TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Hi. Come on in. (pause) [00:01:20]

CLIENT: Hi. How are you?

THERAPIST: Good. Thank you. (pause) [00:03:40]

CLIENT: {Sneezes}

THERAPIST: Bless you. [00:04:00]

CLIENT: I don’t know where to start. {Sneezes}

THERAPIST: Bless you.

CLIENT: Thank you. (pause) [00:05:15]

I guess I’m thinking about our talk from Monday about profound experiences versus I guess shallow ones. {Laughter} I guess I feel like lately I realized how nice it is to have shallow experiences. {Laughter} I’m not spending as much time, or all my time, with Chris. {Laughter} Not to say that he’s always deep. I feel like he is. [00:06:00]

He’s always thinking words in his head, but he does, you know, cook and shower and shave. (pause) Yeah. I guess having people with whom I have shallow experiences, they seem, at first when I’ve just met them, it’s like I have the same anxiety that I have every time I meet someone new. Oh, you know. Like, when I am going to get to have, to get close to them and have a heart to heart or whatever and be really close and stuff? [00:07:00]

But, I guess, consistently seeing them just for fun is more like and now I feel like I need those people because (pause) yeah, I mean, once you keep having light things with them you don’t want to. I don’t know. Maybe that’s not true. Do you know what I mean? Generally, you don’t want to share dark things with them. (silence from 00:07:45 to 00:08:35)

I mean, when you meet people you work out with you don’t necessarily . I guess I’m imagining people thinking oh, I don’t want to share everything. I don’t want to cry in front of my work out buddy, I guess. You know? I want to keep that relationship light or I don’t know. I mean it’s okay to share more important things with work out buddies. I guess I feel like maybe that’s how people think that they have to have separate friends for separate needs. (pause) [00:10:00]

I also sometimes wonder some of the people that I’ve met through Nelson (sp?), how would I have met them? How would I have gained friends if it weren’t him? Then I think I guess I could have hung out more with my school friends, but then I’m like I see myself riding trains everywhere or walking a lot and wasting a lot of time doing that getting from place to place thing to hang out with them. Then I imagine trying to connect with them, but not really connecting and then again, I guess in light of our recent conversations, me thinking of what is this ideal connection that I have? That if I don’t get it, I feel like, well that was a total bust. That was bad. That was horrible. You know? {Laughter} [00:11:00]

I met this guy from school for coffee and we had a decent conversation about art and stuff and I guess we met later that evening and I, my friend, another friend from school, she drinks a lot. So, she, I had to drink a little bit with her and I was a little buzzed. I walked, the guy joined us and then I ended up walking him home and I was thinking that was funny because I was one that was buzzed, so he should have walked me home. Then, as I was walking home, I fell. {Laughter} [00:12:00]

I was thinking and I was just laughing at this experience. I was wondering, I wonder if earlier I would have thought I would have been really scared of this experience. You know? Living here by myself or getting drunk and walking home alone and falling. I wonder if those, these things would be on the list of the things that I’m supposed to be scared of, but I’m really not. So, yeah, I mean I’m just wondering. I fear, every time, I’ve avoided for so many years, I’ve avoided doing this. Getting all of these e-mails about readings and about hang outs and never going to a single one of them because they’re in Augusta. [00:13:00]

I’m like well, it’s just going to take my whole evening away and I’d rather just sit and ride or I don’t. I just stay at home. I guess do something with others or with people in Providence. One time I did go out to Aurora and attended a reading and then later on went and had drinks and had a fine time. So, I’m just wondering. I guess I should have done more of that. I was wondering what exactly I was afraid of. I mean I guess it’s a valid concern because if I have homework or I want to finish something, then having a bit more dedication and saying no to things is fine. [00:14:00]

Saying no to them because of some stupid, nameless fear of not getting the connection that I desire is kind of bogus I feel now. I guess that’s kind of my fear anyways. I feel like people at my school, I tell myself oh, I should be afraid of them because they’re Americans and I don’t get a lot of their references which is silly because some of my closest friends are Americans. I feel way more judged in the company of Indians than I do being with the Americans. [00:15:00]

There are different standards and values and stuff. Yeah. (pause) I wonder if I can just like tell myself I’m just looking for a shallow experience and then if the experience is better than shallow and is deeper, then I would be pleasantly surprised. {Laughter} I guess that’s why I find it funny to be with Nelson or just be seeing him after all these months because I wasn’t expecting much. I think I was expecting drinks on Fridays and that’s it. Everything was a surprise, a pleasant surprise. Being able to talk to him and then meeting his friends and stuff. [00:16:30]

I wonder if that is the approach I should take. I don’t know if there’s anything. I’m just sad like oh, I don’t expect much. I feel like it’s, I mean it is less intense and I wonder if I can live with being less intense. I mean I guess that could be a more positive way of looking it rather than just oh, I’ve lowered my standards or I don’t expect that much from anyone. I guess I could look at it more like I’m not going to hold people to the gun or myself.

