TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I had sort of like a trivial hang up over whether I should wear this jacket and not even that, even more trivial like I was going to wear this jacket but the question was whether I would put this jacket on when I got to the door of my house or put it on in my room and then walk to the door. And this has stayed with me for some time.

THERAPIST: Huh!

CLIENT: Like really trivial and part of it was Jane's in the kitchen and I thought I might convey one impression or another. But it was a battle. I put it on in my room because I decided I shouldn't change my, what's convenient for me for her sake, but I don't think I wanted to put it on in my room in the first place, in other words I just sort of (Pause) [00:01:27 00:01:34] it was like a strange, strange thing to worry about and I feel like I've gone through a lot of things really well in certain parts of my life, my present life, but there are also like plots that occur to me that are like random and I don't know what to do. Like I can never recall them but it's just like really simple, primary type thinking or suspicions like waking up with a dream that seems to take my other two roommates that are sleeping together and lying to me about it. You know, I don't know quite what to do with that. Or rather I do, I trust the dream.

THERAPIST: You did, yeah.

CLIENT: But there are other, there are other I mean as far as I'm concerned I know that there was a little of deceit and I have trouble reconciling that with like the care I feel for these people and also certain impossibilities like on some level like sometimes I'll be suspecting that they're together but it's not actually logistically possible. But it's still like this suspicion is like a very, it's a certainty and there's also the, sometimes the reality doesn't match up with that, like it couldn't be possible. So let's say I assume, like I assumed they were in the same room but then I looked into one of their rooms once and he wasn't in her room, so obviously he wasn't there at that exact moment, as I suspected but you know, the general conviction is still there.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: I guess that's not the sort of thing I, I guess that's what I need to talk about but it's not the sort of thing I meant before which was more of a [psychocity] (ph) junk.

THERAPIST: Yeah, kind of a little bit with the jacket, whether or not to wear it.

CLIENT: Yeah, and if I do this thing I'm doomed to fate; if I don't do this thing I'm saved. It seems to me a retaliation against the sort of featureless life, but also I'm not sure how to put this, it's a real, it's like a very private, but very ultimate assertion of power because you're saying this is good, this is bad, this is good/bad, good/bad, no matter how arbitrary the subject you're categorizing each and every decision; your couching it in very clear terms.

THERAPIST: Un huh [yes].

CLIENT: So there's that.

THERAPIST: Well, in terms of the coat, you're thinking behind it was that if you, it related somehow to Jane's seeing you.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's like I was going to wear this coat and then I thought, I think I first let myself just walking to the door and then putting it on as I walked out. But then I thought, I think I picked up my keys and a notebook or something. It would be easier to put the notebook in the pocket of the coat once that was done it would be easier to put it on, but then once I was putting it on I was thinking, 'oh, in some ways, this is not a strange thing for her to see.' I don't know, it wouldn't be totally congruous, or it wouldn't, like if she saw me walk out with this coat. It would sort of jive with my emotional vulnerability. So -

THERAPIST: How so? Yeah.

CLIENT: Well, I was playing the piano this morning. Do you know that song, "Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters," Elton John, Honky Tonk or Honky Chateau? I was playing the song and she came up and started listening to me and I just started crying so the refrain to that one is (unclear) says, love is not possible in the city. And then it says well thank you, I thank God for all the people I've met, Mona Lisas and mad hatters, sons of doctors, sons of lawyers, all these people and like in New York City, living in the shadow of enormous skyscrapers and the song was just expressing thanks for all these people you get to know. So yeah, there was that and then like so in terms of the coat I was thinking well if I stay in the coat, this is really stupid, but -

THERAPIST: No, it isn't -

CLIENT: I was thinking like, yeah, I don't know (laughs) I got into this thing where you know, she might judge me a certain way with or without the coat and then I wasn't going to bow to whatever I thought she was going to judge me by. I was going to fight against whatever I thought she was going to judge me by. If that makes sense, but that's also that's just as stupid, if you understand.

