Hello and welcome to the 10,000 things.
My name is Sam Ellis.
I'm Joe Loh.
And today some listen to mail.
We love listen to mail.
Sam Super fan Kate.
Yes.
Super fan Kate, who almost always writes into us.
Yes.
We're gonna address one of her.
Uh mm-hmm.
Little thoughts.
That's right.
Any, any person could dream of having.
The level of support that Kate's given over the years.
Oh yeah.
You could only dream.
Yeah, that's right.
And all it takes is just a little bit, you know?
Um, you don't need an army, you just need someone thoughtful.
Hey, so you mentioned in one of your recent eps the concept of radical honesty.
And if you are looking for topic ideas, I would love to
hear you talk more about that.
Alright, let's talk about radical honesty.
I think I've been practicing this my whole adult life.
I thought it was my concept.
You looked it up briefly before the show and decided it was some random
guy from America, but I, I, what I mean by radical honesty is honesty.
Honesty, no matter what, when it's not comfortable and when it's
not convenient and all of that.
Now, the only problem with it is.
Honesty is just my version of the truth, right?
Yes.
Like I, I'm not giving you the objective truth.
No.
So it comes across as being a bit of an asshole, and I have lost more
friends through radical honesty than almost anything else, uh, in my life.
But yeah, I wanted you to have a swing at it, Sam.
Well, I just wanted to let you go before I jumped in, but.
I think that no one, uh, including Brad Branton, who has copyrighted
this term, radical honesty.
I, I don't, we had to name check Brad or we're gonna get sued.
Yeah.
Look, I just wanna say I really actually am drawn to this person's
story, and it makes a lot of sense for a person who end up making their lives
work, advocating for radical honesty.
but I don't think it's a.
Uh, necessarily a new concept.
It's more just the way that it's been worded.
It was probably around back with like Socrates and Play-Doh and all those.
Absolutely.
No doubt.
There's a, an ancient Greek philosopher who could, you know, back us up here and,
you know, say that yes, you should tell the truth even if it costs you something.
perhaps Seneca or something, you know, could be quoted saying
something along the lines of.
Look, literally, it could cost you everything and it's
still what you should do.
Mm.
You know, like, uh, there's a lot of power in the truth, Sam.
There is.
And it can, it can cause a lot of hurt.
And so there's a number of philosophical problems that, you know, we'll probably
have to deal with in the course of this, but I'll just go on the record
as saying, I want to live my life more this way than the other, and.
I can give examples in the past of saying things that I thought were
important to say, even though I knew that it would cost me something.
And other times when I said the truth, thinking that it would
all work out and it didn't.
And other times where I wish I'd been much, much more truthful
and I have regrets about that.
I remember in my twenties annoying someone and then saying to them, Hey.
I'm just an ambassador for the truth, man.
Now let's also address, you know, like, let's address that.
I, I've used the truth as a, as a defense, as a sword, I would say yes.
Like as I, the truth as I see it is my sword and I go out and I slay, you know?
Yeah.
And I think that sometimes the wise warrior needs to,
Not pull out the sword, right?
There's not always a call for the, for the, you don't need to
go on the offense all the time.
But when it comes to a choice between biting your tongue and saying
what's on your mind, uh, it's tough.
And I think finding the right way to say it is pretty important.
And what you said earlier about, Hey, it's just my version of the truth.
You have to keep that firmly in mind because the number of times I was
absolutely convinced of something and then it turned out later that
I, well, I was not fully informed.
Yeah, like when you fully supported the Iraq war.
Did I, I remember Sam, don't try and deny it.
You're a NeoCon.
Weapons it's a mess.
Destruction.
You had the t-shirt.
Come on, Sam.
Wait a minute.
Are you getting me mixed up with someone else?
I'm joking.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, I was like, but look, I'm, but I'm the kind of guy you can say
that and I will like consider it.
I'll be like, you know what?
It doesn't sound like me, but I'm gonna take you at your word
and, 'cause I'm on the spectrum, I'm gonna take people at there.
I think that's the great, one of the great 20th first century examples of.
People thinking they knew the truth.
Uh, or maybe only a couple of them actually believed it about Saddam
and weapons of mass destruction.
But it was like the ultimate con I'm, I'm sorry to, I'm sorry to stick my
head down this rabbit hole and invite everyone to follow me, but this wasn't
a fantastic example of when the truth would've benefited everybody enormously.
And the truth of the conflict.
That America began in Iraq was that it actually began way back in the, in
Iran when the Ayatollah and the Islamic radicals took over Iran, which at the
time, had had a, a series, well had it had a political instability for a
long time because, uh, it had been a puppet regime, more or less for British
American oil, uh, for a long, long time.
And it was not a sustainable situation.
And the, as the Cold War went on, you know, the Soviet Union had a role
to play in that part of the world.
And more importantly, the, the West's best idea of how to manage Iran was with, you
know, some sort of fake monarch basically, that the people did not support.
And then because the CIA and State Department, and.
You know, British, uh, playbook is basically like suppress all left
wing opposition within the country and prop up a, a right wing regime,
best case scenario center right.
You know, with some, some liberal freedoms for, you know, some people.
but yeah, always ruthlessly suppress any genuine left wing movements.
And so when push comes to shove and the sha gets.
Knocked out of power.
There was no left wing opposition to take his place.
There was not even a centrist, you know, party really.
There was just, you know, a few middle class liberals, you know,
doctors and lawyers and stuff, and religious fundamentalists.
So what happens?
The religious fundamentalists are the most organized, for whatever
reason, the CAA wasn't keeping them down to the same degree.
So then they take power.
Then the US goes, oops, a daisy.
That's not what we wanted.
We now don't have a favorable regime to buy the oil.
So now let's empower this guy in Iraq called Saddam Hussein to concentrate
power, build up a military, we'll arm him and train him, and then we will
get him to start a war with the run.
In the 1980s, the Iraq Iran War, which led to the deaths of millions
of people on both sides, and.
It was a, a horrible tragedy for both countries and pointless, more
or less the US didn't really achieve.
Its, uh, its aims So, yeah.
So then the, uh, the Islamic regime remains in place when, arguably
it might've gone down sooner.
Then, uh, Saddam's empowered, so he goes and invades Q eight
US has to respond to that.
And then nine 11, they take their chance to fight a war on two
fronts, which was all part of the project for a new American century.
That's a whole nother story, but that was based on.
