The Jordan Harbinger Show - 849: Whose Story to Pick When the Charge Is Sick? | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Should you believe without question that the mild-mannered cousin you've known your whole life is a rapist, as your friend alleges, or should you take into consideration that this friend's past lapses in credibility may cast a shadow of doubt over this narrative? We'll try to find answers to this and more here on Feedback Friday! And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday, We Discuss: Is it Jordan answering your comments on social media, or is it an AI chatbot? Beep? Boop? Bop? A friend's rape allegation against your cousin has you weighing the latter's mild-mannered reputation against the former's sometimes questionable credibility. How can you achieve financial and emotional independence from an abusive father while maintaining relationships with the family members who still live with him? What can you do to help your brother untangle himself from an unhinged ex who seems capable of committing acts of extreme retribution — against him and his family — if he does anything to displease her? Is there a professional way to tell a client they either need to up their hygiene game or lower their fragrance game because your olfactory senses go haywire whenever they're within smelling distance? Because you were raised by a narcissist and married to a narcissist, you wonder if maybe you've become too good at listening and less good at being a person to whom others want to listen? Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/849 This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Start your free trial today. Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feed-Tive. Friday producer, The Excavator, digging up these substrata of struggle, sentiment, and strife, Gabriel Mizrahi. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills are the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact

your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form interviews with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional economic hitman an astronaut or rocket scientist. This week we had Yuval Noah Harari. You may know him from his, I don't know, 858-page book, Sapiens.

I'm not sure how long that thing is, but you could stop a bullet. Really interesting, brilliant guy. I mean, there's no other way around it. He's a genius, super interesting. We talk about AI, nuclear winter of the Ukraine war. I mean, he's just brilliant. Always a great conversation.

I can't believe it took this long to get him on the show, but he's a popular, busy dude. So make sure you have a listen to that one. On Fridays, though, we share stories, take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites, and mercilessly roast Gabriel for his appearance slash life choices. And by the way, I just wanted to let you guys know, when you DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn or email, that's me. It's not an AI bot.

I want to clarify this because I see people opening the email and they don't reply and I'm like, hello, I'm following up for the third time after you asked me something. And then they'll be like, oh, I thought it was an AI bot, which why? Why? Why would you write me and expect a response? And then I respond and you're like, oh, it's a robot. It's always me. I love me some AI, but I'm not going to do you guys like that. In fact, responding personally to people is one of my favorite parts of what I get to do. So I hope that clarifies things. And if you don't want me to bug you, I don't know, maybe don't take three weeks to reply. That's all I'm saying. As always, I've got some fun ones, some dozies. Can't wait to dive in. Gabe, what is the first thing out of the mailbag? Dear Jordan and Gabe, 10 years ago, right out of high school, my cousin moved out east to live with my folks and me, and he and one of my childhood friends started to date. The relationship lasted a year or two, much longer than it should have, and then burned out in spectacular fashion. They've both dated other people since. Then, a few years ago, my friend told me that my cousin raped her. I believed her and distanced myself from him for a while. I've been sexually abused by a boyfriend, and my best friend at the time,

said, don't say that, he's a nice guy. So I didn't want to ever treat someone else like that. But I also didn't want to jump the gun and ruin someone's life. So I just kept this to myself. Since then, I've started to question whether this event actually happened. My friend is a bossy type A person and has been our whole life, while my cousin is a very passive introvert. After her, he dated a nice girl for quite a few years. When they broke up, they stayed friends and still are to this day. I asked her recently, if he ever displayed. any aggression or didn't respect her boundaries, and she laughed. She said that at the end of the relationship, things got unhealthy and they argued a ton and wanted different things out of life,

but he never did anything that made her feel unsafe, and they're great friends again. He also dated another girl who was very controlling and kept him under her thumb, similar to when my friend dated him. As for my friend and her patterns, ever since high school, when she broke up with a guy or got dumped, she would say that he didn't respect her boundaries or that she would sure he was gay. Then she would move on and stop talking about these things until the next guy. But her discussion of my cousin has only become more brutal. She now says that she has night terrors and anxiety attacks when he's brought up and that my extended family has continued to shame her for breaking his heart, which I find hard to believe because, again, a decade ago,

when we were 18. Recently, I've gotten closer to my cousin and we've been collaborating on some art projects, but I feel ashamed for spending time with him. If this did happen, I don't want to write my friend off. If someone has been accused of sexual assault, I feel I should not treat them as human, and that I need to ostracize them. But then I wonder whether she might be spreading very serious rumors about my cousin. I've caught her in more and more innocuous lies lately, but she presents as so poised and serious that I get confused. I have an art show coming up, and now I don't know who to invite I'm a people pleaser and I'm caught between being loyal to her and rebuilding my friendship with my cousin. Do I confront them about all of this?

Do I cut one or both of them out of my life? Is my friend a liar or is my cousin a rapist? Signed, looking for an angle on this confusing triangle. Yikes, this is a really intense and fascinating story and such a, yeah, it is a tricky triangle that you're caught in. Something dark has clearly happened here. It's unclear what exactly it was. either your cousin committed a serious assault or your friend is telling you a serious lie or something more ambiguous happened. It's just hard to know what to make of it. Either way, I can definitely

appreciate why this puts you in such a difficult position. Your confusion and your conflict make a lot of sense. So let's dig into this. First of all, the question you're asking, is my friend a liar or is my cousin a rapist? There's no real way for us to answer that definitively. I'm tempted to parse your letter for clues, as I'm sure everyone listening to right now is doing, but I don't know if it's going to get you the answer that you're hoping for. For what it's worth, it sounds to me like your cousin is a, I don't know, complicated person. Is that fair to say? She's bossy.

She's kind of agro. She has a history of breaking up with men and then saying they didn't respect her boundaries, questioning their sexuality, then meeting someone new and dropping all that stuff and moving on. Part of me does wonder if she's the most reliable narrator. Now, if your cousin really did assault her, my heart goes out to her. And I obviously and absolutely understand her anger and her distress. All I'm saying is some of what you've shared about her gives me pause. Meanwhile, your cousin, a very different character.

He's passive, he's quiet, he's introverted. His history, oh, it's a bit mixed, right? He dated another girl who was super controlling, just like your friend, which definitely speaks to his patterns. But he also dated that nice girl. She says they had their issues, but that he was safe and respectful. and they're still friends now, which doesn't exactly paint the picture of a monster. Now, could your cousin have behaved very differently with your friend?

Of course he could have. Is it possible that he crossed a boundary with her even if he treated his other girlfriends well? Of course it's possible. That obviously happens. I mean, serial killers have families that are always surprised when it turns out to be dad, right? We just can't know. The picture is a little suss. It's also not clear.

So you don't have enough information to 100% vindicate or 100% condemn either your cousin or your friend. And that is very confusing. It's frustrating. It's an unsettling place to be. Yes. To me, that's what the story is really about how to respond to these situations when you're dealing with two competing and confusing narratives. Exactly. So your best bet in my view is to keep gathering as much data as you can from each of them, from the relevant people, you know, like your cousin's ex, and see if you can learn anything to help you make sense of what really happened. And yeah, at a certain point, you might want to confront each of them about this directly. That might be the only. way to get to the heart of the matter here. And when it's safe, you might just want to go to your

friend and say, hey, listen, you know, I heard you say that my cousin did this terrible thing to you, the idea that you might have gone through something like that. It just breaks my heart. You know I've been through something similar myself. I take it very seriously, which is why I'm now in the difficult position of deciding whether to keep my cousin in my life. But to be totally candid, I'm still pretty confused about what went down between you guys. I would be a lot of never dismiss a friend who's been assaulted, but it would mean a lot to me if you could share a little more about what happened so I can fully understand what you've been through.

