TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Ask me something. (both laugh)

THERAPIST: Well, what's been happening? Where are you?

CLIENT: You missed a lot.

THERAPIST: Yeah? Dive in.

CLIENT: Cleo is pregnant. This is what you pay me for. You can't get this stuff on cable television, this kind of drama. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Yeah? And what do we know about the father? [00:01:00]

CLIENT: Oh, well, it's presumed to be me, but we don't know. We're sort of taking that as it comes.

THERAPIST: Wow. What did she tell you?

CLIENT: An important question. She missed her period so that's all. We're going to get a pregnancy test tonight, but we'll see.

THERAPIST: Where are you with it and what do you . . ?

CLIENT: I guess I wasn't thinking about it too much, but it sort of weighed on me more and more. At first I was just like okay, that's interesting. I kind of even relished it a little bit because it was like a botch, you know? Also I was kind of impressed with myself, too, my virility, supposing it was me. [00:02:13]

THERAPIST: The boyfriend is still down in [ ] (inaudible crosstalk at 00:02:19)

CLIENT: Yeah, she could have been with Edgar, my roommate, or anyone. At this point, we only know she's missed her period, so we should check on it. And, of course, she could just be saying it. It could be just some weird thing, but I think she has missed her period.

THERAPIST: Any birth control you guys were using?

CLIENT: It was only once that we didn't and we haven't. It was on the off week just before her period. (pause) But yeah, I used it before all the time. [00:03:10]

THERAPIST: And that was the only time you didn't?

CLIENT: Right, which is why I'm pissed my virility. (both laugh) [ ] (inaudible at 00:03:20). So that's one thing. It's complicated because at the stage right before she told me I was like okay, I'm done with this. I can pretty much just ignore her now. I'm not interested. She's not really that interested and we can kind of I'm not willing to stay a course. And then she comes in and tells me she's pregnant. Jesus Christ.

THERAPIST: Had she moved out at that point?

CLIENT: No, she's still here. Yes, we're in the same apartment, but she's trying to keep a distance. She'll kind of kiss me on the cheek or something or embrace me and, if I reciprocate, she becomes uncomfortable and tells me to stop, so that's weird or difficult for me because it's something some part of me wants, no matter how much I intellectualize it. [00:04:30] I appreciate the comfort or the sharing experience with another person. (pause) It sounds like abortion is an option. I hadn't thought about it being at all a taxing procedure, but I suppose it could be. I'm not sure her health does health insurance cover abortions?

THERAPIST: I think they do.

CLIENT: I don't think she has health insurance.

THERAPIST: She doesn't have any of that?

CLIENT: Right. [00:05:08]

THERAPIST: Yeah, but if that's where you end up going, Planned Parenthood will tell you how much the procedure would cost and [ ] (inaudible at 00:05:18).

CLIENT: My paranoia persists about her seeing someone else or having sex with my roommate at the weirdest times. Like I wake up in the middle of the night. I woke up in the middle of the night recently and I went to her room and knocked on the door and it was locked. I was convinced that my other roommate was in there, but that wasn't the case or at least not at that moment. Also the lights in her room were on and the lights in his room were on and it was like 4:00 AM on a Saturday or something. Just those kinds of things. [00:06:08]

THERAPIST: It raises a lot of suspiciousness internally.

CLIENT: Yeah. And the problem with it is I don't know why I should care, quite honestly. It seems to me like I want to damage myself or something, or it's not conceivable to me that someone could actually kind of be affectionate towards me; but also need to keep their distance in some way.

THERAPIST: Well I'm assuming, too, that there's some way that the paranoia is also telling me that you care, that you want to have something with her. [00:07:10]

CLIENT: Maybe.

THERAPIST: I don't know what that thing is, but it seems like it's saying her fidelity, faithful. (pause) As you were just saying a moment ago, as much as you think that it doesn't mean much, something matters here.

CLIENT: You think the paranoia proves that?

THERAPIST: I think. I mean, if it didn't bother you, I was thinking you'd so let them do whatever they want to do.