You know, two lies that Saddam was a bad guy that just came outta
nowhere and we absolutely did not create, and now we have to end him.
And the other lie, which was he was planning to use weapons of mass
destruction against, you know, whoever.
And the great line from back then was, this is a fair rabbit hole
when I just wanted to make a joke.
But, um, um, the gray line from back then was when George tenant
director of the CAA said to George Bush that it was a slam dunk.
That they had weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam had
weapons of mass destruction.
A slam dunk There is.
See, that's radical honesty.
Did did he believe that?
I think he maybe believed that.
You know, like that's.
That's complete.
A slam dunk is complete certainty.
Yeah.
And I, and I, when I was younger, had a lot more slam dunks than I do at 45 now.
I'm not so sure there's a lot more layups and three point shots than,
yeah, and there's a, and there's a lot more just room for humility
and uncertainty generally, and to admit the limits of our knowledge.
And I find myself saying things and then saying even in texts and whatever,
and then saying, but I could be wrong, of course, but I never used to say.
But I could be wrong also.
Yeah, that's right.
Also, my understanding is.
That, uh, you know, if you actually wanted to run an intelligence agency properly,
you don't offer assessments like that.
You say, here's the available evidence, here's how we feel about this source,
here's how we feel about that source.
And you know, we put like a 70%.
You know, confidence on this, you, you, you meant to express relative confidence.
They, they worked out what outcome they wanted, then they, then they created
the, went backwards from there, worked backwards with the truth from there.
It's a good example of the big lie.
There's, and then obviously the big lie has become, you know, like the
operating system of someone like Donald Trump for a good over a decade.
Well, and he's obviously the biggest liar around, but what empowered him?
Partly it was this lack of honesty from key American institutions and
C-N-N-N-B-C, Fox News, who all and New York Times, who all queued up behind
the, uh, the, you know, president and the White House to, uh, and the
State Department and the Pentagon and all the rest of them to say Yep.
The intelligence checks out, we're satisfied.
Oh, so you're drawing a link from Iraq War to To Donald Trump.
So C-N-N-N-B-C, Fox News, New York Times, all the rest, Washington Post
get caught with their pants down.
So that's where fake news comes from.
That's where fake news comes from.
So you've got all these veterans coming home from the, from the very
beginning, that first wave of veterans to come back from Iraq were like.
Something's up.
We weren't told the truth.
And remember that conflict then goes on for another.
That occupation then goes on for another 10, 15 years.
Then you had the disaster in Syria still unfolding and the.
Veterans were, came back, not just poisoned by the environment
and traumatized and all that, all the usual stuff, but radicalized
by this feeling of betrayal.
But why do they want someone who's gonna lie more?
Wouldn't you want someone who's gonna bring some radical honesty?
Oh, well, yes, but the one semit truth he told was fake news.
Right, so he could credibly claim that all these outlets were lying to the
American people because yeah, they were caught red-handed doing, doing just that.
But then, but then they got, so then the American people got the biggest
liar they've ever had as president.
Correct.
So you then voted him out, then had four years to reflect on it.
And then voted him back in.
Yes.
So this is a very considered decision by the American people at this point that
they want the biggest possible liar.
Yeah.
I, I dunno if it's a, I dunno if you'd call it a considered decision based on
all the available evidence and certainly.
People willing to overlook things.
Let's say people that were committed to voting a certain way, were willing to
kind of hold their noses or turn their, yeah, look, I don't want to get my point.
I don't want this to be a podcast where we talk about Donald Trump
because it's not our strong suit and I don't think we should do much of it.
But it is a point not at the opposite end of the spectrum to radical honesty.
Exactly.
I would is someone who lies all the time.
Correct.
But I, and also, and also.
Crucially psychologically feels zero shame about it.
None.
Like, so you cannot shame this person.
No.
Like have you ever thought about if Watergate happened under
Trump, there's no way he'd lose the presidency, shrug it off.
He just shrug it off.
Absolutely.
And it's interesting that you know that it was possible back then to shame someone.
Yeah.
And I dunno whether Nixon necessarily felt shame personally.
I certainly think he felt fear of being discovered.
Yeah.
But he didn't, I don't think he felt moral shame.
But it is remarkable.
That they didn't even have to begin impeachment and he just steps down.
Yeah.
'cause he'd lost all of his credibility instantly.
Yeah.
And you know, and then Raga with the.
Uh, my head tells me that, uh, you know, I was misled, but my
heart tells me that it was true.
You know?
Yeah.
And so, raga kind of invents the truthiness doctrine, which then
goes on to become a key feature of, uh, presidential politics.
That if the vibe tells me it's this, then the facts are just
gonna have to fall into line.
And so there's been a lack of honesty from.
The entire establishment, I would say, and well, Sam, to pull it back
to what's our strong suit, which is our own experience of life.
Can you Well, well, what I'm pointing to is a bunch of people.
You know, in the, in the press and in the political class who have been telling
half truths, absolute lies or, or even 90% truths, but done with, with spin
and the, it has led step by step to exactly the situation they're in now.
Look at all the harm.
That this semi honesty and dishonesty is causing, and the only cure
for it arguably was the truth.
So I agree entirely with your, yeah.
Do you feel like you've, you mostly been a truthful person in your life?
No.
So I'm, uh, that's, or are you diplomatic to the point of not telling the truth
to keep yourself outta trouble or, yeah.
Well, so this is where I really wanted to go with it, to the morally problematic.
Murky thing about, you know, I think the first problem is declaring Declaring what?
Declaring your viewpoint with absolute confidence as
though it is absolute reality.
Right.
So that's, that's, yeah.
Well that was me up until about 10 years ago.
Yeah.
And I think I'm much more circumspect now.
but people who know me well could tell you, but we've heard Sam
declare all sorts of things with like enormous confidence, and that's true.
But I do, if you, you know, if you listen to my words carefully, um, there's
usually some conditions being placed on statements, you know, somewhere.
I try to formulate things carefully and I tried to be honest about
my level of confidence in the information that I have and.
I've read the Wikipedia article on cognitive biases a bunch of times
now, and I try to remain conscious of those, and it's a long list of
stuff, so it's hard to keep so you don't go out of your way to lie.
I can't remember the last time.
Yeah, it's been a while.
So, but do you like, so that's after years of therapy.
See, this is what, that it's gotten easier to be truthful what happens,
but it's taken a long, long time.
What happened to me to introduce some other concepts?
Mm.
