just an intense week for us, releasing the impact report, launching the pre-order for Dr. Kay's Guide, Foundation fundraiser. So if you want me to tell you what the hell's going on, I can say it now. Okay, nope, we are confused. Okay. Okay. Um, all right. So here, maybe, maybe it's just my face then. Is this the right one? Hi. Okay. So let me, thanks, tech. Um, okay. So let me start from the beginning. Um, all right, in the beginning,

there was you guys and All Oak appeared on, Reddit and was like, hey, how can I help these people? And then we made this thing that had a loose purpose of how to help, but we kind of rolled with the punches and adapted. So we started with video game addiction, realized it's mental health for the gaming community, for this community, and then basically realized really it's mental health for young people. And then we started to think, like, how can we help? what's missing. And we realize that what's missing is affordable, accessible, and inclusive, subclinical mental health, this idea that, um, like, we can kind of help each other in a way

that like capital T therapy has not been able to do. So we, we created with your very generous help last May, um, this coaching platform and this content platform and this content platform and this community of about 55,000 of us on Discord. And we said, here is how we think we can bundle essentially products and services that can actually move people forward. And that is Healthy Gamer the company, which has been honestly the hardest, best, most challenging, funest, craziest job I've ever had. And I've had a couple. My background, just as an FYI. I'm a digital marketing and media, digital media kind of startup veteran. So my, my background is in content marketing, media, all that for kind of startups. And then I went to business school

and really kind of made it a point to transition into healthcare. Healthcare has been part of my blood for my whole life. I grew up around the health care system. And I really wanted to fix health care in some way. Meanwhile, Alok is doing his thing. He was supposed to be a neurosurgeon. And he's like, I just want to help people. He's like, okay, fine. So he was like, I just want to talk to people. I was like, okay, fine. So he became a psychiatrist, and then we just realized how busted mental health is. And so we poured our talents and our skill sets and kind of everything that we knew how to do into this company. Realizing, so then, Sorry, I'm going to kind of bop around a little bit.

My background also before business school, I kind of switched to nonprofits and social enterprises. So I got a really good look behind the scenes at what it really takes to operate a successful nonprofit that is essential. Not like one of many poverty alleviating nonprofits, not one of many like environmental nonprofits, but like those nonprofits that really. advance agendas and movements and champion people. So a couple just for reference that I worked on that I learned so much from and admire so much. One was Moaz, which is migrant offshore aid station, which was really important during the Syrian refugee crisis.

And then another one is the NRDC. And I wanted to establish the Healthy Gamer Foundation as something that is very, targeted. Like, what it is meant to do is to fund research and conduct research that affects policy, that understands what mental health could and should look like from a systematic level, internationally, nationally, locally, whatever, like operating at different levels of government. So, Healthy Gamer company, products and services that can function in the subclinical space, Healthy Gamer Foundation, just trying to blow the whole damn system up and trying to kind of imagine what it kind of could and should be. That's the spiel. Because Healthy Gamer, I would say

we are a social enterprise. We feel like, so normally when you ask somebody for a six-figure check to start a company, that person that writes you that check, um, would be considered like an angel investor. And so they would want to know from time to time, hey, what are you doing with that money? Remember when we gave you all that money? And I kind of think of chat as our angel investor, and I feel accountable to chat.

And so that's why we release the impact report so that we could let you know that, like, with the money that you gave us, we've been able to turn it into 10 times that to reinvest resources into our, reinvest into creating these resources that are effective, that are scalable, that work, and that are, like, it's something that I think we can all be proud of. You guys can be proud of it as our angel investor, essentially, and we can be proud of it

as we kind of grow together. And then the foundation, we said, you know, we can do more. We can't do more because I am tired, but, like, we collectively can't. do more if we channel our resources and energy in the right way. So that's why I wanted to kind of build a team around the foundation and build more of a team around Healthy Gamer. So that's the impact report. Meanwhile, in like Healthy Gamer, you know, the company, we realize that essentially coaching is fantastic at so many things. A lot of what we want to do is to do is to to package up all of the things that Alok has in his head, right?

Because it kind of comes and goes in these little bursts and gems. And we see people that are like, hey, remember, like a year ago when he was talking about this, where can I find that? Or it just kind of gets buried in like these hours and hours of interviews and content. And so we wanted to kind of have him be able to go step by step. This is how I think about depression. Is it clinical depression? If so, what kind of like, how does that manifest?

If it's non-clinical depression, then what does that look like? What are all these underlying factors? And having, like, really put his, like, brain out there into a way that people can kind of understand and learn from. So we created Dr. Kay's Guide to Mental Health. Is it a pre-order live, y'all? Okay. If it's live, you'll see it. You'll see the link pop up.

But it's going live today. Yes, great. So we wanted it to supplement the coaching experience. So all Healthy Gamer coaching clients current and past will have access to the guide. And then we also wanted to just make it easy. Like if you're not ready for that step of like, oh, I really want to work with somebody, I just want to learn a little bit more. This is for you.

If you are in therapy and you need to be in therapy, but you wish that you could get a little bit more from Healthy Gamer, this is for you. This is really, and we see a lot of people that are like, hey, I'm a student and I'm learning these things, but nobody's explained this in the way that Dr. Kay has explained this. And so we're like, well, you know, he teaches the best and brightest at Harvard Medical School. He can teach anyone. Like, let's just put it out there. So if you just want to learn, this is for you. And I think, I mean, this is our single largest investment to date.

it really like just to take, you know, six weeks out of Alloaks calendar is expensive. And it is time consuming, obviously. So Dr. Kay's guide to mental health, we're really proud of this one. We professionally filmed it. He, like, sat there and wrote the scripts himself. You guys might have seen some previews here and there. But it's his answer to Dr. Kay, when are you writing a book? And he's like, I can't just write a book. I have to teach it to you. So that's that. And then the third thing is this

fundraiser, right? So we establish the foundation. And here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking that the foundation itself can exist on external funding. That there's always only so much we're going to ask you like a Twitch chat or Angel to contribute. Anything that we don't need, we don't ask for. It's always like to kind of kickstart something that can then self-sustain. And I kind of learned that in my time with nonprofits and social enterprises, that something that kind of continuously relies on donations, that's what you spend your energy on, not the impact part. So we want to spend our time on the impact part. Did I cover it all?

How would the foundation generate revenue to reinvest? Good question. We are pursuing research grants more than anything else. That's kind of where we would kind of earn it in the competitive nonprofit landscape, which is something. It is a whole fierce process. I do look different than Dr. Kay. Are we still hiring for mods?

Yeah, we're recruiting mods. We're recruiting community leaders. We're recruiting tech and marketing talent. We're recruiting for new coaches. Healthygamer.g.g. slash careers. Um, yummy drink. Yeah.

I feel like every other time I'm on stream, I'm just waiting for our all to make me a margarita. You can't pay the pre-order with PayPal. We can try to. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. With the pre-order, you can allocate however much of that sale you want to go to the foundation versus the company. Whatever we are raising this month, whatever kind of we make is going to go into the foundation.

Allocate. How long are the modules? They're long, man. I think it's over 100. individual videos. Okay. This is the two-handed. Hey, those look nice and festive.

They are festive. Thank you. Oh, you put chili on the rim. Yeah, I couldn't find the right chili stuff, but I... Tuddin. Cheers. Yeah, I think we may have left it. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Not on the mouse pad. Your mouse pad is your whole desk. Right here. Why do you guys need such giant mouse pad? pads. I don't understand. To make up for... Am I just supposed to be behind this box?

No, no, no. You need to scoot forward and you need to take point. No, then I... I don't like how I look bigger than you when I'm in front. Look. I've always been proud of having a smaller head. The other thing that we could do is here. You want me to fix it? Hold on. I didn't answer any questions without you. I just did spiels. You see, I learned how to do this theoretically. Hold on. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Man, never mind. It looks like it didn't.

I thought I had figured this out. Hold on. Let's do this. You all ready, chat? You all ready for the magic? You all ready for the magic? You all ready? That's the magic. That's the magic.

Maybe a little. I don't know. That's good. It's still got to be heurish. There. Is that bad? There. I think it is.

Magic. Good job. Cheers. Magic doer? There's so many jokes we could make about me doing the magic. Would you like to make one?

No. It's really an... I mean, the joke would really be complete BS recently. Because you don't do the magic recently? Because why? I didn't know magic. Right.

Should we fast forward a couple questions until it's about not doing the magic? No, we should just... All right. Should you look for a relationship if you want one? Or is it all right to just wait for one to happen.

What do you think? I think both. I feel like if you don't look and you just go into a very passive, like, wait until it happens, it's not going to happen. I think you kind of have to like be ready and look for it to happen. I don't think relationships just like, but what do I know? Um, yeah, so I'd say, I think there's a big difference between waiting for one and forcing one, being desperate for one, not on the mouse pad.

Do you have a coaster or something? I'll find you a coaster. You can use my prescription pad and stuff like that. Can I move your mouse pad? Can I fold it? No, you can't fold the mouse pad. This mouse pad is bigger than my desk. Um, so I think that there's a big difference between, you know, in general I wouldn't advocate to wait

for anything. And at the same time, I wouldn't push too hard to try to make something work that's not working. I think if you want a relationship, you should look for it. And at the same time, like, you know, because I, I mean, look for one by all means. You know, I'd make an active effort to meet people. I'd make an active effort to date. But I wouldn't like look too hard.

And I wouldn't try to make it work when it's not. there to work. I think part of looking for a relationship, it's like kind of being at like a yard sale or something. You got to look. You got to be discriminating. And like, that one's not going to work. That one's not going to work. That's not going to work.

And like, focus. Yeah, she found me at a flea market. It's great. Camp, summer camp. The secondhand store. You were going to be a monk. I'd say, I'd say, look. for one, right? Like, if that's what you want, like, look for it. By all means. But I wouldn't,

I wouldn't let it dominate your life, like, that like, you know, you're desperate for a relationship, and that's, like, the only thing that's missing. I'd continue to, like, grow yourself because I think sometimes looking for a relationship is not so much about the other, or finding a relationship is not so much about the other person, is it is about making yourself into someone who's ready for a relationship that, or that people are interested in engaging in a relationship with. The only lot, the last thing I have to say about this is that the start of a relationship is supposed to be fun. Like, dating should be fun. If it's not, if it's not fun for you, think about what it takes to kind of lighten up a little bit about the whole thing.

Okay. I hear that dating is not very fun. I hear it too, and I feel like it's, if it's not fun, then. If it's not fun, then if it's not fun, and you're not going to meet, like, the person that you're, is going to make your life better, then, like, what's the point? Don't put yourself in a situation where it's just a drag. What do I do if I'm lonely and when I date, I don't have fun?

I would change your MO. How? Like, okay, look in different places. If the people that you're meeting from a particular place are, like, exhausting all in the same way, I would try to look in a different place. I feel like we should bring back the blind date a little bit. Isn't Tinder just amass blind dates? Yeah, but the problem I think is that people treat each other like trash because there's no accountability.

But if it's like my friend saying that, hey, I want you to meet my friend, whoever, you're not going to just ghost that person. because you're accountable to your friend. What do you think about sort of a social accountability score? I think it's good. When I was younger, I used to want to carry around blue ribbons, so that way I could just be like, you're a good person, blue ribbon. I feel like there should be points for that. Should it be tracked by the government or what?

What? No. How do we track your social accountability score? No, just informal, blue ribbon system. The blue ribbon system. Yeah. I got all this ribbon. Oh my God, I still have it.

I can dress myself and I still haven't. I got it for him like 13 years ago. I still haven't been able to give it to him. It's true. Because you just wear. It's either the fleece or the sweatshirt. All right. Next.

Next. By the way, merch sales go to the nonprofit. Click the teaching with chat button. Nice. But then I also have to push transition. No, you don't have to. I fix that. Now quick, back, there you go.

Nice. You want to read this one? This one's long. You go. Okay. Hi, Dr. K. K. and Gruthi. How do you find the balance between compartmentalizing your own struggles so as to not overwhelm your partner, but also sharing them to maintain honesty and trust?

I just started dating someone and they are very sweet, but also inexperienced. I do not want to overwhelm them with my baggage. but I also don't want to emotionally distance myself from them either. For the past several years, I've been getting treatment and working on my traumas. I'm also overwhelmed with work in college while also supporting myself independently. It is very difficult to compartmentalize all of my stress while showing up in the relationship authentically, and it keeps me from truly bonding with them. I can tell they see it too, but the last thing I want to do is burden our relationship.

Thank you in advance. Thoughts? I feel like I've been going first. You go. So I'd say finding the, so it's interesting because the question is, how do you find the balance between compartmentalizing your own struggles so as to not overwhelm your partner, but also sharing them to maintain honesty and trust? And if we go back to the bottom, we see, I can tell they see it too, but the last thing

that I want to do is burden our relationship. So what I hear in this person is that you are trying to internally decide what amount of burdening to do. And I think the whole point of the relationship is that like it's got to be a decision between the two of you. Right. Like that's the whole point is that like you're trying to compartmentalize it and it's showing up. It's affecting your relationship, which makes sense because it sounds like you're doing a lot, right? And they're inexperienced and you don't want to overwhelm them. So I think like sharing those thoughts with them about, you know, and sort of having, like they get a say in what overwhelms them and what doesn't because like right now what I hear

that you're doing this we do this a lot in relationships where we like anticipate almost like in a chess move kind of style like if I share he's going to be overburdened and then it's going to be bad right but like he gets a say in that or I'm assuming that you're dating a dude but um you know like your partner gets a say in what you they get a say in what overreesome. overwhelms them. That's not for you to decide in your head. That's something that, like, they get to tell you. And that's something that you need to know about them, not assume about them. Yeah. Because, you know, like, I've seen this so many times where it's like, there you are not trying to burden them. And like on the other side, they're going to send in a question

that's, hey, I can tell my partner is struggling, but I want to respect their privacy. Like, how do I do that? And so what happens is each of you is. suffering on your own. Like, they're like, oh, like, I can see that my partner is struggling and I really want to support them, but like, I also want to respect their boundaries. I want to respect their privacy. I want, you know, like, I don't want to push. Like, I'm new in relationships.

I'm inexperienced. How do I find out how much I should ask? And so it's like both of y'all are probably like thinking these thoughts and trying to like play 4D chess with each other when what you need to do. do is just have a conversation about it, right? You can say, hey, I'm going through a lot right now. I've dealt a lot with a lot in the past. I really value our relationship. And sometimes when I've shared this with people, it's been kind of overwhelming. I would also, like, you sound overwhelmed. So I would love for you to get out of your day-to-day situation and like go on a road trip with

this person or like just get out of like your. everyday stress, if you can, like, kind of shake it up. And I would also see what you can do to kind of, it sounds like you're getting treatment, working on your traumas, all of that stuff is great. But I think what you're saying is you want more support from this person. So I don't know. I want to see you kind of, I would love for you to go on like a long drive, like somewhere beautiful or something like that with this person.

because sometimes experiences like that can help bring about some of these conversations. That's harder to like do on a Tuesday night when you're trying to like prep for the next day and like get your dinner together and all that kind of stuff. Like if you can remove yourself from your routine. Sounds good. Cool. I'd love to go on a road trip with Twitter chat. Also you. I'd love to go on a road trip for you.

Do you want? If I go on a road trip with Twitter chat, I'll text you five times a day. I can totally see you doing like a bus tour with Alloak, except for y'all aren't going anywhere. It's just you guys on a bus driving around. It would be fun. No, I know. You'll have a great time. We'll travel across the world, meeting chatars all over the world.

We'll do it one day. All right. Oh, wow. We have a couple of big donations. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Just going to read out 20 minutes ago from Ivan or even. Thank you for all you do behind the scenes, Guithi.

Shout out to you. Thank you. Gruthy Pog. Anonymous. So Anonymous has been donating a ton of money to us recently. Thank you all very much. Anonymous. And then thank you for all you do, Dr. Kay.

I have two kids, one with bipolar and one with OCD and your videos have helped tremendously. I'm happy to hear that. And it's tough. You know, it's a struggle not only for the person with the neurochemistry like that, but also with the parents. Also, I don't know if you guys realize this, but like a fair number of parents who are watching her stuff now. Say hi to everybody's mom. Hi, chats, mom. Yeah.

When we love it, we will, I think it's been great working with parents. Very personally gratifying. Also, it's kind of funny because they like, ask me about, you know, what should I do with my kid? And I'm like, you, you know more about this than I do. It's like 10 years from now, do you guys mind if I ask you what I do about when my daughter wants to start dating or what? whatever, because that terrifies me. But anyway. Okay. Dr. K. and Kruthi, how do you guys overcome an argument you had with each other? I took the last one.

Arguments are almost always rooted in love. So our last argument was because I wanted to socialize as a couple. And Alec was like, why would I do that when I could just hang out with you as a person, like one person. I'm like, I need, I'm an extrovert and he's an introvert. And like, I'm like, you never want to go out with me. And he's like, why

would I want to spend time with anyone else? Like, that's sweet. So I feel like our arguments tend to be rooted in love for each other and also respect for how much we're each trying to juggle.

a good night's sleep will go a long way. And also like a commitment to not wanting to be mad at each other. I think, I mean, I've seen people that really revel in the argument and like really thrive in the resentment and they just want to kind of load up all of the things that they can use as ammo later. And I feel like that spirit is never going to be able to. let you really overcome an argument. Like, you have to want to end the argument. But you also have to get it all out there. Like, don't leave things unsaid.

