All from Jonathan. Okay, Hello, Oh my goodness. I did not expect to get out. How are you?
I'm doing good. What's your name?
John?
Jonathan?
Jonathan. Have have we ever spoken before? Jonathan?
No? We have not.
Well, Jonathan, what's up?
Man?
How can I get you today? What's what's uh? What's what's what's happening?
Yeah, it's Saturday. I'm just hanging around my house here. I wanted to talk about alcohol.
Go go ahead, man.
Yeah, it's very nerve wrecking to be on the call. But yeah, so I think I texted you a while ago talking about like alcohol consumption. So I think I'm just gonna spill my brain now. So it's something that's kind of so. I've been drinking age for about seven eight years. You know, I never really ran before the age of twenty one, you know, like I know people did it in high school and everything, but I kind of had the upbringing where I didn't really know people
were actually doing that. So the first few times I did actually drink, you know, I got super like nervous. But eventually I kind of start using it as like an escape mechanism, you know what I mean, Like, oh, like because before if I got like super if I would get super stressed, for example, I was pretty good at like just dealing with it and internally. But I think what I noticed over the years is I kind of used it as a stress response. I know that's like not the best thing to do, but it's hard
not to. I think, like I'm not at the point of getting sick or anything or like being an alcoholic, so part of it is just like it's not that bad. I yeah, but you know what I mean, you don't
have to go to AA meetings. But I think there are like you know, like if I'm like way stressed out, it's an option, where like I think part of it might be like it wasn't an option before, so because it's like a very's a quick and easy way to get something off your plate and kind of like get out of your get out of your head for a bit.
So I think that is so I know that sounds really standard and everything, but I think the main thing about it was it feels like I'm going down to pass and like I spent kind of half today kind of self talking to myself, like, oh, because I have no alcohol in the house right now, and whenever I have no alcohol in the house, I kind of think, all right, it's up to you to not given to buy more or you know what I mean, because if I do have it in the house, I just just
keep drinking it and not really be self aware about like, oh, you have worked tomorrow, you probably should calm down.
You know, what are what are some of your triggers to drink alcohol? What are some things you notice are going on before you drink?
I would say boredom is a big one, or like because I don't have a lot of friends, you know, so boredom or oh I'm kind of lonely, let me just do this, so like get out of my own head about it. Yeah, So I would say those two things, and I know, like like saying that like stress response, like if there's like a stressful situation. I also do some work. That's not really as much. It's more boredom. I would say, like I've actually have work I have
to do. That's a good distraction, which is kind of weird. It's more like on weekend, I don't have anything to do. Oh yeah, how am I gonna spend you know, It's like, oh, I have limited free time?
What's that? What's that. I think I've said it before. What's that phrase, idle hands belonged to the devil? It's true?
Yeah, yeah, I definitely.
I mean, I you know, I'll talk to you about this for a little bit. I don't want to talk too much, only because I'm not a a.
You know.
I mean, it's a well trodden topic, addiction. But I guess he's like, yeah, yeah, I've been there before, where like you're just very lonely and so you have nothing to do, so why not just drink? Damn it. I had a thought in my head that I that I fucked up. All right, what's stopping you from from London to go to AA because I feel like it's a good place for you to find a community and just like help, you know, find other people who uh deal with the same issue.
That's a good question.
Is that bad?
Yes?
Maybe? I guess maybe in my mind I'm thinking like it has to act like I have to get fired. I have to like, you know, get fired from my job because of alcohol.
Well, question of well, I don't like it's a question of whether or not it's that bad. It's really just a question of do you notice that it's a problem in your life, like, is is your Is it something you're worried about? It's something that's bothering you?
And if it is, yeah, no it is bothering me, it's really you.
Then it's something. If it's bothering you, then it's something that I think is worth you know, deal with.
Yeah, that's interesting, I guess, like because in my mind I'm thinking, like, it's not that bad yet, so I would be like wasting resources, you know what I mean if I actually did do that.
No, you know, I don't think you're wasting resources. Yeah, because because I guess.
You just.
I mean bad or not bad. It's like it's something that you're trying to stop doing. And if it's something you're trying to stop doing, then I think it's important to look at the different triggers for it, right, like boredom, loneliness and go, Okay, how can I attack my boredom and my loneliness in such a way that gets me to stop drinking?
You know?
I mean I feel you, man, I have the same thing when it comes to eating or getting higher or a lot of these other things. And it's really hard. I'm I guys, sit here and say it's as easy as fixing your loneliness issue, because it's a hard fucking issue to fix. But I mean I would have you, have you what what sort of steps have you taken to try to you know, rain in your boredom and your loneliness.