Is.
in my addiction recovery circles, they talk about rigorous honesty.
Rigorous honesty.
I like this idea.
So rigorous.
Honesty is basically being honest all the time, even when
it's not to your advantage.
And that made me stop stealing from Woolworths and made
me stop stealing full stop.
It made me stop telling little white lies.
It made me like I recently just, you know, told the truth to Vic
Rhodes and lost my truck license 'cause I've got bipolar disorder.
Yeah.
So that kind of stuff where I knew it wasn't to my advantage,
but the question was, do you have a preexisting medical condition?
I told the truth and it cost me.
Now that's rigorous honesty, but when I did, uh, my step work with the sponsor,
he, he came back and said, your problem.
Is not lying.
You don't lie.
But your problem is brutal honesty, which is another form of honesty
where you hurt people with honesty.
Yeah.
And I think I've used, that's what I mean, using it as a sword.
I think I used brutal honesty.
Mm-hmm.
To hurt people, so I had to stop doing that.
Yes.
As part of my addiction recovery, I had to become a kinder person.
Yeah.
And that means more diplomacy, less just bluntly telling people what you think.
Agree.
Yeah.
And so, so in order, in order to practice honesty properly, you
can't do it for the first principle.
You can't do it only when it suits you, right?
And you can't do it in the manner that suits you the best.
And part of the honesty is to admit the limits of your knowledge and to admit
the limits of your certainty, but also to be as careful with yourself as possible.
And as like.
Rigorously self honest as you can and try to, and this is something that
I've had to work extremely hard on.
Think hard about what, okay, am I actually doing anyone a favor if
I express this now in this manner?
And am I doing it purely in service to the highest principle or what's my agenda?
Right?
So start with the assumption.
You may have an unconscious motive.
For deciding to tell the truth in the moment that you do and you kind of gotta
think hard about what that motive might be and would, is it a motive I would
actually be proud of and would stand by?
Yeah.
I think one of your weaknesses, Sam, is that you have, you do
have a pretty big ego about Yes.
Knowing everything.
Yes.
And you will do incredible amounts of research about some topic in the news
and then become a subject matter expert.
And then it's like, you know, everything.
Yeah.
Um, and that's, you know, like we all have our weaknesses and I think
that's one of yours is that you're not prone to say a simple, I don't know.
Yeah.
And you always will have an answer.
Do you know what?
I've done it more often though, and recently.
I don't know man.
I think I.
Came to the decision in therapy?
Uh, I don't know.
Yeah.
Four or five years ago I was like, okay, I need to start
saying, I don't know, more often.
And, and not, and not because, uh, yeah, not in, not even for a moral reason so
much as just set, set this burden down.
Like you don't need to understand everything and.
I don't need to pursue every single curiosity that comes up and
I don't need to have an answer.
And even though on a lot of topics, there will be something available to me
that I've stored away and, hey, look, here's something that came out of the
fact file when that this topic came up.
But here's the problem.
It's, it's Where's me out?
Right?
And why?
Would I want to do this?
So I thought it was just a, I thought it was just a simple
matter of ego and vanity.
Right?
That's definitely in there, but also I.
I kind of got a little bit of people pleasing going on.
I was about to say, you're trying to be helpful.
I think I'm trying to be helpful too often.
Like you are very, yeah.
I find you're a good person to talk to about stuff in the news because you have
a, a very complex understanding of it.
So you talk to me in a very reasoned way and you're trying to be helpful
and I'm not having to dig at you.
No.
It's just at some point in your life, you became one of these people who thinks they
could possibly kind of know everything.
Yeah, that's true.
But, but also that I had a, that I had a desire to like assist
that I wanted to be of service.
Right?
Yeah.
So I, so I discovered like after being fairly selfish in my twenties
and, uh, early thirties, that I thought, okay, I'm having kids.
I'm gonna, I'm becoming a teacher.
Like.
Okay.
Suddenly.
The vocation is service rather than service.
But maybe you would be quite a good like ministerial advisor.
Yeah, probably like if they made you, if, if you were working for the minister
for something and you had to become the expert on what they were the minister for.
Totally.
I think my dream job would be I don't actually have to make the decision.
Yeah.
I think I'm much more interested in what goes into the decision
than actually making the decision.
I don't have that much interest in power, but I do have an interest.
In how things work.
And so just to give you a more mundane example, if a friend calls up and they're
like, ah, fuck, I'm trying to figure out how to solve this little sort of practical
problem or whatever, my first instinct is to try and jump in and workshop it and
like come up with ideas and all of that.
But it's also acceptable, and I've done this a few times with computer
problems and people have asked me and I'm like, I'm actually not.
I'm not the level of boffin I once was, I'm just gonna say don't know on this one.
And it came as such a relief the first few times I did it.
And then I started doing it more often in the classroom and just
saying, I don't know, or I'm not sure.
Yeah.
What a good question.
That does sound like people pleasing now you're putting it like that.
Yeah.
And you know like, oh, you wanna talk about X, Y, or Z.
Great.
I also want to talk about that.
So like.
I, when people have a passion or a, you know, curiosity about something, I'm drawn
to that, but also I want to validate their interests and so what lies beneath that?
Right?
I think this is, this is a handy skillset when it comes to talking to strangers.
Well, sometimes it is, and meeting new people and it can be good for.
You know, I can play a good role in teams sometimes build a little morale.
And so often, uh, I can be a good sounding board sometimes,
but what lies beneath all this?
You know, and it's like when I, I got in touch with, uh, this more recently,
which is when I was a kid, I was good at.
cultivating the attention of adults.
Alright?
And one of the ways you do that is to, you know, try and seem like a good kid.
Um, and you know, I learned that.
Adults seem to like smart kids and they seem to like,
there were parts of it I, you know, that were, didn't, didn't suit me as much like,
oh, adults like it when I'm responsible and lead the other children in the right
sort of way, which I didn't always do.
Um, in fact, I got him into mischief a lot.
I was actually quite a troublemaker and I, nonetheless, I had a
strength, which was to cultivate.
You know?
Yeah.
The tension and the interest and the, the patronage of adults because in the
boarding school environment, you kind of had to try and attract and, you
know, find the sources of nurturing and whether it was, you know, friendships
with other students or, you know, figuring out which adults, you know,
uh, you could depend on for whatever.
And.
My parents were attentive when I was at home, but I wasn't always there.
and then this led to an unexamined kind of habit that
got, you know, got outta control.