Something like that. And you're going to have to be very respectful in this conversation because you don't want to give her the impression that you're poking holes in her story. Even though you kind of are in a totally fair way, trying to probe it a little bit, and you don't want to get accused of victim shaming, like I'm kind of sure we are as a result of even giving advice on this question. the more you can approach her as a friend

who really wants to understand what she's been through, as opposed to a cousin who's out to disprove her version of events so she could sleep at night, the better this is going to go. Which, by the way, that's not just a strategy. I actually think that's the right spirit for this conversation

because that's going to give you the best shot at getting the answers you need. I agree. With your cousin, I would frame things similarly. Maybe you say, hey, look, I've been really struggling with what to do about what so-and-so said. I feel like I'm caught between you

and my friend. I love our relationship. I love our artistic collaboration, but I'm very concerned about what she says you did. And I just need to understand from my own sanity, my own clarity, what really happened? So can you tell me when she says you did this thing, is that at all maybe true? Did anything like that maybe happen? And I know this is a painful topic, and I'm sorry to pry, but just please help me understand. And hopefully, between these two conversations, you get the information you need to decide what to do. Yeah, it's so interesting because I don't know if either of them is going to come right out and say, like, I don't know if the friend is going to say, well, actually, that's not exactly what happened. This is what happened. Yeah, I don't think cousin's going to

be like, yeah, I mean, I raped her, but she, you know, whatever, she was mean to me. Like, exactly. So the information you get from these conversations might not even be in the literal responses that they give you. It might be the way they respond. It might be what they don't want to talk about. The facts they dance around or try to massage or their nonverbal cues. I mean, you know, also how some of the facts that they share with you fit with other facts you know about other parts of their lives. It's kind of a composite you're going to have to put together. Yeah, because you're going to have to be very attuned to all of that and use a combination of your intellect and your gut to see how it all fits together. And unfortunately, that's an art, not a science. It's not foolproof by any means,

but it's pretty much all you got. And then, hopefully, you'll have enough data to decide whether you need to redefine your relationships with one or both of them. But this is such an important caveat. I think it's extremely difficult to get to the bottom of events like this, especially when they revolve around something as intimate and as subjective as a relationship between two people. Well, this is why sexual assault cases are notoriously difficult to investigate, right? And why so many people, victims and defendants and all the people that know them,

they get really frustrated with the process. Because at the end of the day, only two people know what went down. And even then, they frequently have very different recollections of what took place. Yes, exactly. And look, I just want to touch on one last thing, which is while you move through this chapter, I would try to keep an eye on your own feelings and your own biases here. Because the assault that you experienced in that relationship with that guy, obviously a very formative experience for you.

And I am so sorry that that happened. The way your friend responded to you at the time when she said, what did she say? Like, oh, don't say that. He's a nice guy. Yeah. Not cool. not helpful, actually a pretty devastating thing to hear from a friend after going through something

like that. And I can imagine that that might shape your response to this whole situation in a number of ways. I mean, look, in one big way, it makes you more empathetic to your friend, potentially less forgiving of your cousin. But in another way, it also might make you frustrated and a little suspicious, like, well, I actually went through something like this. So the idea that you might be fabricating this story doesn't sit very well with me. And I'm guessing it's hard to know which of those reactions to lead with here. So the more you can focus on the facts and the more you can try to hold your experience here alongside theirs and not let it seep in too much while you're doing your fact finding, I think the better positioned you're going to be to make the right call.

Part of the reason I say this is this thing you shared in your letter that when someone's been accused of sexual assault, you feel you shouldn't treat them as human, that you need to ostracize them, which is really, yeah, quite a thing to say. Yeah, that jumped out at me too. That was an interesting thing to share. And I will say also, hearing from your friend, oh, don't say that he's a nice guy, it reminds me of when I had this business separation five, six years ago now. I remember telling a friend of mine about it. And he goes, well, there's two sides to every story. And I wanted to like throat punch him. And I remember he went to work for the old company. And then they totally screwed him over, like completely drug him through the mud. And like, you know, he's like,

I'm suing. And then it was a huge mess. And he called me and he was like, you were right. And I was like, yeah, but you didn't give a crap that I was right before. I remember telling Jen, I was like, this happened to so-and-so, and she's like, good. So I know how you feel a little bit. My situation was not nearly as severe, but I get it. When someone's like, well, it's just such a betrayal. And you're like, well, okay, you're not my friend anymore. The betrayal could really paint this new experience, which she was not directly a part of in a whole new light. Totally. It's very interesting all of these statements, I'm not quite sure what to make of the comment that somebody who's been accused of assault is inhuman and shouldn't be treated as human. Yeah. Accused is the key word,

I guess here. I can see how her experience with that boyfriend might lead her to a pretty militant view about assault, you know, but I also hear some black and white thinking there. Like, either a person did a terrible thing and is therefore inhuman and needs to be ostracized, or they're totally blameless and they're human and they deserve. compassion. And there doesn't seem to be a lot of in-between for her. Right. I mean, maybe it's the lawyer and me, but just based on an accusation of assault, according to her, not even proof that they did it. People get accused of things all the time, and it's because somebody's pissed off or mad or whatever. It doesn't mean they did it. So what if somebody says, like, yeah,

that guy did this bad thing. Now you're going to just mistreat this person? I mean, that's kind of terrible. That's right. And look, I'm not trying to defend rapists here or anything. That's not what this is about. What I'm actually getting at is, does the black and white nature of a statement like that also help explain why living with these two competing narratives has been so hard for her. I think that's interesting. Like, does the gray area she's been forced into here where she has to live with the ambiguity of not knowing what really happened? Is that harder to cope with when she holds this sort of rigid worldview as a result of her own lived experience? Yes, that's exactly it. And again, I'm not judging her for that. I understand it. But I also know that that type of thinking

doesn't always accurately reflect the reality of the world a lot of the time. Or, more relevantly for this story, make it easy to bear the tension of living with two competing stories, which is so much of life. So that's something I would love for her to explore. Yeah, I think that's a good point, Gabe. I agree. I really do feel for her, though, because if this were me, I'd just be going crazy a little bit. Do I prioritize my friend, who's a woman and potentially a victim, having been through something like this myself, or do I believe my cousin who's a guy who might be falsely accused? I mean, that is a real conundrum.

And this kind of thing could drive you crazy. It really could. So go have these conversations, get as much data as you can, and try to give yourself some permission to accept this ambiguity, as uncomfortable as it is, and use it to guide these conversations. I think you might be surprised by what insights you get. And good luck.

Speaking of boundaries, here's the boundary between content and advertising. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. All these sponsors and advertisers, chill out there hard-earned money so we can bring you, well, real conundra every single week. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

You can also search for sponsors using the AI chatbot on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. A year and a half ago, I found out that my wife was pregnant and in the same week was laid off from my job.