CLIENT: I had that idea when I was pre-relationships when I was younger. I was just like if I ever got together with a woman, she could do whatever she wants. It seems sort of ideal, but there might be something biological. [00:08:10] The other thing that occurred that probably proves your point is it's a very useful device for me to sort of separate myself from her and detach myself from feelings that are out of my control if I'm suspicious or believe that she doesn't have any fidelity, which experience wouldn't necessarily preclude. But yeah, when she talks nice to me, in the moment I'm grateful to be with her. Actually, it's not even that. When she sort of simpers I'm receptive to that, but reflecting on it I wonder whether maybe she conceals some other relationship and she just wants me to think that it's just me and her for her own so she can continue to have an influence on me. [00:09:08] Basically she . . . women who complain a lot . . . she complains a lot. I get the sense that, through this complaining and through the constant, sort of subtle attacks on my character, it's like a process of shifting her own responsibilities and her own problems onto me; and so they become my responsibility like I have to find a roommate now. That's what it eventually came to. She was finding roommates but I didn't like them. She was doing okay at finding some people, but . . . (pause) I mean, she wants someone to buy her out of the apartment, take that money, and then get a new apartment. What I'm seeing is these people aren't that good. I didn't want to deal with it because I'm looking for a job, but I'm going to have to look for a roommate now in a short period of time. [00:10:09] I hate that. I mean, it's something I do. I gravitate towards it because it's a very tangible task finding a roommate contact people, have them come over, show them around, pick one but it takes a shitload of time. She was crying last night so I said I'd do it. (pause)

This issue, I want to enter that episode where the door was locked and I was there and I'm basically saying, "Are you with Edgar?" I want to know this. I want to know whether they've had sex after our relationship started, and I'm not sure or I guess I want to know because I want to know if the reason she's giving me for keeping her distance or for moving out are correct. [00:11:06] That would be important because, if she was having sex with anyone else, her basic reason of needing to be faithful to her fianc� or whatever, would sort of fall apart. That would sort of unveil me as a less desirable or sort of unlovable or in some way not desirable, not needed. I was wondering whether that's plausible I definitely want your input on this but if it's plausible that I'm sort of sticking out ways to prove that I'm not loveable in some way; or whether there's something more simple, a simpler explanation for wanting to test someone's fidelity or establish someone's authenticity. [00:12:08]

THERAPIST: What do you notice about it? What do you notice when you're in the moment of it all? What do you feel like?

CLIENT: (pause) I wake up and then something in the back of my mind says, "Maybe I woke up because my roommates are having sex," or something like that. So I get up and got a glass of milk or something, but I just sit up there. On this occasion, I sort of waited to try and see what's going on because her light was on. It was really late. [00:13:03] I just feel like (pause) . . . I don't know, but I guess I feel some sort of coldness in my soul, like something condensing into an iron bar. It's very weird, but I listen for noises and whatnot and heard her talking to someone and my heart started beating faster and sort of thumping. For me that's usually a sign that whatever I want to do is well directed. I mean, if your heart starts beating I know it signifies emotional arousal, but to me it seems sort of like yeah, I'm in this. This is what I should be doing. [00:14:12] I guess I was sort of thinking, too, that I really probably shouldn't care. I mean she does have the right to do what she wants, but then it's just wanting to know; and supposing they were having sex, wanting them to know that I knew. I don't want to be someone who I guess I live constantly with this suspicion that these roommates who have cultivated a pretty calm relationship, pretty workable, easy-going; but I live under the suspicion that those are just facades, that they're completely put on and that they're really condescending or manipulating towards me. [00:15:08]

I don't know if manipulating is the word, but they conceal a sort of contempt or something. And, in fact, it does bother me that Cleo probably thinks she's better than me or that my landlord is a prick. (chuckles) All sorts of things. I don't deal with that. I don't process that very well I think. Something about it like everybody's [ ] (inaudible at 00:15:38) and all of a sudden, maybe it's because [ ], but everything I do someone is like pulling it back on me, whether it's like editing the newsletter for the church; those old ladies who go in and undo everything I do or dealings with the landlord. The guy is one year older than me. He's got control issues or something. [00:16:14]