And then when I had kids, uh, it took ages to kind of work through all
the issues that that, that came up.
When you've got, when you're looking at a 5-year-old and going, oh yeah.
I was just a little bit older than you when I went off to boarding school.
So intense feelings of, uh, of deprivation and of being let down by the care, by
the key caregivers and that they were.
Their care was often there and was usually good when it was
there, but was inconsistent.
I couldn't just access it when and where I wanted to, so I didn't feel I had control,
uh, or a reliable source of care in life.
So right, right into my adulthood became.
Good at attractor men, attracting mentors and caregivers.
But unfortunately this leads to problems in relationships because
romantic relationships, because you're gonna be expecting too much of people.
And it also meant that I was untruthful a lot of the time.
Is there, yeah.
Is there examples of re uh, radical honesty in your
romantic relationship history?
Like either receiving or giving Oh, yeah.
Some hard truths.
Can you think of any off the top of your head?
Absolutely.
Every single, every single partner I ever had, I think gave me fairly
balanced and kind assessments, which were None of your A DHD?
Yep, yep.
Or my occasional stunning selfishness.
Right.
But also I remember you mentioned on the previous episodes of.
A, a partner saying to you, there is something fucking wrong with you.
Yes.
Go and do something about it.
Yeah.
That's pretty, that's radical.
You know what?
That's radical honesty.
That's a perfect example of what I mean.
I don't know about Brad, the American guy, but what I mean is.
There is something fucking wrong with you.
Go and do something about it is radical honesty to me.
It really is.
And I think it's more radical honesty than rigorous honesty
is a bit more soft spoken.
Sure.
Radical is in your face, you know?
That's right.
And so there were some times when I thought I did the thing that you, you
know, you are taking the piss outta yourself earlier with like, uh, hey
bro, I'm just an ambassador for the truth or for reality or whatever.
I did a lot of that too.
And so.
I'll be the, so I just wanna say this, I just wanna be real
straightforward with this.
I used the truth strategically for a long time and I used, but I'm only
telling the truth as a defense, um, when I probably should have admitted.
Oh, I don't know why I decided to say that if I'm honest.
I feel like maybe my motives weren't good, right?
And I was good at withholding it and denying, defending, delaying
obfuscating any sort of attempts.
By well-meaning people to hold me accountable.
I'm just like, no.
Took me years to realize, oh, I found it almost impossible for years just to go.
Yeah, you're right.
And I'm sorry when presented with the evidence of, of, you know, me
hurting other people's feelings.
Yeah.
It's hard to find that, to accept that you've done the wrong thing.
Isn't it so hard?
Because I believed, well, I couldn't understand for the longest time, People
who were just, that I observed, including partners and friends who were like, just
capable of going, oh yeah, fair enough.
You know, good call.
Yeah.
Fair cop.
And I just, I, I really wanted to be able to do that.
And I respected that in people, but it took years of therapy to, to learn
why I had a real big problem with doing it, which is that I believed.
The exact wrong thing that if I admit that this is true and that I did hurt
your feelings, whether I meant to or not, and that it was not the right
thing to do, and that I actually care more about you and your feelings
than I do about being right, right?
I thought, no, no, no, no, no.
If I admit doing the wrong thing.
I could not be loved if my, Ooh, that, if my shame was revealed.
That's good.
That's a very therapy thing to realize, isn't it?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Basically, I have to be perfect in order to be loved.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I think I can relate to that a bit, which means you have to put on a
front all the time, and it's very tiring and it makes people feel insane because.
It's like, what?
But you, no, I'm not saying you're the worst person in the world,
but just that thing you did.
I found it inconsiderate.
It hurt my feelings.
It's interesting you talk about extreme, extreme selfishness.
'cause I, I almost get, 'cause I'm offering you an out by saying
you've got pretty extreme A DHD or, or DHD Oh, of course.
But I, I don't, I don't want, but that's no excuse for selfishness.
No, you can be a very unselfish A DHD person.
Well, that's right.
And I also had every single one of those partners.
Also say, which is why I had, I knew I could.
I knew in my heart of hearts that I had to take their words
seriously and on on face value.
All of them also said, you are capable of such kindness and generosity, and it's
so clear that you do have a good heart underneath it all, which is why it's
so puzzling that these things happen.
All of them said, look, there's gotta be good reasons, but there's,
you know, there's stuff you've gotta work through here because you are a
good person at the end of the day.
But there's just a lot of stuff that's in the way.
And, one of the things that really helped to unlock it and get things
moving forward was just being able to go, oh, no, no, no, no.
My parents made mistakes and I still have good thoughts about them.
Um.
I've made mistakes as a parent, but my kids still love me.
Mm-hmm.
So it's okay for me to make mistakes.
Yeah.
It's okay for me to be grumpy sometimes, but do you know what?
I also don't want to disavow the effect of anything I've done on other people
because I know how much that hurts.
I've been on the receiving end of it too, and the absolute hypocrisy.
that I lived in for a number of years of like, it's not fair.
You know, my feelings aren't getting acknowledged.
And it's like, well, but were you acknowledging the feelings of
others as rigorously as you could?
You know?
So now, now where I'm at is I cannot re, I do not deny the
harms I've caused in the past.
I wonder if I'm.
As capable of being honest about them, the ones in the present.
I, I, I think so.
and I no longer fear being rejected by friends, family, et
cetera, for admitting the truth.
I actually feel now that I've done it a bunch of times.
I sent my dad a text the other day, saying I just remembered.
This time that I was just like, really rude to you and you didn't deserve it.
And I, I was misinterpreting your actions and I was seeing everything
through like a frame of suspicion and resentment and I couldn't just see the
simple kindness in what you were doing.
And, you know, I threw it in your face and like, I'm really sorry
and I just want you to know that.
That was something I didn't understand.
At the time, I didn't know what I was doing.
I didn't know why I was doing it.
I didn't know how to stop, and now I do.
Now I've learned that trauma has all these effects.
It can distort your perception of reality.
And I mean, yeah, you're a good advertisement for a few thorough years.
Thorough therapy.
Mm-hmm.
Only because you're changing your behavior.
It's worked.
Like if you are, if you are sending a text to your dad, that's a very healing Yeah.
Kind words after all these years and everything you've been through together.
Yeah.
Like, you know, that's really, I mean, my dad died over 20 years ago.
I wish I could, there's so many things.
Conversation.
Yeah.
So many things I could have said.
