TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: So I was going to call your insurance about you last week —

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: — and realized I had deleted, unwittingly deleted, messages from them and left the letter at home. If you happen to have the number in the letter, I will call them. I guess I can find the letter.

CLIENT: The number might be on my insurance card but the letter is at home, and I won't have time to go home and get it before I go to work.

THERAPIST: Yeah, sure, sure. Okay, then I will find the — I think I have the letter at home as well. It's probably a different number —

CLIENT: Probably.

THERAPIST: — than is on the card.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Rather than taking — God knows how long it took to get from that number to the right person.

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: I'll just go home and find it.

CLIENT: Yeah. If you e-mail me to remind me, I can scan my copy of the letter and send it to you too.

THERAPIST: Okay. I probably got the same one.

CLIENT: Thank you.

[00:01:00]

THERAPIST: Sure. I'm sorry I'm taking so long to get back to them.

CLIENT: Okay. Ridiculous. I hate insurance. I wish we could just have civilized health care in this country.

THERAPIST: Yeah. (inaudible at 00:01:09) not up to it.

CLIENT: But we can't have nice things.

THERAPIST: (pause) Good morning.

CLIENT: Good morning. Well, last night I was hanging out on Twitter, avoiding doing work as usual. I actually got work done at work, not as much as I could have. But this week has been better than the previous several weeks in term of like actually doing work at work. I have this huge backlog of various projects I owe to various people outside my day job that I thought I was going to work on yesterday. But I guess after working all day and then going to a piano lesson and then making dinner, I just had nothing left to [do things] that I owe people. I have typesetting that I owe people, and I sit on Twitter fooling around.

[00:02:02]

I mentioned to someone that I had bright pink hair when I was in undergrad and that [it was waist-length also]. It was pretty eye-catching. (chuckles) And so people asked for pictures and I went looking for photos. I couldn't find any photos, so I went digging through old, old e-mails hoping that like maybe someone had taken a photo and sent it to me.

I was Googling myself on the Internet and found (pause) all this documentary evidence of what an asshole I was in my early 20s. It was really unpleasant. (pause) It made me really unhappy. I don't like the person I used to be. I was utterly miserable and completely self-absorbed to the point where I just had no empathy for other people. It was just really horrible facing all of that.

[00:03:01]

And I should have known better than to go spelunking in old e-mails. That never ends well. (sighing) (pause) Yeah, it was deeply upsetting. (long pause)

[00:04:40]

On the bright side, I guess, it's evidence of how far I've come. (long pause)

[00:06:10]

THERAPIST: What's going on?

CLIENT: (pause) I'm thinking about Ashley and how he still hasn't replied to my e-mail from a week ago now, saying, you know, "Well, when are you free?" (pause) And there's this advice column on the Internet that I read, and its advice is usually spot on.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: But one thing she says frequently is that people who like you will act like they like you, and scheduling with people who like you won't be hard.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: But like — so she actually, you know, lays out this algorithm for the socially inept. So you meet someone and you like them. You know, invite them to do something with you.

[00:07:10]

If they say yes, then all is good. If they don't, try one more time. And if they still say "Oh, I'm busy" or "Can we reschedule?" or make an excuse, assume that they're just giving you a polite no and walk away. And then the other part of the algorithm is once you've invited someone to do a thing two or three times, you should wait for them to invite you to reciprocate. If they're not reciprocating, then they're probably just going along and not actually that into you.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: But if I followed that advice, I would never hang out with anyone because almost none of my friends invite me to do things with them. Like I'm always the one extending the invitation. It's not just Ashley, although that's certainly been on my mind a lot —

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: — recently. But, you know, a lot of my friends don't invite me to do one-on-one things. And probably about half of them, it doesn't occur to them to invite me to parties or group social outings either.

[00:08:11]

Usually I'll hear about it and ask, you know, "Is it okay if I join you?" They'll be talking about things on Twitter or on a public blog or on Facebook and will have tagged a bunch of people and not tagged me. [I could see if they want to issue their] invitations privately, but I don't know. It makes me — as you know, I already have a great deal of social anxiety and second-guess myself all the time.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And "paranoid" probably isn't too strong a word to describe like my worries about whether people actually like me and want me around. And so I don't know if this is a case of like maybe it's true that no one really wants me around and I should back off and stop imposing in their lives, or if maybe the column is just wrong this time. I'm not sure.

[00:09:05]

THERAPIST: I see. (pause) she has unwittingly created for you just the sort of situations you were trying avoid. (chuckles)

CLIENT: Yep. (long pause)

[00:10:48]

I think part of it is that, you know, for the entirety of my 20s, I actively selected very introverted people among my friends because I was under the impression that I was also an introvert and that introverts should be friends with introverts because that way there isn't a mismatch. As I've gotten healthier and dealt with some of my anxieties and dealt with some of my trauma from my childhood, (chuckles) I'm realizing more and more I'm really not an introvert. I really like people and I need to be around people. So I'm like a zillion times more extroverted than any of my friends.