I guess I just try to keep myself occupied, like with brainless hobby, so I end up like watching a lot of YouTube videos and crap, like play video games. Onliness is something that I haven't actually made very big attempts to like get over. And I think with that, like that, like loneliness, I was not normally during college, for example, because there are things to do in places to meet people. So as an adult, I think I just haven't found like a social group or something to
like actually go out and do that. So I don't know. I'm I'm also getting up in my age, so I would feel kind of weird because I live in a college town, so I would feel a little bit weird trying to go to places. And then there's people who are like eight years younger than me, and here's the weird old coming to try to make friends with you, you know, So I think part of that is like I'm afraid of clean up creepy in that regard, And I know that's like an unreasonable like to say that loud.
It sounds ridiculous, you know what I mean. But I think it's an excuse I tell myself for whatever reason. But I think that's like, yeah, I guess maybe it's just a lot of excuses and I'm not trying to have like a whate is me kind of bit. You know, there's that Norm McDonald joke where it's like, oh, you have these bad diseases. My disease is that I drink a lot. I'm an alcoholic, you know. So, so I guess like that goes back to like that oh, it's
not a real problem yet kind of thing. But I guess you mentioning, hey, man, you should friend support, I guess.
But like.
I guess like when you do seek support, maybe it's like, oh, you're you're not bad enough to get support. I guess have you ever felt that before? Yeah, of course, how do you like, how do you get over that?
Cause?
But yeah, I think that's I think that actually is a common thing. But it's kind of interesting because like you'll go to you know whatever, Maybe you go to a meeting and you're like Okay, well I'm not as bad as these folks, and maybe maybe that's helpful in some way, but I just don't wait. I think the idea of like let me wait until things are horrible to address the issue is it is bad, you know what I mean, like, and as you're aware of it, like I mean, try try your best to to mitigate it.
And I just sincerely, man, I wish I could be of more help to you right now. This is a problem I'm having doing this podcast lately. Is like, dude, like deal like making friends as an adult and uh, dealing with loneliness and boredom to not do your negative behaviors. Like I I I fucking don't know, bro, It's it's really hard. It's really goddamn hard.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah it is. It's really hard. But you gotta I don't this. I can't just I can't sit here and lecture you on how to do it because I don't fucking know how. But like it's just it's just what you gotta you gotta do.
You know, Yeah, I guess like drawing parallels between like other types of behavior, yeah, you know, it's like, oh, you're not the only one feeling crazy. I guess that's I guess that's.
No, you're not dealing. Life is in. Life is crazy. Everyone around you is feeling crazy and it's your I guess. Just like thing you gotta figure out, you know. So yeah, dude, like best of luck, Like whatever it is that you can find that keeps you occupied so that you're not getting drunk all the time, Like never, never give up trying to find it, Like go do eight million different
things until you find it. Go take a fucking archery glass and be like, all right instead of getting drunk, I'm gonna shoot a bow and arrow, like just anything that you can do to be out of your house around other people and not getting fucked up.
Yeah yeah, maybe that's maybe, Like because I don't really have a reason to leave my house because I don't do anything right, you know, I don't have any like concrete hobbyists or anything.
So right, just leave your house, man, Like I mean, what day?
What?
Today's Saturday?
Yeah?
What are you doing? What time is it where you are?
It's almost six six?
What's going on on a Saturday? Dude? Just any I swear to God, just anything, like go for a walk around your neighbor, what city you live in.
I live in Columbus, Ohio.
You live in Columbus, Ohio. You just had to make this more difficult.
Yeah, there's nothing to do here. Yeah, I guess I could walk outside. And that's actually you could walk outside.
You could walk outside. It sounds crazy, no, because here's the thing is, it's it kind of even comes back to this thing of like, well, it's not that bad, so I shouldn't get help, right are you? You're you know, you're like you'll discount just walking outside. You could walk even in goddamn Columbus, Ohio. You could just go take an hour walk around your fucking neighborhood and that's better. Even though it's like, oh, that's not even really anything,
it's like it is something. It's better than you're outside of your house, you're looking at stuff you're not getting.
Yeah, you know that's good. I guess like with walking, that's like a something. I have tried walking before, and I think, just to put it out loud to make myself more self aware. Sometimes I do something that's healthy and then I'm like, wow, I did something healthy. Time to reward myself, you know, So I guess that's something I have to be self aware about just to say that out loud. Sure, but hey, let's maybe I just gotta do that, you know.
Sure, well I guess, like I.
Don't know, just talking about it is helpful to be honest, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I dude, I really would just like go make just like sit down on your notesap or something, make a list of like as many things as you can possibly think of. That would be nice and good to do. I don't know, Man, they got they got, they got pickleball leagues in Columbus, Ohio. They have concerts in Columbus, Ohio. They have I know, you can meme on Columbus, Ohio endlessly, but they have, they have stuff,
they have people doing things. Just come up with a list of like as many things as possible and just don't stop trying to get out of the house, and then let me know if that works.
Okay, Yeah, that's a good idea, making a list. Yeah, because just saying I need to do something isn't very helpful. I need to get concrete about it. Yeah yeah, m h yeah, good advice.