I was getting very close to being evicted if I didn't find a job quickly. At that point, my dad stepped in and rented one of his investment properties to me, gave me a loan of $10,000 to start my business for a 20% stake in the company and is helped by covering $25,000 in other startup and advertising expenses. It's a small business, but it's somewhat successful. All of this was extremely helpful in getting my family, family and me back on our feet, and I am grateful to him for that. But over my 21 years of life, my father has been abusive to me and my siblings, physically,

mentally, and emotionally. He's beat me, bruised me, withheld basic necessities from me, manipulated and gaslighted me, forced his religion on me, and much more. He's a Marine combat veteran with undiagnosed PTSD, he's hyper-religious, he's vicious in business, and deep into extreme right-wing politics and unfurbed. founded conspiracy theories. I've tried to convince him to change or to seek therapy, but he's completely unwilling to work on himself. A few months ago, I reached a breaking point. My father started a political discussion with my wife, and when it didn't go the way he wanted, he slammed his fist on the

table and got up to close the distance between them. Ooh, creepy. She was holding our baby and sitting down, so she wasn't posing a threat to him in any way. I tackled him so that they could head toward the door and get out of danger, and I used my grappling experience to make him submit and de-escalate the situation until I could drive off with my family. After that night, I promised my wife that we would never have to see or talk to him again. But because he has so much financial control in my company and over my housing situation, I'm very nervous to cut ties with him, especially because he's used that kind of leverage before to make me do what he wants me to do. My other challenge is that my younger brother and sister have quite a few years before they can move out of the house. I have a great

relationship with my mom too, but she's unwilling to leave this situation because of her extreme religious beliefs. How can I leave my father behind and become financially independent when he has so much leverage over me? Can I keep a relationship with my family members who still live with him while also managing to cut him out? Signed, a fed up son, still under dad's thumb, settling up on this heavy some. Oh man, this is a really sad story and a scary one too. Your father, oof, I mean, extremism in all these different areas, it sounds to me like he's in a lot of pain. The PTSD, these very rigid and often unfounded views, he's aggressive, ruthless. It's just a difficult, crappy father to have, kind of. And I'm so sorry he treated you that way as a kid. I can only

imagine how painful that must have been. And the fact that your dad is still involved in your life to this degree, it puts you in a very difficult spot. And you know, Gabe, it's interesting. That actually fits with what we know about abusive and controlling people, right? Financial control is a real thing. In fact, I think it was Dr. Romani, the narcissism expert we had on the show.

She talks about financial control as one of the narcissists' main tools. And that tracks. But, you know, I have a feeling that that leverage your dad has over you. It might be more mental and emotional than financial. Obviously, the money is real. Your dad owns the property you're renting.

He owns a stake in the company. He's put up some money. Those are real things. But underneath the dollars and sense of it, I wonder if there's a deeper feeling like, I don't know if I can survive without my dad's help. Or if I cut ties with him, I'll devastate the guy and my mom. Or dad's going to go apeshit if I try to separate.

And sometimes those thoughts are the ones that keep us stuck in situations like this, more than the question of whether you can make the financial piece of this work. One way or another, your father has made you depend. on him. And to be fair, you've made yourself dependent on him by accepting his help, maybe before you've realized just how dysfunctional he is. And now you're trying to rewrite that script. So my strong feeling is that you need to distance yourself from your dad at a minimum in terms of the business stuff and possibly in the other parts of your relationship as well. But just in terms of the business, I would start putting together a plan to become independent.

You said the business is small but somewhat successful. Great. I have a have a feeling you can make this work if you get creative. And basically, what you need to figure out is how to run your company with a minimum of input from your dad. Ideally, no input, in my opinion. Maybe that means paying him back the $25,000, even if you have to save for a while or do it in installments or whatever. Maybe it means buying him out of his share of the company, which may be a tussle or a

negotiation, but it's got to be doable. And it definitely means finding a new place to live. Because right now he's your landlord, which means you have to deal with him and you're paying him. But more importantly, I imagine there's just a strong psychological association with your dad when you're living in one of his properties. That just can't be healthy for you. Staying in that physical space might be one of the main ways you're still exposed to him. You're kind of beholden to him because of that. And of course, it goes without saying, I would come up with a solid plan to make sure you can really succeed without his support. So don't pull the trigger too quickly and

then fumble and have to like go crawling back. You know, he's going to use that against you. I'm not saying any of this is going to be easy. Your dad might fight to hang on to his share. He might put you through the ringer on the negotiation. He might refuse to accept your reimbursement. He might insist you stay in the property he rented to you. I don't know how he could do that, but whatever. Or he might just make every step of the way just tedious, emotional, lash out at you

in various ways for wanting to separate. Narcissistic controlling people do be like that. So you might have to prepare for a fight. But ultimately, he can't make you do anything at this point. I mean, he might go full WWE on you on the front lawn if you try to move out. But that's when those jujitsu classes are really going to come in handy again, which I'm guessing. I don't think he's going to try it because it sounds like you straight checked his ass that day at the house.

And I guarantee you he was not expecting his son who was never a Marine and a tough guy like me to just pin his ass on the ground with an arm bar or whatever in the kitchen. And if you want to pay him back the loan, you're allowed to do that. Even if your relationship were great. and who knows you said he's vicious in business, maybe he'll be happy to have the money back, maybe he's going to want interest. Is it in the agreement?

Is it written in there? But look, even if you don't succeed in cutting your dad out of the business entirely, you might be able to live with that for a while. But then you're going to have to find a way to keep that contact to a minimum. If you need to write him a check every so often, write him the check, treat it like a payment to a vendor.

If you need a signature on some paperwork, you get the signature, you keep it brief, you keep it profess, you go about your life. there might be a period where you're still tethered to the guy, but you can do a lot of work internally to not let that tether affect you more than it has to. Oh man, my strong advice, though, is just do all this very thoughtfully, very strategically, with the minimum of emotion and drama, because basically he can't control himself, so you have to. I wouldn't go at him like, you abuse me my whole life and my wife and I hate you,

I'm buying you out and I'm moving on and you can't talk to the grandkids. Like, maybe don't go that route right off the bat. I would probably frame it more like, hey, dad, thank you for helping me when I was down on my luck. I really needed your help back then. I'm doing better now, as you know. I'd like to be able to stand at my own two feet, and I'm sure you'd like to see me finally do that too.

So here are the ways I can start doing that. That's good. That's really good. Here's the thing you said you wanted all these years, even though you're probably just trying to control me because you're a freaking psycho. Clever. Then you peacefully negotiate the transition,

but you frame it as you paying him back for his generous investment, which all the toxicity and abuse aside, I mean, he did do that, and you wanting to honor his investment by becoming independent, he might appreciate that. He might also be like, crap, I'm losing my grip of control on my son. But you know what, the more you approach him like that, I think the better this is going to go. So true.

And once the logistical and financial stuff is squared away, then you can decide whether to cut off contact with him completely or to manage it to what degree, what the terms would be, and all of that. But I would take a beat to think about whether you should cut him off entirely right now, because you might need to have a line of communication open with him, unfortunately, to sort out the business stuff and not to make that more difficult than it has to be. Fair point.