THERAPIST: Mmmm-hmmm. I also think you're an extrovert.

CLIENT: (sighing) Yet another [one of the] things my parents got dreadfully wrong. But anyway. I mean, Dave is not happy unless he has several hours of quiet time with no other humans around every day. Like I can't even imagine. I need a couple of hours of alone time per week, maybe.

[00:11:55]

THERAPIST: Mmmm-hmmm.

CLIENT: If that.

THERAPIST: I guess you'd rather have those few hours with other people, I think.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Almost all the time.

CLIENT: Yep. (pause) Like Ashley is that way too. He really —

THERAPIST: Likes —

CLIENT: — likes alone time, yeah. (pause) I don't know. I mean, it's been a week. You'd think he would've at least said, you know, "Let's schedule for, I don't know, sometime the week after next maybe."

THERAPIST: Mmmm-hmmm.

[00:12:51]

CLIENT: (sighing) But I also feel that it's a little bit (pause) unfair to have this kind of — it's almost like a test. Like "Do you really like me? Here's this test but I won't tell you I'm giving you and I won't tell you the rules. And if you fail, well, I'm just going to walk away from this friendship." Like that seems kind of like a dick move to me.

THERAPIST: Hmmm.

CLIENT: (pause) I don't know. Relationships are hard, and I wish I had more confidence that my instincts are correct or that I'm reading people correctly. (long pause)

[00:15:29]

THERAPIST: I guess I get the impression that — I'm not intending to arrange it this way, but (inaudible at 00:15:42) to the extent to which I think what's going on with your friends is kind of on you versus being on them. You know, is it just that they're introverted or because Ashley is introverted and, you know, it's really lame of him just not to get back to you, or whether it's on you. Like oh my God, obviously you can't take a hint and, you know, it's (inaudible at 00:16:05) talking about and you're deluding yourself and foisting yourself on people.

As I'm not aware of having said either one of those things, you're probably feeling kind of anxious and uncertain in part, like wondering what I think in the same way that you are with your friends. In any case, it becomes kind of a referendum on your judgment, your kind of social worthiness.

[00:16:45]

CLIENT: I don't know.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: I think by this point, I've pretty well internalized the notion that you're not willing to just solve my social problems for me —

THERAPIST: (chuckles)

CLIENT: — or tell me what to do, that that's not your goal or job here.

THERAPIST: Uh huh. I may still be [obvious] but I'm aware that you know that.

CLIENT: (laughter)

THERAPIST: I don't think you kind of consciously or in any way naively expect like "What the hell?" (chuckles) You know, I know you know that.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: But I guess you do seem anxious.

CLIENT: The whole situation I'm talking about [I might be] provoking.

THERAPIST: Sure. And I imagine it's because [I put that question to you] whether this is on you or on them.

CLIENT: Mmmm-hmmm.

[00:17:29]

THERAPIST: And that, you know, some of that anxiety has to do with what you imagine I may be thinking or judgments I may have about that. Although I can see how I'm probably going too far in saying that I think you imagine I'm actually going to say something.

CLIENT: (chuckles) Yeah. I have one friend who promised me that if I ever overstepped or crossed a boundary, she would say so explicitly and immediately.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: And she has, on occasion, when I have, you know, dominated the conversation or taken a joke entirely too far past the comfort level.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And so I really like hanging out with her because I know I can stop second-guessing everything I say because I know if I do something wrong, she'll tell me. (pause) I wish I could get all of my friends to agree to do that.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

[00:18:27]

CLIENT: It would be really nice.

THERAPIST: Do you worry about that with me as well? That like you will have talked about a particular issue too long or you will have said too much or you will have done something?

CLIENT: No. I mean, I know this is going to sound really crass, but I mean I am paying you —

THERAPIST: Mmmm-hmmm.

CLIENT: — to listen to me talk about —

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: — whatever is on my mind.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And I have a feeling that if I was, you know, dwelling on something anyway that was, you know, bad for me or unhealthy or unproductive, you actually would say so.

THERAPIST: Mmmm-hmmm.

CLIENT: But again, that's part of your job, right? (chuckles)

THERAPIST: Yes, it is. Yeah.

CLIENT: But given that my problem here mostly seems to be not talking enough, I don't think the spending too much time on one topic —

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: — is an issue.