And this is good. This is good that you're at least trying to work on this and instead of I think the Yeah, I just the idea of let me wait until my life is in complete ruins to It's like, look if it's like it's like it's like the gas light is on in your car and you're saying, well, let me wait until the car completely runs out of gas and I'm stranded on the highway for me to you know, fill my tank up with Yeah.
Yeah, And I think that's really good. I think the softwareness is good. I think sometimes they do get into like, oh you know, oh fuck it, I'm gonna die anyway, I might as well just do things. You know, there's a whole there's a whole attitude that sometimes yeah, yeah.
Yeah, And I don't have I really like I wish I had. I wish I had an answer for to you for that, because I mean, goddamn, yesterday I was eating I mean, yeah, dude, I really wish i'd answer this because goddamn, like yesterday, I'm eating a whole pizza and going crazy because I'm like, yeah, the same thing you're talking about, like why does anything matter? I'm getting existential about things.
Yeah, And I.
Like why I should you give a ship about not getting drunk and why should you try to do things with your life.
Uh yeah, but like that does happen?
Yeah, I mean yes, but you have like it's it's your I guess it's your like responsibility as a human being to like come up with your own answer to that question.
That's true. Yeah, yeah, And if.
You think hard enough about it, as I'm in this moment optimistic for you, you'll come up with something.
Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, I think she's optimism.
Even I'm optimistic for you, even though you live in Columbus, Ohio.
Yeah.
Yeah, what's your what's your name again, Jonathan? Jonathan? Is is there anything else you want to say about any of this or say at all before it before we go?
Thank you for doing the show. Seriously, A lot of people are big fans.
Thanks ma.
I'm gonna come to your life show eventually, but seriously, thank you for doing the show. It's a great comfort. Thanks man, and thanks for taking the call. I really did not expect you.
To pick up go join a fucking laser tag. I bet they have. I bet there's a laser I'm serious, I bet there's a Laser Tag league like dumb shit like dude, I'm talking like dumb ass ship where You're like, there's no way something like that exists, and then you go online and it exists. Like, go join a fucking laser tag league in Columbus, Ohio. Somebody listening to this podcast right now is in a laser tag league in Columbus, Ohio, or knows somebody in a laser tag league. So I
bet that exists. I swap. Please go on Google and search for laser tag League Columbus. Just like dumb fucking shit, just anything, you know, just anything.
Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, no, okay, I think I'll take a look into that. Oh man, cool. Well, thank you so much, Lyle.
Take care of jo and good luck, good luck, Thank you so much. By I like that guy. I'm I'm with him, dude, I'm with him. I get it. I mean I am. So you know, I'm touring a lot lately, and I've been touring a lot for the past like year and a half two years, and it's been really great because it keeps me uh out out of the
house and occupied and not idle. And then what happens is I'll go I'll have like a week or two weeks or three weeks or a month or so off of doing my shows, and I'll be at home and I'll be like, oh no, now I have nothing to do, and I'm I'm kind of paralyzed. And that's kind of when, you know, for me, the the existential thoughts come in of like, well, why the fuck should I not you know, uh, do X y Z destructive behavior? Because I'm gonna die anyway, and who gives a shit? Why should I care about
making my life better? Why should I care about this and that? And you know that's why I that's why for me it was hard to talk to Jonathan just now because I have those same thoughts and I haven't figured out exactly I have. I have like in theory how I'm gonna deal with those thoughts, but I don't have in concrete like practice of how to fucking deal with them. But but in that theory, it's it's those things.
It's like, well don't I just you know, join a laser tag league or some other things like why don't I just keep trying to figure out different ways to get out of my house and go do things so that I'm not going insane and eating horridbo sour gummy Cola bottles, which are the best candy. So yeah, good luck, Jonathan. Let me know if you figure something out, and I'm gonna do I'm gonna search that up. I live in a major city. I bet they have laser tag leagues. Also,
leaving your house costs a lot of money. I guess that's why walking is good, right, because it's free to just walk around and it's good. And I met what I said to Jonathan because I was having these existential crazy thoughts last night, and what I do. I just walked for two hours. You can do that, isn't that crazy?
You can just if you if you ever look like next time you're on the internet and you see a tweet that pisces you off or something like that, or a real or you can if at any time, you can just put your phone on, fucking power it off and just go outside and walk for two hours. You can just do that. Any thought's available to you. It's free to just do that, and it's nice. It's really nice.
I don't know I'm rambling right now, but uh yeah, that that that call it made me emotional because it taps into you know, ship that that feels very real. So I hope we get a callback from Jonathan uh where he's the He's the king of the Ohio laser tags scene. All right, thanks for calling attention listeners of the Therapy Gecko podcast. I have new tour dates on
sale right now at therapy geckotour dot com. If you're a regular listener of this podcast but you haven't been to one of my live shows before, you should come out.
Man.