My feeling is that he probably should at some point, just because this guy is physically and emotionally dangerous. For sure. This just is not a healthy parent. But you're right, he has to play the long game here. And also getting his dad out of his affairs might give him a lot of the protection that he feels he needs. I think it's all of this contact with his dad, which is enabled by the business stuff that leaves him vulnerable to his dad's crazy. As for your siblings, I do think you can

keep a relationship with them while you distance yourself from your dad, but I would talk to them directly and I would explain to them what's been going on. I mean, I suspect they already know what kind of guy he is and how it's affected you, but they do deserve to understand what went down between him and your wife, and they should be prepared for his response to you pulling back. Because unfortunately, your siblings might experience some blowback from this. I just don't see your dad taking this all in stride and being very reasonable. You know, we know that personalities like this love to gather as much validation and support from other people as they can.

He'll probably want to recruit your siblings to his side. And that is also part of the control that he exerts. So part of your conversation with him might be, look, guys, ah, dad is not going to be happy with me for this. and I could see him trying to talk to you about it and maybe trying to rally you to his side and I'm sorry that you might be stuck in the middle. I want you to be prepared for that.

So let's talk about how you might respond to him when that happens. And then maybe you guys come up with a plan together as a family, whether they're going to side with him or whether they're going to stay out of it entirely, which is probably wise, or whether they're going to speak up and actually defend you when the time comes. I mean, they have to defend him, right?

I don't see how they can back the dad here, but then again, I think it might be a better plan for them to just stay out of it entirely. That way, they're not antagonizing dad, and they're not fanning the flames by pretending to agree with dad either. They're kind of in a no-win, right? One, they might not know dad's as crazy as he is or in denial of it, but two, they might also be like, really, I live with this guy.

You're going to make me, like, stand on the line, sitting in trenches, taking grenades while you take off with your wife and kid. No thanks. My instinct is stay out of it and stay neutral and just let son and father work this out and try to just not get caught in the crossfire. there's another part of me that wonders, what would happen if most of the people in this family said, Dad, you're wrong and you're acting like a crazy person. Would he finally be forced to concede that

there's something wrong here? I don't know. Either way, I'm sure their dad is terrifying to them, and it sounds like his siblings are younger, right? So they must be more vulnerable to him. And anyway, they have to live in the house together. So they have more at stake in a way. Right. So I would take a moment to just decide what kind of support you expect from your siblings and whether that's a fair expectation, given their ages and their position and all of this, it might be a lot to ask. Frankly, as nice as it would be to have their support,

I'm not sure you need it in order to start separating here. What you do need, in my opinion, is a strong relationship with your siblings no matter what, because that's what you need to protect as you go through this tumultuous period with your dad. I agree. I wouldn't expect too much back. You're putting them in a weird position,

but also don't let your dad be like, oldest son to screw up decided to ruin our whole family. Like you want to make sure that they at least are hearing your side of the story. Right. And before we wrap this up, it's just occurred to me that what he's doing here, this is a big deal in this family. Mom unwilling to leave the marriage because of her religious beliefs. Maybe that's part of it, but she's freaking terrified of this guy.

I bet. If you put a couple of whiskeys in mom, it's not about Jesus. It's about the fact that she's terrified of dad. He was going to assault his daughter-in-law while holding his girlfriend. his grandchild. What does he treat his wife like, right? Come on. Good point. She's tolerating and maybe even enabling his dysfunction. This is not a family where it was or is safe to just appropriately stand up to dad and be like, hey, this isn't right. You can't treat us like this. I need to protect myself. That's probably never happened in the history of this entire family. And that's what

he's getting ready to do. So I really commend him for that. Yes, I do too. It takes a lot of courage to rewrite these scripts and to get out from under the thumb of a father like this, especially when you add the money piece on top of it, which, you know, to your point, there's an emotional aspect to that, but there's really a very practical aspect of that. I'm very confident that there's a whole world of freedom and relief and really great strength on the other side of this decision. And hey, who knows, this separation might even be the thing that allows him to maintain some kind of basic relationship with his dad, some functional connection with him, if that's what he ultimately wants.

It's this really close and meshed financially enabled relationship that needs to be rewritten ASAP. I agree, man. Look, we're sending you a big hug, all of our confidence. You got this. Gabe, man, when I hear about parents like this, I always think about what their parents must have been like. Sure.

So I'm an impatient piece of crap sometimes. That's just facts. Jen's like, man, calm down. You know, so what if this, like, door dash dropped the thing? And then she met my dad and she's like, oh, I get it now. And then one day she was like, wait, what was your grandpa like? And then I have to explain how my dad got beat with wooden spoons as a kid. I mean, just think like Austrian dad born 1903 level of discipline.

So it all tracks. Wow. So imagine what this crazy Marine guy's parents were like if he's... Oh, totally. I mean, he was probably abused by grandpa. There's almost no chance that didn't happen. Hondo P. No chance.

Oh, you can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Keep your emails concise. Try to use a descriptive subject line that does make our job quite a bit easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in the mailbox, your stepdad's got your nudes, or a clever vixen is moving in on your father-in-law and getting access to his bank accounts. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately. Hit us up Friday at Jordanharbinger.com. We're here to help.

We keep every email anonymous. All right. Next up. Dear Jordan and Gabe, I'm the oldest sister of two brothers. the youngest is 16, and he's been in a pickle for over a year because of his insane ex. We first noticed that she was crazy when they got together. She would message me telling me about all of the mental disorders she has, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, among others.

Oh, man. I was kind, of course, but I told my brother that she was clearly disturbed. She also harassed our other brother, which led him to tell her to stop messaging him. She got angry and decided she hated him and made it very clear every time she came over. Oh, man. A few months later, my family was supposed to move away, which triggered her, and she started being insanely toxic to my brother. He was losing his hair, barely eating, isolating himself.

One time, she made my brother call my mom when they were together so she could yell at her about not feeling welcome in our family. Oh, my goodness. She also made him give her all of our numbers and harassed all of us, telling us a bunch of horrible things about my brother. She alleged very serious things, sending huge paragraphs to my parents about how their relationship was toxic, how they failed to raise my brother right, and so on.

Oh my God, this is terrible. They eventually broke up last year, although she kept harassing all of us. We all blocked her and moved on. In the end, my family didn't move away, which is unfortunate because that would have been ideal for my brother. He promised us that he had cut off all contact with her, but then yesterday she created fake Instagram accounts of my two brothers,

followed people they know, and started posting weird porn stuff. She even messaged my other brother's girlfriend. It turns out my brother has been seeing her this whole time. Exactly. I'm very worried. This girl is unhinged and I think is capable of anything. What can we do to make my brother stop seeing this girl? How can we get him out of this situation once?

for all. Signed, put through the ringer by this stage five clinger. Stage five, I haven't heard that reference in a minute. Well, yeah, okay, the girl was right. This relationship is toxic, man. But not because of your brother's upbringing, just big yikes. This is a real problem. Your brother is involved with a truly unstable person, and for reasons we don't know, he can't draw a line and get out of the relationship. It's got to be very disturbing to watch. setting for you guys to be affected by this directly, too, I feel for all of you here, including this poor girl, because, look, as toxic as she is, she's obviously struggling with severe mental

health issues. She's probably terrified as well. Who knows if she's getting the help she needs? I mean, mental health care in America sucks, generally speaking, from what I hear. Plus, her brother is 16 years old. I'm guessing this girl is around the same age. Yeah. This must all be very new for him. And look, it's a high school relationship on top of being a very insane one. So feeling, things are heightened and nobody is really well equipped to deal with this and nobody has the life experience to put it into context. Yeah, this is a hot mess. Totally.