THERAPIST: It’s definitely a balance between taking anything because you’re expecting nothing. [00:17:30]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And being chronically disappointed and frustrated and angry because you expect so much. I do agree that you do error, at least some of the time, on expecting to have such high expectations that you chronically feel disappointed.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Maybe sort of the compromise is open mindedness.

CLIENT: Yeah. I’m trying to be open minded.

THERAPIST: It sounds like you are. It very much sounds like you are.

CLIENT: Yeah. So, this new thing has come up in my head. This might open Pandora’s box. {Laughter} How did it come up? I have to think about how it came up because the context is important. I can’t remember exactly now. Never mind. I’ll just ask you. Nelson was kind of, I don’t know. I think he was changing and suddenly he started to do a strip, a pretend strip tease or something. I was laughing at him and I don’t know how it came up, but he said something about going to a strip club or something. [00:19:00]

I was like have you been to a strip club and he said yeah, of course and then I was like, that just totally made me gawk and I was like really? I was just so surprised because I guess I felt really weird about it. Having read feminist theory and stuff and I felt totally like that’s the wrong thing to do. The women there have no choice in the matter and their occupational hazards are horrible. It’s like really immoral to do that sort of thing. Plus, the fact that I have that whole baggage about my dad being like that and my mom just being so miserable. [00:20:00]

THERAPIST: Being like that meaning?

CLIENT: He was very, I don’t know. Maybe instead of using adjectives, I’ll just say what he used to do. He used to watch a lot of porn and sleep around a lot. I think all of this came out just during the last year of my college. My mom was really, really traumatized and was thinking of leaving him. This was also in the context of us all going to church and stuff. Yeah. She was really traumatized. She was very. She bottled it all up for like 20 years and never told me anything about his behavior, but it all kind of slowly started coming out or very quickly came out, I guess. [00:21:00]

She was like they’re going to Atlantic City and at that time my boyfriend was like what the fuck is that? This man gambles and sleeps around and you and your mom takes him to Atlantic City. I was like her reasoning is that if you’re, you have a hunger a for something and you’re taken to a buffet of that thing, then you’ll just over saturate yourself and not do that ever again. So, whatever. That year I was just like so fucking I could have, if I could have killed my parents, I would have. I mean look at the things that they were doing. Borrowing money from me and stealing my money and all of that. I felt so embarrassed in front of Jeremy who is so well put together in comparison to all this. [00:22:00]

Anyway. So, I mean I guess my mom was telling me about the trip much later how horrified. She was crying and she said there were naked women in front of me and that kind of, that just stayed with me. Her crying and saying that and feeling so vulnerable and hopeless and lost and hoping he would change and he would never again. It just stayed with me. It still lives in my head and I wish I could be exercised of that because I associate all of that, strip clubs, with feeling that way. Like, my mom with her open hair and trying to look pretty for my dad. I don’t know. It’s just like it’s, they’re in there. [00:23:15]

I don’t know what it feels like to be that old and having a bad marriage and trying to ignite something. I don’t know. Anyway. Going back to, sorry, I’m talking about going to strip clubs. Yeah. I just was, I got so scared. Just like so scared thinking and imagining him looking at other women who have far more tone and gorgeous bodies or whatever. Me feeling like my mom. I mean, like fuck, I don’t want to feel that way. You know? I don’t want to be that woman. I don’t want to be that way. I talked to another guy friend about strip clubs and he was like yeah, I’ve been. He was just laughing and this was over the phone, so he couldn’t see my expression or anything. Well, you know, I’m listening and he was like yeah, I’ve been thrown out of strip clubs and this and that. { Laughter} [00:24:30]

You know, that’s the thing you do when you, the moment you get to the US. Then last night I talked to Chris about it too and he was like yeah, I’ve been to one [] and I’m like you? You have been to a strip club? He was like no, but, you know I was so embarrassed about it and this and that. Then he sees things the way that I see them and he’s says that these women are exploited and they’d rather not do this. He wasn’t being, I don’t think he was not being moral. He was not taking a moral stance. He just didn’t have all that fucking baggage that I do about my dad and my mom about the strip club or whatever. You know? [00:25:30]