THERAPIST: Yeah, well, what did you think she would judge you with and if you were with the coat versus without the coat? What were you going to what did you think she might think?

CLIENT: I didn't have any specific thing in mind I don't think. It was more like a sense. It was just wrong, you know? It was the wrong thing to do. And the culmination of that sense which leads to wrong could be like the summation of subconscious understandings or judgments or whatever.

THERAPIST: Okay. Got it.

CLIENT: That's how I perceived.

THERAPIST: But it's a way that you wanted to kind of not capitulate, not kind of do something because you were reacting to her.

CLIENT: In any way reacting to her.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: In any way influenced by her.

THERAPIST: What would it mean if you did?

CLIENT: Yeah. It would mean -

(Pause): [00:08:28 00:08:47]

CLIENT: It would somehow be a violation of my self-sufficiency.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: Not only self-sufficiency but which sounds like a pretty good statement, but just the integrity of myself, my integrity. Yeah, that's about right.

THERAPIST: You would be influenced by her and your hope was not to be influenced by her.

CLIENT: Yeah. Actually, also she had the the pregnancy test came back negative, so there's that and I think no, mostly that.

(Pause): [00:09:29 00:09:40]

CLIENT: Before I sort of lamented the ability of women like Jane to sort of make their problems my problems by complaining about something and after then it becomes my problem to deal with it. I take it on, willingly at first and then I think about what I'm doing. You know?

(Pause): [00:10:02 00:10:09]

THERAPIST: Yeah, you were describing this excuse.

CLIENT: Right.

(Pause): [00:10:10 00:10:26]

THERAPIST: Yeah, and what I think you're also getting at, when you start to feel like you're taking on, whether it's taking on something or being influenced by or capitulating, there's a, almost like you start to well it puts you in a much more vulnerable spot.

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:10:48 [00:10:57

THERAPIST: And you lose something about you lose this other side that you have before.

CLIENT: What you mean control?

THERAPIST: Yeah! Some control. I know they can be kind of cast in a, not a critical light, but I think in a way we are trying to get at is like you don't want to still negotiate these two sides of it.

CLIENT: I have compassion but there seems to be a liability.

THERAPIST: (Whispers) It's smart then. Compassion is like actually a liability.

CLIENT: It feels like it has been. I know. I've acts of kindness are acts of strength, you know, but I think something of not being fully cognitive in the sense of needs or wants maybe has led me to injure myself a little bit.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:11:59 00:12:07]

CLIENT: The strength, because it was like, I feel like I did last was it last time that I sort of, you know, this, I don't know, like a manipulative (unclear) [00:12:27] by any means but I feel like I have to sort of go in that direction a little bit but at the same time I, so I'm calling my natural self more compassionate. At the same time I also feel that I am not in the sense of (unclear) describing like two different personalities, but I've been more, perhaps too developed, I wish I wouldn't smile so I feel that I'm trying to be sort of a peaceable, very innocuous person, not recently but for a long time in my adult life and it's sort not my way it's just not who I am. Like I think deep down I'm kind of like a prude.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: You know, I'm not, I'm not (unclear) woman but I'm intellectually in terms of judging other people I think I'm kind of prudish especially in the way I execute things when I want them. [00:13:30]

THERAPIST: Ah! Uh huh [yes].

CLIENT: A prude. Yeah.

(Pause): [00:13:34 00:13:45]

THERAPIST: Well you're not passive. Yeah. You're not content, you're sort of not content nor do you seem to be naturally I imagine like in some ways you feel something's missing if you're about you if you're passive or you're (unclear) back to the guy that the older guy and the girl at the meeting.