It's it's a fun time. The format of the show is essentially a group Gecko therapy session, where members of the audience come on stage to share stuff from their lives, just like they do on the podcast, except instead of anonymously over the phone, it's the complete opposite. It's anonymously whatever the opposite of anonymous is. It's publicly in front of a few hundred people, which is a really cool
and interesting thing to experience. And it's also mixed in with some presentations and material from me about my life, and I think that those presentations have been very fun
and cool, So you should come. Tickets are on sale right now at therapy geckotour dot com for the following cities Nashville, Tennessee, Huntsville, Alabama, Chicago, Illinois, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Detroit, Michigan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, San Jose, California, San Francisco, California, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, d C. Austin, Texas, Houston, Texas, Dallas, Texas, Greenville,
South Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, Pittsburgh, PA, Buffalo, New York, Toronto, Canada, Los Angeles, California, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Once again, that's therapy. Geckotour dot com for tickets. I hope you come to the show so that I can keep doing these shows every year because they are very fun and sick. All right, thanks all from Richard.
Hello, Oh my god?
Is this Lyle?
Yes? Who is this?
You can call me Richard, Richard.
What's up?
Man?
How's life?
You know? My life is pretty good? But I'm having some problems? Well, hitman, Well, i think I've developed an addiction to pornography pretty bad.
Huh okay, what uh? Hit me with it?
Well? I find myself looking at videos very frequently, and I found it very hard to control myself and it makes me feel very very ashamed.
Hm hmm. How often are we are we looking at videos?
Uh, well, it depends. I've recently been trying to quit. I've been. I went for about a about ten days and then I relapsed. Uh what type of videos do I watch?
No?
I mean, I guess how. I didn't ask that, I said I did. I didn't ask that. But it sounds like you want to talk about it. So I mean, if you do, go go for it.
Uh. Well, it's again, it's not a very uh pleasant subject. I find it very embarrassing. Uh, I've been very dissensitized to it. But I believe I started pornography when I about fourteen. My parents in let the museum and a lot as a kid, and so I never really built up the tolerance to it.
How old are you now? I am twenty mm, so I don't even know if you answer this. How often are you are you looking at born?
About once a day? Okay, but I am you know, I'm a young male, so I'm able to go for quite a while.
Okay, So you're looking at it once a day, but you're like for a long time, You're going like you know, it's.
For an exceptional amount of time.
Yeah, okay, all right, And I mean let me ask you this, what are you? Where does the shame come from? Is it like, oh, I could have been doing something else with my time? Is it like a weird religious thing? Is that oh this is gross thing? Like what's what's going on inside of that shame?
Well? I see it as it's a wasted my time obviously, but it's also a what am I doing with my life here? Why am I sitting here watching these figures when I could be out doing something? And that really eats at me because I feel like a loser.
M It's weird, man, because look throughout my entire life and to this day, I've been you know, a crazy jack or offer, big jack or offer, big big porn guy. Not so much on the porn recently, but big jack or offer. And here's the thing, And this is something I don't think about that often. Is that, like I think in life, it's like ideally and this isn't this is not I don't want to preach about this because this is not how I actually live. This is how
I'd like to live in theory. But like in theory, ideally you do things with your time that you either a are fully enjoying with no shame or b compound into things that like make your life better in the future. And you know, orgasm is a weird thing because it's like you enjoy it in the moment sort of, but not if but like if you're ashamed of it. It's like you're doing this thing that you didn't even really fully enjoy in the moment because you were ashamed of it.
And you know, it's not like you know, when you are having sex in a relationship, where it's like, Okay, this is actually a thing I'm investing in that is compounding, you know, in my relationship. So it's get I get why you see it as a big fucking waste of time. And I look back at a lot of the time that I've spent doing that as a big fucking waste of time I had. I I mean, just a few days ago, dick in hand, I was watching porn and I was like, what am I doing with my life?
So that's it is a tough uh, a toughie hmmm.
I mean, yeah, it seems like another part of me takes over right, and I can rationalize it and I can think what am I doing right now? And yet I still do it? And that's a big problem for me because I I can't tell if I'm a bad person for it. I'm not intentionally.
Okay, what what do you mean by a bad person?
Uh, for consuming this pornography as opposed to going out there and meeting people and doing good in society.
Well, I would, I mean the whole thing of like bad I had a person good person like you're talking about like morally, I.
Suppose morally, Yeah.
I don't know if I would. I don't know if I would be sitting here. Look, i don't know if I would be sitting here, you know, casting negative moral judgment upon you for you know, jacking off when you could be planting trees and volunteering and soup kitchens. But let's talk about just in the scope of like what's going to make your life more enjoyable, right, as opposed to like what's morally good and what's morally bad? I mean, what do you want to be doing with your life and with yourself?
Well, I'm thinking I might want to become a welder. I mean, the pay is pretty good, and there's all these different types and it's it's a very interesting prospect. I'm not sure though, I'm I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.