I guess I brought this up in the context of trying to be more open minded and I guess not as judgmental. Even just imagining my boyfriend or my lover or my husband at a strip club and being okay with that. You know? I guess the friend that I was talking to on the phone, he was like I’ll take you to one and I was like you know what? Yeah. You know, let’s just face that fucking fear that I have. Let’s just see one and what it’s going to be like. Maybe I will break down and cry. I don’t know. It’s that thing that’s in my head for so long that I’m so afraid of. [00:26:30]

Maybe that’s one reason why I am petrified of American highways. I just have that association of truck drivers at night and then those signs that say gentleman’s club or whatever. I imagine them stopping and these women being exploited. Then somewhere inside my mom who is like, who used to be Indian and had all these Indian cultural associations to completely not having any of that and just being lost and I don’t know. Again, it’s a picture. It’s static. { Laughter} (pause) [00:27:50]

Yeah, I mean I guess it’s, that’s what I’ve, I’ve not articulated this, but maybe that’s what I’m thinking. The things that my mom could not do, maybe I could in the sense of betrayal and marriage. Not necessarily betrayal. I don’t know. I thought my dad is this way and I tried to subconsciously pick a man who was completely the opposite. Not as chauvinistic or masculine. I’m not calling Chris effeminate, but yet his masculinity may be much more nuances. It’s more like theoretical. It has a theoretical base, I guess.

THERAPIST: Your father’s masculinity, in part, is somewhat predatory.

CLIENT: Yeah? In what way? [00:29:00]

THERAPIST: Predatory sounds a little too malevolent. I don’t see your father as the malevolent type predator.

CLIENT: Oh, he was.

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Would you call him a predator?

CLIENT: Oh yeah. He would be, he could, when he was younger, he was very proud of the fact that he could seduce any woman he wanted. Later on in life, it became very upsetting.

THERAPIST: Would he brag about that to you?

CLIENT: As much as he could to a ten year old, yeah.

THERAPIST: How? How would he brag about it?

CLIENT: I don’t know. He would brag about his body. Like, if I want to tone this muscle, I can do it. If I want to lose this much weight I can do it. Something like that. { Laughter}

THERAPIST: So, predatory is accurate?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: There’s sort of different ways of thinking about masculinity and types of masculinity. [00:30:00]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That version of masculinity amidst certain places is predatory.

CLIENT: Yeah. I guess it’s always my fear. Will I end up with someone like my dad? I don’t want to. I mean I guess I’m trying. I don’t know. I don’t think I should say that that was his appeal to my mom. I don’t think so. Yeah. I mean I don’t know if Nelson is predatory. I don’t think he is. I mean I guess this is in the context of being open. It’s like how much more open can I get? I’m thinking it’s okay. I’m thinking I shouldn’t freak out if my boyfriend goes or has been to a strip club. [00:31:00]

I guess our first date was almost a strip club. It was a burlesque show.

THERAPIST: Where was it?

CLIENT: At some club in D.C. I can’t remember the name. I didn’t think the world had come crashing down. I guess at that time I didn’t really know. I didn’t really interpret him looking at that as oh. Why do you think my mom was so saddened by that?

THERAPIST: By?

CLIENT: Traumatized by that.

THERAPIST: What’s that?

CLIENT: My dad going to such places.

THERAPIST: What do you think it could be?

CLIENT: I don’t know.

THERAPIST: It seems like you can relate to it.

CLIENT: Yeah, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to be like that’s strange behavior.

THERAPIST: What’s strange? I’m sorry, I’m losing you. What strange behavior? Your mother relating to it or your dad? [00:32:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. My mom being traumatized by that. I want to say that I find it strange.

THERAPIST: That she was traumatized that he went to strip clubs?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I don’t know. I guess probably a lot of women don’t want their husbands frequenting strip clubs.

CLIENT: Why?

THERAPIST: Why do people ride against it? Why do women’s fears ride against it?

CLIENT: They do because it’s like those women are exploited. I doubt that my mom has a bit of, I mean she doesn’t wish them ill, but I doubt she has their good in her heart when she’s like don’t do that. [00:33:00]

I guess. I mean I don’t know. She thinks of him looking at other women as him not finding her attractive anymore or I don’t know. I don’t know. Why do men do it? {Laughter} I don’t know if I have the urge to go to like male strip clubs. You know, like, a strip club for women. I don’t want to be traumatized by men doing it. You know? Apparently, every guy I know or I’m close with has been to one. [00:34:00]

THERAPIST: It seems to me different. That there’s a difference between someone going once or a couple times to frequenting one.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It seems like a big difference.