Yeah.
some of which have occurred to you since then, and some of which you
were probably aware of at the time.
But in terms of partners hitting me with some radical honesty, I, I'm, I don't
have a great long term memory, but.
I remember it was only within the last couple of years.
I had one woman I was dating briefly and it wasn't probably gonna work out
like she was like a hardcore Marxist and Oh yeah, I think I remember.
And it, it had all these reasons why there was a lot of power dynamics going
on, but in this power dynamic, it's at one point she said, she looked at
me and she said, you know, you've got this big frame of a body and you could
be an Adonis, but you've got this.
Dad bod.
Oh man, I remember.
And I'm just not attracted to your dad bod.
Oh my.
And then that, that was radical honesty.
Shit.
That's brutal honesty.
But it fucked you up though.
Yeah, I, I went on a keto diet and lost nine kilos.
Oh.
Which is, and it, but it fucked me up psychologically.
Yeah.
Like, and emotionally it stayed with me for a long time.
Well, I know that because you brought it up a bunch of times.
Yeah.
And I could tell it was bothered.
Well, I do have a dad bod Sam.
Yeah.
It's just that some women don't care.
Some don't.
And I don't care.
Mm.
It's just this woman had a cruel streak, but like.
So many women would've thought that, but never said it.
It's true.
So who's the right, who's in the right here?
So the radical honesty, if, if it was working, she would've said it.
I would've gone on the keto diet.
I would've started going to the gym five days a week.
And within a few years, I would no longer have a dad bod.
I'd have this Adonis bod that she was recommending for me, and maybe
me and her would stay together and I'd become a committed Marxist.
And, you know.
I'd be down Collins Street on the Gaza rally as we speak instead of sitting here.
Wow.
So all of that could have happened, but instead I just did keto for
a few months, lost a few kilos, and then decided, you know what?
I can live with my dad bod.
I'm a dad.
I earned it the dad way.
You know?
So, but that was radical honesty.
Oh, no, no.
Sorry.
If we're looking at radical, rigorous, and brutal, that was brutal.
Yes.
So what is there?
Okay.
Look here.
Well.
Uh, this is tough because I, I don't have a problem with the fact that
that hurt your feelings right now.
I can also say you are doing your best to try to be committed to this idea and
saying, well, maybe she did do me a favor.
Maybe there, it was worth saying, but like, bottom line, was that
the right thing to do or not?
Well, the, the, the weird part was mysteriously about a month later after we
broke up, we broke up not long after that.
Sure.
No more contact.
Yeah.
some graffiti appeared near my house that said, I like your man boobs.
Oh, yes.
And I got a photo with this graffiti 'cause I'm like, I'll
never know if it was her or not, but it was this weird coincidence
if it wasn't her or back to signs.
Right.
Well, I'm pretty sure, I think she's capable of being someone who would feel
guilty for making me feel like shit, but not want to have any actual contact
because that just opens up the door.
Well, and, and, and knew your movement.
But the, and she knew Well, it's like right on my drive home.
No, it's, it's remarkable.
But in any case, I think she might well have had some moment to of reflection
about that since then, because I, like I said, there are, there are there, I
think there are far more lies or failures to tell the truth when it was needed.
I don't just mean not necessarily just.
An overt lie by commission, but the number of omissions that I really,
really regret, and I don't just mean, useful information or, you know,
information that might've made me look bad, but could've helped a situation.
I also mean nice things that I wanted to say, but.
Hesitated.
Like I've, I've often struggled to also be honest about my
positive feelings towards people.
Mm-hmm.
And or honest about my desires, Joe.
So when we talk about radical honesty, we're not just talking about how we,
our honesty towards others as we, and honesty about how we see them, and
honesty about, you know, how we see their actions or an honesty about how we.
View their body because sometimes people ask for that.
but, but also just honesty about how one feels oneself and the desires you have and
the things that, all the many things that go unexpressed that aren't bad at all.
Yeah.
In a weird way, I felt quite seen by her because from, for about 30
years, from the age of about 15, I hadn't been okay with my body.
And I don't know, you can relate to this Sam, in a different way.
Yeah.
Big time.
Um, but I hadn't.
I'd always thought, I've got a shit body or a bad body, or my body is wrong.
When did you, but it actually took me to my forties for someone to actually
just say it to me, and you know what?
Your body is wrong.
And I'm like, yes.
I always knew that is it, is it exactly.
Is the white lie sometimes more harm than good?
Right.
And certainly Brad Banton would agree so.
I've had a lot of people, well-intentioned people tell me that
they'd like my body, and I think they might even mean it, but I failed.
I just could not trust people saying that.
I couldn't put my trust in their words.
And what did you see as the problem with your body?
Oh, too tall, too gangly.
Too thin?
Yeah, too uncoordinated.
Uh, you know, I didn't like my face either.
lots of things, but, you know, it wasn't the right skin color.
I always wanted to be browner.
Yeah.
Um, but the, the, the weight one was a real issue for you.
Yeah.
Like a eating disorder type thing?
Yeah.
And I felt painfully.
Self-conscious about having spaghetti legs.
Now I kind of just wear it with pride and it doesn't bother me, but like that
was a long, painful journey and aware of having, you know, visible ribs.
Anders, I think men don't talk about this stuff that much.
Yeah, yeah.
Like women are expected to talk about and think about this stuff.
Oh, if anything, whereas men are thinking and talking about, they're thinking
about it, but never talking about it.
Too much expectation maybe on women to talk about it.
Like Yeah, maybe normalize talking about it less.
I don't know.
I've I've heard people say that.
Yeah.
Maybe normalize just giving less of a shit overall, like about women's bodies.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
And like everyone just having less opinions generally in including the
so-called helpful opinions, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, but when it comes to men, it's like.
We could probably be talking about this a lot more, and I first noticed
it maybe about 11 or 12 and I had like braces and acne and I just,
obviously that was shit house and I felt horrible about myself, but.
The real like horror moment of like Earth open up and swallow me now.
Like Satan take me, I'm ready.
Uh, was uh, standing on the diving blocks at like the year seven swimming sports.
So like I'm at a new school.
I'm having like one of the worst school years of my, no, pretty much
the worst school year of my life and.
Miserable and the butt of everyone, like just the bottom
of that pyramid in the class.
And I'm standing there on the swimming blocks in my board shorts and I just
all of a sudden just, I wanna cover up, I want to be somewhere else.
I don't, and I do not, I just all of a sudden avoided wearing shorts
for like the next five years.