Well, hey, you're getting better at polishing swords, of course, all right, you didn't think that was funny, but and it wasn't no funny, but but I mean, what could you what else would you be doing with your time now?
I don't I don't know. I have like no prospects. I mean, I said the welding thing, but I don't have a direction in my life. And I've I've tried all the time. I've gone to people I've talked to, like counselors to try and get me into a subject, but I'm just I have a hard time figuring stuff out.
What do the counselors tell you?
The ones that I've gone to and I've talked to, I'm talking about like college counselors. I'm trying to figure out classes, and they I've tried. I've like set a subject like I'm interested in technology, but I also think that I think a technical job is going to be outclassed by AI in a few years, and so I'm not sure if that's what I wants to come too. But i know welding is a thing are going to be forever.
You know, do you have any friends, Like, are you how's your social life?
My social life is pretty it's pretty destitute. I mean I have I'm a pretty isolated person. I live pretty far out of town and I talk to people in high school, but I didn't like stay after class and do activities. And I haven't really had a lot of friends per se. I've had online friends, but that's the whole o their story, but not like physical like in person friends. They're more like acquaintances.
M yeah, man, I think a lot of this stuff is just like symptom Like a lot of this stuff is just symptoms of other areas in life being like kind of lackluster. And it's a tall order to go, okay, well, go build a social life and go find a vocation and uh, you know, get your shit together right. It's a tall order that you never even really quite fill. This is a process. It's like a leaky bucket. I mean, okay, let's do that. Have you been to a real therapist to talk about any of this.
No, I haven't, And I think that it would. I know it's stupid to think this way, but I think it would make me weaker as a person that because of admitting that I can't handle this on my own.
M h.
M hmm. I know that's illogical. Obviously, I'm not a weaker person for asking for help, but that's what I feel.
M yeah, I'm uh, I'm I'm I'm stuck.
Man.
I mean, I can't. I can't sit here and tell you I haven't felt the same.
I mean, COVID made everything worse. Man, it was my last two years of high school, and then I didn't get to see anybody for two years solid. I just made everything worse, sentuated the whole situation.
Why don't you, I mean, I'll tell you the same thing I told the last guy. Man, It's like, why didn't you just do things that get you out of your house? Do you live in a in a college camp? Do you live in a college place? Do you live are you in school?
No, I'm I'm living at my parents' house. Okay, that's that was That's fun to admit there's.
Something wrong with that. What is what can you do to get yourself out of the house and with other people?
Well, I've been going to the gym. I've been talk with people there. I met an old guy there taught me how to do some workout stuff. I mean, I was overweight for most of my childhood, so I was very socially stunned. I felt like I wasn't deserving of love. I suppose, m. Well, I'm therapizing myself. Here.
Are you learning anything as you're therapizing yourself?
I think so. I think that experiences make the person, and I think that I need to get out probably more and meet more people and build my brain to tolerate people more as opposed to just retreating into my savor space because I think that it's probably a comfort thing right where I do it because I'm stressed and I feel like this is the only way to unstress myself.
Yeah. I mean, dude, it fucking goes. It really fucking goes back to what we were just talking about, of like you retreating to your comfort zone because you get those existential thoughts of like, well, what's the point of like building my life or making it better? And everyone has their own way of getting past those existential thoughts.
Some people go through life lucky enough to never have any of that shit pop into their brain just because of things magically worked out, and other people struggle with it immensely and never figure it out. But uh, I mean, you just gotta find your own reason to do it. And you're so young. It's like just to leave your house just for the sake of leaving your house. I mean, you give a shit enough to call me and want to talk about this stuff, right, So.
Yeah, but like my life should be improving. I've lost sixty pounds, I feel better, and yet I don't feel better.
I don't know, man, I don't know either. God damn it, I don't know either. This is this is uh a struggle today because I I It's like, I don't I feel right now. It's like, bro, fuck man, fuck, just just uh just get out of the house. Man, just get out of the house. However, you can just go for a walk.
Go for a walk. Well that does That supposedly makes you happy, according to the Internet, So maybe that's the solution. Just get out there and walk more. Just be trailed through my house.
Fail it up, dude, can I I'm gonna drop something here real quick, just for the listeners for and people have. This might be a controversial thing to say, but I've actually been getting a lot This is real, Like I've actually been getting like a lot of mileage off of
typing my problems into chat GPT. Chat GPT is like a crazy good therapist if you ever I don't know if you've ever given that a shot, but uh, it actually does come up with like pretty fucking if you can't afford therapy, or like you just need something right fucking now, it actually and I've done this, this is kind of just what I do now. It actually gives you pretty good objective logical feedback if you need just a little something in the moment.
Well, let's how it's its system works. It just takes information from the Internet and compiles into a coherent answer.
Right, something like that. I don't know how any of this shit works, but that's the that's the therapy. Gecko saying, have you tried asking chat GPT instead?