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: And you know, you wouldn't have been if it's right to say you wouldn't have been you or you wouldn't have felt right just letting it it's not in your nature to feel comfortable with the guy who just kind of comes right in and wants to take over. You want to have you want mix it up, you wanted to have the conversation go a certain way. You weren't content to just let this guy come on (unclear) [00:14:45]

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:14:46 00:14:53]

CLIENT: I had an experience when I was at the bar last Wednesday night and I think I'd gotten up to check on something and so when I sort of assumed a position that was really close to the music and then I decided I wanted to go back to my seat and someone had sat in my seat which was next to two girls and before I'd been sort of talking to the people and I decided the two girls were kind of attractive over here and there was a girl over here who was not attractive, probably like pretty old actually who I was talking about the Suffix game and I felt much more comfortable talking to this person like I had more interest in talking to these girls but I talked to this girl because it seemed much safer.

(Pause): [00:15:41 00:15:47]

CLIENT: I wish I could address that sort of thing. So when I got back there was a guy there in my seat so you know, I waited a few minutes and he was still there so I just said, 'hey, that's my seat.' And so then we fought. (Laughs) No, he moved so there wasn't a problem. But you know, when he moved the girls looked at me like waiting for me to make a move. They were neutral, you know, but I think they expected me to sort of (unclear) 'come on!' You know? And I don't if I just wasn't like, yeah, I don't think I have a clear sense of like how important it is to [leave the court to] (ph) women, or any women, like it doesn't I have no philosophy of sex. Like I have no foundation for like where it fits into my life like how, what kind of priority it is. [00:16:39] When I was having sex with [Cleo] (ph) it was near New Year's so I had a resolution to get organized. So I had like things on slips and we'd never had sex before I'd written down like, 'okay, organize paperwork, clean room, fuck Cleo,' and like something else. And I'd never had sex with her before but it was in my like, agenda, and it worked. And I don't get that sense with like, regularly. I'm pretty disorganized now and usually but I guess that was just an aside. But I don't know where it fits, how important it is. You know I feel like I have important things to do in life and I'm not doing them and I'm also drawn to [feminine contacts] (ph) and especially when it gets difficult to, or perhaps risky and I'm sure I'm like caught in a sort of purgatory of wanting something but not knowing if it's worth the risk there's a good song about that, too.

THERAPIST: What's the song?

CLIENT: Do you know Norah Jones?

THERAPIST: Uh huh [yes].

CLIENT: Lonestar. "Lonestar, how far are you?" It's good.

THERAPIST: What sort do you remember the lyrics?

CLIENT: I do. I'm not going to recite it now though. I encourage you to listen to it.

THERAPIST: Lonestar is the name of the song.

CLIENT: Right. Lonestar. It's the one on that first album that's actually good. Her recent ones are different, pretty good, but "Come Away With Me" is the album.

THERAPIST: "Come Away With Me".

CLIENT: Do you have that whole album?

THERAPIST: No, No. I just know who she is.

CLIENT: Well, it's an old Hank Williams song.

THERAPIST: Oh. Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. But it says like, 'I don't know how far, Lonestar how far are you. I don't know how far I'm willing to go to get to you."

THERAPIST: What were you aware of with the women, the two women at the bar?

CLIENT: Yeah, they were pretty interesting, they were (unclear) by their comments but I was also scared in like a very, obviously I wasn't possessed by fear of this, like an impulse towards fear that may be why I preferred this fat, unattractive one who was extraordinarily safe and you know was very grateful for attention and also tried to draw me in throughout the night. But the end of the story is 30 minutes later I haven't talked to them and I looked around, I was the only one at the bar so I had asserted myself, right? But getting these guys out of here, there was nobody there, it was just me.

(Pause): [00:20:04 00:20:11]

CLIENT: I mean there were people in the restaurant but the whole freaking bar was empty.

THERAPIST: Huh! What would that have meant to you?

CLIENT: Well, exactly that. I had asserted myself but by (unclear) to them I had also isolated myself.

THERAPIST: Yeah, isolated. Huh.

CLIENT: And some connection to that.

THERAPIST: Yeah. What was it before that? Lonestar, huh?

CLIENT: You want me to sing that song. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: No, I mean it made me think of well, of just the idea of your, you had won in a certain way, but you were alone so it made me think of the idea of a star but the lone star.

CLIENT: Yeah. Kind of the victor in a way but not (unclear).