Just throw it. So the next level of play is to always turn everything into love. Right. But to help your wife think that the reason that you guys have all arguments is because you love them too much. I'm kidding. Divorce streaming. No, I think that, like Ruthie said, I think there are actually a lot of practicals that we do, that I think we've learned how to do.

One is that when we have arguments, I've found that when we're sitting across from each other, it makes things worse. So I think one thing that we've learned how to do is like sit next to someone. Like literally be on the same side. Yeah, like sit on a couch together and like don't sit across the table. I think for us, you know, there's a lot of communication or like, this is going to be meming, but like a lot of the making up process is physical. I don't mean sexual. I mean, just like.

Like this. No, but I mean, I think, you know, like we communicate in physical ways, right? So like holding hands, sitting next to each other, bumping, like, you know, like nudging each other, you know, like... Doing the magic. Doing the magic. Not doing the magic. And I think we have a couple of rules that we try to really adhere to.

One is don't go to bed mad at each other. So I think Ruthie said it beautifully. Like, having a commitment to try to not stay mad is a huge part of it. Because y'all can disagree. And like, I don't know that we'll even resolve those disagreements. Like, I don't know that those disagreements. that those disagreements can be resolved. Like, I don't, I don't know that she's ever going to convince me of particular things or I'm going to convince her of particular things. But I think,

thinking about, you know, what's the goal here? Like, it's not for one of us to be right or one of us to be wrong. It's really about, like, us not being mad at each other and trying to make a successful relationship, which involves, and I teach this to, you know, the couples that on the rare event that I counsel them is like, don't sit across from each other, sit next to each other. If you guys have certain like physical or ritualistic things that you do as part of your relationship, like lean on those things. So for example, like Gruti will, you know, make me a smoothie. I'll make her coffee or tea. And like, it's really important to lean on those rituals that you all have developed together when y'all are fighting to sort of remember that there's the argument and then

there's the relationship. But like the relationship existed before the argument and will exist after the argument ends. And so don't lose sight of the relationship because of the argument. And I think when you do come to a closing point for that argument, it's important to kind of acknowledge the effort that somebody has put into that and be like, I'm really glad that we could come to terms on this. And like, you kind of have to be aware of the effort like your partner is putting in into kind of meeting you halfway. I'd say a couple of other tips. Don't try to win.

Right? So like arguments are oftentimes about winning and it's like even if you win, you're going to lose. I almost never win honestly. And then, oh, this is kind of interesting. So I had an interesting conversation recently with an e-sports team where I realized that like part of their problem is that they one of the players does what I do, which is Socratic questioning.

So this is something just kind of a random aside, but like I realized I would do this thing when Kruthi and I talked where I would like make my argument in a Socratic way because that's generally speaking how I teach. So I'd ask her questions and I'd be like, so like, why do we do this and why do we do this? And like I'd sort of trap her into like seeing my side and she really, really detested it and and it pissed her off and it was condescending. And I saw the same pattern actually recently in someone else. And the reason I recognize the pattern is because I did it in my own marriage.

And so now, like, I'd say that this is a small percentage of you that try to win your arguments or make your points through questions makes the other person feel incompetent, condescended, and tracked. So if you want to say something, just say it. Yeah. Which is, you know, kind of a random thing. But I think a lot of arguments are about the way the argument is happening. Like, you're not listening to me or like, didn't you hear what I said, or, you know, why now? Why are you saying this now? And as long as you're arguing about like that meta, I feel like that's a little bit more fundamental to work on. I spilled. It wasn't on the mouse pad, so who cares? Okay, oh, this one's yours.

Okay. So I said this in other channels, but I'm just throwing it in here because I think it's interesting. So last year, I was forced into a long-distance relationship due to COVID. It was okay for a while, but long story short, er broke up, and I ended up finding HG. Fast forward where I'm back at school and working on myself with help from healthy gamer coach. I meet someone else. It was very nice.

Honestly, didn't expect it. But we had to go home for the holiday and ended up going into currently temporary long distance. But I did happen to meet her sometime before the end of the year. It was only a day but fun. So we've been in long distance for about five to six months now. And knowing myself, I have days where I have a hard time. There have been times where she pointed it out when I was being paranoid or

or intrusive, and luckily we would still decide to stay together. Okay, I'm like just punctuating this myself. I hope, but sometimes I fear that maybe I messed up too many times and that may lead to a breakup. In the last three months, I found myself deep in practices of stoicism and detachment. I've learned to let go of the idea of keeping someone in love with me. I still love her, though. I am now in my third year, possible final year, if I don't fail or decide to register again,

and I am not sure when I'm going to be able to go back to see her. What do I do on days where I feel like I need to talk to her more, and she is unable to without trying to be intrusive, or at least how I communicate it? I do understand that we have separate lives. I just wonder if I should work harder, not to talk too much. You don't try to summarize? Do you? Yeah, I can summarize.

Okay, that would be helpful. So someone's been in a long-distance relationship due to COVID, ended up bad with them breaking up. They came to the loving arms of Healthy Gamer, working on themselves, meet someone else, didn't expect it. You know, sounds like... I'd be curious if he was looking for a relationship or waited for their relationship. Once again, we're not sure he's a dude.

but, you know, so, so didn't expect it, met someone, ended up going into temporary long distance, met up for like a day, but now it's been like five to six months of long distance. Sometimes it sounds like they feel like they're being like overly clingy, like I'd say that, right? It sounds like maybe their partner feels like they're too clingy, two, two parents, paranoid, too intrusive. And it sounds like this person has been working on themselves a lot, like trying to practice stoicism, trying to practice detachment. But at the end of the day, you know, sometimes it sounds like this person has needs to talk to them, talk to their partner, and that their partner is either unable to meet those needs. So like, how do I figure out,

you know, what's the right balance and how to move forward? I think another key. thing here is that he wants to he wants more than she does it sounds like so i think he has or he feels that way right so but but there's also i think this important sentence i hope but sometimes i fear that maybe i messed up too many times and that may lead to a breakup yeah so what do you think i feel like i need to put my phone away from myself um and so the question that they have is i do understand that we have separate lives but i wonder if i should work harder to not talk too much I really sympathize with this person because I feel like a lot of times, especially with new relationships, friendships or romantic or otherwise, it's kind of like, oh, I screwed up. And then you have to like explain that.

And then like you're like, oh, but I screwed up the explanation. And you have to explain that. And then you like are kind of constantly correcting and like digging yourself into a deeper, deeper hole. So I just, I sympathize because I tend to put my foot in my mouth a lot. And I feel like I feel what this person might be going through. And I know, I get it. It's a tough spot because it's like the more you try to dig yourself out. So I'd say, kind of worse, you're making it. I feel like I'm like behind the thing again.

You're fine. You're fine. You look great. Okay. So I'd say here's, so when it comes to long distance, this answer is going to be kind of weird. But so I think about a long distance relationship is a bridge to nowhere. So I think long distance relationships are fine, but, you know, where are they going to go? So, and this may be just because of our own personal experience, like Ruthie and I were a long distance for, for what?

Years? Really? At least three. Anyway, but I think that, like, this is where you got to think about what are you moving towards in the relationship? Because I think that, you know, there are all these things about whether you talk too much or things like that. but like where is this going? And I know it's hard because early on if you have like long distance relationship and you really care about each other, it's kind of weird to be like dating someone for three months. But it looks like you all have been long distance for five to six months

and that you ended up meeting someone like probably before that. So it sounds like you all have been together for like maybe at least eight months, which is a long time. And I don't think it's unreasonable to have a conversation with your partner about like where is this going. Like are you guys, I know it's kind of weird to plan your lives around each other if you've been dating for six months. Disagree. I disagree so much. I think that like, you know, like long distance to what? Are you guys going to be short distance at some point?

Yes. Like, isn't that important to know, though? Well, yeah, but I thought it was COVID because of COVID. My point is that I don't know if this part, like, if they've talked about it, right? I don't know if they've like really considered what is long distance and what isn't. Okay. I think a lot of times in early parts of relationships, you just have to make it easy for somebody to say yes. If you ask them to like, what are we?

Where is this going? Like you kind of are forcing a person to decide kind of too quickly. And it sounds to me like he hasn't put his best self forward. so he like needs circumstances to change before he like gets to like really do himself justice in his eyes and also in what he thinks are her eyes. You think if he has the conversation about where is this going, he's going to scare her away? Yeah, I think he's like, well, I haven't put my best foot forward. So of course she's going to be like, yeah, no.

Yeah, I think that's good. I'm glad we're doing this together because I think it's a different perspective of mine and make a good point, right? So I don't know, man. I think you got to figure out a little bit of like when you are kind of your best self. Like when are you your funniest? When are you more relaxed? When are you like not, like don't reach out to her when you need her.

You know, reach out to her when you don't feel like you need her. That's definitely, that's good advice. So, like, just thinking about that, you know, it's important that, like, while your partner is there to help you manage your negative side, you want to be really, really careful about not creating an experience for your partner where all they're managing is your negative side. Right. And remember that there are good reasons, like, there are, like, positive reasons why you're in the relationship and don't lose side of those. Yeah. Like, your partner is there to be with you through, like, thick and thin. And the idea there is that there are periods that are thin, but they're also ideas that are like periods that are thick.

You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying. So like you got to give them the thick and you got to give them the thin. And do the magic. All right. Right. Next. So you got to switch the thing.

I got to switch the thing. I'm teaching with interview. Nope. Teaching with chat. Teaching with chat. There you go. Okay. You read now?

You want me to go? Yeah. Oh. I just read like. Need some advice towards dating late in life. Oh, 28 late in life. Lulls after having no prior experience. Would you recommend first focusing on myself and building a direction for myself

and then begin dating or jumping straight in? Now as I may never be ready. It's tough because dating at this age is odd without any experience in direction in comparison to my peers. Thank you for everything. All right. I feel like I got an answer to this, but you can go if you want. Good point.

So I don't think that I think parallel processing, right? So I think you should absolutely work on yourself and jump in because I don't think you're ever going to be ready. So like don't let ready get in the way of starting. And so, you know, like it's tough because dating at this age is odd without any experience in direction in comparison to my peers. That's true that you may be quote unquote behind, but it's been my experience that like within one, one year or even less, like you can have just as much experience as your peers, even if they've been dating their entire lives. And let me put it this way. So there are some people, so when I was, like, when I used to play Dota, I mean, I still do, but like, I remember I had a friend who told me

that within the first six months of playing, like starting to play Dota, you'll figure out, like, like the skill that people get to within the first six months is generally speaking, go for it, the skill that they'll be at for like the rest of their careers. And you see this, right? Like if you play a game of Dota, like, you know, myself, for example, like if you look at my account, it's like started playing Dota in 2011 and is like in the bottom 50% of the skill pool. So if you think about it, it's not like more time actually leads to you being better at something. What leads to you being better at something is intentional practice. So you can have people who started dating at the of 15 were like Megachad high school junior varsity captains and they still suck at it because they

never like bothered to be intentional about understanding like how a relationship works. And then you've got people who have been dating for like 18 months and who are really good at it because they actually like pay attention and try and do things like self-reflection. Like I'll have people who will come into my office who will be like 45 and have been divorced three times. And I can imagine that if you're this person and you're like, oh, I haven't dated anyone. I'm 28. I'm behind. I'm like, bro, don't worry about it because there are people who are 45 and who are like, who have 25 years or 20 years of experience and are like still suck at it. So don't confuse. So there's a difference between like, sure, you have no prior experience, but if you're like thoughtful about it,

If you pay attention, if you iterate, if you work on your game, like, you can catch up to people within a year, no problem. So I'd say don't, don't wait, right? So start getting, start putting yourself out there, like start looking for a relationship. By all means, continue working on yourself. This kind of goes back to the first question about like, you know, don't wait for it, but also like don't go so like desperate that like you need to find it in the next six months. So I'd say get started, get some experience, level up a little bit, but be intentional and you can catch up in no time. I am very excited for you because here are a couple things that I feel like I know about you. You're an amazing communicator already. Like in just these four sentences, like you've communicated so much so well. And the other thing is you say no prior experience.

Like you might not have data. somebody, but I feel like you do have experience in that. I think you might have made a few conscious decisions on not to pursue certain things, which is experience. Like you have, like, discernment. I think that if you, so you're posing two scenarios. You build a direction for yourself and then begin dating. Or you jump straight in now.

And here's the thing. If you build yourself, build yourself, build yourself, and then here you are, like, making tons of money and you have this big house and whatever. Like, the person that you attract as your best self, I'm not sure is the partner you want. I feel like you probably want a partner that's going to support your direction for yourself. Why are you laughing? Dr. Gays, like, don't worry if you're inexperienced. We'll teach you how to make the magic.

Dr. Gays' guy to make it magic. Super private sessions, let me tell you. Seriously, we should do one. How to make the magic. I feel like you're proposing doing porn. I don't know what you're really proposing. No. I think we'll, it's like.

Only fans we can do it? No, not. Are you still wanting to do? Just like teaching, like, you know, there are a lot of basics about this stuff that if you have no prior experience, it's very anxiety provoking, right? Like, like, you know, how do you have sex? What happens if you don't orgasm? What happens if you have difficulty with sex? You know, like, I, you know, had sex for the first time and I have vaginismos. So like, there are different, you know, there's a lot of like basic stuff that is anxiety provoking. And, you know, we can we can teach people how to make the magic. Okay. Yeah. You want to do.

sex ed, basically? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's do it. Dr. Kay's Guide to Making the Magic. Yeah, no, I know we have a title. Okay, so if what you're, excuse my naivete, I thought you had no experience dating. In donations, then I'll make a guide to the Magic King. 10K from now or 10K total?

I don't know, man. I haven't thought it through. No, you just like the title. Okay. I feel like I just tossed that out there because I don't think that's going to happen today. So I have an out for not making the magic. I'll get behind it. I'm going to go get more tasty beverage.

Yes. Yeah. Okay, it's going to be a long afternoon. All right. So if you have no prior experience with, like, sex and, like, initiating the magic, let's call it. But the first thing I would tell you is like, don't take instructions from what you see on TV at all. Just be in the moment and take your cues from your body and your partner. That's really it.

But yeah, I am not a huge fan of like work on yourself, work on yourself, work on yourself, and then start dating. because I feel like what happens to a lot of people is like, then they kind of tend to want more of a trophy partner or they want somebody that has kind of also put like a ton of effort into like, I don't know, whatever, like self-improvement stuff. And then they don't find a natural fit for the person that's going to kind of grow with you. That's my take.

But I'm really excited for you. because I feel like I just get good vibes from your the way you write. Hmm. You kept a stack of napkins, but not a coaster. Yep. Hi, Mrs. Kay and Dr. Kay.

My question is a butt strange. I think they mean a bit strange. No, I think they mean a butt strange. Either they left out a tear, or they misspelled the eye. Okay. I'm really hoping it's valid. strange but. Okay, a happy relationship requires two happy people. So if I am not happy,

the relationship will most probably not work out. But happiness comes from within, which takes time to cultivate. How does one know that they are happy so that they are ready for a relationship? Or can both people work on their individual happiness while being in a relationship? Also, coming from India, there is a lot of arranged marriage. Mine will most probably be done in that way as well. since most Indian parents are miserable with each other. True. And if lucky enough, some people find their soulmates, how does one find a good relationship in an arrangement like this?

I'm not dissing. I'm genuinely asking. I think if you are facing the prospect of an arranged marriage, I think is totally, I think you're doing the right thing by asking basically how to go about screening people. That's what I'm getting from this. I was getting something else.

So what I was getting is like, I'm not happy. So how can I be in a relationship? And like, you know, happiness comes from within, which takes time. So how do you know, like, you know, so like you have to become happy on your own and then are you ready for a relationship? Or can you work on yourself? I got cut up in the plot twist in the second paragraph. Yeah. I think it's a, it's a good plot twist.

I'm really a happy actually. that someone asked about arranged marriages from India. So we have a lot of thoughts. Please. What are your thoughts? You don't want to start? She'll lay in my throat. Okay.

So let's start with the top. So happy relationship requires two people. Where do you get that idea? So I think there are a couple of things. Are you suggesting an arranged threesome? No, no. I was suggesting that sometimes you can have two unhappy people that can have a good relationship. Or one unhappy person that can have a good relationship.

Are you suggesting a reason? Maybe. That might be the answer. To the magic. Okay, I'll do a better job. Okay. So here's what I would say. You know, I think that like,

there's a and this we're going to I'm going to talk a little bit about arranged marriage but I think that one of the key things to remember is that like the the measure of success

in an arranged marriage is sort of like a successful marriage as opposed to a happy marriage right? So like when we think about like when I think about the goals are different. Yeah the goals are different.