[00:19:25]

THERAPIST: Yeah. I guess also when you put it like — I'm not — this may also be already quite clear to you, I'm not fussing about things in here because I think like they're more important but because I think usually there is sort of the problem being talked about is cropping up from one angle or another.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: It can be difficult to figure out which one in here in a way that, you know, makes it (inaudible at 00:19:59) inaccessible. (pause) But that said, I take your point that that's not occurred so far in the ways I suspected.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: And that (pause) there is something about your uncertainty in the face of other people not being explicit in a way that this one friend is —

[00:20:41]

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: — that makes connections much more anxious for you.

CLIENT: Mmmm-hmmm.

THERAPIST: Or the relationships even.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) It's just — I don't know. This is a thing in geek communities that like people use the fact that they didn't have a lot of friends as a kid and weren't [properly socialized] and have trouble reading social cues as a pass to be an asshole. Like people use that as an excuse, especially men use that as an excuse so often. "Oh, well, you can't be mad at me for being a jerk because I don't know how not to be a jerk."

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: And I don't want to do that. I don't want to be a jerk. I mean, even apart from like I don't want other people to think of me as a jerk, I also just like —

[00:21:39]

THERAPIST: Don't actually want to be one.

CLIENT: — don't want to insult and damage the people I care about. But I don't know how to learn social skills, right? Like I feel like there's this vital component of most normal people's childhood educations that I just didn't get and I don't know how to get it. It's not like you can read a book on how to read body language and tone of voice and navigate these multivariable complex social situations. (pause)

[00:22:30]

THERAPIST: Again, I think there's a [implicit] question there of the extent to which you're bad at reading those versus for most people, much of the time, they're inherently ambiguous, and I don't know.

CLIENT: Right. (pause)

THERAPIST: Like I could tell you two different stories, one in which that's basically true. I mean, you were socialized in some really shitty ways.

CLIENT: Mmmm-hmmm.

THERAPIST: And that did make — you know, that coupled with your anxiety in social situations can make it difficult. You know, there's just so much flying around and you sort of didn't learn until a bit later to read things and sort of, I don't know, whatever kind of [biased ways that you learned to read them] earlier on —

[00:23:45]

CLIENT: Mmmm-hmmm.

THERAPIST: — in a way. (pause) You know, so you're kind of — an analogy might be navigating as somebody who's got 20/80 vision or something.

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and another alternative would be you're 20/20, 20/30, something like that, but you hate the uncertainty and not knowing —

CLIENT: Mmmm-hmmm.

THERAPIST: — and not having an algorithm and you feel like you should know. It makes you feel out of control not to know, you know?

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: This stuff we talked about to do with wanting to know and have things wired in a way.

CLIENT: Yep.

[00:24:41]

THERAPIST: And the anxiety that comes from that and the ways you feel currently about yourself is much more the story. I don't know. I mean, either one of those seem plausible in some way, but I'm not sure.

CLIENT: (pause) And it could be that my instincts are good and I just can't tell what I'm actually feeling and what's like 20 years of my parents' crap layered on top of that.

THERAPIST: Right. Yeah. It could be like (inaudible).

[00:25:38]

CLIENT: (pause) (sighing)

THERAPIST: Being told you were bad at it and prevented from doing it.

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: And it turns out you actually like it or you're actually good at it.

CLIENT: Well, kind of. (pause)

THERAPIST: Kind of like it or kind of are good at it?

CLIENT: Kind of very good at it. I don't know. I have plateaued at voice lessons for the last couple of months where it was just, you know, a transition between (inaudible at 00:26:07) voice that I just can't seem to nail.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: But I'm working on it.

THERAPIST: I don't know anything about singing.

CLIENT: (chuckles)

THERAPIST: But I get that impression like, you know, you're not a deeply-flawed singer.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: I mean, you're somebody who can pick up singing —

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: — the way, you know, as well as most people can. It's not like in a classroom of fifth graders you should be quiet whenever, you know [you don't say anything] like that.

[00:26:39]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I mean, the other issue is not being as good as you want to be or that you should be but that —

CLIENT: Right. The problem I have with almost everything where my tastes currently outstrips my ability.

THERAPIST: Mmmm-hmmm.

CLIENT: I'm running into that problem with piano lessons too because I can hear every mistake I make and it's remarkably frustrating.

THERAPIST: Mmmm-hmmm.

CLIENT: I've only been taking lessons for six months, of course I'm going to make mistakes. But because I —

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:27:13)

CLIENT: Because I'm old enough to have had years of listening to very good, high quality music, both recordings and live performances which you know the average six-year-old starting music lessons doesn't have.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Right? Like — I don't know. I think all of these things are easier to learn as a child because you don't have refined tastes yet. (long pause)

[00:28:17]

THERAPIST: I think it's easier to learn when you feel good about yourself.

CLIENT: Maybe. (pause)

THERAPIST: You can have like (pause) [refined and seasoned tastes] in a way and not be angry because I don't play like a concert pianist or something. (long pause)

[00:29:49]

Do you feel like I'm telling you that you're doing something wrong?