(Pause): [00:21:07 00:21:15]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess you know maybe that's just saying that to me maybe captures something about the experiences with [Cleo] (ph) when you feel like you know if you'd put it that you feel as there's some sort of control or upper hand that while there's a gratification about that, there's a real element of getting it, like checking off the fuck [Cleo] (ph) to-do list card, or box, so to speak is that there's not a there's something missing there that you don't feel that when you feel compassion or that -

CLIENT: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's right.

(Pause): [00:22:09 00:22:33]

THERAPIST: It made me wonder. Do feel like it's almost like you got to be kind of a bad boy to do like if you're going to be the guy that's going to, if you're going to be a contact with that assertiveness that the power, the control that it feels like it has to come from a point of being like a more bad boy kind of thing? How bad was a (unclear). [00:23:01]

CLIENT: Well it does when it works like that. I wouldn't say I feel like it has to come from there. I guess that's true. I do feel that way, but it's not like I feel that way, like oh, I should be bad. It's more like a very conscious decision. That's just something from my experience as an innocuous and compassionate person.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Hence, the hurt and perceived failure sort of a sense of humor. Not only failures but failures of communication perhaps of this kind, like shut down relationships until they shut down. My actual conclusion is that whenever a woman talks about something emotional, significant, it moves me to pay absolutely no attention to her or else because often I think when it comes down to things that matter in that sense I think the people I've come in contact with say exactly the opposite of what they mean or what they or what's actually true. Which is I wouldn't have guessed at first. Do you remember what we were talking about before the bar? Before the bar tangent?

THERAPIST: Ah, before the bar tangent. No. What were you did you want to get back to process?

CLIENT: I got to see for whatever it was, whatever it was. Yeah, I don't know what we were talking about.

THERAPIST: Uh huh [yes].

CLIENT: Just sort of like our conversations like spiral into like different chambers to get down here (unclear). [00:25:18] One other thing I was thinking about is like I really haven't, all right, I don't think I am right now, but once when I tell you about it's like the past couple of days now, like today and what I've been (unclear) the past couple of days is you know I felt I shouldn't care if [Cleo] (ph) and Edgar were together. And it was very unclear to me why I did feel that way. Why when she might have been pregnant, that was the problem. If she had if there was even a possibility of that she would abort the fetus. I would not want you know, any seed of mine being sort of harassed by my roommate's semen.

THERAPIST: (Chuckles)

CLIENT: But otherwise I'm not sure why it matters. I'm conflicted. One of the things I wrote down to clarify my mind is basically I want to care about these people. I want to care about these people but if they disrespect me it injures my ability to love in general. Like I just can't you know. And this is in the context of me pursuing other women and you know if I could get something else I would, I'd take it. But just the fact that I want to be able to care about people and love people but if they don't want to acknowledge or respect me, not just a superficial sense of respect me but it's not going to work. It's not I don't know what to say about it. It's just not it's going to draw me back.

THERAPIST: Draw you back.

CLIENT: Just to going to isolate myself. I'm not going to be able to cultivate relationships with people because -

(Pause): [00:27:32 00:28:02]

CLIENT: You know, the fact that [Cleo] (ph) is this covert in sleeping with my roommate is, has the convenient side effect of invalidating all her affection towards me. As in, I mean she's very nice but because she's sleeping with, you know she slept with my roommate while trying to deceive me it sort of changes the relationship from one of that's the thing I don't get. If she chooses Edgar over me, why does that matter to me? Why? Like, why? I don't respect her. I think she's beneath my dignity in a lot of senses. I don't respect her.

THERAPIST: What is it? Yeah, what is it about her?

(Pause): [00:29:12 00:29:28]

CLIENT: Why do I have to why the (unclear) thing you know, that sort of losing a contest with another man is relevant to I don't understand why it affects how I feel. Really. It seems like a common thing. So if you can explain that for me I'd be grateful.