It's like creating like a successful life like creating a harmonious life like creating a life where your kids will have like opportunities and not be impoverished. Right. So I think that like when we think about, you know, the system of arranged marriage, it was it was really about the community was more important. The family was more important than the individual. And and so I think that this idea of like romantic love marriages, because like even in Indian culture, they'll call it like an arranged marriage and a love marriage. Like those are the

two options. And they are mutually exclusive. Which implies that an arranged marriage doesn't have love. Like, it's like, you married for love or you married for like the benefit of your people. And I think that that's not, you know, as wrong as that may feel now, I think that like, you know, I've had a lot of conversations with my grandmother and like visiting like my ancestral village and stuff. And it's just like they were playing like, you know, the game that they were playing was just different. So, you know, infant mortality rates are 20% like poverty is like nearly guaranteed if you're born in India. You know, wealth inequality is really bad. There are a lot of things like starvation and like death that are way more present when it comes to things like

marriage. Like, you know, you're part of this community and like you have to lift your load or like your family will suffer because there, you know, food isn't guaranteed. I mean, it's crazy. Like my, my dad grew up in an eight by 10 room with eight people, like one room with eight people living in it. And at night what would happen was people would like, like they were in a building and they had one room. And then like four to six people would sleep in the room. And then like two to four people would go and like sleep outside the house because it wasn't even a house. It was an apartment. So literally what they would do is they'd sleep either on the ceiling, like on the roof of the building or they'd sleep like at the entryway that like they'd sleep in the staircase basically.

Right? Because if you think about when you go up a staircase, like you climb up and then there's the flat level, like people would sleep there. Like every night, every landing that has that stairs lead up to would have people sleeping there. And so I think the goals were different for an arranged marriage. The goals were like harmony as opposed to like happiness. And and the like, and I think, you know, what happened in successful arranged marriage is that people would learn to love each other. Because it's kind of a different attitude. I don't know. know that it's worse. I mean, obviously, I didn't go that route. No, it's about taking care of each other. Yeah, because like, it's like this is joining a family. Are you going to take care of their needs? Great. They're going to also take care of your needs.

Like, it's more like a role that you play within that family. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, when I, I don't know, Dota analogies feel strong today. But like, like, when I play a game of Dota, like, you know, it's kind of an arranged marriage. Like, I don't get to pick who's on my team. But once you're on the team, like, you guys have to play this game. Like, y'all are in it together. Till death do you part.

Till, yeah. And sometimes some fucker picks techies on your team. And then they've just ruined your life and ruined the enemy's life. It just ruins everyone's life. But that's the hand that you're dealt. So you learn how to make it work. So with arranged marriages, like, you know, you learn how to make it work, which I think is kind of interesting because I think actually a lot of times they end up like very successful.

Because there's sort of this presumption that like I'm stuck with this person. So like we might as well figure out a way to make it work. And a lot of times what they discover, I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but I think part of the reason that arranged marriages are so successful is because your parents actually know you pretty well, hopefully, and your parents also have more experience in marriage than you do. Right? So, like, they kind of know your temperament. They know your mentality. Like, it's not perfect. In fact, it's far from perfect. But, and so they sort of pick things for you. And, like, I'm not saying it's, you know, better than what we do here. But, like, You know, you can't even really look at statistics. I mean, but I think you're assuming that the parents' motivation is happiness. And sometimes that's not what the motivation is. No, it's not.

That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not happiness. It's like survival and harmony, right? Because Indian culture doesn't care about happiness. I don't know. I feel like this is like the central idea that we teach, right, which is like sort of a cultural idea, is we don't teach about how to find suk, how to find contentment. We teach about Dharma, like how to do your duty.

I mean, we grew up different, though. Yeah. Because my upbringing was much more geared around independence versus community. S-U-K-K-H-A. Which is the opposite of duke or suffering. Because, I mean, my family did focus on, I think, things that are maybe a little atypical, but it doesn't matter. To answer this question, I think... To sukk.

I think. How am I going to cheers to Suk when my glass is empty? You want to get yourself or you want me to get? You want me to get? You okay? Yeah. And some water out there too. Yeah, water's a juice.

Okay. All right. So two questions here. If you're not happy, the relationship will most probably not work out. I think so, but I feel like that is more true because, of the sentiment here, then because of how true that statement is objectively. Like, I think if you go in thinking this relationship isn't going to work out, it's probably not going to work out.

I think happiness does come from within, but not necessarily the happiness itself, but the desire and the drive to take ownership of your happiness comes from within. but a lot of it is shaped by external factors, I think. Like, do you have financial stability? Do you have a place to live? Are you eating well? Are you sleeping well? Like, all of that matters.

It's not just like a switch that you decide to flip inside. Like, that's a key piece of it, but a lot of it is external. And that's where your partner comes into play. What are those external factors that your partner can help with? And conversely, what are the external factors that your partner needs that you can help with? The part about the arranged marriage, I do think that how does one find a good relationship in an arrangement like this? I think you need some screeners. I think you need to understand kind of your own personality really well and to understand the kind of complementary personality that works well for you.

So I'm going to say something that's going to, I'm sure, be taken out of context. But, like, Ollick's personality is a lot like my sister's personality. And they're some of my favorite people in the world. I get along really well with that personality type. Why would that be taken out of context? I don't know. Just be like, I love my sister, but I married Ollook. Or I don't know.

Just like that kind of thing. I feel like it's an easy thing to distort. Anyway, just bear with me here. So I feel like there are certain personality types that, you know, you can gravitate towards. And I would just think about who in your life has the right... This is the far better chair because you get to see what... Sorry. It is the better chair.

Yeah. It is the better chair. Because you can also like mock me without me knowing. I'm sorry, my own. That's okay. I'll ask to switch chairs soon. Yeah, I think you need good screeners in your questions, and I would try to think about the personalities that you get along really well with. And, like, what about those personalities?

Like, do you need somebody that's really funny? Then, like, I think it's totally fair on your arranged marriage date to be like, tell me some jokes and see what they got. You know? Wait, hold on. What? Are we done? Yeah. Can I say something?

Mm-hmm. So here's the thing. So I like this question because there's a couple things that I think we can like take away from, you know, even our own relationship. So a happy relationship requires two happy people. So if I'm not in happy, the relationship will most like most probably not work out. But happiness comes from within, which takes time to cultivate. How does one know that they're happy so that they're ready for a relationship?

I don't know if I agree with that premise. So like I think a big part of You know Our relationship was like figuring things out Right so I So I don't know that I was happy when we met And I don't know that you were happy I mean I guess you were pretty happy

I guess I was pretty happy But I think that like a big part of this question You had decided to become a monk I know so I was super chill You were detached Happiness was an abstraction for you I wasn't really detached I was egotistical And escapist

I didn't find you that way. Yeah, but anyway. So, so I think it, like, you know, I don't think you need to be perfect before you start the relationship. I actually think, because we always talk about finding the right person. I don't know that you can find the right person. I think you can become the right person in the relationship.

And so I'd say, go ahead and get started and then like work on yourself, right? Like, I'm just thinking about, you know, where, you know, all of the changes we made, right? Like we are completely different people from who we started out as. I used to smoke. Yep. Right. And so. Like the classic, like, I would never date a smoker.

Yeah. So that's the other thing is like I think a lot of times we have these like ideas, right? I would never date X, Y, Z. So I would never date a smoker. And I would also never date an Indian girl. Like it's like this whole like arranged marriage, like Indian stuff. Like ain't. That was very anti-dating Indian guy.

Yeah. And so I think a lot of times the best. relationships are ones that like sort of violate your internal set of rules. But then that's where you kind of talk to people. So she was smoking and I'd never date a smoker. What's worth I didn't realize we were dating apparently when we were dating. I thought we were just hanging out. Oh, really? No, seriously, because I was going to be a monk and I was just like, hey, like, you want to hang out sometime and you're like, sure, which. And then we like hung out. Do you do that with everybody you hang out with? I mean, I feel like that's a trap question because either I lose the argument

or I say yes and then you get really upset with me because then what we have is no longer special. No, go ahead and tell me that you do everything that. Go ahead. No, I really don't do that. I know. You lose the argument. Okay. Money please. Thank you. You can have, you can have access to my bank account. How about that? You can take as much as you want. But I think becoming the right person in the relationship. So I think you can like, you know, if you love someone and you're unhappy, I think this is what happened with us, is still happening. It's about, you know, having that person help you on your journey to happiness. So when I was like, we had been dating for a couple of years and then, you know, I told her, I was like, I need to move to Boston because that's my last chance at making something of myself.

And it's going to be bad for the relationship. But I think it's something I need to do for myself, even though it's a little. come at the cost of relationship and she was like, go. And then when it came time to residency, I did a good job in medical school and I was a competitive candidate. And we sat down and we were like, you know, like, do you want to go back? And she moved to Boston for my sake, right? So she loved being in New York, tons of opportunities, tons of friends.

And she like gave that all up to like be with me. Listen, there's no happy hour in Boston. Yeah, there's no happy hour in Boston. So that's why we make it up for you by the happy hour at the home. Cheers. Happy home. Happy Hour makes Happy White. That's how it goes.

Says you grinning while you hold a tasty beverage at 153. Listen, I am just in vacation mode today. I understand that. And Happy Beverage has a lot to do with that. Let me tell you why I'm in vacation mode. We launched a fucking nonprofit. Like, oh my God, so much work. We launched the pre-order for Dr. K's guide, so much work.

I've got so much dental work done over the last couple weeks. So much pain. Can I go back to telling a story about how amazing you are and how much I love you now? Yeah, it's good. Yeah, see, you guys learning the magic? Yeah. So, I mean, she made sacrifices, right? Like, and so that...

But they didn't, they, mm-mm, I would disagree. I didn't make sacrifices. She made investments. I made investments in our relationship. So then it was like time for residency. I'm not giving up shit. I am helping build something. Yeah.

So she, I guess dating me is like the Bitcoin or doge coin investment that you made. More doge, I would say. Fair. I'm not. I'm not. I think that's fair.

So. But it's right. So like when we were, when I was finishing med school, it was like I was a competitive candidate. I was getting interviews like all over the place, right? Like people were like, I even went to one place where they're like, we don't understand why you're interviewing here.

I was like, what do you mean? You don't understand why you're like, you're better than we are. Like, you were though. I mean, I was like, it was so clear. But I mean, that's because, I mean, they could have been better, but, you know, they weren't. Yeah. Hey, this reminds me, though, when you're saying, I know.

Can I tell my story? You can't. It's going to end up talking about how awesome you are. Okay. You're like channeling your inner all. Could you see interrupting right? Okay. So then like we had to decide.

Oh, this is becoming blah, blah. Not the most. No, yeah. Go ahead. I, where's my... So the point is like, so she was unhappy being in Boston. And then what happened is like we talked about, you know, where do we want to wind up? Like, because we have the opportunity.

Like, there's a decent chance. second I ended up in New York and like gone to Columbia or something like that, right? But it's sort of like we had a choice. It's like either we moved to the West Coast and we like wind up at, you know, in San Francisco or L.A. or like, you know, Portland or Washington, Seattle. Or we go to like New York, right? So like there are a bunch of awesome programs there and like Columbia is solid. Or we stay in Boston and we, you know, kind of wind up at Harvard, which I was pretty sure that, you know, I had a decent shot at. And it would mean like four more years of like living in Boston instead of living in New York.

And like she was unhappy to a certain degree in Boston. And so I don't know that it makes too happy. It requires to happy people to make a happy relationship. I think it's sort of like growing into happiness and planning your lives together. And so this person was sort of asking, can both people work on their individual happiness while being in a relationship? I think it's absolutely a requirement. And so when people say that can both people? work on their individual happiness.

I think it's the responsibility of each partner to work on both of y'all's happiness. Yes. Right? So it's my job to work on her happiness and it's her job to work on my happiness. And so it does a good relationship doesn't require two happy people. I think it hopefully requires one happy person, but even then. I think the whole point behind a relationship is you guys are partying up and y'all are going to build that happiness together.

You're going to build a life together. Between the two of you, you need the capacity for each of you to take care of each other and yourselves. You just need that amount of bandwidth. And whether it's happiness or not. Sorry. No, go ahead. I was just going to say, like, tactical Santa says co-op. Absolutely, dude.

Yeah. Okay, the last thing that I was going to say is that happiness isn't really about your needs being met. about your wants being met. And so if you are trying to figure out what to basically look for in an arranged marriage match situation, I think you have to remove the needs from it. Like, try to have your own source of income, your own thing. So you're not like going into a marriage because you need something. And then know what you want.

Like you want somebody that's going to travel with you. You want somebody that's open-minded. You want somebody that, I don't know, is super funny or can cook or loves kids, whatever it might be. Know what your wants are as much as your needs are. That's all I've got. This is this. 50 bucks. Thank you so much.

Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard. Philosophy pog. Philosophy pog. Thank you so much. All right, shall we be buying the next question? Yes, we definitely should. Teach you with chat?

Teach you with chat. Nice. Up top. Your turn? Yeah. Hi, doctor and Mrs. Kay. I'm 27 male and I have been single forever. I recently worked through some of my shame that held me back,

and now I really like myself. I feel confident that I deserve love and am capable of giving it. However, I'm still anxious reaching me. out and getting to know women. In the moment, I have no idea what to say or feel scared to introduce myself. After the opportunity passes, I think of multiple ways I could have started a conversation or flirted, and I'll wish I did it and reassure myself that I will have courage next time. But this pattern keeps repeating. I understand that I have to take a risk, but is there a way I can get rid of the panic and fear of embarrassment that arises so I can be ready for the next

opportunity. I love this question. My answer is no. There's not a way to get rid of the panic and fear of embarrassment? Nope. Really? Did you have an answer? I think so. Dude, this is like, okay, then help us out. I used to be really scared of coming on stream, but I just blew it a couple of times and yeah, I'm fine. I think you just have to... Yeah, but did you get rid of the panic and fear? before you came on scene? No, I just got better at preparing, I think. That I think you can do. Yes.

So I think there's definitely something that this person can do. But I don't think you can get rid of the panic or fear of embarrassment. All right. So let's, let's. So I think you have to increase your comfort in your confidence. There's a lot of stuff you can do, but can you get rid of the fear? Like, there's no cheat code to get rid of fear of embarrassment. But if all that there is is,

fear and embarrassment, then that's the only emotion you're feeling. But if you're also feeling excitement and confident and all these other things, then panic and fear is just one of many things. It's not the overwhelming thing that I think causes the paralysis. Yeah, I think there's a lot that you can do, but I don't think you can get rid of the panic and fear. And I think that's the problem, right? So I think the problem here is that we think to ourselves, oh, how can I get rid of this thing? and you can't get rid of that thing so you end up stuck where there's a whole lot of other stuff you can do to make yourself like more able to engage with other people. So for example, you can let go of like, like so when you introduce yourself to someone,

I imagine that you have a lot of expectations over what is coming out of that introduction. That's true. So I think what you can do is let go of those expectations, which doesn't have anything to do with the fear of embarrassment or panic. It's just like, hey, there's a person here. So here's like, you know, one tip that, you know, this doesn't... I can give you guys tips, but they're not good ones because I tried them for a while and I ended up, you know... With me or something.

But the whole point is that I didn't use any of my tricks on you. Like, I just was like... What were your tricks? I'm about to tell you. They were ineffective. So one is that I realized that like... So when I was in college, right, and I was like 19-year-old Dr. Chad, I was neither a doctor nor a Chad. I had this idea and I had this revelation.

that if I make friends with a girl, she can introduce me to her friends. So rather than trying to ask this girl out, like, if I just make friends with her, like, she'll introduce me to a bunch of her friends and I can ask, like, six girls out instead. So it increases my access to the pool of women. That's so bad. I'm telling you, this is shitty strategies. So bad. I didn't end up with any of them, right?

Is that why you wanted to come into my dorm? No. I'm pretty sure at the point that I was breaking into your all women's dorm, I'm pretty sure I understood that we were dating. Yeah, he's literally a legend because they tell stories of this guy that broke into our dorm. Anyway, so, yeah, so it was a legend. You were like literally a legend. That's where the legend began. Yeah.

But, you know, years before that, I had come up with all these strategies. I was like, oh, like, I'm going to do this thing, right? I don't think any of them work, but I'll share it anyway. I think there's an important principle here that is accurate. So the cool thing that that allowed me to do, I mean, the strategy is dumb, but the cool thing that allowed me to do is, like, let go of the expectation that something has to come out of this, and I have to get this person to like me. Right.

And I think that this is where, if you think about, like, what is the expectation that you have with introducing yourself? And if you have a big expectation, that's going to create the fear of embarrassment because you could screw up. but it's like why would you introduce yourself to people? There are a thousand reasons to introduce yourself to people that have nothing to do with dating or finding a relationship. And so just cultivate or pick any of those. Right.

So you're 27 and you're single. And there's someone that you hang out with. And this could be interesting because like don't just look at people that you're attracted to. Right. Just like go out and meet people. Like getting to know women. Like do you have to be attracted to the woman to get to. note her. I was going to say, start hitting on people that you're not super, like, do some low

stakes flirting. Just learn to like appreciate human beings for what they are. And like the love will come. Right. Like just like like recognize that there are, you know, they're, they're billion, there's seven billion human beings on the planet and each one has something that is like incredibly interesting and fascinating about them. That you can engage in relationships with people who like, you guys can go watch movies together and go play frisbee together and like do all kinds of stuff. I would have never played frisbee with you. Okay. I mean, would have we'd never played frisbee.