Also at the church last weekend, I was talking with this girl and this guy comes up to me and [ ] (inaudible at 00:16:23) so there's this 55-year-old guy and there's a girl. The girl was in the coffee line and I wanted to get in there and start talking to her, but this guy got to her a second too soon, so it didn't work out. I get my coffee and just walk over and join them. I'm talking to the girl about something I think she did NPO work. I was saying that I did some work for this NPO and they have a shocking rate of return on the investment of food and da, da, da. This guy comes and he's saying, "What you just did is a huge problem. You're displaying typical alpha male behavior." The implication of what he said was obviously what you're doing is wrong. It's the reason all the wars in the world get started and I don't know what he said, but basically the gist of it was that what I was doing was wrong. [00:17:21] He sort of caught me in a very vulnerable place because I told this to someone else and the guy was like, "Oh, yeah. That guy's crazy." (laughs) I'm like that's it. But I sort of take what he's saying and am like, "Huh, well, you are right. I'm sort of shafting you." I mean he had this statement during the worship service about Native Americans and how we have to repay them for the damage our society has done. Only then will we be enfranchised as human beings. [00:18:08] It gives you a sense of the sort of moralistic outlook he has, as opposed to my newfound, extra-moral, romantic pursuits. So he took it to me and I tried to repair the situation and say, "Okay, so what do you want to talk about, man? What can we all talk about?" For her part, the girl wasn't that interested in talking to that guy and she was sort of waiting for me to deal with it, I think; but I'm in a church setting and, also, people I know are all around me. What I said was, "I don't turn away. I practice patience." It's true. I don't believe in turning away from someone like "fuck you". I don't publicly do that. Maybe privately I try to. That was tricky. [00:19:06]

THERAPIST: Yeah, you felt like this fellow was bringing you to task about this whole . . . you were taking over in some way.

CLIENT: I was. We were having a conversation about peace and love and if you want to join the conversation, that's completely acceptable. But to come in and take over the conversation, that's just typical alpha male behavior. I thought of my rebuttal too late. If there's one thing I'm not, it's the typical alpha male. (both laugh) The situations where someone says to me, "You're misbehaving," or "You are wrong," that's how I hear it. I just hear "you are wrong". I don't know what to do. I get jittery and this whoosh. [00:20:00]

THERAPIST: Well, it's particularly a sensitive spot for you around the whole issue of being assertive with women, of really pursuing your desire or interests.

CLIENT: This one, I wasn't attracted to her, but she had like a perfect face, perfect blonde hair. I'll get this girl into the young adult group and then we'll see what she's like, was basically my take on it. But, you're right, talking to her was part of my project, I guess.

THERAPIST: It seems to me like this bears some relevance to maybe some feelings you had about Cleo. [00:20:59] What I was thinking about was what a contrast between you kind of just taking over a conversation like that, but not with Cleo, with the fianc�. Maybe it had something to do with your ambivalence about Cleo. I'm not discounting that, but there's also something about there's not this quality of you being alpha male in your place and going, "Hey, what's going on in there?" That's the thing to do, but you almost feel excluded the guy on the outside.

CLIENT: I asked strongly, but I weighed what to do for a long, long time before I . . . Yeah. Whereas the landlord, if I do one little thing to inconvenience his family, he just comes up and boom. (long pause) [00:22:49] So it also occurs to me that the character I present here is not exactly who I am, but more what I think I have to become to survive. You commented once that I seem like a sort of romantic person. It's probably true, but I think I've been hurt by that and I think my efforts in here have been to sort of train myself as, not conniving, but rather enterprising with women, if nothing else. The fact is it's not natural to me, but it's something that I feel it's like a robe I think I need to keep on perhaps permanently, not just here for a long time because I haven't fared very well as I was. [00:23:55] I'm sort of conscious of that and I think I'm like a clay man seeking the warmth of another's gaze. I need your help to (chuckles) settle this figure in some way.

THERAPIST: Settle the . . what?