THERAPIST: Well, yeah. Is it the feeling that you've is it in some way signify to you some loss of competition? I don't know what way to date it. What real meaning it has, what the competition was around. But I'm sure it has some sort of deep bearing on how you see yourself. It reveals something on how you see yourself. Why?

CLIENT: I don't know if you can answer that but it's my question. Why? Why does it (unclear) so hard? Because I'd like to think I've lived before and I'll live afterwards and it's strange to be pulled in that sort of orbit of despair. I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I think maybe the question is relevant in as much as it's freaking agonizing to me, that it does matter. I mean, I'm sure if you think something's going on right across the hall from you it's Edgar Allen Poe kind of quality of nuisance, psychological nuisance, you know, like it's a bit of torture.

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:31:32 00:31:42]

CLIENT: And then, I'm not sure how plausible it is, my assertion that the actual fact itself wouldn't or doesn't bother me, but it's the deception surrounding it or the need to conceal it.

THERAPIST: Huh!

CLIENT: The fact that that invalidates I suppose our affectionate relationships is, our sort of cordiality, it's more than that, but our camaraderie means nothing if they're privately, think they're better than me or something or sort of putting me on and on for reasons I don't understand.

THERAPIST: Ohhhh. Ohhh. Huh. It makes anything they you had with her feel like it is a ruse or something?

CLIENT: Not the sexual stuff but the I mean that and the stuff which was just being kind, like random things we'd say and anything, just say, anything complimentary or anything, any statements of concern, any excuses given. It just means -

THERAPIST: I don't know how to reconcile with liars, basically. I mean my impulse is just to shut down the relationship.

CLIENT: And when we once establish that she's, doesn't have many qualms about deceiving intimate others, but I don't know what to do about it because you know, I had an opportunity where once after the first time, after [Cleo] (ph) and I got started and I realized with certainty that you know Edgar was going back to her room and she had probably called him there, that my reaction was to become pretty stiff and a little aggressive and they both recognized it and they both after a while [Cleo] (ph) and I just wasn't going to happen again, and Edgar essentially said like, '[Cleo] (ph) told me you're acting weird, can we just talk about what's going on? And I had the opportunity to say you know, 'you're,' that was like when you were saying it's a battle of who could care less. If you admit it hurts you then you've lost. But I had the opportunity to say, 'Well, you know you're fooling around, or whatever, but then you'd just deny it.' I didn't want to, you know, like, I figured he would, right? I mean I know, I know what she's like about needs. So what's the point? Even if I pursued it with a very like hard tack, you know, what's the point? Whatever answers I could get would be like more illusions or more fake shit. I just don't know how to get that looks real. And there is something nice and real about these people. Just with reference to whatever's going on, I just can't get there. I guess that's what's painful.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: You can't reach that.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah! And maybe with her, the idea that she's sleeping with Edgar kind of undoes your sense of what's real.

CLIENT: What's real. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: It's a willful act on her part to maintain some degree of control. You know, we have a healthy relationship, or a seemingly like (unclear) [00:35:37] relationship. She can under the guise of charity she can sort of get more of what she wants from me or needs, really.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I'm just wondering if she feels like she needs to kind of pull out this kind of triangulated scenario to get you to kind of stay interested.

CLIENT: You know I don't think she'd consciously -

THERAPIST: Not consciously.

CLIENT: Yeah. No, absolutely, I think in a certain sense, just like you'd cut off someone on the road and you kind of (unclear) [00:36:20] or, yeah, there are lots of ways in which people sort of shaft other people and they like, assume their momentum psychologically, like they 'I shafted you, so I'm more important than you.' You know, so I think that probably carries over to relationships as well in some ways and functions. There are lots of women like her probably (unclear) with a sense of -

(Pause): [00:36:47 00:36:57]

CLIENT: A sense of being needed and being important which is based on this deceit or anguish or whatever.

THERAPIST: Do you think she at all picks up on the fact that you kind of have had mixed feelings about here and how you really feel about her?

CLIENT: Yeah, that's a good angle. I was blindsided there. Yeah, absolutely. So.