That is so DYSTOPI and asking an AI about your problems.
Bro, It's so weird because it were weird, because it's so weird because the AI, I mean, you're talking to me right now, and it's like the AI works better than a human sometimes.
Well it doesn't have that that human element is just purely logical, so maybe it would be slightly better stuff. But that's kind of that's a dark road to go down thinking about like that, because we need humans for a lot of stuff. That's that's what the companies are thinking. They where they do those robocalls things or you call them up and you need to talk to somebody, but it just a robot.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure people are gonna get mad at me and be like, well, you're telling people to put their I'm just literally saying this is my personal anecdote of this ship. But anyway, I mean, well, all right, let me before I kick you out of here. I mean, is there any other way that this phone call can be helpful to you before we go anything else that that maybe I can try to help you with.
No, But I do have one more thing to say. Yeah, I don't know if you're interested in losing weight. It all a while. I don't think you are. But if you are, or you just want to feel better about yourself, Okay, I'm not doing like an ad rate here or anything. I was doing an Yeah, well, this is just my
experience what happened to me. I tried the carnivore diet where you just like eat and eat and you only eat salt and butter, and I lost sixty pounds and I didn't even really work out, and then I started to work out because I felt.
Yeah, I mean it's the ketogenic diet. I am. I really don't want to talk about this shit on here because I do not know what I am talking about in even in the mental health realm, let alone in the physical health health realm. But I mean, yeah, when you eat just protein, ye, I mean yeah, when you eat when you when you eat no, I mean yeah, when you eat all protein and no carbs, you will definitely lose weight.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was good. It's like regardless, I thank you for talking to me, Kyle or not Kyle Lyle, I really appreciate it. I sure someone to talk to good.
I hope this was this was helpful because I I really I've said this a thousand times, but I really am having a hard time with like these advice how do I deal with the woes of life calls? Because I really, uh struggle with it all myself and I don't know. But I hope this commiseration was helpful in any way, shape or form. What's your name again?
You can call me Richard or rich.
Rich Thanks for calling rich good.
Luck, Thanks man, I appreciate it.
Take care.
Yeah, man, it's it's hard because I really do, I try to. I think of this podcast not really as like a advice show, Like I look at it more as like a human interest story show, because I'm more interested in having people come on here and I'm like kind of learning about their lives and like what's going on with them, and you know, like experiencing the world through these quasi anonymous just accounts of life. Like I
think that's interesting. That's more interesting to me than like, here's advice from a guy who fucking has no idea what he's doing. But I mean, you know, I try, I'll try my best. I'll try my best and uh just you know, ruin people's lives by telling them to take the advice of an AI computer. But uh yeah whatever, man, thanks for calling. I hope everything works out.
Hello, Hello, how's.
It going good? So this is just real quick. I'm gonna give some context. So this is I don't usually do this. In fact, I've never done this, but I'm gonna do this right now. So this is this is mave right. Yes, so we're gonna this is my first I have four years of doing this show. This is my first intentional follow up call with a previous caller. May if you're the caller who a few weeks ago talked about wanting how you were thinking about whether or not you're going to date this felon right?
Yes?
Okay, and how how did that go for you?
Okay?
So we were talking on FaceTime, this is one of the first times we really face timed, and he had his shirt off and out of nowhere on his shoulder, I see a goddamn swastika tattoo, and so obviously I was like, hey, is that what I think it is? And he was like, yeah, I did it to myself in prison. And I was like, okay, I can't do this, and he tried to say, no, it's it's not what you think it means. It's a Norse mythology symbol that the meaning was taken away, but it means brotherhood and
all of this stuff. And I was like, no, no, I'm not I don't care what you think it means. That's just not okay.
That's almost as bad as the monster energy tattoo. It is.
I agree with that. It's close.
So real quick, are you going to keep dating him?
No? No, of course I blocked him on everything absolutely.
Well, May thanks for giving us an update. I hope that you find somebody with like final to find a guy with a nice like Mickey mouse tattoo or something.
I agree with that. Thanks for following up.
All right, take care of MeV you too.
Bye bye.
Hello?
Hello? What is your name?
Name's Amy?
Amy? What's going on? Amy? How How can I be a lizard on the phone for you today?
Okay?
I'm really excited because I didn't think that you were going to answer. So I'm very nervous.
Nah, don't be nervous. It's just we're just too uh human beings. Well, I guess I'm with You're a human being and I'm a lizard. But we're just we're just talking on the phone. Man, what's up?
Okay? All right? So I wanted to talk to you about something because I kind of wanted a little bit of advice.
Okay.
So well, okay, so you had gotten what I had texted you, right.
No, I have, I have, I have no context. Let's start from from nothing.
Okay.