CLIENT: You take recent conversations with my roommate, the one I'm having sex with or was, and she solicits my assistance or tries to make me care about her problems. I would like to. That would be the most natural thing for me, but I can't because, as I've said before, I'm not going to get stuck in this shithole again. It's just not going to happen, so I push back on the most ridiculous things. [00:24:59] Like she comes into my room and then I go out and show her a video and then she comes into my room and I put my arm around her and then she says, "No. Don't put your arm around me." And I just say, "Get out of my room," because I'm sick of this bullshit. I'm sick of we're fine, we're fine, we're fine; and then I do something that feels natural and she's just like "no". I feel like a dog almost or something, probably because I haven't been able to control myself. I mean I should have stopped having sex on her birthday, February sometime. [00:25:36]

THERAPIST: Yeah, that's what I was wondering how you're evaluating yourself in a certain sense, kind of keeping it going. In some way there is a sort of self-condemnation about that.

CLIENT: About keeping it going?

THERAPIST: Yeah, keeping a sexual relationship open with her. While feeling like I should just be able to do this without much . . .

CLIENT: I should be able to cut it.

THERAPIST: Yeah, cut it. Yeah, right.

CLIENT: And because I can't, I might hate myself or something.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I shouldn't be so . . .

CLIENT: Less apt. I make a decision to stop it and then it goes again and I'm just like, "Uhh. It's okay." I'm doing whatever; I'm making resumes or I have this work of self-formulation to turn myself into an advertising man; and then there's Cleo. I can screw around with her and possibly in the literal sense. I experience it like I'm working. (chuckles) It's sort of like a long-term irrigation of pleasure; but she's there and it's a different sort of flesh connection. It's something that I reach for. [00:27:22] Now I'm starting to think a little bit in a self-deprecating way, like I should stop this because I feel like I'm losing control of the situation because I'm finding a new roommate, basically. I'm doing something for her. I'm helping her to get money so she can move out. Then I have to find a roommate who's probably going to be worse. To me, I don't think I deserve that.

THERAPIST: Yeah. One thing that I hear you grappling with is that it seems almost like and I think importantly so you're trying to take corrective measures to a problem that's been dogging you for a while. We've been discussing how you find yourself in the role of being romantic but very careful and sensitive and really giving of yourself; and almost taking corrective measures to correct that. Importantly to get another side of you involved, which is the side that really does want and desires women that aren't just in it to be their friend or to be caring and to nurture them and take care of them. But what I think you're finding is that it seems like somehow both kind of do matter to you. [00:29:10]

CLIENT: Yeah, and I can't balance them at all. I become neurotic. I intentionally say, "No. This is not what I should be doing." I recoil in a sense.

THERAPIST: For what it's worth, I kind of think back on the whole not to say that these are the roots of it, but it speaks somehow to maybe the underpinnings of all of this the association you made to everybody accusing you of using the computer at your aunt's place to watch pornographic material and how they came down on you very hard.

CLIENT: Yeah. That was my sense. It was a long time ago, but all I knew for sure was that my aunt had told my cousins; and also she's a very gossipy aunt, so I assume other people knew, too. But there was never anything explicitly stated, just like with the parents, I guess. There are standards there and you may or may not violate them, but it's never expressed if you do. That was the sense I got. If everyone didn't know, then at least my aunt it's like a token or a proxy. It shockingly upturned my notion of myself and how people could think of me. (pause) [00:31:02] Definitely. It's always like I'm doing something dubious. I'm not sure if that's a common feeling. Do you ever think how do I say this like a cracked pavement, sort of a street-savvy take on this that you haven't shared? Like a judgmental tack?

THERAPIST: You mean is there something that I'm thinking about that I'm not sharing with you?

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess so. I don't presume its presence, but I'm wondering if there's something less politically correct, but a more common-sensical take on my situation like you might just say, "Oh, there's a beta male," or something like that. Or, "Here is this guy's problem. He's just not assertive enough or just doesn't have the basic confidence." I don't know. [00:32:10]

THERAPIST: You know, nothing more than I think maybe what I just stated, that I feel like you're very conflicted about it. You're very conflicted about it. Sometimes the one thing that I do notice and, maybe I haven't shared and that just came to me today in some ways, is that you can often operate in two distinct modes and often they're separate from one another. That's maybe what you were saying because you don't know how they come together.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't.