So there's a lot going on here. My answer is very simple. I feel you guys need to hold a mini intervention with your brother and help him see his situation more objectively. I would sit down with him as a family, not one-on-one, but the whole family, maybe even bring in some close friends who have seen this relationship up close as well, and tell him lovingly, but directly just how problematic this relationship is. Why you're worried about him,

how this troubled girl and his ongoing relationship with her has affected all of you. And there's a lot for you to say here. Your brother really needs to hear some things. This is not just, you know, oh, it's hard for me to watch you be involved with someone who likes drama. This girl, by her own admission,

is severely mentally ill. She's not taking any steps to address that. She's harassing you. She's harassing me. She's harassing brother and brother's girlfriend. She's harassing mom and dad. She's actively trying to ruin our reputations in the community. She's trying to cause pointless and creepy fractures in our family for no good reason.

If this goes on, this will get worse and the repercussions could be much more severe. She could attack you. She could attack us physically. She could harm herself. She might rope you into it. She could accuse you of doing something terrible to her, get you in trouble with the police ruin your life, your prospects for college and jobs, she could drag you into other compromising situations. This is not someone any of us should be in contact with in her current

state. And if you keep seeing her, you are putting yourself and our entire family at very serious risk for absolutely no good reason. And you can all take turns saying versions of that and sharing what watching this relationship has been like for all of you. And then I would drive toward a very specific outcome here, which is you need to break up with this woman. You need to cut off all contact with her. You need to let her get the help she needs and the help that she deserves. And if he needs help doing that, maybe you guys step in a little more, you protect him from her, you tell her that she needs to keep her distance. Ideally, he does this by himself, but to Gabe's point, look, your brother's 16. He might be very innocent, he might be naive. He's so in over his head.

He doesn't even know how to begin to have this conversation. And he might need his older sister and or his parents to step in and help him tell this girl, you know, I'm sorry you're in so much pain, but it is time for this relationship to end. And then maybe you block her on his phone for him, or you take over his social media, or you check in with him constantly about all this. I don't mean to infantilize or dominate your brother here,

but I just get the strong sense that he is not equipped to protect himself here. I mean, he was secretly in a relationship with her. Why? That means he knows you don't like her and or he knows this is so effed up, but he is not in charge. She is. Yes, Hundo P.

But to your point, the other half of this is helping her brother understand why, why? Is he still involved with her? It's so confusing. Is it, though? I mean, that's the real question, isn't it? But I got hunches. I mean, I'm just mystified by the fact that he's still seeing her when she's done all of this. It's not like they see her this way and I see her that way.

Like, this is objectively awful stuff that she has done. It sounds to me like she right now does not have very many redeeming qualities. It's not like she's super nice and loving, but she randomly, you know, hallucinates or breaks down or freaks out. Like she's a destructive, petty person. She's a nightmare on multiple levels. So what I would want to know, and it might have to be part of this intervention that Jordan is pitching, is what your brother seems to be getting out of this relationship. Or if he's not getting much out of it, what it is about leaving that is so difficult. Well, I get a hunch about what he's getting out of it.

Okay, is he scared of her because that I can wrap my head around? Is she threatening him? Like is she saying, if you leave me, I'll say that you raped me. Right. Or something, right? Does she have him under her thumb a little bit? But also, at that age, kids are often insecure. He might be like, she's the only one I can get.

I don't want to be alone. She's not that bad, right? You see adults do that. Obviously, kids will as well. And also, that's the PC way to say this. Crazy can be exciting. Adult men date crazy women, too, all the time. I mean, it's a cliche just like women date bad boys, right?

Those guys that are kind of dangerous and or are actually dangerous. It's not everyone, but it adds another dimension to relationships. Even if it's unhealthy, it might only be kind of like on a physical level. And some people are attracted to that. Maybe they're even addicted to that. They could be easily. Or is he sticking around because caring for someone like this feels very gratifying to him? Or he's afraid of giving up that love and attention that she does give him.

I guess that was what you were kind of getting. I don't read any of this as true love. I know you're again not. If she's passionately crazy in negative ways, maybe she's passionately crazy in ways that are loving in the sack or otherwise. I suppose there's a world where your brother might feel that he has a form of attention from her, whatever it is, that is very precious to him. Yeah, I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but here it goes, never stick your wee-wee in crazy is a phrase that is batted around everywhere for a reason. Even better phrase when you use the word wee-we.

Yes. It is, yes. Never stick your wee-wee and crazy. Can I just pitch? I feel like that should be like, don't stick your wee-wee and wonky. Don't stick your wee-wee and wonky? Yeah, fine, fair. If we need alliteration, that bad.

This is like a weird Victorian British version. Wherever we can manage it, I would say we should go for it. I can't hear this letter and not think about my interview with Dr. Scott Lyons on overcoming the addiction to drama. Totally. I think that would be a really great listen for you right now and maybe for your brother and your parents. It'll give you a new lens on how this relationship is functioning for your brother, why this drama might be feeding a very real need in him and in this girl. And most importantly, how to break the cycle. The book's probably a good thing to pick up at this point. And hey,

maybe it's something you share with him when the time is right, either before or after the intervention, depending on how receptive he even is to all this. I think it's a great idea. That was episode 836, by the way, for anyone listening. And we'll link to that in the show notes as well. I hope you get through to your brother. I do hope you can help him protect himself. I do worry about how much worse they could get if he lets it continue. And I also think that this is a really important opportunity

to teach him how to identify problematic partners and handle them appropriately. If you guys approach him in the right way, you teach him a few things, you could save him years of pain and dysfunction. So good luck. And we're sending you and your family our best thoughts. Oh, you know what?

One thing, if you talk to the great thing, directly. I would even screenshot all of her messages on Instagram or wherever she's sending these to you first. Talk to her, record the conversation, if it's legal in your jurisdiction. I'm worried about down the line, right? Let's say they break up, Gabe. And she's like, I'm going to post really bad, slander, defamatory stuff all over social media about how you beat me or something, right? And we've had letters like this. Friends don't know who to believe, yada, yada, but if you have a recording where she's like, I'm going to ruin your life if you break up with me, that's going to go a long way into getting people to believe that she's not the stable

one and this is all revenge nonsense and it might even help in a lawsuit or talking to the police, school administrators, friends and family who she's now bothering and being like, did you know that so-and-so used to beat me and that's why we broke, like, you just want as much evidence on the record as you can not to go on the offensive but to go on the defensive should there be a need for that. Whenever somebody's like this, I always think how much worse can this get, and it can get worse, but it's not going to be as bad as staying together. That'll make things worse later. You got to let go with a wolf that you're holding by the years here. And again, all of our best. You know what else is clearly unhinged, Gabriel? The crazy good deals on the

products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and you found our advice valuable. I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. To learn more, get links to all the discount codes you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the AI chatbot on the website as well. Thank you so much for supporting those who support the show. All right. Back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up. Hey, guys. I'm a veterinarian, and I was recently in an exam room with a very, scented client. Baby powder scented perfume, maybe. The air smelled, the dog smelled. It was bad.