So I feel like I have a little bit of an issue, and my issue is this. Okay, So I feel like I've been through a lot in my life. Okay, Like I've kind of had a little bit of a hard upbringing, very difficult upbringing, and I feel like because of that, the way that I behave in my relationship dynamic is really detrimental to the possible like excess of
this relationship. I just I feel like I sabotage things sometimes, and I kind of like self diagnosed myself with like a potential mental disorder of like a plethora of them. But obviously, you know, I haven't went to like an actual professional, so I don't know if you know my diagnoses are correct. I'd assume they're probably not. But I guess my question is, like, how could I be less problematic in my relationship dynamic so that I can have
one that is healthy? Because when I get in moments where I feel like I'm being overly emotional about something, it's hard for me to like like rationalize like actually approaching a situation in a healthy way, and I usually just take the the negative road.
And so listen, So I'm I'm I'm happy to talk to you about this just uh as a as a random stranger on the internet. But but before I do talk to you about this, you know, within that context we have you you know, you say that you've like self diagnosed yourself with a like a mental disorder, Like is this something that you've talked to like actual like therapists and psychiatrists about.
So I have went to a therapist once before, and he was not like he was pretty terrible, like we just didn't really Like I was trying to explain to him, like all of these destructive behaviorisms that I have, and he was just not he was like not acknowledging them, and it made me feel like like he kept like,
how do I explain this? Like he kept making it seem like the things I was bringing up were things that were like, no, not a big deal, but like in my head, I was like, dude, like you don't understand, Like I feel like I'm not being the best partner and I'm very much so aware of that, and he's you know what I mean, And it was kind of like brushed off, like now so.
You know what, Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm down to talk to you about it, but I just wanted to make sure that you know you you uh, I am not the first line of defense. Oh totally okay. So I mean what are these behaviors that you say are destructive to your relationships?
I feel like I feel like sometimes when I have a situation where we are like not seeing eye to eye, I feel like I've become like overtly emotional about it, and instead of me understanding like his perspective, I feel like I'm being very vague. Instead of me understanding his perspective, I like kind of create things in my mind that he would is potentially doing towards me, but I don't.
It's like, it's not that he actually is. It's just I'm so overtly emotional that I'm jumping to a bunch of conclusions in my head and then those you know what I mean, yes, and then those conclusions seem like real mhm you know.
So the reason why you should talk to a real therapist at all, like we can talk about but the reason why she sharked a real therapist is because, like a real therapist will probably be able to tell you like, Okay, you probably feel this way because of this thing that happened. I've seen this one hundred times. Here's what you should do based on the research that I have on this
blah blah blah. So you should do that, but I mean, from my dumb ass perspective, it's like, uh, if you're jumping into conclusions of what you just you just can't conclude what another person might be thinking or feeling or planning or any of that stuff. All you can do is talk to them, and if you want to choose not to believe them or to believe them, it's like, I mean, all you can do is communicate with this person, right, So if you think that this go ahead, what are you gonna say?
Do you think that? Like? Okay, so like how you had just said, like if you don't believe them, right, like, you ask them and they're like, I'm not doing that, and you're like in your head, you're like, yeah you are. Is that like kind of a little that's like a little weird, right, because like you should be able to like how am I going to be able to tell someone else if they're being honest or transparent? It's not like I'm a reader, so like, why would I assume that they're just lying to me? I?
Do you know what? That's actually that's an interesting thing to think about. I kind of think a working theory with this is like, look, because it's all on you, right, I mean, you're not. You can't control other people, whether or not other people are gonna lie to you or not. But you can. But you can. You can be like.
Look, I'm going to decide for myself that I'm gonna believe what this person is telling me at face value.
And if I find out later that this person was lying to me, I accept that as a risk of my decision. And I'm making this decision because I think it'll make my life better and because I know what it's like in the past to have been walking around not trusting anyone, being super paranoid and not being able to not being able to trust anyone, and I don't like how that made me feel, and I don't like that lifestyle. So I'm gonna decide to be less like that.
And if, again, if I find out later that it I was wrong, I accept that as a risk that I'm willing to take because I want to be less paranoid and I want to be happier and have less anxiety. That's just a theory that I have. And I don't know if that I don't know if what I said just resonated. I don't know if what I said resonates with you. But if it does, that's that's you know kind of how I think about it.
Yes, that actually does. That was perfect because the reason why I feel like he said was like spot on, because this morning I tried to start some bullshit, right, So, like we got into an argument last night and I wanted to roll it over into like the next day and like kind of like start where we left off
in a way and continue on the bullshit. And so what he had said to me was, Okay, like you're like essentially like you're going to start You're starting this day off already shitty, Like you're choosing to start this day.
Can I can I interject for like a second, so like when you like very very briefly tell me what was the argument about.