I'm like walking around in summer in pants and shit.
Oh really?
'cause of your skinny legs?
Yeah.
And, and upper body, just like.
Like avoided bare chested ness like at all times.
Even in like changing rooms and stuff like that.
See, I, and meanwhile I was wishing I could be more scrawny and flat
chested and of course, you know, yeah.
Like that's, yeah, it gives it, but see, yeah.
I don't know.
It's look, and, and I had to cr I had to create an interesting personality
'cause I was never gonna have the Adonis.
Yeah.
But a weird, in my mid forties to be.
To have someone demand that I create an ADONs body.
She literally said, you could be an adon and you know.
Yeah.
Like I get it.
I've always had big shoulders and all that, but yeah, exactly.
Let me ask this question, right.
Did part of you enjoy, or I don't know, derive some satisfaction or
whatever from having someone express.
To for this thing that's haunted your imagination, right?
Yeah.
This is what others are thinking.
Yes.
Quite a delicious, kind of like brutal.
Yeah.
Yes.
Finally, the shame is confirmed.
That's right.
Yes, that's right.
I'm not imagining it and I think there was an edge to that
relationship of this power game.
Mm-hmm.
Almost kink kind of thing.
Oh look, it can be a turn on for sure.
Yeah.
And but.
It was just too much of a direct hit.
I think as much as I've, I've, I acknowledged it and felt like,
yeah, that's always been the truth.
The other thing is if you, if you're gonna go the direct hits, like in many
ways it's a more ethical thing to do.
If everybody's, you know, having a swing, like if it's a sort of
mutual, there's a little bit of a, yeah, I'm trying to speak going on.
I don't think I ever attacked that person's appearance,
but I certainly attacked her belief system quite vigorously.
Well, there you go.
So maybe she felt that the two of you had a sufficient, uh, uh,
robustness that this was worth doing.
But what I'm gonna say is, I think sooner you feared hearing this for so many years.
So, you know what?
I'm on the other side of it now and I'm still okay.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So she'd done you a favor finally.
The thing you feared.
Great.
Yeah, let's, let's have that experience.
Let's survive it.
I think there's an awful lot.
Yeah.
There's an awful lot to be said for facing your fears and even
if it is gonna hurt and it did.
It fucking hurt.
Yeah, it really hurt.
Yeah.
It sat with you for months.
Yeah, it did.
And it really knocked the wind out.
Right.
So like that's true.
But at the same time now.
You're not gonna live in the shadow of that in the same way.
But I also learned another lesson, which is, it might be kinky and exciting,
but maybe don't date cruel women.
Yeah.
Or I'm gonna, this is where I wanna bring in Banton.
Right?
So the guy who published a book in a radical honesty and ran workshops and has
built a whole movement around it, right?
That his childhood experience, you know, 10 years old, he's
got an alcoholic father.
He goes through all this brutal stuff and he decides, you know, in the
way a child does, I want to help.
The vulnerable, and I want to kill the mean people.
Right?
And then eventually he realizes, you can't kill the mean people and protect
the vulnerable at the same time.
It's like you've kind of gotta protect the vulnerable, the
put, put your energy there.
But then he goes into psychotherapy and then he realizes, oh, the mean
people are the helpless people.
That's why they're mean.
And.
So he has that conviction that like, hurt people, hurt people, right?
Mm-hmm.
So I need to help these people that hurt people.
And then after, you know, struggling in his psychotherapeutic practice eventually
comes to the, the conclusion that.
The people he was treating were lying to themselves and to others now.
And I think this is something that every therapist could probably, uh,
you know, resonate with to a degree.
Because Adam's looked me in the face tons of times and said, yeah, come on.
Like, that's less than the truth, isn't it?
Mm.
And why don't, you know what is the truth?
Yeah.
You can tell me in here.
Yeah.
I've been very honest with my therapist.
Yeah.
And I've been much, it's, yeah, like I said, it's taken 10 years, but it,
it's, the honesty has, it was always there, but how often was it there?
Right.
And how often did I try to get away from it?
So I still try to evade it, but I am much better at going at it sooner
and going at it more thoroughly.
And I don't now, I kind of feel so much safer just admitting.
Yeah, admit the things that I regret about myself and regretting, uh, the things
I, the actions I regret and et cetera.
I'm much happier doing that and I've discovered so much, like a greater
level of peace from just saying, yeah, there's so much that I'm not proud
of and I'm really sorry, and that I wanna spend the rest of my life doing a
much better job of that, um, including the, including the honesty of saying.
Saying the good things not holding back on.
Yeah, it sounds like that with your text to your dad.
Yeah.
That's right.
I just like, he deserves this.
Yeah.
And I deserve this, like, I'm doing everybody a favor here.
I think, although I did read an article about, some, some bloody columnist,
whatever, having an issue with people going on apology binges after having
a moment of self-awareness and like.
Contacting people from years ago and saying, sorry.
Oh, that sounds like doing amends in, yes.
In addiction recovery.
That's right.
I did that twice and I think it's a really worthwhile thing to do.
I've got, yeah, but it is, if you do it in a conscious That's right.
Systematic way.
That's right.
And careful not to open wound.
And also an amends is different to an apology because you're
actually going to fix the problem.
That's right.
You don't.
Just have to say, sorry.
No, that's not enough.
And, and there is a kind of selfishness to a lot of apologies.
It's like, okay, I've done my bit.
Now let me off the hook, clear my conscience for me.
So it's like, and amends can be like that, but that means they're
not really being done properly.
No, because the amends has to be offered.
What I've learned, and I'm be interested to know your thoughts, the amends has to
be offered with like a full awareness.
Of, uh, the fact that the other person does not owe you Yeah, an outcome.
I've done a couple of brutal amends to the mother of my children where I was not
given much, uh, positive reinforcement in, in return, but I said what I had
written down what I needed to say.
I said what I needed to say.
And you know, then in addiction recovery there's a living amends.
And my living amends is to never pick up a drink of alcohol one day at a time.
That's a duty you have to yourself and to others.
Yeah, and my kids.
Yes.
That's right.
And to the people I hurt when I drank, and the number one
being the mother of my children.
Yes.
You know?
That's right.
And so I think the place where the honesty has to start is with yourself.
And that, that it's, it.
If you Yeah.
Radical honesty towards ourselves.
It's the number one duty.
Uh, because if you, as this Bratton guy's pointing out, his therapists, uh, sorry.