My throat was itching. My eyes were burning. And meanwhile, the client was very roundabout in her communication. Oh my God. Your eyes were burning? That's not just B.O. That's like a health hazard. That's toxic at that point. I mean, this is one of my nightmares. People who just refuse to bathe and then make it everyone else's problem. I just can't with people like this. Oh my God, dude. I just remembered something I think I've blocked out for many years. So I have this family friend, I think, of ours from another continent, let's say. And he wanted to come to L.A. For a while, like for a summer. He was going to get a place to stay, but he was like, can I crash with you guys for a few days or a week until I find a place? And so my mom put him up

for a few days. And then I said, I'll take him for a few days. And he shows up at my apartment. And as soon as he walked in the door, I was like, oh, this is a problem. Long flight, bro? He had been. at my mom's house before this. Oh, right. And I was like, oh, this is awkward. By the way, I lived in a studio apartment. Yeah, like, you're not just like, here's a room. I'm going to turn the fan on and open the window. Oh, my gosh. He's staying on the couch four feet from my bed. It was horrifying. It was the worst. And not only that, but when he moved in, like when he came over, he just kind of camped out on the couch and wasn't aggressively looking for a place to stay. Like, right. And I was like, so how you having any

luck finding places, you know, like while I hold my nose. He was like, oh, you know, I'm, yeah, but no. I'm thinking about looking on Thursday. It's like Monday. He's like, I might go get some coffee first. Yeah. Exactly. Then that week, he was sitting on the couch watching some sick home, which was annoying on top of everything else that was happening, openly clipping his toenails in the living room while he was overstaying his welcome. Oh, man. And I just like stared at him for like a full minute, like, is this actually happening? And finally, I was like, I can't not say something. I was like, dude, can you do that in the bathroom for me? Please. Like, can you not put toenail shrapnel all over my. Shrapnel. Studio apartment. Like, what are you doing? And he was like, oh, yeah,

like it didn't even occur to him. We should never share room just for the record because I am definitely a let me cut my toenails right now kind of guy. But I'd like to think that I wouldn't be like, let me cut them on your couch. Are you serious? You cut your toenails. in the living room? No, I don't do that. But I might do it in a studio apartment if I had nowhere else to do it. Over a trash can or over the open floor?

I don't know if I should keep talking. I plead the Fifth Amendment, actually. Shocking. Shocking to me this moment. I'm freaking out that you would do this. I don't know how I'm going to deal with this. I just think anywhere that you come and sit in my house could have been a bed of toenails just minutes before.

I'm replaying that whole movie when we watched the talented Mr. Ripley at your house. Like, was I just rolling around in my toenail shrapnel, as you put it? Lying on a bed of talons. Anyway, so what are we talking about here? So finally, I was like, how am I going to get this guy out? And so I, for him, let your house on fire. Burn it down.

You might as well with the toenails. Light the whole thing on fire now. And so I literally posted it on Facebook. Hey, I have a friend visiting. he needs a place for a month or two. Does anyone have a place if you can stay? And somebody responded, yeah, I could take a roommate for the summer. So I'm like, hey, pack a bag, dude, we're going, we're driving there right now. I drive him to this woman's house. With the windows down. Obviously. A special order to convertible for the ride over. We get to this woman's house.

We walk upstairs and I have to say, this guy is not a mean person. He's very sweet. He's very gentle. He's very night. He's just clueless and weird. We get up there and they're like kind of hitting it off. I'm like, oh, cool, this is going well. I could see this working out. And she shows him the guest bedroom. And he's like, yeah, this is. And it was an amazing apartment. I was like, you're welcome, dude.

He's walking around, like, touring the apartment. And we have a moment alone. And she's like, I just have to ask. I mean, I feel like I'm smelling a certain, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's a cologne. Like, she's being very, like, delicate. And I was like, I'm pretty ashamed that I did this. But I was like, I don't know.

I don't really notice it. Oh, no. You're just like, it's all in your head. You just gaslit her. I totally gaslit her. I totally gaslight her, dude. I feel terrible about this. Really does not, this story does not paint me in a very good light,

but it's what I had to do. I was like, get out. But here's the reason I don't feel super bad about it. She was like, fine, it's going to work out. They made an arrangement. He stayed for two months. They became best friends. Really?

This like 60-year-old woman and this like 25-year-old guy, and she had a fiancee in another country, and it was all like they were just buds. And they, like, still are friends to this day. And I think would stay at her house if he ever came back. It was so funny. So it all worked out perfectly, which is why I don't feel super guilty. But yeah, I shamelessly pawned this guy off on her. And it was the only solution to the situation I could come up with. Oh my God. That's so funny. My first experience even realizing people had B.O. was when in the 80s, my close friend slash neighbor,

his mom, she was a strange woman and she was like very into edgy stuff. Like she took the kids to the Soviet Union on a vacation in the 80s, which is awesome. Okay. And she invited this Russian guy to come stay at their house. And I met this gigantic Russian man. And he smelled so bad, but he was really freaking cool. He just smelled so bad. And she was like, over there, they don't bathe every day. They don't have stuff.

And I was like, okay. But I just remember being like, does he not smell himself? Like you know he's been in the room for an hour after he's been in it. The whole house smells. Yeah. It was hilarious, actually, because we were kids. They just thought it was funny. Anyway, what are we talking about right now?

I'm not sure. We never do this on the show, ever go off on tangents like this. So if you're new, this is not the usual thing. But I have no clue where we left off. Let me take us back to the nightmare at hand. Yeah. The letter goes on. Eventually, I told this client that I was having an allergic reaction,

and I opened the exam room door for air. I made some recommendations for the dog. The owner declined them, and finally the consultation ended. She then complained to the front desk that I wasn't paying attention to her and was having an allergic reaction. In other words, she didn't get her money's worth because I wasn't honest and didn't tell her that she was stinky. I've never told a client something like that. I feel like they should hear it from someone else, and I should probably just deal with it.

On the other hand, I can't give the best service when all I want to do is get out of the room as quickly as possible. Is there any way that you can tell your clients they smell bad? Or do I say nothing, since this is just a brief interaction with a new client? signed a vexed veterinarian dealing with a beastly barbarian. This person sounds super annoying, not the writer, the client sounds super annoying,

doesn't she? Definitely, she does. It's a tough situation, kind of, because a big part of me feels like we as a society, we should be able to say to people, look, I'm not trying to be mean here,

but you have a real hygiene issue going on. It's making it impossible for me to do my job. Please come back when you've showered, and I'll be happy to deworm your dog, or whatever. But the other part of me is like, you just can't go around, saying stuff like that to people. You just have to deal with it until the interaction is over.

And I don't like that. I know. I don't like it either because why do we have to put up with their hygiene issue? Like why is it our problem now and they get a free pass? Exactly. You live in a society. You're not some Ted Kaczynski Hermit, the Unabomber, who lives in the woods and never wants to interact with another human being. You're interacting with people, with professionals, you're asking them to take care of your dog. It's not unreasonable to ask that you do not induce the same symptoms as sarin gas. Right? What was the thing that they killed Kim Jong Nam with at the airport?