CLIENT: That’s true. That is true.

THERAPIST: It seems like one is sort of curiosity or interest and the other is kind of something habitual or addictive.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But it does make you anxious.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don’t really want to be because it’s got nothing to do with me. You know? I mean it’s their sexuality. It’s their kind of their way of getting sexual stimulation. If it isn’t mine, then mine might be something else. As long as they’re not judging me, I shouldn’t be judging them. [00:35:00]

That’s the theory part, which is a separate matter. The morality of what it means to work at a strip club is, I guess, a separate part. I guess some men say that it’s admiring female beauty.

THERAPIST: It also makes me think about our conversations about relationships as transactions.

CLIENT: Yeah. (silence from 00:35:35 to 00:36:35) I guess I’m trying, I’m starting to feel and see things differently about that. Like, I was talking to Nelson once and he was like at the end of the day, who am I with? Who do I come back to? I was like, it was weird the way he phrased that sentence. As though he frequents strip clubs and then comes to me. Neither of those two things are true. We don’t live together. He doesn’t frequent, I hope. I don’t know. I guess I thought about what he said and what happens at a strip club, that is transactional. [00:37:30]

I guess what happens between him and me I guess is not in that meaning or by that logic that it’s meaningful or even if it’s not meaningful at certain times, I don’t get the profound interaction that I’m hoping for. It’s still there, but it’s not transactional. You know? Do you know what I’m saying? It’s meaningful. It’s meaningless. I’m not meaningless. Not as meaningful.

THERAPIST: Not everything that’s not intensely connective is transactional.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I guess, when people say I have invested in you or I’m investing in this relationship, I guess that also doesn’t mean that it’s transactional. { Laughter} It could because it’s the same kind of, you know, monetary reference.

THERAPIST: It depends on what they’re investing.

CLIENT: Yeah. No, but like you invest time and you get back time. [00:39:00]

THERAPIST: But, if you’re investing in yourself as a person, I don’t see that as transactional.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It seems like one of the big differences between a relationship that’s sort of a genuine one versus serving a transaction is whether you value that person for them as a person or as the function they serve.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, that’s a bit harder to distinguish, I think. I mean everyone serves a purpose.

THERAPIST: That’s true. They’re fulfilling a need, but I guess, so that’s true. You’re seeking them out because you have a need. If you got in them simply for their utility and not who they are. [00:40:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. I don’t know. I guess as a writer I just feel, I see that as people have their purposes and you love them for who they are, but who they are is a question in the universe. Their answer to the question. Investing is more like growing a tree or planting a tree. You don’t necessarily, I mean you have the hope of eating the fruit at some point, but it’s a gamble. You don’t know if it’s going to grow or what will happen. So many things are out of your control. You invest because at that time, that’s what you want to do with your time and energy and money. At that point it makes you feel good and then over time you realize that that little investment is like a big tree now and something you can depend on. That’s not transactional. [00:41:30]

I guess my mom, I don’t know, I guess she just didn’t get what she wanted. { Laughter} I know that’s transactional. I guess that’s the root cause of her dissatisfaction.

THERAPIST: How do you mean she didn’t get what she wanted?

CLIENT: She didn’t get, I mean she wanted my dad to be around and to get a job and be a proper husband and he never did that. Instead he wasted time in meaningless interactions, transactions, you know. She did love him profoundly, but he just wasn’t able to love her back.

THERAPIST: You saw that in her?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: What do you think that love was about? [00:42:45]

CLIENT: I don’t know. A lot of things. Their own needs. Also, the need to be needed. The need to take care of him. Genuine attraction and chemistry and knowing someone for so long and feeling like she’s the only one who understands him and everyone else thinks he’s a douche bag. Then, over time, sharing life. Sharing profound experiences. Mostly most of them are negative. Their marriage was a complete mess. That’s my take on it anyway. (pause) [00:44:15]

I just don’t want to be as traumatized by it as I am. You know? I want to let go of it and be like it doesn’t make me sad anymore, but it has for a very long time. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Their relationship. Your mom’s feelings about your dad?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Your feelings about your dad and all of it?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It was a very traumatic experience.

CLIENT: Yeah. I just don’t want it to be that much. Not anymore. I feel somehow more positive about my childhood because like the finishing years in the US when all of this was happening were worse.

THERAPIST: We should end.

CLIENT: Okay. I hope you have a great day.

THERAPIST: Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye.

CLIENT: Bye.

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