CLIENT: No. (Pause) I was just thinking it's (pause) a little bit megalomaniac of me to expect to be able to just pick up a new skill and be good at it within six months. (pause) That expectation was completely not based in reality.

THERAPIST: I'm going with it does sound like I told you did something. (chuckles) I mean, you know what I mean? Like I say "Hey, you know, it's how you feel about yourself. You in theory can have fine taste and appreciate that it's going to take more than six months to be a concert pianist."

[00:30:54]

Then you go like "God, what a fucking megalomaniac I am for having (inaudible at 00:30:57)." (chuckles) I guess in a way, it does sound like me telling you you've done something wrong, although you're not attributing — (pause) not quite attributing it to me in that way.

CLIENT: No, I'm pretty sure that's not what you were saying. It's what I'm saying.

THERAPIST: I know, I know.

CLIENT: (laughter)

THERAPIST: I'm aware that you know that that's not what I meant. (chuckles) And yet it still —

CLIENT: It's still where I landed?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) And it's not exactly a new place for me to have landed.

THERAPIST: No, I don't think it is either, unfortunately. (pause)

[00:31:55]

CLIENT: I would really like to learn how to have reasonable expectations for myself. It seems like my expectations are on either end of the bell curve, you know. I'm either literally the worst human being to have ever lived or, you know, I expect myself to be the best immediately. An ultra-talented special snowflake. (pause) I mean, I understand statistics and I understand the central limit theorem —

THERAPIST: (chuckles)

CLIENT: — and the law of averages and, you know, most people are someone in the middle of the bell curve, you know?

THERAPIST: Right. And maybe some of what we're running into is the gap between, in that instance, your knowledge of statistics and (inaudible).

[00:32:54]

CLIENT: Yep. That's for sure. (pause) Now my dad's thing has always been, you know, well if Mohammad can't go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammad. He always (chuckles) casts himself as Mohammad in the story and it's that other people kowtow to his will. Whenever I had trouble with my peers, my dad would tell me that and tell me, you know, "Just don't make any effort to reach out for them. Let them come to you because you're better than them." (pause) (chuckles) This caused many more problems than it solved. I don't think it ever — THERAPIST: Yeah, you're pretty fucked right there because —

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Either they do and you feel like it must be that they did because you're just way more awesome than them. Or they don't and then something is really wrong because what the hell is that?

[00:34:01]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: They were supposed to because you're way more awesome.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) When I was in middle school, my English language teacher — we had two hours of language and literature back to back in a block class. And she had very heavily bought into the learning styles pedagogy of the time, if you're familiar with it.

THERAPIST: Like visual learner, auditory learner.

CLIENT: Right, right. So she had her classroom set up, there were nine regular student desks in a grid in the back of the room. And then there was a table that seated six and a couch and a beanbag and then a bunch of pillows on the floor. She said we could each choose our assigned seat for the year, and whatever seat you chose, like you have to sit in the same seat every day, but you can pick.

THERAPIST: Right.

[00:34:59]

CLIENT: If you want to be on the couch or the beanbag or the table, based on what works best for you. And she said, you know, "You're all 13 now. You're old enough to know how you learn best. You get to pick and I won't tell you."

And so I picked the desk in the very back corner of the room. Two other students had desks that they wanted to be in the front row, so I was in the back and they were in the front row. There was this big bank of empty desks between us. I was like completely isolated. (pause) I don't know (chuckles) why she didn't — I don't know, talk to the school counselor, send me to the school counselor, something. Like that's not normal for a healthy 12 or 13 year old.

If one of the kids in my Sunday school class said they wanted to sit alone in the back corner of the room, I would be very concerned. I would have conversations with them and with their parents and try to figure out what is going on with this child. Like that's not normal (chuckles) in any way.

[00:36:02]

THERAPIST: Yep. (pause) [What are you thinking?]

CLIENT: I don't know. Just like I'm doing training this summer for Sunday school teaching and I've had, you know, some interactions with the youth in my church. I've chaperoned youth trips, done outings, and taken kids apple picking. But this is the first time I'll actually be teaching on a regular basis. So I'm doing the training and, you know, there are warning signs to look out for for children who might have learning disabilities or warning signs for abuse in the home. Like there are all of these things that you learn, you know. If you see three of the five items on this checklist, you need to talk to the pastor about this child. I'm like where were my teachers?

[00:37:01]

Looking at these checklists, looking at my behaviors and experiences. From as early as elementary school, like why did no one intervene? Why did no one do anything? (sighing) (inaudible at 00:37:17) (sighing)

THERAPIST: Yeah. We need to stop.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I'll see you next week.

CLIENT: Yep.

END TRANSCRIPT