Well, right. Is it because you don't know how to play frisbee or is it something about me? I'm confused. The physics of frisbys make no sense. Okay, so it has nothing to do with me. No, yeah, it's more about the frisbee. So, case and point, right? Like, so, like, this is what I'm saying is, is, you know, if you guys pay attention, she makes, I would never play frisbee with you.

Like, that sounds like it's about me. It's. And if I'm, like, anxious, right? I'm going to think, like, oh, my God, what's wrong with me that she would never pray supposed to be? But, like, this is the thing. Like, human beings, like, she has all kinds of, like, it has nothing to do with me. It has to suit the frisbee. Frisbees make no sense.

So this is where, like, if you guys are worried that someone is not doing something with you, like, just think for a second that maybe that has more to do with them than it does with you. Yeah. And think about, like, if. the physics are weird for the things that you're proposing. That's the problem with the magic. It's that the physics aren't right. That's what it is. It's all about the angle.

I knew you were going to say that. 100% knew you're going to say that. It's because we've talked about it and wait too much. So much. Well, it's all about the physics for me. If you think Allok, the labor's points on stream, you have no idea. All right. You get wrecked shitties.

Today I am the shitty that was wrecked. I'm really excited for Buddy, though, that I think if you... Go back to teaching with chats. Go back to teaching with chat. I think they've forgotten about Buddy. No. Don't forget about Buddy. Oh, teaching what?

Yeah, you're doing it right. Okay. Up top. Thanks. See, instead of just waiting for a high-five, just give people a signal so that they know, right? I gave you a signal. You just didn't see it. Exactly.

That's why I'm doing the verbal. signal. Right? You see? Communication. Teach me about communication. I go, okay. Teach me about making the magic happen. Oh, no. Anyway, what I was going to say is it sounds like you've been on this thing, right? You got rid of the shame and now you really like yourself. And like you're kind of in this progression. So what I wanted to tell you is keep going. I think this will get easier for you as long as that there's more emotions than panic and fear. Like, I really think this should be fun and exciting for you. So in so much as you can kind of remember that like, meaning somebody should be fun, meaning somebody you should not be the scary thing.

I think you'll be okay. Yeah, I just want to say like, buddy, dude, you're a cool dude. Yeah. Right? Like, you have something to offer people. Like, each and every one of you, like, I know it sounds weird, but like each and every one of you has something to offer people. And so like get to know people. Just like try to meet them and try to like recognize that every person that you meet could be, you know, your best friend, could be a friend of yours for the next five years. Could be like a great source for like, you know, a chicken soup recipe. Like they could teach you how to make cookies.

They could do all kinds of stuff. Like there are a lot of human beings out there. And I think like a big part of what I've, I mean, like I think the reason people think maybe I'm special is because, you know, every time someone comes on stream, like, I recognize that there's someone here who, like, is awesome in some way, because we are all awesome in some way. I'm not saying it, you know, because like, oh, man, like, we're all, like, we all have a piece of the divine, man. Like, sure, that's true.

But if you, like, think about it statistically, like, there's something cool about every person. I think you should just ask women for their chicken soup recipes. I think that would be weird That sounds like something I would come up with before I met you Like oh like I have this master plan to ask women for the chicken soup recipes And they would become friends of mine because I would signal to them the time of cook Okay We're going to go to the next one

Sounds good Should you speak like this for the rest of the... You can keep it gone for as long as you can, I'll joke I want to So good. Yep. Nice. Okay.

Read it. Read it. Hey, Dr. Kay. I want to watch a TV series with my girlfriend. Can you recommend me a girlfriend? This is so good. Did you batting, dude? Like, love it.

Love it. I don't know many girlfriends. You're just going to do props for the question. Yeah. All right. Can we recommend? I can recommend TV? series. I just finished Shadow and Bone. I'm starting Queen of the South. Medici.

I don't think that's what this person is looking for. He's literally not looking for that. Yeah. That's all I've got, though. I don't have like girlfriends in my back pocket. Healthy gamer dating service coming in 2022. No, please God. That sounds like a terrible idea. I don't sign us up for anything. No. I mean, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, I don't know how to. Hmm. Let's think about this for a second. What, chat, you guys have any idea? What do we do? Hold on. It sounds like an impossible question. answer, right? Wait, is this a real, like, I want to watch TV with a woman and he wants a woman who

likes to watch TV? Is that where we're going with this? I mean, the question that this person is asking us is, can you recommend me a girlfriend? And, like, let's just think about that for a second. Can we actually recommend this person or girlfriend? Is there any way that's possible? Because you just think about this. If we just assume that it's impossible, right?

But the whole reason that we're here is because there were people that assume that that things were impossible that we dared to question. And that's why we're here today, because we dared to question that you, having emotional, personal conversations has to be done offline and privately. True, true, true. Because if we can figure this out, that'd be huge. So let's think. I don't know if you're proposing, like, creating a Netflix-like thing to, like, if you liked

this person, then we recommend meeting this person, or if you're... This is what I'm talking about. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if there was an API that connected, like, dating services to Netflix? Interesting. So, like, similar tastes, like, find people at the same taste as you? Yeah. But could you do that on, like, I don't know, subreddit's dedicated to different shows or fan forums?

Or is that, like, you're not looking for someone's for hard for. But here's the thing. It's about expectation, right? Because, like, it's fucking weird if I'm on a subreddit. And I'm like, yeah, I really love the office. And someone is like ASL. You know what they would call it? What?

Netbox. Netbox. That's a no time. So like, ask impossible questions. And when you get faced with an impossible question, don't give up on the answer. That took all of what? Like, 90 seconds? Yeah.

Like, that's just 90 seconds. NetFox.com. A dating a website that is built on like matching entertainment preferences. Like it's pretty dope. It would be. You could channel on some Spotify. Right? That's interesting.

Yeah. All right. Okay. All right. Drowning in Milk asks, why do I just can't connect to girls? Well, I'd start by... Not drowning in milk. Or getting a Netflix account.

You know. Is this a, this seems like a serious question. Yeah, of course, it's a serious. I think the last one was a serious question, too. I thought it was more of a joke. But yeah, I can see the seriousness behind it. Yeah. Why do I just can't connect to girls, Al Oak?

For what it's worth, I don't really connect to girls either. Like, I always had more guy friends than I did girlfriends. until after... You don't have guy friends. You had guys that wanted to get with you. I don't think that's true. I know you don't think it's true. Now I just have girls that want to get with me?

No, the whole point is that... I don't have as many guy friends now. Yeah. Because I'm married. Yeah. I don't know. I have some, though. You do.

Do you? It's been a while since I've, like... Anyway, let's go back to the question at hand. I'm really good in touch with some of my friends. Well, I was. I can't really connect to girls. I couldn't really connect to girls either. So I feel like you had more girlfriends than I did.

Yeah. I'd built out that strategy that I was talking about, which is that every... The chicken soup strategy. Every friend that I make will introduce me to six possibilities. So I had a whole plethora of women who I was friendly with, but had expressed no romantic interest in. Because I wasn't a romanticly interested.

No, you have all. Always, like, in the hospital, like, the nurses would be all over you. And, like, even in residency, you had two close girlfriends and one close guy friend. Yeah. Yeah. But my friends in residence. I mean, the hospital thing is a different thing because that happens all the time. No, but you've always had more women friends than guy friends.

I don't know about more. Mm-hmm. In a social setting. even at camp you had more like the girl counselors were more of them i know you're like your boys now like your like core crew let me just let me just count no he's gonna try to weasel his way out of this but it's true like so if i look at my my 12 uh out of these 10 closest friends are all dudes i know those are your closest friends what i'm saying in a social situation, you tend to get along with women.

Yeah. So drowning in milk would like to get along with some women. Okay, so here's the tip. Okay. So why can't I just connect with girls? Stop trying to connect with girls and start trying to connect with people. Remove gender from the equation. Because at the end of the day, the only difference, so like if you look at the difference

between a man and a woman, like most of our chromosomes are exactly the same. We have one differential chromosome. Then why can't, why we're, listen, what about my guy friends? What about your guy friends? What if they were just trying to connect with me as a person? What if they were trying to connect you as a stuff? How do we explain to her chat? No, I mean, I think it's fine for you.

I mean, like, I think, you know, there's different back in college. Because like, here's the thing, right? Like, when you're a dude, Like, you see the signs. Like, you know when someone's trying to, like, you know. What are the signs, professor? All right. Let me think about this.

Yeah. There's a certain amount of friendliness. Uh-huh. Right? There's a certain amount of, like, advertising that you're not interested. That's the key thing. It's like this kind of like, you know, like Shakespeare, like me dot think he protests too much. So it's like the advertising.

of lack of interest. There's a difference between being interested and being not interested. And then there's the advertising of not being interested. I don't think any of my guy friends

on the regular was like, yo, and by the way, I'm not interested. Sure, not to you. Then, do you? So I'll have you know that I had a conversation with one of your closest guy friends.

Mm-hmm. Where we like, like, we were, we had it out one day and we were like, look bro like be straight with me if she was single would you ask her out and he was like absolutely and we were cool after that because like we understood did he come to our wedding no comment this is a conversation between men all right whatever right so and it's like come on chat like if she was

single would you ask her out like absolutely all right if you want to connect with girls i would start doing the following start faking start going to yoga and start making good cocktails. That's good. So I'd say, I'd say yoga's definitely a great option. But I'd say that, because here's the thing. Like, I don't know it sounds kind of weird, but, you know, girls aren't that different from guys.

Like, we're mostly the same. I have never taken one of your girlfriends aside and been like, yo, if he was single, would you ask him out? Yeah, I understand that because they, I think it's different, right? Because, like, I detected my boyfriend. bullshit meter picked it up. Oh, because your bullshit meter is so much better. Yes.

It is now. It wasn't before. Fair. Fair. Fair. You know, because I have had professional training. But going back to this, I, so I think Ruthie gives practical tips, right? So, like, go to yoga class, like, learn how to make beverages.

I think that's good. But it doesn't have to be alcoholic beverages. No, it doesn't. I think, I mean, a big foundation of our relationship is caffeinated beverages. I'd say far more than alcohol. Making a good cup of tea. I think having a craft. Yeah, twist this way.

Keep going. Having a craft is helpful. Having a craft. I'm just going to twist me and excuse me. Learn how to do that. I'm going to bring you closer. Thank you. Don't go so far away from me.

I'll never leave you. I can't believe you took one of my guy friends aside. And you never knew I think I know who you're talking about now This explains Oh how would you know Because Not him but of you

Because I know from you Okay So it's I mean it's like Like you know You just got to get it out And we're totally cool after that Like no big deal man

You lost bro Did you say Gigi to him? No because he wouldn't have understood Were you thinking Gigi in your head? I can't remember that. I bet you were. So going back to this person's question.

So I think, you know, why can't you connect to girls? I'd say start by connecting to people. And if they happen to be girls, so be it. Right? And if like attraction comes or like, if you want to ask someone out at some point, go for it. But like, if you can't connect to girls, that means that the girlness of them is getting in the way of the personhood of them. So like connect to people first. Right? Like, don't worry about the females or the femoids or any of that stuff.

Like, like, recognize that, like, just because they have two X chromosomes, that there are still people and, like, learn how to connect to humans. And if they happen to have two X chromosomes, totally fine. And if they don't, totally fine. Right. Okay. Also, if you have any sisters or cousins, you might want to start spending a little bit more time around them and try to take away the mysticism. of like the opposite sex from this. All right. Next. Teaching what child. You can't say things like that on Twitch, man.

What you mean? All right, let's just keep going. I don't know what I did. Hi, Leaflet. Hi, Dr. Kay and Mrs. Kay. As a 20-year-old guy, I find many girls attractive. I like talking to girls at work. I find attractive.

Sorry. I like talking to girls at work I find attractive, flirting with girls, and forming relationships. However, in the long term, I find no huge appeal in getting married, unlike many of my peers. Unlike many of my peers. Is there something wrong with me for not wanting to get married? Is it an unhealthy thing to have no desire to get married and have kids? You're fine. You're 20.

You're fine. So when he asks, is there something wrong with me? You're saying no. No. Is it unhealthy to have no desire to get married and have kids? No. I think maybe you don't have, I would like for you to have a true and accurate picture of what marriage could be because it can be really fun. I don't want you to think marriage is just not fun.

But other than that, I don't think anything's wrong with you. Yeah, I'd agree. it's not unhealthy at all to have no desire to get married and have kids. I mean, there's a part of me that wants to say, if you were super, super into that, that may actually be unhealthy, but I know that there's some people who, from a very young age,

like marriage and kids and that kind of thing is very important. And I'd say that, like, honestly, like, my diagnosis here would be like, you just haven't fallen in love yet. Like, wait until you fall in love. Like, really? Like, you're going to get hit over the head and it's going to change everything.

And even then, it's not about like wanting to have kids and stuff, it's just about meeting someone that you're like, man, like, I just don't want anyone else. Like, this is the person that I want for like, and that's it. I never thought of getting married as the exclusion of other people. It was like, I had to spend my whole life with this person. That's so great. Yeah. Okay. I don't even think about it as whole life. It's just... Well, you signed up for seven lives. Technically, it's true. In the Hindu wedding ceremony, when you get married, you sign up for seven lives. Okay. Your turn to read.

I mean, should we have spent a little bit more time on that, or it's like, is you're 20? Like, don't worry about it. You're not supposed to want to have kids yet. It's totally cool. Or if you, I mean, like, some people do at that point. Some people don't. I think just continue living your life and, like, continue, like, every day that the earth rotates, you know, you may change when you're 24, 26, 27. and you may meet someone that will change your mind.

I think all that's normal. It sounds what I would call developmentally appropriate. Exactly. Just I want you to have good marriage role models to. If you want to get married. I mean, some people don't want to get married. That's fine. But as long as you have like a complete understanding of what marriage is, I think for a lot of people,

like the idea of marriage is like, oh, cool, we're just going to fight and bicker and have a mortgage. Dude, we had no idea what marriage was. And in fact... No, I know. And that's why we're open to it. Our marriage is way better than the, you know, what we were exposed to. Like, I like what we have way more than... I agree.

I think marriage is about, like, it's like, like, the cool thing is you get to build it. It's like Minecraft. You can build whatever you want to. You pick a person. You guys build what you want. Well, we always thought of it as lifetime of fun. That's kind of how we always framed it. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. True. No me. Hey. So I've never been in a relationship, but I strongly feel the need for one. However, I very rarely find myself thinking I like anyone. And most of the times I do, I then, after some thought, realize I actually might not.

How do you distinguish between sexual, intellectual, and romantic attraction? And how do you even know you like someone? Does it just happen? Do you have to go around and look for it? Do you have to like someone a little? Get to know them and then like them a lot. Or do you have to like them a lot in the first place? Thanks.

Good question. I feel like there's a very simple answer. I think so too. What's yours? What's yours? No, I asked first. So answer first. That is not how it works.

Ladies first, dude, come on. No. It's going to be the same answer. One, two, three. I knew you wouldn't play. One, two, three, what? Say your answer. I mean, to me, it's like, does she turn you on?

That wasn't my answer. That wasn't? What's your answer? Okay, you do yours first. I did already. Can you explain it? Intellectual and romantic attraction don't matter if there's not sexual attraction. For a relationship, anyway.

So does this person? turn you on. Does this person float your boat, check your boxes, flip your switch. Make the magic happen. Right. All right. What was your answer? I mean, so I'd say like, okay, so, all right, let's go back to this. So, like, you know, I find myself thinking I, I like anyone, and most of the times I do, I then, after some thought, realized, I might actually not. How do you distinguish between these three kinds of interaction? How do you know you like someone?

So like this sounds to me that will be like overly intellectual. Right? So it's like I find myself liking someone and then I think through it and then I realize I might not. So like I think that the answer here is about think less and experience more. In your pants. Right. So how do you even know you like someone? like that's not an answer you can figure out in your head.

It's an answer that you have to figure out through experience. In your pants. And in your pants. Do you have to go around and look for it? Sometimes. Do you have to like someone a little and get to know them sometimes? So I'd say that I'd be careful about what your mind keeps you from doing. And I'd encourage you to like, if you find yourself attracted to someone, you know, try to have a relationship with them and recognize.

Like, watch out because then your mind is going to like, start generating certain thoughts, like, oh, you don't like this person for reasons like A, B, and C. But the problem is that your mind can use logic, but like the logic that it has is going to be founded on your experience. So you need to collect more data so that your logical function has more to work with. How do you distinguish between sexual, intellectual, and romantic attraction? Like, sexual is something you feel in your pants, right? Intellectual attraction, I imagine, is something that you're like kind of interested in what this person like thinks and says. And romantic is like hard to describe because I think it's primarily emotional.

It's not going to be like it's not going to be something. I mean, sure you can learn to distinguish it. You have to feel it. Like a romantic attraction is like, you know, it's something that's felt. Not that's, it's not something that's logic to do. So, you know, what I'd say to this person is if you find yourself like overly thinking relationships and convincing yourself that you might not actually like someone, like just, hey, attention to what your mind is doing because there's a decent chance that your mind is protecting

you from or you have some kind of fear or anxiety that your logical system is like protecting you. Yeah, I was going to ask, like, do you feel like this person's like ashamed of something or like would only want a relationship with this kind of person or anything? I mean, maybe shame. I'm not sure, but I'm just saying like, you know, it sounds like you have feelings towards someone and you logic your way out of your feelings. But why would somebody do that? You know, we'd have to talk to them. I think that, yeah, maybe there's some kind of fear or, like, negative emotion. But I'd say, like, experience more.