Like VX or something? VX. Which also sounds like a Russian social network. That's true. If I'd rather be pepper sprayed than be in the room with you, that's a freaking issue, man. And it's not my fault. But also, to your point, this woman sounds like a difficult human being.

Our friend here made some recommendations, despite the fact that she was nerve gas attacked by this woman's armpits. and the woman just said, no, I'm good. Like, I don't want your advice. Yeah, like, the reason your dog has skin conditions is because you've never bathed him and he clearly sleeps on, like, a dirty floor. It's because he needs surgery.

Goodbye. Right, I know he needs a special medication. I've been putting my stale baby powder-scented perfume on him and he still smells. There's obviously just something wrong with this woman, and I guess that's another layer here, which it's hard for me to remember sometimes, which is, if you smell this bad,

I'm guessing that you have some real challenge, challenges in life. Maybe you weren't raised properly. You struggle with social cues. You have mental health issues that get in the way of taking care of yourself. Or you're from the Soviet Union. That excuse is now off the table. It's like how angry can you get at somebody who is so compromised that they can't even scrub down with some dove once a week? Right. Give me a little Irish spring for crying out loud. Nice hard tongue roll on that. You remember those commercials? I do. Where the person turns Irish while they're in the shower? Yeah. I wish this woman turned Irish once a week. That would be great. at least. Yeah, it's a good point. On the one hand, these people are like a nuisance, and on the other hand,

they're kind of like sad victims or something. So is there any way you can tell your clients they smell bad? I'm not sure. I'm inclined to say that because they're a client and you're the vendor providing a service, you might have to put up with it. Because like you said, they should probably hear from someone else. Your relationship with them is more transactional. But if a person's hygiene is literally getting in the way of you doing the job, providing the service that they are paying you for, then I wonder if it is within your right to say, look, I'm really sorry, but I'm finding it impossible to give your pet the attention they deserve. And it's because you or your dog need to take a bath. So why don't you guys go do that? And we can schedule another appointment for you.

Yikes. I mean, that's a hard message to deliver, but you're making a good point. I have a little dark Jordan light idea here. Oh, let's hear it. Since the dog smells bad too, what if she tells the owner, you know, hey, listen, it's possible you've gotten used to this, but your dog has a really strong odor, and it's making it hard for me to treat him. And I can guarantee that the people you interact with when you're with him are noticing it too. This is a health issue. So my professional recommendation is that you bathe your dog regularly. Maybe you even bring the dog into the shower with you and you bathe him at the same time, and that's known to increase bonding between owner and pet or whatever, you know, kind of just blame the dog and hope she picks up on the subtext.

And you can also hint that the dog smell, quote unquote, may be rubbing off on her and causing her to smell. Basically, just blame the stank-ass dog hygiene on her dog's hygiene. See what I did there? I like it. It's a tall order that this woman's going to pick up what she's putting down. But I like it. It's a nice approach.

But I'm actually, look, honestly, I'm most concerned about the dog here because the dog can't bathe itself. This is a bad dog owner. It is. So maybe our friend here should focus mostly on telling people like this what they need to do for their pets, not so much on what they need to do for themselves. If she were a human doctor and this woman were her patient, then it would be absolutely appropriate to say, look, your hygiene is a problem.

And I would be a bad doctor if I didn't tell you that you are at serious risk if you don't shower more regularly. But it's the dog she's seeing. Yeah, it's a good point, right? She's a vet. She's there for the dog. But like you said, this woman is getting the way of her treating the dog. So there's got to be other situations where vets are like, hey, you need to do this thing as a human to make your dog's health improve.

I mean, they tell her to give medication all the time. Yeah, but also, you know, it doesn't sound like this woman is coming back. That's true. That's true. Good rid of this. So I'm guessing she's not your problem anymore. I would maybe just have a chat with your supervisors, your team, bring this up at the weekly staff meeting at the clinic or whatever and see what the clinic's policy should be about patients like this. It's kind of fascinating.

And maybe it's not the last time this is going to happen. So it could be a good precedent. I think that's a good call. Gabe, is that woman you pawned that guy off on looking for a roommate slash dog sitting situation? I feel like she might be the secret weapon for people like this. Yeah, totally. She would be perfect for this. Yeah, if you ever have a terrible gross dog, you just give it to this lady. Yeah, hey, I need a dog sitter. Comes back all fluffed up. It'd be funny if everybody in her life just ponds off the worst smelling people and things on her.

She's like the sin eater. That's what happens when you're too nice, right? And that segues nicely into our next question, I believe. What do we have on deck? Hello, Jordan and Gabe. I'm in my early 40s and got divorced from my wife a few years back. When I got divorced, I lost most of our friends, partly because they were her friends, and partly because my ex made me promise not to tell anyone that she was divorcing me, saying she had been with me because I was the safe option and had now found someone who actually interested. Oh, my God, that is so hard to hear. I am very sorry that happened. Or not. Maybe let's see how

the letter goes. That was the low point in my life, but I continued to work on myself, became a volunteer firefighter and parameder pilot, bought and paid off my own house, lost over 40 pounds, and I now plan on retiring in three to four years. I've also surrounded myself with great new friends and neighbors and dated a little bit with my longest relationship lasting nine months. I'm a very curious guy. I pride myself on the fact that I can have a deep and meaningful conversation with pretty much anyone. Well, there it is. That's the It's amazing. Can we just stop and appreciate how awesome the story just turned around? I think so. Yeah, seriously. You're killing it, man. I'm sorry you went through the painful divorce,

but talk about bouncing back. I'm proud of you on this one. Sorry, proud Uncle Jordan over here, carry on. I just feel like that must have been quite the drop kick, and he turned it around. He did turn around. Good on you. Lately, though, I can't help it feel like no one really knows me. I've learned that being a good conversationalist means asking open-ended and inquisitive questions to let the other person talk. This is also a trait that I got from growing up with my slightly narcissistic mother. This often puts me in the position of knowing a lot about the person I'm interacting with, but them never really knowing anything about me. I've had many conversations that span hours, only to come home and realize that it was really just me listening to them talk. This leaves me

with the feeling like I'm just being used for my time, like the people in my life don't care about me, since they can't be bothered to ask me questions. I've since ended a few romantic relationships, because my girlfriends didn't seem interested in my life or my pursuits. I feel like I would be an interesting person to talk to, yet I keep getting disappointed that no one is making the effort to get to know me. Am I wrong in thinking that if these people cared about me, they would make the effort to ask me about my life? Or is this what I should just expect moving forward?

How can I get that feeling that people actually care about me? Signed, the contorted conversationalist. Man, such a great question. So I suspect that one of three things is going on here. The first thing is you might be choosing partners who are a little self-absorbed, a little dominating, or maybe just not as interested in you. The second thing is you might be showing up in those relationships in a way that feeds that self-absorption, that dynamic or sort of permits that lack of interest in you.

The third possibility is these people aren't narcissists. They're just not used to having some. somebody really listened to them, especially a guy, and they're soaking it up, they're loving it, and that can leave somebody like you feeling unappreciated or somehow missed, but maybe it's not intentional. It's not a sign of a personality flaw. Or all three could be going on in some measure or another. This is probably way more complex than we even know. But my gut is that there's a very subtle dance that happens between you and these women. And to be fair, a lot of it might be happening internally within you, even if it feels like it's coming from them.