His therapeutic patients who are, you know, causing harm to others
and themselves, they are lying to themselves and to others about that.
Mm-hmm.
And how are they gonna make any progress until they've stopped doing that?
But I'll, I'll, I'll be, I'll be honest.
Every single improvement I've made in my life and every single breakthrough,
right, every single victory over, you know, despair and addiction
and all this, every single bit of progress I've made has come with a
big dose of guilt and regret because.
It was easier in some ways to sit there thinking nothing will ever get better and
I'm just epically diseased and that's it.
But, but the second I was able to improve and make progress, it immediately came
with this regret of like, well, if I could do this, why didn't I do it sooner?
Mm-hmm.
And when you finally admit the problem, and there's a whole series
of 'em that have to be admitted, one after the other, you also.
Then become more and painfully aware of the effect that this has had on others.
And that's part of it.
And then you're like the, the grief of the lost good years that you could have
had if you'd just lived more truthfully and you know, more compassionately
towards yourself and towards others.
And it's just a brutal thing.
Unfortunately, some people in their heart of hearts, they know that if.
They just cannot let that truth in that they just feel they cannot, they would
not be able to live with themselves.
And so they remain in a place of just constantly justifying
the harms they've caused.
Mm.
And I've done that in the past, but, you know, I just don't want to do it anymore.
And if I become aware of it, I, I immediately want to take action and.
Others have played a very important role in being honest with me and
getting me to have the awareness in the first place, you know?
Hmm.
All right, Sam.
Well I think that's a good place to leave it.
It's been a good chat.
Have you got any final thoughts?
I won't do the one more thing for a change.
think we've given it a thorough going over.
I mean, I would reflect that may, I'm glad I've gone public about having a
dad bod That's very, very cathartic.
I kind of, I, I do still feel mad at that person.
Um, she was a cruel person and I don't say that lightly.
I don't think I've met super cruel people in my life.
Many of them.
No, I don't think I've heard you describe anyone else.
Yeah, no.
She had a cruel streak.
But it was kind of hot.
Right?
But I've gotta not stop playing with fire.
You know?
I will get they, they say that you like the bad girls, honey.
Is that true?
Uh, well now you do.
Uh, yeah.
Look, I, and I was trying to remember if I've said anything that like really
hurt, like a girlfriend's feelings like that, and, and nothing's come
to mind, but I know that I have.
Yeah, it's hard to do.
I'm to, I try not to put you on the spot for specific examples 'cause I think
that's really hard in a podcast, but, but I definitely think that I, I probably got
faced with the classic nineties question of like, does my bum look big in this?
And I think.
I think the, the, the, the honesty that hurt was like, no, and I don't care.
And why are you being such a cliche?
Yeah.
Asking me this question.
Yeah.
Like.
Y you just, you just need to be okay with just whatever it is.
Like I can't change this reality for you, like, you like that owe the irony
of this because the number of, because I was re, I reached out to people in the
same way for reassurance, constantly.
Absolute reassurance, junkie.
And then so to turn around and say to someone else, get outta here
with your reassurance fishing.
Yeah.
It's like, it's pretty rich, you know?
So I do kind of regret that.
Um, and I think.
There were times when, we've talked about this before, times when, uh,
you, you, you caught your partner in the wrong angle, the wrong light or
whatever, and you know, it, it hit the wrong way and then, you know,
in inability to kind of disguise that, you know, and so that's a kind of honesty
that can really hurt because Sure.
What can people do about their appearance?
I mean, there's a certain amount, but.
I don't know.
It's a tough one, but I think what really helps with, uh, with just on the
appearance side of things, I dunno why I'm caring about that example so much.
I think I just like you, I think I just really wanted someone just to say what I
was thinking and go Yeah, you know what, you are an you're too scrawny, you are
a weird scrawny dude and I bean pole.
Yeah.
And I dunno.
And I think just people were trying to be too kind.
And I just wanted people to say, yeah, it's true.
You know, it was all a bit of an illusion, Sam.
'cause you're very tall and if one thing I learned from Ali who used
to be on this show is that women lose their mind for tall guys.
I don't, yeah.
And you know, you've probably done all right.
There's so many.
Yeah, I know.
But I think, but I think at the end of, you've probably done all right
through sheer height and just Yeah, volume of words and just one or two good
qualities in a person mixed in with a whole bunch of absolute bullshit, but
like just annoyance and mark apart from anything else, just being a very annoying
person over the years, but like I.
I honestly did not believe God.
I remember actually, Kas said this very early on.
She goes, no, just by the way, you think you are not one of the pretty ones.
You, you are.
Yeah.
And I'm like, no, I'm not.
And she's like, no, no, no, no.
Look at this friend.
Look at that friend.
See they're all fashionable and gg, and you hang out with them.
And you are one of them.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no.
I'm the outsider.
I'm the weird one.
And she's like, no, no, no.
You fit in with like a cool, good looking crowd.
This is when I was like 28, 29, right?
Yeah.
But she said, but guess what?
I don't care about that.
Yeah.
That's not why I like you.
I like you because you've got good qualities as a person.
Yeah.
And that's what this is actually about.
And that's when you knew you'd found a good one.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
But you know what that so you're not cruel opposite of cruel.
No.
Kind.
No, I'm not in truth, but, but not but, but being honest.
Exactly.
Kind, honesty.
And this was a nice, honest thing, but you know what, it pissed
me off because I was like, no.
I want you to love me for superficial reasons.
Yeah.
I'll, I'll be honest, it did not land the way that she hoped it would.
Yeah.
You know?
No.
Well, you got a couple of kids out of it.
Well, let and look.
That's right.
And look, let's be honest, I, I, I'll, I'll, yeah.
I'll be honest.
I have.
At least as much superficiality as others after years of absolutely
bullshitting everyone to the contrary that I only care about
meaningful things, absolute nonsense.
I wanna go on the record right now as saying I'm as vain, shallow,
and superficial as anybody.
One of the biggest reasons I'm single sitting here today is that if I catch
someone on the wrong angle, my It's over.
Yeah, it's over.
And my tr, and it seems to be my truth.
My brain is telling me that the truth is, the truth is the unvarnished truth is this
person is not attractive, objectively, not attractive, at least in this moment.
And, but that moment stays with me until I then I, I don't use radical honesty.
I make up some other excuse and I end the relationship and, and
that's why I'm still single at 45.
Yeah.
Because, because you're a shallow bitch.