Like, level up. Like, jump into the water from time to time and just see how you feel. You know, have a sexual relationship, have an intellectual relationship, and have a romantic relationship. Then you'll be able to tell the difference. Yeah. Okay. Agree.

Teaching, teaching. The chili is, like, really stinging now. Teaching with chat. Wrong one. Teaching with chat. Yeah. And then click it. You have to quick it.

Quick it. I think you might be the one for me. Yeah, I think so. Hi, Dr. and Mrs. Kay. How do you balance caring for a partner so that it doesn't come a detriment to yourself? I have a strong impulse to always be there for a partner, but sometimes it can end up hurting me and ultimately it feels like I'm screwed either way. Oh, perspicacity, I feel for you.

I feel like I have a lot of. people in my life that would relate to this. This strikes me as like the fixer type. Yeah. So I think this is the key thing, right? I have a strong impulse to always be there for a partner that has nothing to do with your partner. It has everything to do with you.

It's about living up to this idea of being someone who is always there for their partner. And I know it sounds kind of weird, but at that point, it's not about you anymore. I mean, it's not about your partner anymore. It's all about you. So I think part of the reason that people get into this situation is like, oh, like, I want to be a caring person, so I have to do X, Y, and Z. Where it's like if you don't do those things, then you feel like you're a bad person. So it's like you're making it sound like it's a two-player game, but it's actually like all a one-player game. Right? So how do you balance caring for a partner so it doesn't come to the detriment of yourself,

that's where you like, you like lean on your partner to let them know so that you can understand what their needs are. And you signal to them what your needs are. Because what I want you guys to do is like think about your relationships is like a shared resource pool. Right?

It's like, like you guys have a shared resource pool. And so you should let people know, how much are you spending on this relationship? How much are they spending? How much do you need to get out? how much do they need to get out. You all need to, like, sit down and figure out, like, what's going on? So case in point, you know, when Kruthi and I, like, you know, I was like, hey, I kind of want to go to Harvard.

And she's like, okay, fine. I'll stay in Boston for four more years, even though I hate it here. And, like, after that, she's like, I've decided to get an MBA. And I was like, okay, fine. Right? And it's like. We're stuck here and all their. And I was like, couldn't you've done that the two years?

Like, couldn't you've decided that two years ago so we could leave Boston sooner? No, because I was too busy having all of your big. babies. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, so, right. So like, like, it's a shared resource pool and that, like, that's what I wanted and later that's what she wanted. And like, and so if you have a strong impulse to always be there for someone, why are you actually being there for them? Are you being there for them for them or for yourself? Because a lot of times what ends up happening is that we do a lot of things for ourselves and then we think we're doing it for them. And then it leaves us feeling really resentful because I did this for you. I did all this stuff for you and you don't

appreciate me. It's like this is classic nice guy syndrome. I've done everything for you and you don't appreciate what I've done for you. Did you read this as a male writing this? Maybe. I read this completely as a woman writing this. I feel like a lot of, I know a lot of really wonderful women who feel the need to fix people and they put so much into it, They put so much into it. They put so much into it. And then they're like, well, I never even got around to making my needs met. Oh, so look, like, Chad is like, obviously a woman, obviously a man.

Like, oh, my God, Chad. It's almost as if men and women can share common problems. And that gender is like, sure, it like is a big part of our identity, but that both men and women can experience the same things. Shocking. I thought, I think I did read it as a man. I read it as a woman. I'm not surprised at all. Me neither. So yeah, it seems like a fairly universal thing. And I think the main thing is to remember

that relationships are there, the ideal relationship helps you become your best self. And if you feel like that is not happening now, it is not going to be possible that like really all you can do is help this other person level up at the expense of you leveling up. it's not going to be the best relationship. The best relationships you both level up. Good? Yeah. I was reading chat.

I have to find, I make an attempt to kind of like try to make it like non-heteranormative. Go down. Teaching with chat. Sorry, guys, I can't get the clicks right. That's why magic doesn't happen. Because I can't get the clicks right. I don't know.

Should we suck? with the magic comments? We? Should we stop with the magic comments? Yes, I think we could tone it down a little bit. Yeah. But also, we don't have to if we don't want to. All right, let's keep going.

This is your question. Hello, Dr. Kay. Currently going through a breakup with someone who has low self-worth, story cut short, she decided to let her abuse of X back into her life, despite the fact that she pretty much told everyone that she was done with him and there wouldn't be anything with the guy again, and dropped me off in a heartbeat despite her showing and telling me about her deep interest in what I was offering in the relationship. My question is, how does one tread in a relationship like this? Since I'm someone who usually offers a more easygoing lifestyle and usually offer peace of mind

over large-scale adventures and extroverted outings, I have a feeling that I might attract more broken people over those who aren't undergoing hardships in their life. This is kind of what we were starting to talk about. So the first thing is, I know it feels like you've invested a lot in like, if only this was different, only that was different, then this could really be the right person for you, but I don't think you should put anything more into this relationship.

So my opinion, this relationship is over. And anything more you put into it will be to her benefit and there's nothing in it for you. So if you want to be her friend, you can. But I feel like your time is better spent elsewhere and she has friends that can help her more with other things. why we date broken people I was literally writing about this like yesterday so like we're making a doctor's cake Kay's guide in relationships

and and we were The magic you mean? I thought we were not going to make comments about magic anymore Oh we aren't You're right But I think you could make a guide to sex

If you wanted to Okay I think it would be good okay um anyway keep going yep no i'm just thinking about sucks okay so a couple things so one is that you know a lot of people are saying bail right and it's easy to tell someone to bail but like there's a like it's hard to bail so let's just acknowledge that even then and then like we have to be careful because the more people that tell you to bail and the harder it is for you to bail the more stupid you're going to feel so this is where you know you have to understand that

she let this ex back into her life because of let's try to be optimistic and compassionate about it due to her own like vulnerabilities, right? And at the same time, is this where you're going to find happiness? It sounds like probably not because you can be patient with her. And this is where I know it sounds kind of weird, but a lot of people are telling you to bail. But like, I've actually seen a lot of fair relationship, I mean, a lot of good relationships where people you know, didn't bail. And like, you give your partner another chance and another chance and another chance.

And eventually, like, they come around and they begin to realize, like, oh, wow, like, I was so stupid and cruel to you. Whereas, like, you're the one that I've loved all along. Well, the question is, how does one try to know a relationship like this? There is no relationship. I mean, sure. It's just you trying and her picking someone else. I'm kind of of the mind of, you know, it's hard to, like, it's hard to make this relationship work for the reasons that you said is it doesn't seem like it's a mutual relationship. I think there's, so the one thing is that, you know, I'm sort of aligned with people that are saying kind of bail because, you know, I don't know how much you want to invest in a relationship where someone is not investing the same amount you are.

So, like, I advocate that, you know, it's fine to sacrifice. sacrifice in a relationship. It's fine to put a lot into a relationship, but there should be reciprocity. And I think the main thing here is that I'm not seeing a whole lot of reciprocity. And now we get to, you know, the notes that I was making, which is like, since I'm someone who usually offers a more easygoing lifestyle and usually offer peace of mind over large-scale adventures and extroverted things, I have a feeling that I might attract more broken people over those who aren't undergoing hardships in their life. And that's fine.

I mean, so if you attract broken people, like there's a differential diagnosis for that. There are a lot of reasons for that. And one thing that I encourage you to think about is it may not be so much about, like, you're like, oh, I offer an easygoing lifestyle, but like I'm not as fun as other people are. Right? And if you kind of think about it, like, there's insecurity there, which is,

and like sometimes the reason that we date broken people is because we instinctively bat. at our level. So it may sound weird, but the more you feel worse about yourself, the more you may feel like the only people that would like you are people who you can see flaws in. And you have to be really, really careful about that line of thinking. And so like, because I see this a lot. There's a pattern of people who date broken people. And if we really look at like, why do people consistently date broken people. A lot of it is because they think on some level, the only person that's going to like me is someone who's a little bit messed up because I'm someone who's a little bit

messed up. And that actually has to do with your perspective of yourself. And you may be surprised that, you know, like love is weird. Like love's not logical. Like love is, and you may be able to, you know, date and fall in love and have someone fall in love with you who's like way above your level. A happened right here, right? And, and so, It happens, chat. So don't sell yourself short. And so be careful. Because here's what I found.

When I work with people, like, we talk about online dating, you know, what happens if you pay attention, if you see someone and you're attracted to them. But do you have this thought, oh, this person would never date me? And then you keep scrolling. And then you're like, oh, this person would date me because they're a little bit broken. If you have that thought, you've got to be really careful. Because that's coming from you. Like, you're not even giving the first person the choice of rejecting you. And that may be because you're afraid you're going to get rejected, which is, you know, fair.

Like, you may have that fear. I'm not saying it's going to happen. But be careful about why you date broken people. And be careful about, like, you know, pay attention to your mindset and become aware of, like, if I'm really attracted this person. But I think to myself, oh, this person would never date me. That's a problem. Don't sell yourself short. I also

Oh. Yeah. There's another piece of this. You guys want to read the, you all want to hear the notes? Yeah. Okay. You want to show them?

So if we fix them, we can demonstrate our value. So this is another big piece of it. That's what I was going to get at. Yeah. And then there's like a fear because like if I can like if I don't have intrinsic value and there's someone broken and I can be there for that. Like this goes back to this one.

Hold on. Okay. I feel like there was one where I can't find it. Anyway. Yeah. So this is where you guys have to be careful because sometimes the reason that we will date people who are broken is because we can help fix them. Right. So I'm someone who cares about other people.

Like I can help this person be happy. I can take care of them. I can sacrifice my own emotional needs. So it's sort of like and some people feel like the only or the clearest value that you bring to the relationship is. is actually in fixing the other person. So, like, if someone's broken, then you know you can do something to help them. Like, you can help them feel better. You can fix them.

You can save them. You can, like, show them what love means, right? And then you kind of get yourself into a little bit of a trap there because if what you bring to the relationship is the ability to fix them, then what happens when they're fixed? Do they need you anymore? And so what we find in fixers is actually a feel. that once they do their job, the person whom they fixed will leave them behind.

And we'll go find a healthy person because I don't need you anymore because you've done your job. You fixed me. And so now I'm going to move on to better people. So be careful about that. Okay. And so be careful about, you know, if you find yourself dating broken people over and over and over again, like be a little bit careful about don't worry about the person. Pay attention to yourself and what drives you. to like date a broken person. But also like how can you, like what is the value you can bring to somebody that's not broken? Yeah.

And that's where like, it's like you have intrinsic value. You don't need to fix people to like be good in a relationship. Like you can just be good in a relationship, which you may not understand about yourself. But that kind of goes back to this whole theme of like we're all people that have value. Okay. So never help anyone. No, I'm not saying never help anyone. I'm saying be careful about.

whether helping someone is the primary reason why you feel comfortable engaging in a relationship. Fixing another person should not be the thing that overcomes your social anxiety in the relationship. Yeah, because there's something easy about that, right? Absolutely. Right? It's like, oh, like, there's so broken. Like, I can show them my value. Where it's like, you don't need to show anyone in your value.

It's there. me do I think he protests too much Are you gonna get Shakespearean for the rest of the day? Probably not for the rest of the day. Okay. Okay. How does one keep realistic expectations standards for love? I didn't grow up with any healthy examples of love

and I have a hard time with the post-honeymoon period of a relationship. Great question. I think it's a good question too. I didn't, I have never, like I did. didn't grow up seeing a couple like us. I think our ability to create the thing that we wanted to create in our life is kind of the only reason why we have our relationship. I kind of zone down.

That's hard for me to attend to things. I don't have to lean on you. You got to have to carry from here on out. Oh, from here. What I was saying. So did you have any great examples of relationships when you were growing up? Nothing like ours. Exactly.

I don't think you have to see it to do it. So it's not about realistic. It's about your own ability to create the thing that you want. Yeah, because that's what's realistic, right? It's like expectation is based on everything outside of you. But here's the thing. It's not real. You are a unique person.

Like, your partner. partner is a unique person. And the relationship that the two of you have has never existed in the history of human, humanity. So, you know, don't let your expectations get in the way. There's something weird about this, isn't there. There's no water in this room. Go get some water. I mean, we need some. Can we get some food at some point? That's the closet. Yeah, I see for the Pringles. Look, I just thought I'd like, I'm going to go get water, but Here, I want to pull a later. All right.

Back to this. So this is the thing. I mean, look, so I think both my wife and I have had, you know, to a certain degree, like healthy parents. And at the same time, I think, you know, you have to remember that, like, like I was saying, you have never existed before. Your partner has never existed before. Y'all's relationship has never existed before. So I think creating a healthy relationship is recognizing that, like, this is an entirely new game that's being. And there's only so much you can understand and learn from prior games that have existed.

So this is where, you know, what I would really advocate for is like, you know, what are realistic expectations? That's a conversation you need to have with your partner. This is what I want from the relationship. This is what you want from the relationship. Can I expect and rely on you to provide me with this thing that you don't want to give me, but that I want? And ultimately, like, communication is the most important thing.

because it's like you guys are playing a multiplayer game, but if you're not communicating, then it's like you're just all in your head. So like learn how to talk to each other. And when you say, I have a hard time with post-honeymoon periods of the relationship, yeah, like you and everyone else, because the honeymoon period is like when your hormones are going great.

And it's like, oh my God, I love you so much. And then it's like, how are we going to pay the internet bill? You know, what are we going to be about finances? Where are we going to do about kids? Where are we going to live? How are we going to deal with? rent, those are all the things that are boring and terrible and are also like, you know, part of the, part of the relationship. I mean, depending on what kind of relationship you have,

right? And so I'd say that set your own expectations, determine your own standards of love. Like, don't rely on whether it's realistic or not. Like, F that. I mean, there have been so many times where Kruthi and I have been like, oh my God, like this is unrealistic what we're doing. And I was like, screw that. And she was too. I was like, we're not realistic. Like, we don't do things like other people. We're not, you know, we're not the regular humans.

We're us. And it's our lifetime of fun. So this is what we're going to do, even if it's a bad idea. And so the cool thing about a relationship is that ultimately you're the one that gets to write the rules. Like you and your partner get to write the rules together. And you guys write whatever rules you want. If like, you know, every Friday is crazy fun Friday where like no one gets to wear clothes, like that's fine.

Right? You know, you have to watch out about, you know, work and things like that. But you guys get to determine the rules. You get to determine what are realistic expectations. And whether they're realistic or unrealistic, I think the best parts of our relationships are the things where we've had unrealistic expectations and we've managed to fulfill them anyway. It's like, I have a completely unrealistic expectation. And it's like, cool, let's make that happen. I want spicy, puffy Cheetos and margaritas and like a new TV show and you do it because you're the best.

Yeah, and she's like, oh my God, is this hard for you? And I'm like, of course it's hard for me. But we shouldn't let that get in the way of your indulgent enjoyment. That's true. Unless it looks like you're ordering food. I feel like I have too. Do it more. We should get something up to.

okay. Yeah, yeah. I need to make them coffee. Okay. Okay. So they want burgers. Sure. Okay.

Oh. Wait. Oh, is that it? That's changing colors. Okay, chat. Looks like that's it. We did it. We did it.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Or how are we feeling? What are we doing? I mean, I'm feeling arguably too good. I feel like I keep going. I feel like I want to keep going. but there are parts of my body.

They're telling me not to. Which parts? Nothing. The magic parts? No. No? I'm older than 35 and my GI system is not what it used to be parts. Guess who's not older than 35?

Up top. Nice. Date an older man. Date an older woman, chat. I see you. Okay. I think I've scrolled too far It's like Cracker Barrel

Okay, we'll figure this out Alright, so I think we've gotten through all our questions Hold on, there's a message At Kruthy full stream Screen screen, okay, that looks like it's two hours old Okay Okay Oh, there's a 10,000

Ah No, wait, what? That's too many zeros How many, what was that for real though? Sneaky what this name is familiar you don't remember we turned this down we didn't turn it down yes we asked if we were sure turned it down he's snuck in it's okay you want to say thank you thank you no no no i mean i think you you you know i'm still waiting on an email is what i'll say

to this person oh the ball's in there of course That's incredibly generous. It's very generous. Yeah, sorry, I should have been grateful. But I was just stunned by the name. I think there was an ethical issue earlier. But they can donate. I feel like you were just digging holes.

Sorry. Thank you very much for the $10,000 donation. It means a lot. And now we're making Dr. K's Guide to Magic. Yes, we are. Okay. But also, we're making Dr. K's Guide to Magic. This person is a longtime supporter, and I think it deserves

to be thanked properly. Long-time supporter of the stream. Every step of the way, I feel good that, like, we have been able to give something back in a more tangible way. So thank you very much. It means a lot.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Obviously, guys, thank you guys very much. I think it helps us do. I don't know if I think Ruthie shared the impact report with you guys. So for those of you don't know, I think we tried to be somewhat transparent in terms of like what we put money to, what our mission is. We're really, really grateful for all the support.