This feeling you find yourself having a lot, that you're just being used for your time, like the people in your life don't care about you or seem interested in your life, that feeling might arise because of the way you operate in relationships. Your curiosity, your deep desire to understand people and really listen, I think it's fantastic. It's a superpower. It comes from a good place, namely, a genuine desire to connect. And it might also be a way for you to sort of hide,

to shine the spotlight on the other person, take a step back into the dark yourself, to cling to a certain role, the guy who supports other people, who cares about other people, who gets to have a certain access to them, and that role, it might be very familiar. And yes, I'm sure that had a lot to do

with the mother you had, how you learned to operate because of her. Very common, totally normal. Well, I'm guessing there's a part of that role that feels extremely gratifying because, you know, you're becoming intimate with these people, you feel useful, you feel important, and there's another part of that role that feels, yeah, not great.

Yeah, because you know deep down that there isn't real intimacy there and that the price you pay for being so connected and important is, you know, you lose yourself. So I actually think it is healthy that you got a little angry here that tells me you're noticing this pattern, it doesn't sit right with you, and you're ready for a new experience with other people, which is awesome. So my advice, my hope for you really, is to start sharing more of yourself in your relationships. Take up a little more space. I would almost treat this as a little experiment.

Try it out, see what happens. I'm not saying stop asking questions, stop being a good listener. I'm saying keep listening and open up a little more. Connect what they said to something you've experienced. Find a parallel in your own life. Try kicking off the conversation with your own stuff first. When you notice that tendency to shrink back and make it entirely about the other person, short-circuit that by claiming the spotlight, just for a moment.

And if you struggle to do that, you can even say, man, it's funny, I really enjoy listening to you talk. I prefer that role in a conversation, but sometimes I think I come across as quiet and shut down, which isn't my intention. Even that is sharing something of yourself, and it opens a window for the other person to go, oh, interesting, tell me about that, or, oh, let's talk about you. I've been talking your ear off. And it's okay if it's hard for you or you're a little clumsy.

the important thing is that you're literally rewriting the dynamic. Yeah, so true. But honestly, more than balancing the scales in your conversations, I'm interested to know what sharing more of yourself will show you about you. My guess is that it will feel a little uncomfortable. It might feel, I don't know, a little precarious. It might even, ironically, enough, feel narcissistic of you, which, for the record, it's not.

And that it will feel pretty fulfilling with the right person. The other upside to forcing yourself to speak a little bit more is I think it'll help you figure out which of these people in your life really are narcissistic or uninterested in you and which ones were just following your cue to make it all about them. The ones who don't seem interested in you when you talk more, those might be the ones who really are self-absorbed and then you'll know, oh, okay, this is not my person, right? These are not the people I should be choosing and you'll know for sure. The ones who do listen to you, the way you listen to them, and who get more invested and more excited when you bring more of yourself to the table, those are

your people, especially in the dating world. And the more you do this, the more you'll know what you really want out of relationships, what other people want out of you, your mindset and your standards are going to change dramatically. And that's awesome. This could have a ripple effect across your whole life. It will, for sure, no doubt about it. I'm actually very excited for him. So no, you don't need to settle for this dynamic going forward. This is absolutely something you can rewrite. And you're already doing that, and I think it's great. And in terms of getting that feeling that people actually care about you, which, oh man, that question was really, I don't know, there's something kind of sad about that, but I think that just speaks to the fact that you really want this connection

and you deserve this connection. That feeling you're looking for is the natural byproduct of being in healthy, fulfilling two-way relationships. When you're choosing people who are ready for those kinds of relationships too, and when you start showing up to those relationships with the right spirit and the right vulnerability, all of this stuff will take care of itself. You're not going oh, how do I get that feeling that this person cares about me? You'll be going, wow, I feel like this person cares about me and I care about them. And that'll be because both of you are sharing the spotlight and you're not hiding in different ways. Absolutely. And I know that's what he wants deep down too. So that's my invitation for you, man. Stop hiding. Find out what happens when you let more

of you out. It might feel weird, but it's great. And it's really the only way to move through life. I'd also say to everyone listening, and it sounds like our writer is doing this already, give people a second chance if they end up talking your ear off and they don't show much interest, at least at first. I think some people rarely get a chance to share. They're seldom listened to. And when they get that chance, they're often so keen and so comfortable that they forget to take turns. It's only a problem if it keeps happening, like with our writer here.

It's the same person. They're never interested. That's an issue. Otherwise, it's just a compliment to your skills as a listener. Hope you all enjoyed that. I want to thank everyone who wrote in this week and everybody who listened. Thank you so much. Go back and check out Yuval Noah Harari, if you haven't done so yet.

The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network. I'm teaching you how to do the same thing for yourself in our six-minute networking course. The course is free. It's not gross. It's not schmoozy. It's on the thinkific platform at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. It's all the stuff I wish I knew 20 years ago with respect to networking and building relationships. Dig the well.

Before you get Thursday, build those relationships before you need them. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com. Transcripts in the show notes. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Go try the chat bot at Jordan Harbinger.com slash AI. Any feedback Friday question, any interview, any promo code.

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King Bob Arno. Pickpockets don't talk. They lift and do everything silent. I have spent 20, 30 years befriending or getting very, very close into how they work. They can be put into three or four different categories. The skillful ones that are ashamed of what they're doing, Then you have the youngish one who couldn't care less about some moral compass. And then you have the ones who get out of work and some older guy is saying, hey, I want you to be part of the team. They weren't thinking of going into crime. There are many, many levels of pickpockets. Some are very aggressive and angry.

The thieves picks it, but pickpocket never holds. So he passes it on to a partner. So if the police catches him two seconds after, he's clean. There's nothing on him. And the way there was none of this usual pickpocketing move, the elegance was unbelievable. I had to look at it at least 10 times before I could see, what the hell did I see?

And some of them are very charming, by the way. And that goes for the territory. There's a very good smile and like a ping pong very quickly, boom, boom, boom, boom, back and forth. There's nothing slow. If you measure me against the very, very best in each country, I'm going to be a couple of pinhole below. The good pickpocket respect me for my skill, and they say, Bob, I don't understand how in the hell did you get this skill. They are in all.

To learn pickpocket tricks of the trade and how to protect yourself against thieves, pickpockets, and scam artists, check out episode 530 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode is sponsored in part by What Was That Like, Potip? If you're looking for a new show to add to your rotation, something that'll make you stop mid-dishwashing and go, wait, what that actually happened? You got to subscribe to, what was that like? It's real people telling the most surreal moments of their lives, and they're not just giving you the highlights.

They're walking you through it from the inside as the person who actually lived it, which means you're basically getting a front row seat to the chaos. One episode is about Scott getting locked up in a foreign jail for a crime he didn't commit. Sure, Scott. Another is Sue's parachute failing. Wow, I'm surprised she was around to tell that story. And then there's Michael who was stabbed on a bus, which. makes your commute instantly feel a little bit more relaxing. Do anything you think? So if you want to hear

some wild and inspiring firsthand stories, I invite you to check out what was that like. Every story is verified. Their site even has photos so you know even the most bizarre stuff you're hearing is somebody's real life. Listen to what was that like on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever app you're using right now. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the

topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.