It's so stupid. Okay, So it's so fucking stupid, all right. So basically, we had moved into a neighborhood and I have social anxiety, and so I kind of wanted to like meet my neighbors and stuff like that. But I kind of had a plan on how I wanted to introduce myself, and it was like an inclusion with him, Like I was like, oh, maybe we can get some cup and like bring them over and say like, Hi, my name is this, my name is that whatever, and
like we can form a bond. Right. So basically what had happened is he had met the neighbors like without me, right, And so my feelings were hurt because now I felt like, oh, he has cultivated a relationship with these people, and instead of us going with my idea, he took it upon himself to go and like introduce himself and meet these people without me, And so I kind of felt a
little bit slighted. My feelings were hurt. And so like yesterday specifically, he was like outside like doing yard stuff, just like normal shit, and the neighbor he was like talking to him and stuff like that, and they were all like you know, going back and forth and talking, and I felt really left out, Like I heard them talking, and I like hurt my feelings and it brought up the same anger that I had the day I found out that he like went introduced himself without me, and
I don't know, dude, Like I was like sitting there and I was like feeling how I felt right, and I like got all I was getting hot and like my heart was beating all fast, and I felt really angry and I didn't know why, Like I felt like maybe this is like a trauma response from like when I was younger, maybe feeling like left out or like included, or like being alone, and so like I'm kind of trying to like navigate that share right now because that's
what I feel like is being heard. So I know it's stupid.
So I have a couple thoughts on this. It's like one when so when you're when you made that decision, you Okay, I'm gonna roll over. This argument is like I think anytime anytime you're like in an argument, like if I were you, I would think to myself, like what am I? What am I trying to serve right now?
Because like if you're in an argument and you're screaming at somebody and you're like, let me bring this up, Let me bring that up, Let me bring that up, like a lot of times, like if you really examine it, you're serving your anger. You're just serving like vindication and anger, which is not actually helpful to you and your goals because really you're I mean, in this situation specifically, your goal is to like you want to overcome your social
anxiety because you know it'll make your life better. And I do think.
You know.
This thing of like your husband like introduced himself to the neighbors without you, and like you know, you're sitting, you're in You're in your and I feel for you because in your head you recognize you're like this is ridiculous. Why do I feel this way? I feel bad that I even feel this way, And I think that's a
good thing to recognize. And on top of that, just recognize that, like, Okay, my journey to overcoming my social anxiety is my own responsibility and it's not my husband's fault, Like it's it's on me to be like, Okay, I gotta summon the thing of like let me just go over there and say what's up to my neighbors, like and my and my husband is not in between me
and summoning the courage to go do that. And so I think just breaking every fucking thing down into what is my goal and what's going to help me get there, and everything else is complete fucking bullshit, you know, everything else is Everything else is really what's in the way.
It's not my husband, it's in the way. It's like me trying to serve anger and vindication and all these things by like yelling or bringing arguments up, it's doesn't actually serve my real goal, which is to overcome my social anxiety, to make my relationships better and to be happier. And when you and when you, when you frame it and you're talking to your husband and you're saying these things like, Okay, what's actually gonna make my life better?
And what's gonna make my life better is figuring out how am I going to summon the courage that's needed to go next door and say what's up to my neighbors? And then and when you're sitting there like yelling at your husband's because he went and you know, introduce himself to the neighbors without you, it's like you're kinda you're so far off from where you actually want to be to serve your goals? Does that make sense? Does that? Is that fair? Does that resonate? Yeah?
That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah that makes sense. That's interesting. I feel like an asshole?
Well, look, I mean does feeling like, I mean, even right now, like, does feeling like an asshole serve your goals? Or is it just going to be you beating yourself up further, which will get you further into your emotions and then you'll further you know, go into vindictiveness, like you know what I mean. Like that's just like like like beating yourself up, just beating yourself up serve your goals of improving your relationships, being happier, and overcoming your
social anxiety. And if you, I think the answer is no, So yeah, I would just every every step you take moving forward, be like, Okay, how is this going to serve my underlying goals? You know?
Yeah that actually that's that's yeah. That was really good advice. Actually, yeah, well.
Is there is there? That was cool. I was actually one of the first times in a while I felt like I gave good advice on this podcast. So I'm stoked at that.
You know, I listened to you all the time. You give great advice. I had no idea what this call was going to be. I didn't have any expectations. I didn't even know if you were going to call me. But that was great advice. Yeah, you do a really good job just in general. But like this is very helpful to me.
Thanks man, I'm trying. I felt lot. I felt pretty locked in just now, Yeah.
You were locked in. Yeah you are pretty locked in.
I felt pretty all right, cool, this was this was actually almost I think this is actually even more helpful to me than to you. So thank you for calling me. Is there anything else you want to say to the people of the computer before we go?
No, I don't really have I don't have much to provide. I just think that I don't know. If I were to give anything, it would be like, I don't know. Just don't let your negative thoughts consume you. I guess sometimes we're really far off, like the reality of the situation. Yeah, that's what I think.
Well, take care and uh good, good luck talking to the neighbors.
Thanks all right, take care man, you too. Bye. Never Bed goes on the line taking your phone calls.
Every night, Never goes to his side.
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