And yeah, thank you so much. I think it helps us do the work that we do. His message is really funny. Healthy Gamer taught me that the only way money makes you happy is if you give it away. So thanks for letting me buy happiness. Classic cult. Joking aside. Thanks for everything you do and keep it up.

Thanks a lot, man. We really appreciate it. We appreciate the donation. I will just accept it gratefully, unlike what my previous response was. So I will learn how to accept it grateful. All of the problem is he can't take compliments or donations well and he like can never ask people for money. People will be like, okay, so send me the bill. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe one day.

And he never. No, I can take people's money. It's just there's some situations in which I refuse to take people's money. And I stand behind those. I don't challenge those. I just think you're really... Oh, look, I like your hair today. What do you...

I'm trying to get you to take. See, you can't take a compliment. Oh, look, you look so good today. I mean, I know I look good today. I look good every day. Come on. No, you don't. Don't you?

No, not every day. Don't you know who I am? Haven't you seen me? Oh, give me a break. I think that's so funny. All right, chat. So thank you guys very much. Thank you for the gigantic.

donation. Thank you for everyone. We've had a ton of donations. Just a reminder that all of the donations that we're collecting right now are all for the Healthy Gamer Nonprofit, the Healthy Gamer Foundation, which we support services for people who can't afford them. I don't think a lot of people realize this. I think probably something like 80% of our viewership and our audience comes from the Americas in the EU or North America and EU. But we offer services to a lot of people in countries. that, you know, the USDA price doesn't translate really well. And I'm really, really grateful for all of y'all's support because it allows us to provide services for people in, like, you know,

the Middle East and Southeast Asia and places where our services are actually expensive for them. So I'm really grateful for the support. I guess I'm going to have to make. So what did I say that I was going to make if we hit $10,000? I'm not going to tell you. Dr. Kay's Guide to the Magic? Is that what we're going to call it?

Sex and sexuality, practically? Remind me, I need your help, please? This is going to be like sex ed, basically. Sex ed, okay, sure, we can do that. But you can call it Guide to the Magic if you want to. Guide to Magic. Sure, so we can do something on sex and sexuality. Would you like to show what we've already made?

For sex and sexuality? I thought we wouldn't show that. The guys. Get wrecked. What am I high-fiving to? I don't get it. When somebody says get wrecked and gives you a high five or a fist, but what do you do with that?

Wrecked is something that we do together, hon. I don't know. Okay. Well, we already showed this. They know. This is at the beginning, but we can do it again. Okay, hold on. I'll on the chat.

Hold on. Okay, this is what we're, we'll do this. It takes us a while, okay? Y'all, y'all got to give us some, oh, no today. Oh, okay, so here, we can. can do this. Oh, video is unplayable. It's private. Um, the video is private. Hold on. Wait, do you guys want to see one now? One sec. Now you check DMs. Yeah, man, I've been streaming, bro. Okay, hold on. There's a lot happening. I like how there's like, just an extra second to throw in some

sass. Don't lie. Yeah, sure, trailer. Let's do trailer. Let's do trailer. Chat, we're going to show you now. Oh, God, it's leaked. Everything's leaked. Oh, my God. I didn't realize. Brow. Okay. Okay, here we go. All right. It's a picture of myself. By there, serf.

Okay. Wait, are you... Hold on. I gotta just do this alone. Yeah, yeah. So if you really want to take control of your life, the first thing that you have to understand is how does my mind work? These modules are a distillation. The essence of my personal journey. to understand myself over the last two decades. They're kind of like a choose your own adventure of understanding a particular topic.

Because in my experience as a psychiatrist, the best outcomes come from educated patients. And you are ultimately going to be the most important part of your treatment. Okay, fine, I'm in this place, and this place sucks. What am I going to do about it now? Focus on building a healthy identity of yourself, where you can learn to unconstitutional unconditionally love yourself. If meditation has one good effect on the brain, it actually strengthens

the hell out of your frontal lobes. You have to let go of the entire construction, right? Because what does it mean to have fallen behind? It's a construct of the mind. What does it mean to catch up? It's a construct of the mind. Because think what you're doing here, right? You're doing so much problem solving. There's a certain method. There's a certain secret. There's a certain technique to being able to find that piece in spite of the emotion. We can go to the birth, of that scar, and we can actually try to rewrite history a little bit, change our mind's conceptualization of the truths that we learned in the past that cause us suffering today. Okay, that looks really amazing.

I'm so proud of you. I've never seen that for. I'm like, tearing up. That was legit, chat. Okay, that sounds really good. I'm actually optimistic that this will help people. No, I mean, it's interesting, right? Because, I mean, like, sure, like, I made it all.

You have spent years. thinking about this and writing it and charting it and thinking like, what's the best format? I don't want people to just read words. I want to teach them. I want to do this. I want to do that. I want there to be worksheets. And I think it's going to be just incredible. I'm so excited about it. And now we're going to make one about the magic. Okay. That trailer is going to look pretty different. Seriously, though. So, you know, I think we've spent a lot of time.

I, you know, just a quick kind of heads up. You know, that trailer absolutely was hype. Don't get me wrong. But it's a lot of work. And a lot of people have been working really, really hard to get there. You know, this has been now, we're on seven months in. And so we really hope it helps you guys. I think it's like, you know, it's our attempt to help y'all in a way that, you know, we try.

What? I know I'm just saying stupid things. Just underselling the crap out of it. All right. Here's what I saw. I saw Holok being offered book deals. I saw him being offered show deals. I saw him being offered faculty positions.

And I saw him turn it all down and say, no, this is the way I want to teach this material. And this is who I'm making it. for and him trying to put pen to paper for years thinking about what exactly he's going to teach, what the sequencing is going to be, what the themes are going to be, what, you know, if it's, this isn't all universally, universally applicable. So like, what does this kind of person need to know? What does that kind of person need to know? What is the person who needs to know this, but doesn't need to know that. Like, I don't want to just write a book where only three chapters are going to be relevant.

How do I make this for, like, work for people? And so he's been writing this for a long time. We put an incredible technology team behind it to try to make it. It's inspired by Final Fantasy, the sphere grid. So where you can kind of, like, choose your own adventure to it. And you have so many kind of paths and some branching logic to where it's really, you're learning the things that you want to learn and you're kind of taking the steps that you want to take. So it's very cool. If you want to show the map with that context, that's great.

But we started with depression, with anxiety, and with meditation. And the next modules that will be released are apparently the magic. but the guide to relationships. Yeah, relationships is like as big as all the others combined. Yeah. But this is like 25 hours or so content. Here's the question for you all. Okay?

So like we're trying something new that I haven't seen done elsewhere. And this is the problem is that when we think about learning, we think about learning linearly. And so the big challenge and what's, you know, our devs are working like over. over time and working really hard to like structure like the logic and everything. Like everyone is putting in so much effort. I don't think you guys, you know, you all don't realize. I mean, sure, like Gruthy makes it sound like, oh, I've been trying for all these years and all that stuff is true.

It makes me sound amazing. Literally he has. It's fine. Like I, but I think that there's, there's so many people working so hard to make this happen. And what we really want to know from y'all is like, does it help? And is this, like, is it useful to you? Right? because I can be as brilliant as I want to be and like we can work be really hard.

But the reason we're making this honestly is because we have new opportunities to learn about how we work. Like we have these resources like the internet and programming. We have outcome measures and like the world, the tools at our disposal are entirely new. And the challenges that we face are entirely new. Every other discipline of medicine is getting better. people who have heart transplants are surviving longer and longer and longer because our immunosuppressive medication is getting better and better and better. HIV used to be a terminal diagnosis and now has close to a normal life expectancy. Depression and anxiety were 300% worse in 2020. It's the only

discipline of medicine that is actually getting worse. It's the only war that we're actually losing as medical doctors, psychologists, whatever. And so I think that like, the old systems just aren't working, right? If you guys go see a psychiatrist and they prescribe you an antidepressant, like that can help, but it's only one piece of the puzzle. And the problem is that the puzzle is huge. There are a lot of pieces to it. And so what I want to what I want to know from y'all and really like this, like I don't think you guys understand, you know, how big of an experiment this is. And so what I want you guys to do is tell us, like, does this actually help you? I mean, We joke about, I mean, now that I said I'm going to do something, I got to do it.

So we got to make one about the magic. But what I really want to know is like, you know, if this is the way that we're going to teach about trauma, if this is the way that we're going to teach about addictions, if this is the way that we're going to teach advanced meditation, if this is the way that we're going to teach about relationships. Like, is that what we should do? Because ultimately, our compass is not what I envision. It's what you all need. And it's my job. it's my Dharma to fulfill whatever it is that you guys need. I've spent years, decades studying this stuff.

And so now you guys need to tell me, I'm not the leader. I'm the resource. I'm the reference. Y'all are the leaders. You guys need to tell me like this is what we need from you and we'll make it. That's what we're about at Healthy Gamer. Like you guys tell us what you need. This entire organization started out from an AMA.

And then like so many people reached out and then I asked a question like, what do you guys need? And people were like, we're not sure. So we started meeting once a week on Thursday nights where like 30 randos from the internet would show up. And it was during bath time. Do you remember? Yeah, I remember during the kids' back time. It was such a disaster. And so you guys need to tell us like, hey, this grand experiment that we've invested tons of money and time into, like this is actually helping me. Or it's not so much about sales and stuff like that. It's like, is this the way that we're going to start to like make the world a better place? Is this the way that we're going to learn about ourselves a little bit more?

Is this the way that we're going to develop a process so that all of the questions that we asked about today, we can equip each and every one of those people to be a little bit more self-aware, to be a little bit more compassionate, to be a little bit more understanding? Is this the solution to the problems that we face? That's not an answer I can give you guys. That's one that y'all have to give us. This is our best guess at what is missing because we know coaching helps, but maybe coaching, so this will be free for all Healthy Gamer coaching clients because there's a knowledge component to this.

There are people that if you're already in therapy and therapy is where you belong, amazing, but maybe you could learn a little too. And maybe for you, this is a standalone resource. I think this is. Yeah, so someone's asking, can I get a. the product but pass some coaching? Absolutely. So this is the other thing that we're trying to figure out, right? So there's like the whole point of the guides is because some people don't need coaching. Well, the whole point of what we do is like we make things that just meet you where you are.

If you want the thing by itself and you don't need coaching, yes, you can totally get it. Stand alone. Yeah. So, so yeah, we're just including it for free for all coaching clients. And I think for all past clients, is that fair to say? Yeah. So if you signed up, for coaching. If you've completed coaching, you're going to get an access code for free. Because, like, you know, it's the fees that you guys paid that funded this project. So, like, and, you know, you guys can get it on your own. This is our gift to you. Like, I feel like, for a lot of people, you guys took a chance on us when we were just starting this thing before we knew, does it really work?

And thank you. Yeah. I mean, you say it's our gift to you. I sort of feel like it's the other way around. Like, this thing is the product of your. gift to us. True. This is what we did with the money you guys gave us. We hired an 11, 9 to 11 person production crew, you know, found a nice venue, like, flew people in from all over the country. You did eat carbs for a week?

I adjusted my diet for a week so that I would be, my VAT would be good so I could, like, film for like 10 hours a day or eight hours a day. And, you know, it took months and months. For those of you guys, it may be crazy, but I wrote essentially the equivalent. of two nonfiction books, almost 180,000 words over the course of six months to produce these. The production crew was like, so you're telling me that you want to shoot four feature length films worth of content in one week. Nine days.

In nine days. And we're like, can we do it faster? Because they were like every day of production costs X and we were like, can we do it faster? And they were like, no, you're trying to shoot four feature length films. sounds. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So like, look, what I have to say at this point is thank you. And this is not about, you know, us creating something. It's about whether it helps you guys and girls. You know, I use guys in the gender neutral. But, um, you know, so you all tell us and you all tell us what you need. If you guys need a guide to the magic, then that's what we'll devote our resources

to. All I ask for is that y'all be patient with us. us because this stuff takes a while. The magic takes time. I mean, it took probably 10 people, you know, a significant, like, eight months of our lives to build this kind of thing. So, like, it's going to take probably, I imagine, eight months to produce a new guide. So there's, like, writing, there's editing, there's scripting, there's, you know, testing, there's all kinds of stuff that goes into it.

So you all tell us what you need. We'll do our best to give it to you. So thank you all very much for all of the help, all the support. Yeah. I wanted to ask Moses if I think he had a thing or two that he wanted us to play that might be a little bit more insight. It's blocked. It's private. Can you just type anything else to show today?

I feel like if you were to go, can you type exclamation guide and chat and click on that link and just show? So that's the pre-order link. and you can even allocate how much of the purchase you want to go to the foundation. Oh my God. Let me just lock these widgets. Widgets. Wegets. That's you.

That is me. Oh, my God. Oh, this is the same thing. Okay. Yeah. All right. So then you all can pre-order here. So someone is asking how much do they cost?

Each one's $20. Or you can get all three for $50. And then you all can decide how much. much of these proceeds go to a 501c3 versus the Healthy Gamer Core Company. And if you have any questions about like how the funds are used. Do you want to explain to us what the difference is? Yep. So Healthy Gamer the company, products and services in the form of content, coaching, and community.

Healthy Gamer Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to changing the meta of mental health. So when Alok is talking about how every. other discipline in medicine is getting better and somehow mental health outcomes are just continuing to decline. We want to change that. So it's about research and policy for the most part. And also services for people who can't afford them. Yes.

So. Yep. Moses, I think, is saying that we can try that. Okay. Do you guys want to watch one? Don't want to watch one right now? We can watch a whole video. Okay.

Let's do it. 12 minitos. Okay. We're watching the whole thing. The big challenge of the anxiety is they don't beat it and you can't give it. Also, Oh, I've muted you. You know, keep going.

I can't tell you how much of my day is consumed with Ollick's face and his voice and his words and his captions and his wardrobe. So I hope you guys like it. Okay. watch one. It's okay. Just, just it's leaked. Just don't tell anyone, chat. The big challenge with anxiety is that you can't beat it and you can't give into it. So we've looked at a little bit at how, you know, when you try to fight the anxiety within you, how it actually increases the tension in the mind and makes the anxiety worse. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, you may think, and a lot of people actually do do this, that the best way to deal with anxiety is just to give

into it, right? If I have anxious thoughts about, let's say, avoiding a particular situation, and I just avoid the situation, then my anxiety kind of goes away. But it turns out that if you give into anxiety, it actually just grows even stronger. And this is an interesting part of the mind is that if you reinforce a certain thought process, just like if you feed, let's say a dog,

what happens to the dog that you feed? It grows. And so every time that we give into anxiety, it actually grows a little bit stronger. And just like a dog, it becomes hungrier and actually needs more food. So I'd love to share with y'all a story of a patient that I worked with that kind of illustrates this point.

So I was working with a young woman who came to me during a divorce. She'd been married for a couple of years and it turned out that her husband had been unfaithful. So she was kind of going through the process of divorce. So we kind of worked through some of that trauma. And so then she kind of got back on her feet, started dating again, actually found a really fantastic guy. Things were going really well. So she sort of moved in with him. And that's when some of these anxieties started kind of popping up in her head. So she started to think in the back of her mind, you know, just a tiny little tickle, just a little thought. You know, she liked this new guy who was fantastic, nothing like her old husband.

But still there was this little niggling doubt in the back of her mind. You know, what if he's doing something a little bit shady? And so when the doubt popped up at first she kind of pushed it down, she squashed it, she kind of muscled it into the ground. But the thought kind of kept coming back. And so eventually one day things were, you know, he'd fallen asleep and she was like, let me just check. So she just opened up his phone and she kind of looked through his text messages and found that nothing was wrong.

So she's like, relaxed. The anxiety kind of went away. She was reassured. Everything was golden. She went to bed. Next day woke up, felt totally happy. And then a couple days went by and then that thought started to creep its way back in as anxieties usually do.

So this time she didn't wait quite as long and she realized, okay, you know what? I just need check very quickly and I'm just going to do like a 30 second check. I'm just going to take a quick look at his text and make sure there's nothing going on. So she did that again. And over time, it became a part of her nightly routine. You know, I'm going to brush my teeth, I'm going to take my makeup off, and I'm just going to check my boyfriend's texts real quick. And her mind had gotten so used to the reassurance that it just sort of became automatic. And everything was fine.

She was totally cool as long as she got to check his texts. Until, of course, one day, as I'm sure you guys can imagine where this is going, he actually caught her. Right. So she thought he was asleep, and it turns out that he wasn't. And he'd kind of suspected things for a little while because he noticed that sometimes, you know, there were texts on his phone that when he woke up in the morning would look, what would sort of read as red or already read, they wouldn't be new texts. But he certainly hadn't read them the night before. So he'd kind of been suspecting something for a little while. And one day he caught her red-handed. And so this story sort of illustrates what goes on with anxiety, right? So what we can see is that sometimes at the beginning she started to fight it and she tried to push it down. And then over time, that sort of did. didn't really work at dealing with the root of that anxiety. So instead, what she started to do was give in to the anxiety. And this illustrates a really important point about how behaviors are reinforced in

our brain, which is that, you know, when we give into something and we get that anxiety relief, that's positively reinforcing that behavior. And even now, if you pay attention to your own mind, I really guess that you're not really paying attention to what I'm saying right now. Because right now in your mind, there's a tiny little hunger. And that hunger is, what happened? What the F happened, Dr. K? What happened when he found out?