THERAPIST: I would say, just to add to that, that there's something about the question of ambition, in general, is a big question. I was just thinking about your academic ambitions, your job ambitions, ambitions with women. It's a conflicted area, being a man in the world. (pause) [00:33:43] I think you want to feel like a man in the world. And when it feels good to you, it doesn't feel like . . . I don't know. (pause) [00:34:08]

CLIENT: I don't think I recognize it in that way. If there's been a theme to the past week, I guess I've already stated my distaste for the term "boundaries" and how arbitrary it might be. You made a nice quip about what boundaries might actually mean if abused. I think like this, it's just a way to arbitrate change in our relationship into what one person wants, or something like that. I find myself searching because I don't have a sense of an incorrect way to treat me. I mean there's very little you can do to me that I would say, "You shouldn't treat me that way." I don't draw the line and I don't know where to draw it. The landlord is being an asshole or a guy comes up to me after I've spoken for 60 seconds to this girl who he was trying to court in some way . . . [00:35:16]

THERAPIST: Exactly.

CLIENT: He comes onto me and I should probably just verbally slap him, but it just does not come to me. I question it; it turns in on myself or I turn in on myself and I wonder if that's problematic, like whether I do need some sort of, if not arbitrary, at least decide upon designated boundaries, modes of behavior I can accept from other people when they're dealing with me.

THERAPIST: It's also just a really ambiguous area. Like with Cleo, I was thinking in some way you can sort of see telling her to leave as being kind of dismissive and cold; but in a way you're kind of tapping into something else about the interaction that you're not just going to let yourself be treated like a dog. You're trying to actually establish a boundary with her what you feel is acceptable about how you want to be treated. [00:36:32]

CLIENT: (chuckles) She said to me afterwards, "Basically what I thought was, 'If I want to spend time with him, I have to let him touch my ass,'" which I wasn't doing. I was just holding her waist. But I could see this other completely outrageous point here.

THERAPIST: And you're also trying to get across to her this feeling of being jerked around.

CLIENT: Exactly.

THERAPIST: Not that she doesn't have a point of view you do, too.

CLIENT: It's even possible, though, that she's not, that she's actually genuine and I'm just perpetrating an unnecessary harshness on her by presuming that she is manipulative. I'm 75 percent certain I have a fix on a somewhat manipulative person, but it's possible, especially when she simpers. I have to figure out how to deal with that kind of thing because if someone comes on affectionately, I sort of melt. [00:37:56] The other thing was she was talking to me and I was pretty adamant about her not moving out April 1st if we don't find a roommate I like. It's just not going to happen. You're not going to force me to choose between decrepit taxi-driver and 45-year-old grumpy nurse's assistant. It's just not going to happen. And then she calls me back after we both got into our rooms. She calls me on the phone and says, "Can I ask one more thing?" I said, "All right, fine. Let's just get it out." She said, "Well, I'm also thinking about getting an abortion." She's crying and is like, "All of this stuff is on me and it's not fair." I'm just like okay, whatever. In that sense, she allows me to feel like I have to provide for her. And when she does that, I do whatever she wants essentially. It's sort of like a dominance thing. I'm not sure I make out well you know folding once I'm in a dominant position. [00:39:03]

THERAPIST: What was that like for her to tell you all of that? To cry and . . ?

CLIENT: It took like one minute. It gave me an opportunity because I don't like to feel separate from other human beings, which I did when I sort of dead-panned her and said this not going to happen. It sort of gave me a chance to sort of get some tender words in so I appreciated that, I guess. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, you don't want to lose the connection by establishing your own boundary with her.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. I have that issue with success, too. I think my experience is that when I do what I like to do well, at least for a long initial period, it turns people off. People fight me. People get jealous. People just think I'm weird, maybe some of them. That's my experience. I don't know. [00:40:17]

THERAPIST: Were you thinking of anything in particular?