THERAPIST: Is she savvy enough to pick up on that?

CLIENT: I'm not sure, you know? Maybe she'd her complaints are along the lines of, 'I don't like how you, you just treat me like a physical object.' Or, 'Whenever you come to me it's only, you only stay if you need something from me,' or to me the sexual act is an act of communion and to say I've taken something is outrageous besides which if I'm being shallow, Edgar is, you know he's, I mean he just does in and fucks and leaves and they don't even talk. So, those sort of excuses are outrageous. They're perverse, in fact, and what was your question? Does she have a sense of -?

THERAPIST: Yeah, she has a sense that like you're kind of mixed about her. You know that, there is something, as you say there's something very important about the physical intimacy and affection. Sex itself, but as you've been describing her, 'like, yeah, but I could take it or leave it,' in some sense, some other sense.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, and I think she could pick up on it but I think it would be transferred, it would have remained conscious for any length of time. Like, it would instead turn into our -

(Pause): [00:39:10 00:39:19]

CLIENT: maybe this reactive response where she fools around with another guy, you know. She starts thinking, 'Oh, no, poor Brandon, or whatever.' (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Well, she's not going to be in a vulnerable position.

CLIENT: Right. Yeah. I guess so. Yeah.

(Pause): [00:39:33 00:39:45]

CLIENT: There are times when I understand the motivation of (unclear) deceit, too. I mean, the difference is if I brought a girl home and [Cleo] (ph) was there I wouldn't sneak in. I would just be like, 'hey [Cleo] (ph), this is this, dat, dat, dat, dat.' And I wouldn't be hiding anything I don't think. On the other hand I don't tell her when I've gone out and got a girl's phone number or something like that. Because there's no reason to. And the -

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It's sweet nothing's are a funny thing where you're telling someone sweet nothings are sort of, what I mean is you're convincing yourself that you're giving them a level of comfort by sort of faking an intimacy or care about them. But what you're really doing is, or what you're doing also is establishing a very, a strong control of the situation trying to sell something trying to sell nothing as something.

THERAPIST: Huh. What is that? What is it?

CLIENT: Well I don't know. If someone thinks you care about them or if there's a relationship which you're not actually invested in but the other person feels invested in it, if they value the relationship more than you do then you have leverage I guess, I guess that's what it comes down to. And so if you put on airs of being able to care about the person or build up the relationship it's more, but you know relates more to your part. I say this with a conviction and awareness also speaking of [Cleo] (ph) I care in some way about this, it's something that's made me madly happy at times in spite of appearance of distress. Also (unclear). [00:42:01]

THERAPIST: Also, what?

CLIENT: I forget.

(Pause): [00:42:05 00:42:45]

CLIENT: I want to work on this. It's like a philosophy of sex so like how it fits in with my life (unclear).

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Because I don't have that. If I had that I'd be able to respond like a 55-year old man, you know. Women stay with me for whatever.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: But I do. When that happens I felt almost like you know when you feel when you're first driving, like you don't know like what you're doing is wrong or you're going to be safe -

THERAPIST: Oh. Huh.

(Pause): [00:42:45 00:43:27]

CLIENT: I also met with an old man recently and we discussed my book, (unclear) [00:43:32] and he was an MIT grad. In sort of questioning my opinions he made me think that I really hadn't done much except profane everything like I'm sort of against you know, university education, I'm against my agenda seems to be not to patronize you know any of the established positive influences of my the established institutions, whether physical or (unclear).