And if you just stop for a second and notice it, right? What would happen if I told you the end of the story? Your mind would be like, oh, okay, that's what happened. I need to know the end. I need to know the end. This is what suspense is all about, right? It's a hunger in your mind. And if I had started to tell you, let's say I told you the end of this story,

and I told you a second story, and I told you the end of that one. And then if I left you on a cliffhanger on the third story, how dissatisfied would your mind become? And also notice what's happening in the energy of your mind is I point this out to you as you become aware of it, the hunger actually lessens maybe a tiny little bit. As you become aware that, okay, I really want to know what the end of the story is, but be like, oh, oh, that's interesting.

My mind's hungry for the end of the story. It kind of calms down a little bit. And so at this point, you know, when I do this with people, there's usually like three camps of people. So a third of y'all are going to really, really want to know what the end of the story is and you can't wait till I stop talking about this tangent and just get to the end of the story. Another third of y'all, by kind of gaining awareness of it, may actually be okay and like you actually don't need to hear the end of the story. And the last third, this is my

favorite camp and this is the camp that I used to fall into, or kind of like, I don't want to hear the end of the story. I'm going to be stronger than that. I don't need to hear the end. All those other people are going to give into their anxiety, but I'm not going to hear, I'm not going to give in my anxiety. I don't want to know what happens. I'm fine. I'm good. I'm good. And so what what can we kind of learn from this, right? So the first is that notice the hunger of your mind. And actually what we're going to do to sort of illustrate this principle a little bit further is we're going to actually share the end of the story. Okay. So as I mentioned before, he had sort of suspected for a while that something shady was going on. He'd noticed that, you know, some of his text messages

had already been read, even though he'd never seen them before. So he kind of confronted her about it. She kind of like broke down, cried. They had a really big fight. He ended up forgiving her. and so, you know, it was kind of happily ever after. She never checked his texts again. And I wish that was true, but unfortunately it's not. So what happened is he did forgive her. They sort of patched things up. And then she was like, okay, I'm good now.

And after a couple of days, you know, she felt pretty good, but then she noticed that kind of anxiety creeping back in. What if I need to check those texts? But this time, she fought against it even harder because she's like, if he catches me checking the texts, then it's going to be over. He said, you know, like he would forgive me just this once, and it's like the consequences are way too high,

so I'm not going to check him. She pushed him away. And then a few more days went by, and then the thoughts kind of came back. She actually lasted a couple of months. But then what happened is she met one of his coworkers at like a happy hour event. And she noticed that the two of them, like,

got along really, really well. And they had this, like, really awesome chemistry. And then she started, like, noticing that, you know, he was kind of texting with his coworker. and they'd be like laughing and stuff like that. And so she kind of noticed and then like now the anxieties like sort of really came roaring back. And they were really, really hard to deal with.

And she tried to push him away, but she just couldn't. So then she got smart about it, right? So she started to be very, very careful, checking his texts pretty infrequently, checking them very, very carefully, not reading messages that had, that were marked as new, but only looking at the older stuff. And so she got really, really clever about it. And her anxiety sort of started to decompress. okay, this actually isn't that bad of a deal. She started to feel a little bit better.

And then, you know, at times, though, she would see some text messages, like she'd see the text messages with his coworker. And while it was pretty clear that there was nothing very serious going on, she started to believe that he was having, like, an emotional affair. And her paranoia, the more she checked the text messages, instead of actually making her anxiety better, she started to become more and more paranoid. That something, even if he wasn't having in a fair yet, it was certainly moving in that direction. So it became this vicious cycle of like, she can't help herself and has to check. But every time she checks, her mind is seeing messages that may even be benign, but actually fed her paranoia. And the more that her paranoia got fed,

the more she needed to check. And so the good news is that this time, you know, she was actually, it called me up again because I hadn't seen her for a couple months. And she came into my office and we started kind of working through it. We started to realize that she was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. That if you look at her anxiety, if she tried to kind of suppress it and kind of squash it into the ground, it would come roaring back. And we also noticed that when she gave into it, it would actually get worse, right? It would feed the beast. That the anxiety would be like, let me see those texts. Let me see those texts. We've got to check those texts. And then she checked them and then the anxiety would calm down. And so what she was actually

doing, and if you think about anxiolytic medications, so these are medications, that reduce our anxiety. If I'm feeling anxious and I take a pill that makes my anxiety go away, what that's actually gonna reinforce is popping pills for anxiety. And so what she had found was that checking those texts actually was like popping a pill for her anxiety.

And so it actually made the anxiety even stronger and harder to deal with. And the other big thing that we kind of realized is that every time she was checking the texts, she was trying to reassure herself, But every time that she reassured herself, she lost a little bit of trust in her boyfriend. Because if we really think about it, you know, the foundation of a solid relationship is trust. And trust isn't about knowing 100%. In fact, it's the exact opposite.

Trust is about having faith and not knowing 100%. So every time she checked those texts, what she was doing is decaying the trust in her relationship. She was learning how to not put faith in her boyfriend because she needed a new text. know an answer 100%. Once we realize this, then we could really start working on it, right? So what it actually happened is he ended up coming into the office too. And she kind of was super terrified, so she wanted to confess to him in the office, which turned out to be fine. So she kind of confessed that she was checking his texts again. He had sort of noticed that something was off and he wasn't quite sure and we kind of talked through it. And what we realize is that

like she needs to be able to tolerate the anxiety and even share and acknowledge those thoughts with him without giving into them. So what that would look like is she would actually tell him, hey, I'm feeling anxious and I'm feeling paranoid. And I really, she would just tell him straight up, I want to check your phone. And so the two of them would kind of sit with it, talk through it, and then he'd even ask her.

He'd be like, okay, you want to check my phone? Like, he'd be like, do you want me to go get it? Do you actually want to check it? I'm okay with that. I really appreciate your honesty. Do you want me to go get it? And then she would say, no, I'm okay. And sometimes she'd say yes, but most of the time she'd say no.

And so what happened is like they started being able to tolerate that anxiety together. She wasn't squashing it down. She wasn't giving into it. She was just acknowledging it and noticing it. And even today, which by the way, they are married now and she's pregnant. So happy ever after. Even today, she'll still tell him, right? And she actually got worse when she got pregnant.

And she was like, I'm feeling super paranoid. He'd be like, cool, do you need the phone? And she's like, no, I'm okay. And so the more that we acknowledge, We don't give into it, but we also don't fight it, the weaker it becomes. And once it becomes like, it sort of lives underneath the surface, so really what we want to do when it comes to anxiety is to recognize that if we try to fight it and squash it down, it's going to come roaring back. If we give into it, what it's actually going to do is feed the beast because we're positively reinforcing the behavior that reduces our anxiety by giving into it. So we don't want to reinforce those kinds of behaviors.

Instead, what we want to do is learn how to sit with our anxiety. Learn how to acknowledge it. And if you can learn how to sit with it and not give into it, it'll actually start to melt away. And that's going to be a far more permanent solution to anxiety. Okay, chat. So some people are asking, so we sit with it forever? No. So the whole point is that when you sit with it, it actually starts to decay.

Right? So like, that's the really interesting thing. thing is that as you learn how to tolerate it and you don't give into it, it actually weakens. So what happens, you know, if you think about something that grows, you know, the more you feed it, the more it's going to grow. And the more they, like, this is like my favorite thing to do. Yeah, I was going to say something, but I lost my train of thought. You T-pose on it.

Beautifully sad, dude. That's exactly what you need to do your anxiety. You just need to tee pose on that. You know, teach it. Teach it who's boss. And it's hard. It's hard. Yeah, it's tricky.

But I think especially that person ended up doing pretty well. And, you know, I think, like I said, in the video. Anyway, that's a video. So I can guarantee you that not all of them are that blue ballsish, but I got to confess, you know, it's still Dr. K making the videos. and you guys know who I am and like, you know, I was born and bred on Twitch hat, so there's going to be a little bit of trolling going on.

Like, I'm sorry. Like, it's not going to be all Harvard Andy up in there. It's going to be like, sometimes I'm going to have my enjoyment at your expense. Because that's what we're about. We're like just a little bit trollish, dude. A little bit. That's what Twitter

is. It's like, you know, got to troll people. You have to. You have to. Sometimes that's who we are, chat. And we got to stay true to our roots. That's a big shout out to all y'all, because it's possible that people who don't know what Twitch is are going to buy this one day,

and they won't understand that. But just got to troll a little bit, a little bit. Most of the videos don't have me, you know, blue ballsing people. Just a little bit, a little bit of troll. Yeah, you just got to stay true to our roots, you know. Remember where we came from. I think one of the cool things about these modules is some of the meditation practices you bake in.

Yeah. Throughout. So there's a meditation module in and of itself that's like kind of dedicated to the theory and practice of meditation. I got to go pee. In depression and in meditation, there are specific practices there as well. We are debating whether we should switch to an AMA format. If you guys have questions that we can answer, we're feeling festive. We've just, Alok has been working his butt off for weeks and weeks, months and months,

really years and years to get this together. And I feel like I've just been, it's been a lot of work, you guys. And just congrats to the team, really, to French and Trinian and their teams for getting this together. It's incredible. Which one of us is a better cook? I'm the better, like, just use up whatever is in the fridge, kind of like slap something together, cook.

Alok is like a better project cook where he's like, I'm going to look up a recipe, get all these specialty ingredients, marinate things, grill things. He's definitely a better project cook than I am. It's all paid off. TBD. I hope so because, you know, that's the whole point is to be able to create things that are self-sustaining. But I hope, I want to earn it.

You know what I mean? Like, I want it to be worth your time and I really want it to be worth your money. How's the Tondor project coming along? Dude, Thandhor's are so hard to, like I'm pretty good with a regular real man. I can make some good stuff. Let me tell you what. But Thandu is like a whole different beast, man. Who might have warned you that a Tandura might be worth or not worth it?

You warned me, but I'm still working on it. Like there was, like, I made those, I mean, I made kebabs that have been really, really good. It's just, most of them fell off the skewers. And no one will ever know because they are at the bottom of the Tandor. They are ashes now. The other thing is about the Tanduars. Yeah, you're going the wrong way. So funny.

The other thing with the Tanduars, they're going the wrong way. Dandor is that a lot of it is like the non is like a whole different process because I'm like new to bread baking. So there's like the, you know, there's the pre-baking part. The rolling. No, it's like the making of the dough, the leavening, that portion, you know, the yeast. You've got the yeast. Yeast. Please don't say yeast to me anymore. That's how you make that magic happen. Chat. All right, what do we do now? We wrap it up or what? I was thinking we could

What do y'all want to do? I'm happy to hang out for a little bit especially while we're waiting on food. We can answer questions that people want. I was thinking we could just do more of like a general AMA about this process or

Tondor. Also water is not for news. I rescind my earlier statement. Water is life-giving. Hydro homies. One of the things that I will never understand about you is how you say the most random things with like

a hundred percent confidence. Like how can you really just be like waters for nubes and like drop your mic and walk out of here? Like no waters for everyone for all creatures. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know. Can I put this on the mouse pad? Nope. The mouse pad is sacrosanct. You don't even win that much. I don't understand why you're like so precious. about your math pad. It's because I don't win that much. I need the right kind of mouse pad to make up for a fundamental like seriously.

He's like, because you're so happy when you win makes me think that you don't win that much. Do you win more than I think you do? Depends on whether I'm being carried or not. I win a lot when I'm being carried. That I know. Nice. God.

No, I win a fair amount. You know, my reflexes are getting slow. You know, I'm getting older. Ah! Oh my God! No! It's got to be the best new game. You just get his pony.

Yes, because you're not right. Oh, my God. What are I supposed to do? Really? Okay. You want me to swat you? No, I don't want you to swap me. I just want to know that you can.

Hold on. What message is that sending to Twitch hat? I don't know. You just want to know that I can swat you? Well, I'm... It's such abusive, no. No, I was more testing your reflexes. Okay.

Because, I mean, you know I can spank you. Like, that's... Excuse me? All right. Take questions now. I just did that for them. I didn't, you know. No, I know.

It's like four hours later and that's the clip. All right. Are we doing questions? What's going on? Are you all going to help us before I get a divorce? It takes two to divorce. Yeah, I mean, you divorcing me because I'm doing... I'm not divorcing you.

Okay. I have to try harder. Okay. I love you. I do. Yes, you did come in at a good time. Um... All right, so no questions for just WTFs.

Can you talk through the social anxiety? What part of the social anxiety? It doesn't say. There's another question about how do I talk about my anxious attachment style with my non-anxious partner? Ooh, that's a good question. Let me think about that. So it's kind of interesting because we're... Dr. Kay's guys.

So we actually talk about this. So there's a whole video about this. So for people who don't, aren't aware. This video... By the way, you can just buy the anxiety module. if that is all that's this video the anxious personality is all uh goes into a lot of detail about um attachment styles so i explain all that stuff there and that's kind of the goal of the guides is because a lot of people will like hear me talk about stuff and they're like oh where can i learn about this

and then a lot of people don't hear me talk about it and so they never get exposed to it so the whole point of the guides is that it's a little bit more comprehensive and kind of like puts everyone on the same playing field so for people who don't know um I guess I'll do a quick summary of the video now. There are different things called attachment style. So this is very fascinating. So back in the day, like maybe about 30 years ago, there were researchers who noticed that kids, like some kids are chill and some kids are like super anxious. And so they did this really interesting experiment where what?

Can I keep going? Okay. They did this experiment where they took a parent and the kid. I think most of the time it was the mother. and they left him in a room together. So it's like a foreign room like kid has never been in. So mom is there, kid is there. Kid like wanders around like plays with some toys.

And then like a stranger comes into the room and sits down. Like some kids are kind of like anxious there. Like some kids will move closer to mom. Some kids will ignore the stranger. And then mom leaves. And so then something really interesting happened. Like some kids would start crying. Some kids would be totally fine with like mom leaving.

And by kids we're talking about like, a one-year-old, okay? So like an 18-month-old or something like that. So young kids, infants. And then mom comes back. And then kids respond to mom in different ways. So like some kids would calm right down when mom entered the room. Some kids would get pissed at mom for leaving in the first place and putting them in that situation. And so what they basically found, and then some kids were like relatively neutral the whole time. Like they didn't care if mom left. They didn't care when mom came back. And so what we actually found is that, um, that there are these different what they called attachment style. So depending on how the kid was raised, their ability to

tolerate distress and how anxious versus confident they were, like varied. And so if you have an anxious attachment style, it means that like, so these were the kids that took a long time to calm down once mom entered, entered the room. They would start to panic. And even if mom came, they get like super clinging and they'd be like, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave, don't leave. And other kids were like, oh, thank God, you're back. I'm going to go back to playing my blocks. And so if you have an anxious attachment style, what it means is that you're going to have some, like, your distress tolerance from distance may be higher. So sometimes you'll end up with like an attachment, you know, like you're, you're like afraid when your partner kind of leaves. You're worried about them. You just tend to be prone to more anxiety in general. Because, you're, you're like, you're afraid of. You're afraid when you're afraid to be prone to more anxiety in general. Because Because what we've discovered is that attachment styles actually correlate to like all kinds of anxiety in your life. So how do you deal with that or how do you explain it to your partner? I would start by just saying that, you know, like, I'm someone that needs a little bit more reassurance. Let your partner know what your needs are.

Acknowledge to them and to yourself that your partner, some of the needs that you have may be what? Buzzing? Buzz. Saved? What happened? happened. Was it, was there a problem? Saved? Are there buzzes? Was that, was I just talking to no one? Is your mic plugged in all? It should be. I mean, I hear it. Do you need to move your headset? It should be fine. It's okay now? Maybe I was just talking too much and far away from it. Yep.

Oh, it might be because our phones are too close to that. Hello? Okay. All right. Yeah. We did get vaccinated. So we are part of the 5G network now. We'll move our phones away. Bye. Thanks. So, you know, how should you talk to your partner about your anxious attachment style? What the hell? So, you know, just tell your partner that you may need a little bit more reassurance that sometimes you get anxious. And then the two you all need to figure out, like, what is an appropriate amount of support that they can give you. you because it you know some of that is going to be like tolerance that you need to learn and some of it is going to be like them helping like you know supporting you along the way so it's tough there's a question about premarital sex do you think that people should be celibate before

marriage thoughts they had a religious upbringing celibacy is like a thing to be valued Does premarital sex ruin everything? I mean, I think it's an individual decision. You know, I think that, you know, I think you have to, I'd be careful about compromising your values just because some rando on the internet says you should. That's my answer to that question. So I think that the decision to have sex is like a highly individual decision. even if there are some religions that sort of advocate for a particular thing, I think that, you know, there's a lot of value in religious teachings, but that those, the religious teachings should be sort of tempered or like filtered through like what you actually accept or what you don't accept. So, you know, do I think that premarital sex is going to like, you know, send you to hell? Like I personally don't believe that, but those are my personal beliefs. I think that, um, you know, if you think about a healthy sexual relationship, I think a healthy sexual

relationship is not something that you find. If you're lucky, you'll find it. But I think a lot of time it's something that you build. You know, like there's like the loot box RNG version and then there's like the crafting. So I'd say like go the crafting route. And, you know, if you don't want to have sex before marriage, don't have sex before marriage. And if you want to have sex, you know, like if you want to wait until marriage, then by all means wait until marriage. And at the end of the day, like a healthy sexual relationship is all about communication and comfort with your partner. You also need to be a little bit careful, right? Because a lot of unhealthy relationships involve one partner pressuring the other into doing things that they're not

comfortable with. So if you have a particular boundary and then like your partner is really pressuring you, like that's something that I would really think carefully about, you know, is it just a case of blue balls, which is, you know, fine? Or is this person, you know, it's fine for them to express their needs and for you to express your needs and for those needs to not match up. Like, that's totally fine. And that's where, like, in a relationship, sometimes there needs to be sacrificed, right? Like, sometimes you've got to take one for the team. Sex-wise? Yeah, in terms of, like, you know, you guys just have to decide, like, who's going to sacrifice? Like, you've got, you know, if you got a thirsty partner, you're not feeling it that day.