CLIENT: Yeah, I can't share one thing because it's too private, (pause) but I think I'm kind of different from a lot of people. (chuckles) (pause) Maintaining that difference is sort of an ambivalent effort. (pause) [00:41:28] Alsothis is sort of different on a mercurial plain but I always thought I shouldn't study psychology or body language, any of those things, because it would change the way I think. In practice I find that's true. I sometimes wish I didn't know body language or recognize body language because when I see them come from a woman, it's sort of like I'm paying attention to that, how they feel, but I don't always have in hand what I want or how I feel. My own existence or feelings aren't really open to me, but I can recognize someone else's interactions. Like there's this girl at the flower shop I worked for on Valentine's Day that I had occasion to revisit the shop and she was the only one there at like 5:00 PM or so. I started a conversation about a simple . . . and moving her blouse up a tiny bit was enough to just set me off and I just decided to leave and say "take it easy". We said like one thing. I said, "So how've you been since Valentine's Day?" She straightened her sweater a little bit inward, and that was it. [00:42:49]

THERAPIST: Were you aware of what you were feeling at the time, like what it made you feel like? How you understood that communication?

CLIENT: I sort of presumed a sort of dubious Don't forget, though, I asked the girl out and she said no so . . . (laughs) It was a good progress for me because I was comfortable with that. I was fine. It wasn't really a problem. At the same time it's possible that she's sort of ambivalent about the boyfriend she has, but how I felt at that time was like a weight in my head, like what I'm doing is dubious. (chuckles) Dubious would be a good word. There's something else, but there's like a dormant sense of shame. I just said, "So how have you been since Valentine's Day?" And she said, "Oh, good. It's been a little quiet in the shop." And, to me, putting it in is like you feel a little threatened; so I just said "take it easy" as if she had sort of reprimanded. I just said "take it easy" and I left. It's not normal. Someone with healthy patterns wouldn't do that. [00:44:16]

THERAPIST: With healthy boundaries? What were you thinking?

CLIENT: Someone who had a sense of who they are and whether their behavior was acceptable.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you mean with you fleeing the situation?

CLIENT: Yeah. I imputed to her this almost subconscious reaction. Graham Harper doesn't really exist in that situation. He's just sort of contingent upon the reactions of the other people. [ ] (inaudible at 00:44:57)

THERAPIST: Yeah, it almost came to define your intensions and her response was a way to define what you were doing, what your intentions were? You had temporarily crossed some sort of line. Is that what you were getting at?

CLIENT: I mean that's not a very resolved course of action. Maybe. I'm not sure. What I'm saying is that I don't think I necessarily crossed a line; but I guess my instant reaction was that yes, you crossed a line. [00:45:47]

THERAPIST: That's what I meant, that there wasn't your own sense of hey, I haven't done anything wrong. It's more like her response made it feel like I've done something wrong. Is that what you were kind of . . ?

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) It just like holding your hand over a candle. That's how long our conversation lasted.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but your right, though. It triggered some internal reading you take. As you say, you're not there so you're very perceptive and conscious of how they're going to respond to you and that becomes the dominant way to define the interaction or what you've done. Is that it?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Kind of like the guy who says to you that you're being an alpha male. It sounds like you had somewhat of a sense of the guy being a little bit off, but still you were feeling a little bit like "maybe I am too much of an alpha male." [00:47:04]

CLIENT: I just felt it was wrong in so many senses because it was just a situation he couldn't deal with so he put it on me. I had a sense that what this person was saying was not only incorrect, but somehow perverse. I didn't feel righteous towards him. I felt complicit in this activity which meant nothing, above board.

THERAPIST: Again, in some way, too I know we've got to stop but I think you're still trying to account for and maybe struggling with the question that there is some way that they're reacting that you want to be sensitive to or aware of, but you also don't want to disappear yourself.

CLIENT: Yeah, and in judging these situations I lack a personal reference. And assessing them, like things with my roommates, I can't really think like, "This is wrong for me. Why would you do this to me?" Like I don't really exist. Wronging me isn't a concept in my psychological vocabulary. I like that I can look at things objectively, but I need more a way to connect personal explanations.

THERAPIST: Well, all right. So Friday.

CLIENT: Wish me luck.

THERAPIST: Like with the test?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I guess you'll know more Friday, huh?

CLIENT: I live just to keep you entertained. (both laugh)

END TRANSCRIPT