(Pause): [00:44:26 00:44:49]

CLIENT: Yeah, but they the thing I want with Reggie, Edgar and [Cleo] (ph) to tell you the truth, is I want them to lie to me about the way things are because they're telling the truth, that's not how it is. I mean they have no interest in telling me the truth and it sort of lays bare the lengths to which people will dissemble to gain a little bit of an upper hand, interpersonally, at least with me. I feel like I can never be entirely sure of my suspicions of what I'm saying but I'm very sure. You know, I always admit the existence of the other possibilities but I mean all the things she could say such as like, 'you know you're only interested in using my body,' or whatever, or basically trying to make me feel bad because I think she's like called me bipolar and she's said stuff like, 'you need to stop judging people. You have to realize that they're judging you too,' and you know that was just to try to get me to accept some roommate that was not high quality. She comes to my room and says that like seriously and I just stared at her and stood up and closed the door in her face. I mean this is outrageous but that's what I mean. I mean them telling me the truth isn't the way they talk. It's not how it works. I mean, looking at it I sort of see myself in a way. Like there are certain people at church that I talk to, who I sort of patronize in a different sense. I used before I patronized them like I act kind and I listen to (unclear) say, and I pray with them but I have no respect for them at all and, you know, it's in the interest of cultivating a network around myself or something, you know, when I realize that that's how they think of me, that's unacceptable.

THERAPIST: Ah huh.

CLIENT: It also leads me to realize that that's the way things are.

THERAPIST: Again, I think you're trying to be like what is, what is really there with any of these figures in your home? You know, what's really there between you and Edgar? Between you and [Cleo] (ph), between the two of them as opposed to this kind of game playing?

CLIENT: It's almost a return. It is a return to the same feeling I had when I was very young when I would see kids talking with their parents and I would think, you know, 'those fakers.'

THERAPIST: Huh!

CLIENT: You know, it's the same exact thing where I -

THERAPIST: Huh.

(Pause): [00:48:04 00:48:12]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well what I was thinking, too, in all this is how easily it can kind of flip into a position from a sense of like, hey, there's something more we're both relating to one another versus it flipping into a position or using one another.

CLIENT: Yeah. That is funny. I mean you can look at this that way too. You can say, 'capitalist society is exploitive,' or you can say, 'it meets everyone's needs better than any other system,' but (unclear) and intercourse is the same thing.

THERAPIST: Yeah. And it could be used in different ways I suppose.

CLIENT: I mean people need to be used.

THERAPIST: Huh!

CLIENT: People need this. But with the lying roommates, I don't know, like I said, my impulse is just to go on my own path and basically shut down relations. But there is part of me that wants to reconcile it somehow. I just well like this shouldn't stand. Like I said, it's unacceptable. This treatment.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I'm concerned about if I try to confront it or address it, I would fail. I just wouldn't be able to penetrate whatever lies I mean they've had me because of that episode where I sort of went out at night and I checked to see if anyone was in [Cleo'] (ph) room, because I wanted to see for sure. You know, I explained to them, I've been waking up in the middle of the night. You know, I don't know why it's happening, and each one asked me about it and I said I'd talk to them together I told them that together, I said this. So I, I'm not sure why I care about you know, potentially fooling around with each other, but it's something I've sort of vacillated on a lot and I basically explained the situation, but they were willing to put me there and say like, you better explain yourself. You better explain like why you're poking around or like, you know. And you know, put me in a prostrate or have me supplicated in this sort of position of you know, I apologized. I didn't apologize but I explained myself like they would have me apologize for being lost at the expense of their lies.

THERAPIST: I see. Yeah.

CLIENT: So, if I tried to address it, I'm not sure I could get anywhere and at the same time it's not acceptable to me so the best course of action I've devised is just to completely ignore them.

THERAPIST: Right. Well, especially if they can't if you don't feel you can get a real response from them, you know, where they're actually talking to you and leveling with you as opposed to kind of being a furthering of some sort of game or whatever it is.

CLIENT: Yeah. And as a final (unclear) I mean, you probably know what I mean I saw all this coming. When I first slept with Penelope I conceived it as an act to sort of make Edgar jealous. I saw this effort. Like all this awareness and anticipation of emotional tunnels doesn't seem to diffuse it at all. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah, right.

CLIENT: I know the situation before it happens and this stuff hits me.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Oh yeah. All right. Well, listen. Tuesday (whispers) we'll pick it up.

CLIENT: All right.

THERAPIST: (Whispers) Ah yeah, see you later.

CLIENT: See you.

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