Like, one of all is going to be unsatisfied, which is fine. And just over time, you know, you want to try to balance things out. Right? Am I wrong there? I feel like if you don't want to have sex with this person, I'm not sure that marriage is going to change that. I mean, some people want to have sex. They just want to wait until they're married. Right?

Yeah. I mean, if you don't want to have sex with the person, that's one thing. If you want to have sex with the person, but you want to wait until marriage, like, that's something else. Like, if you're not physically attracted to them, like, I agree with Kruthi. I don't know if marriage is going to change that, but, you know. You should also not rush your marriage just to be able to have sex with this person. Is incest ever okay? Or is it, oh, I'm just going to ignore that.

Are there some videos of the guide available now if I pre-persexuals? purchase. We know what? We're really trying to lay it out so it has that experience to it of like the branching logic. So we were going to kind of try to pre-release some of it and then we just thought it would be better to really have the full kind of sphere grid available so you can really understand whether it's like really have the experience of progressing and having those video chapters. Yeah, so just to echo on what could be said. You have so much to learn about Twitch. I know. I mean, I'm new to this side of things. I don't understand why you read out the question. Is incest ever okay and then choose not to answer it?

Like, what are you signing yourself up for there? I thought I was explicitly resigning and not signing myself up for things. Okay. But to echo what Gruthy said. So I think part of the goal of the Dr. Kay's guides is that it's not just about an individual video. Wait, why would you bring it up again and not answer it? That's worse than reading the question in the first place. Yeah, I felt like it needed to be kind of acknowledged. So acknowledge it. I did. No, you acknowledged me not acknowledging it. You did not acknowledge it. How do you, how do you feel? feel about me acknowledging you, not acknowledging it? I think it's fine, but follow through, Mr. Magic. What would following through look like? Answering the question, I guess.

Is incest ever okay? I believe that was the question. I can answer that. Okay. So I think, so let's remember that sexual attraction is something of a, are you I'm going to be doing that while I'm answering this question. What would you like me to do while you're answering the question? Be neutral.

Don't be... Itsy Bitsy Spider. No, don't be doing the itsy bitty spider. Don't be like... Like, that's not what you want to be doing when we're talking about this. Right? I'm wrong. They're like chat.

Like... Okay. So here's the thing that I'd say. I'd say, remember that sexual attraction is like somewhat of a neuroscientific process. Right? That, like, your body has been entrained or learned to, like, respond to particular stimuli. And that, oddly enough, sexual attraction to people who share some of your DNA is, like, not that uncommon of a, of an experience. So if we think about, you know, Freud discovered the edible complex, which he made a big deal about, which is about, you know, when someone wants to replace their father with their mother. Dr. Freud's guide to the edible complex.

Yeah, that's going to be Dr. Freud's guide. I don't think Dr. K. is ever going to make a guide about the animal complex. So this is where I'd say that, like, you know, feelings of attraction or even sexual arousal are not good or bad in the sense. Because, like, sometimes that's just the way they're wired, right? Like, so you'll have situations where people have a particular sexual experience early on, like, sometimes, like, as young as childhood. That will shape the way that their brain and their neurons wire. which will cause them to be sexually aroused by things in the future. Sometimes it can happen when you're young.

Sometimes it can happen like when you're a teenager or adolescent. Sometimes it can happen in adulthood. It's a fancy way of saying like sometimes you have a sexual experience and then your brain thinks like, wow, that's really hot. And we can place moral judgments on the impulses that we have. So I'd say that, you know, generally speaking, I'd say steer clear of incest because I think there's a good genetic reason why we don't sort of advocate that societally. I think that there are a lot of toxic power relationships that happen in potentially like incestuous relationships, which I think are bad.

So I'd say generally speaking, steer clear of it, but also be a little bit careful about judging yourself for the way that your body reacts to certain things. And it doesn't make you a bad person if you have those kinds of thoughts or feelings. That's different. That's not incest. That's like, oh, sometimes I have thoughts that I shouldn't have. But like the act. Yeah, I think the act is probably a bad idea.

Yeah, okay. I just want to make sure that that's like really clear. Okay. Okay. Um. I just, I think a lot of times you can't control, you know, what your mind produces, which is, you know, why I keep playing Dota because I can't control that my mind is like, let's play some Dota.

It's what I do with those thoughts. I am continuously impressed by your ability to apply Dota analogies to... I just want to play Dota. Do you want to play Dota right now? Kind of. You can. I got to find someone to carry me first, though. Always.

You carry me at HG. Comma. And? Um, I do it because I believe in you. If I didn't, I would totally support you just being a psychiatrist. Um, all right. Any other questions or shall we just play Dota? Am I streaming Dota? I don't know. I mean, I think that's good for questions. I think we were going to, I think

we have a raid set up, right? So we can, we can end on an incest question. Okay, well, what's your favorite ice cream flavor? Ooh, probably black walnut. Really? Yeah. Well, it's generally available ice cream flavor, black walnut. But it In terms of the two best ice cream experiences I've had, hands-down macha. Yeah. And forest fruit. I agree. Except for you got, he got matcha ice cream and I got sake ice cream.

And they were. But forest fruit. Black walnut. So my first job was working at an ice cream shop, chat, the tender age of 16. Made some that minimum wage. Also had all the ice cream I could eat. It was dope. Got that, got to get that money.

I never put this together, but my first job was at a pizza hut. And we've both worked in like service occupations. I think it's good for building character. The ladies loved me back then too. Yeah, I bet they did. Do you know what my system was for the dudes who kept asking for my number? No. So some dudes gave me their number and some dudes asked.

for my number. And so I would keep the numbers that they, this was back when people did things by phone. And so I would like, you know, keep the napkins or whatever they had written their number on. And then whenever somebody asked me for my phone number, I would just give them some other guy's number. In my year of serving ice cream,

I don't think any person asked me for my number, nor did they leave a number. So, you know, batting above my lead. what can I say chat? We also had a hustle because one of my best friends from high school. So it was me, the valedictorian from like the class above me and the valedictorian from the public high school. Like we all worked at the pizza hut.

And then like one of my my co-editor of the yearbook worked at the Domino's. And we essentially had our like underage alcohol ring through the delivery, the pizza delivery. Let's not talk about things that may been illegal because that sounds a little bit illegal. A little bit. So, anyway, so we're going to... It was a long time ago. I'm pretty sure like the statute or whatever has passed. Yeah, we just don't want to, you know, I'm going to be careful about it.

We've got to be careful. There's only so much. Ah, your content has helped me a lot. So Ashes of Dreams Donates. I was wondering if Dr. Kay had any thoughts on various types of therapy, CBT, versus dialectical behavioral therapy versus existential therapy. So I feel like this is kind of silly. This is a Harvard question. Because because this is like I'm going to say the same damn thing over and over again. It's going to really sound like I'm selling something. But in general treatment principles of depression. So this is what I want to explain to you guys. There is a video about

this. So this is the way that we developed the guides is because you'll ask the same questions over and over and over again. So I did a sit down. Let's think about all of the different questions that people could ask and let's make an actual like start to finish answer for all of these questions. I know it sounds like absolutely an ad, but do you guys get that it's not an ad? It's like this is the whole reason why we made the product is because people ask us these questions like over and over and over again. So here's the answer, okay? So here's what I think you should do with therapy. First of all, try a couple of different things. Different therapies offer different benefits. So if you've done CBT for a while, then try something like psychodynamic therapy if you hit a

roadblock with CBT. You can learn a different kind of thing from a different therapy. Second thing is that a lot of is temperamental. So some people prefer psychodynamic therapy. Some people prefer CBT therapy. And a lot of it is like personality or cognitive fingerprint. And it's hard to say because you're not going to know until you try. And then the other confounding factor, which is so frustrating, is that sometimes you will get a crappy therapist in a particular modality. It doesn't mean that the modality is bad. It means that the therapist is bad. And so then you ask the question, well, how am I supposed to know if the therapist is bad versus the modality? You're not going to know until you try someone else who like, you know, is good at it. So if you think about,

you know, like, oh, I really love pizza versus I really hate pizza. Maybe you just went to a crappy pizza joint. So what's the real answer is that you guys should try like multiple things. So I'd say that, you know, here's my quick rundown of like how I think about therapy. And this is all in like, it's literally like there's a script for this

in Dr. Kay's guides. Can you hold on a second? So like I will like literally show you guys like this is. Yeah, to go to teaching with chat. I will. I will. I'll. I'll. All right. So we're going to do this.

Let's do. general treatment principles, right? And then let's go down. Holy shit. What? $500. Oh, thank you. Hold on.

Oh, my God. Can you please thank people properly? I can get your document. Thank you, nerdery. I'm, okay, so he just, thank you, Nerderi forever for the $500 donation. Hold on. Thank you so much.

Sorry, I would love to thank you appropriately, but now my Harvard, Andy, is. Okay, so like, this is like, I'm going to show you guys just a quick leak. Okay. So this is like literally the script for the Dr. K's guides to depression. So like we're going to talk about psychotherapy. So like we explain what psychodynamic therapy is. We explain what CBT is. Oh, shit. Right. And then we explain what like the Eastern influencer third wave of therapies are. We talk about different like pieces of them. So my point is that, you know, the reason I made the guide is to explain the stuff.

I'll explain it now just because we're here, right? So it's like, here's the answer. So three different dimensions of therapy that I organize. So one is the psychodynamic branch, which is sort of based on Freud. So what Freud did was like sit and listen to people. And like based on what they would say, he would make inferences. He'd say like, oh, like this person is like connecting these dots. Next.

Then what happened is like for a. while, like, he developed, like, all these complicated theories. In the psychodynamic, like, tradition, if you like these sort of, like, theories about how you work, then the psychodynamic tradition is good for you. It's sort of about understanding yourself and, like, how your mind kind of, like, fits together in these different ways and stuff like that. Then along came Aaron back, and the behaviorists were, like, at the end of the day, you can never tell what's going on in someone's head. And the important thing is, like, what do they do? because therapy is a lot about ultimately like helping people engage in the behaviors that are good for them.

So you can have an edible complex. That's fine. But at the end of the day, how do you like overcome that edible complex to engage in a healthy behavior? How do you engage in a healthy relationship? So that's where like CBT was born. And what CBT noticed was that there are cognitions, their thoughts, their emotions, and then their behaviors. And the three of these things kind of interact with each other. So for CBT, I think it's better for people who are like a little bit more scientific as opposed to theoretical. Maybe concrete is a better word. It's for people like, and CBT is very like worksheet oriented and protocolized oriented. So for BITDAs out there, they do way better in CBT because it's sort of like, okay, I'm going to show up this week. This is what

I'm going to learn. I'm going to learn this about my anxiety. I'm going to get this homework. I'm going to get this homework. I'm going to come back. We're going to talk about this. We're going to learn about this. My anxiety is going to get better. That's what CBT is about. out. Then what happened is Marshall Linahan came along, Marshall Inahan Pog. So what Marshall Linahan is someone who has borderline personality disorder. And she became a psychologist because she was trying to figure out like how can I like, you know, so a lot of people who have a struggle with mental illness or some kind of mental challenge will study psychology in the hopes of like really learning something about themselves and trying to like help other people

who, and they're inspired by people helping them. So she came along and she realized like CBT is great, but I actually got a lot of benefit from mindfulness and studying Buddhism. So she developed a kind of treatment that was sort of like CBT plus mindfulness. And that became DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy. And what she discovered and other people have discovered this too is that the Western psychology doesn't solve all problems, that there are some mental challenges or illnesses that either psychodynamic therapy or CBT does not ideally treat. And so this is what we call the third wave of

psychotherapy. So this includes CBT plus mindfulness, which is DBT. It also includes things like act or acceptance and commitment therapy, which is like an addiction oriented treatment. And so this is kind of like the third wave. Which one do I think is better? I don't think any one of them is better. I personally think actually the third wave is just starting. So the interesting thing is, that DBT is actually like a sprinkling of Eastern stuff into the CBT model. And what I actually think is the best is the road to enlightenment in which, you know, as you really begin to like understand these like in a deep way, these concepts that Marshall Linahan sprinkled into DBT, you can actually start to get to a very peaceful state of mind. But, you know, what should you pick? Which one is

better? It sort of depends on temperament. So if you're someone, who's theoretical. If you're someone who's like okay, kind of like being a little bit unstructured and being free form and like trying to like plumb the depths of your unconscious mind, then go the psychodynamic route. If you're someone who likes highly protocolized things, so you're like, I want A, I want B, I want C, I want measurements, I want worksheets, I want a plan, then go CBT. If you're someone who's sort of like interested in this Eastern stuff, wants to learn a little bit of mindfulness, wants to learn a little bit of these Eastern concepts, but do want to work with a therapist because you can learn all that stuff outside of working with a therapist, right?

Because like monks have been teaching this stuff for thousands of years. Then go with a third wave therapy and like do something like DBT or act. If you have a personality disorder, go with the DBT route. If you have an addiction, go with the act route. So there are a lot of different, you know, traditions of psychotherapy. I'm certainly not trained in them all. You know, I'm sure that a lot of therapists will disagree. agree with my model. This is just the way that my mind organized this stuff as I was learning it.

And at the end of the day, like I said, you know, start with the one that sort of appeals to you and then recognize that each kind of therapy is going to offer a different advantage. And the data basically suggests that all of them are comparable. Some of them have better indications for particular diagnoses. There's some evidence that CBT works faster, but also doesn't last as long is psychodynamic therapy. So some evidence suggests that psychodynamic therapy like takes more time to get going but

has a more lasting impact after you stop the therapy. Okay? That's in the guides though. It's all in the guides. It's not all in the guide. The whole reason we made the guides is I sat down and I like literally I thought like when someone comes in my office, okay first I'll say this. Then I'll ask them a question. Depending on their answer, I'll go this way. I'll go

this way. And then I'll ask him another question. Depending on that, I'll go this way. I'll go this way. If they want medication, I'll say this. If they don't want medication, I'll explain therapy. Then I'll ask what kind of therapy should I do. Then I'll give you that guys that answer. That's how it works. So it's like a tree, right? With like lots of branches. And where we cover, I think, like, 80% of like the stuff that I explain to patients. So is it fair to say that this follows your clinical approach? Yeah. I mean, I don't even know if it's clinical because half the guides are not clinical. Like the whole meditation guide is not clinical. But it's what I do with this. It's what I do with. people. Right. It's it's the beauty of your approach. Yeah, because like most, I mean, half of what I do is a clinical. Right. So it's like, so it's, it's just, yeah, you know, because the challenge that I have is like, what am I going to do guys? Like, we get like hundreds or thousands of requests to work with Dr. K per week. And it's like, what are we going to do? Like, I can't work with everyone. Well, and even last night, we were talking and our parent,

coaching pilot has just kind of come to an end and it was like well if nothing else we helped these 35 families right and so it's always kind of limited like everything that we do is so like this many clients is all we could do this many parents is all we could do and I think that's what's so exciting about the dr. Kay's guides is there's no constraint yeah so so there's two comments that I think are kind of funny but like are actually like you guys would be surprised. Like this kind of comes back to the net fucks kind of thing where like that's why you study for years.

So the whole point of studying for years is so that I can boil things down and break it down for you all like in like 10 hours. Well because none of them is a perfect science, right? Right. Yeah. And so I think that this is where like studying for years like I can't explain to you guys

how much useless crap I learned. Like I'm a certified crystal healer. And I know that some people are really into that I have my crystal healing collection. My kids are thrilled when I pulled it out. It had been collecting dust for like a decade. Daddy's rock collection. Daddy's rock collection.

So we have like soda light and like these different kinds of amethysts that all have different healing properties and stuff. And like it's cool. I mean, they love it because it's a rock collection. And they're like four and six. But that's why I studied for years. And now the goal is like before I die, how can I take 15 years of experience and like distilled? it so that you guys don't have to go do that crap. How can you learn like the highest value stuff? Like what works, right? And someone else is like, yeah, clone UPog, crumbled abs. And it's like,

yeah, that's why we started the coaching program. Because I say this and I'll say this again. I'll keep saying it until you guys believe it, which I don't know if you ever will, but I'm not special. No, I'm special to you. I mean, no one's ever going to be able to replace me in your eyes, that I can get behind. I'm special to my kids, but what I do is not special, right? Like, other people can learn this. Like, I was taught this because, like, I had teachers who understood this stuff. Oh, like, you're special. When it comes to family, sure, I'll, I'll accept that.