Because I'm a And until I get less shallow, I'm probably gonna stay
alone and I'm very lonely at times.
Oh yeah.
So I, I want to override it, but it's again, comes back to well.
Are you being honest with yourself?
If you, if can you convince yourself you're attracted to someone that
your base, your base nature is saying isn't attractive all the time.
Man, this is so tough.
I really, okay, so I'm gonna propose we.
Focus on physical attract for attractiveness, for all the,
everything that goes into it for like another episode.
Uh, and I wanna, I actually would, I'm really hoping we can hear from
people about this and, 'cause I feel like this is, this, this is so
rich and psychoanalytically rich.
I think there's a lot that goes into it.
Your state and, and the first thing I want to challenge.
And like I said, I wanna do a whole episode on this so we can do it justice.
The big thing I wanna push back on.
Is this idea you have that this is somehow an objective assessment?
Yeah, no.
That's how it presents itself to me as the truth.
Whereas the story I was telling myself, is this person's perfectly
attractive enough and, and this has been the case numerous times.
Of course.
A wonderful person Yeah.
Of.
A wonderful person.
Yeah.
Great company.
Yeah.
Sex is great.
Yeah, I'm having a great time.
Everything's, and oh, I've just caught her on a weird angle and yes, she's now
hideous to me, and yeah, and I've had this experience, not for a long, long
time, but I have had this experience.
I'm still having it, man.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm in the thick of it, you know, and it's ruining my life.
Oh, certainly the single part of my life.
Talk about honesty.
It is ruining your life.
But, but even if, if, even if you do just, uh, you know, meet someone who's like
really, really very suitable, which you have before and, and you do again, right.
What's to stop this thing from happening again?
Right.
I know.
And so I think it has to be dealt with.
It has to be dealt with or will die alone.
You.
Fucking will.
Yeah.
I'm gonna be brutally honest with you.
Yeah.
And because I've got, you know, I'm, I'm not a 10 myself, so I, I, I, come
on, what business do you have, right?
Yeah, that's right.
But you can't override it once you, you can't override it.
It's very primal.
It's very pri It's very like, am I going to make.
Babies with this person.
Yeah.
Correct.
So I, I think subconsciously obviously, 'cause you, I've had the snip, I'm not
making any more babies, but, right.
So there's some sort of level of that happening.
Right.
But I also think this one is, as, I've gotta be honest, I used to
go for the evolutionary psychology explanation on these things.
Right.
And I was never 100% comfortable with that field of theory.
'cause I've seen how it can be abused.
But there were.
Findings or ideas in there that just did make a certain amount of
sense, and could help explain things, certain things that happened, or at
least be part of the explanation.
Right?
So in this case, it might be part of the explanation, but, but I've really
gone on a bit of a rabbit hole in the last few years with aesthetics.
I've really thought really, really hard about aesthetics and how, it's influenced
by our feeling of that something is objectively attractive or not.
And I'm including objects and, and yeah, places.
Cars, buildings, anything like a package design, um, a park bench, like anything.
And I don't wanna get all American Beauty on it and like, oh,
this plastic bag is beautiful.
Like, we can't, we can't distort reality past a certain point, but
we have to recognize that it is already somewhat distorted and, and
so there's a psychoanalytic part, there's evolutionary psychology,
and then there's just aesthetic.
Politics going on all the time, and we are completely enthralled to all
kinds of stuff that we have a duty to really try and unpack for ourselves.
Ah, bro.
I'm probably still just trying to date Umer Thurman from Pulp Fiction.
I think you've got, and I've been trying to date her since I saw that film.
This is what I'm Exactly.
I got pretty close.
Yeah.
Uh, with some of my previous partners, but like you did.
Yeah.
Like you did, like actually I had it.
I had, anyway, I think we need to wrap it up, Sam.
What?
Yeah, what I'm trying to say is.
It's not objective, you know, that it's gonna take some hardcore deprogramming.
Um, but I really, this is a worthwhile topic for the future that I've been, yeah.
I need to overcome it if I'm going to have a, yeah.
Like I had to take a break from therapy because I was gonna say,
yeah, I took a break from therapy because I wasn't changing anything
in my relationships with women.
Okay.
So what was the point of therapy?
Sure.
The one of the last things she said to me.
Is maybe if you sort all this stuff out, Joe, then maybe one day.
Yeah, one day you might be able to have an actual agile relationship.
Relationship with an actual woman.
Yes.
See you later.
Yes.
And that was six months ago or whatever, and I have not progressed in that time.
Say on says she was calling a halt.
To the therapist, the time being, but she, she's always happy to see me.
But when you do 10% of your time on everything that's happening in
the world, and then 90% on your relationships with women and then
relationships with women, you keep behaving in the same way in the world.
What's the point of the therapy?
Until I want to, I wanna change something, Sam?
Yeah.
And then go back to my therapist.
Yeah.
So change something in my behavior.
Yeah.
Do it consistently for a period of time.
Start an actual relationship with an actual adult woman
who's got and who's got flaws.
And accept those flaws.
And accept the flaws.
And then go back to therapy and like right.
I'm in with a chance here.
Please help me in with a chance.
That's right, not fairy tone, but at the moment, I'm still stuck in the
same doom loop of no one's perfect.
And yeah, no, no, I, I can totally say it and I can
absolutely remember living there.
And just having that Groucho Marks thing of, I don't wanna be a member of
any club that we have, be as a member.
Like that's point fuck fundamentally.
That's what, yeah.
I'm a piece of shit.
So if you like me, you must be less than a piece of shit there, there
must be something wrong with you.
Yeah, that's right.
All of that's so true.
And, and, and so, uh, and I'm gonna, we're gonna have to go back into
attachment theory and, uh, devaluing and, uh, all that stuff Alright.
Coming up in a future episode.
Yeah.
And let's hear from, uh, let's hear from anyone.
Who wants to chime in on the topic of appearance and, uh, hey,
attraction and get stuck in, men are a bunch of superficial bastards
and they deserve a massive serve.
Uh, or actually, do you have a more sympathetic take on it than that?
Mm.
You know, and like how much honesty is welcome, uh, in a physical intimacy?
We always want radical honesty from our listeners.
We do.
Yeah, that's right.
Okay.
So right in.
All right.
I'm gonna go, Sam.
Yes.
We're gonna go.
All right.
Thanks for having me.
Oh, you're welcome.
See you next time.
See you.
Alright.