TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Oh, did you want me to write back? I could have written you back?

CLIENT: Well it's two thirty five. I was going by the clock and it was a different time. THERAPIST: Oh okay. Yeah that's right, it's a couple of minutes different than mine. I see. So (very long pause) [00:02:10]

CLIENT: So the last I guess we met, I forgot, were we Tuesday a while ago or something?

THERAPIST: Yeah, about week and a half ago.

CLIENT: Yeah. After that, I'd sort of been [casting up] (ph).. I forget what happened. Maybe that was after my trip to Vancouver.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Okay. Yeah, but right after that I just was Oh yeah, I had fixed my flat tire. So I went over to the meeting house and a lot of the whats-a-ma-callits were there, the center residents. And so I asked them to open the storage room for me so I could some (inaudible at 00:02:58) or whatever I would need. But the thing was just riddled with (inaudible) so I had to get carts (ph) and whatever.

The point was by the time I had gotten my products and come back it was kind of late. I had had a few conversations with the girl there. And so we decided to go out and sort of drink a bottle of wine on the River. And it was nice. I felt like I established a pretty quick connection to her through talking about the Hamptons.

And I mentioned something about the Hamptons or my grandfather building a house there after the war and my experiences as a kid. And she said, "Oh my gosh, you're explaining (ph) my life."

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: We, you know, I was holding her and whatever. She wouldn't kiss me though. It was kind of weird.

THERAPIST: She wouldn't kiss you?

CLIENT: She wouldn't. Or if I like I tried and she just wouldn't let me. I don't know. [00:04:03]

THERAPIST: But holding each other.

CLIENT: Right. Sure. I take that now she must have Well I don't know. [I don't know what she was doing.] (ph) Yeah, so we kind of agreed to meet on Monday. I asked her what she wanted to do, she asked about if I cook. I said, yeah, I could probably cook you some stuff. But she said she doesn't eat no kind of meet or eggs and like all kinds of shit. So she said she would make something, that she'd come over and like watch Madmen or something. So that was good.

I went away for the July Fourth weekend. Actually, we both went to different parts of the Hamptons. And she just sort of reconnected with her family and I went to reconnect with mine. The weekend started out for me, my cousin Seth, the engineer, whose parents I feel like look down on me or something. It's not necessary to go into extensive detail, but we had arranged to sort of, he asked me if I wanted to ride down. You know, I hadn't seen the family for a while or been out to the Hamptons for a while. [00:05:22]

He said, "Oh, you want a ride down?" And I said, "Oh, I'll think about it." And that was maybe two weeks before. And then so two days before I sent Facebook messages and e-mails saying, you know, "When are you coming to pick me up?" Or, "What do you want to do?" I had the option of taking off Thursday and Friday or just Friday, so I wanted to sort of coordinate with him to see when he was going on.

But he just didn't respond so I ended up having to sort of hustle for a bus ride. I mean literally, I just like ran through Providence with a guitar and a backpack with my swim trunks in it -

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: to catch a bus to get down there on July Fourth. So I took -

THERAPIST: No word back from him?

CLIENT: No word back. So I got there and it's one of those things that's just kind of, it's cold. I would never bring it up. It's just it's not really something I could forgive. So I just went down there and it was very different from any other experience I've had there, because I wasn't I can't say it's gone for good but I wasn't catering to this idea of being sensitive to the family's needs. Or trying to fit in to, you know, my aunts and uncles ideas of how things work. [00:06:55]

I was me and they were going to get used to it. And it was alright. I also, it's unusual because it's like they, my aunts and uncles, have sort of stocked the place and it's like their liquor, their food. But I just kind of used it without feeling too bad about it.

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: I did a few chores over the course of the weekend.

THERAPIST: This cousin never said anything to you?

CLIENT: No, no. But I got there and we had a cookout and then we played basketball. Yeah, like first thing I show up, I show up by my sister's boyfriend, the French guy, he's there and he said, "Are you okay?" And I started giving him my quizzical look and he said, "Are you okay?" I'm showing up, I'm, you know, tan and I think I look pretty good. I have all my stuff, I just took a bus down. And he's French so I say, "Do you mean 'How's it going?'" or something like that. [00:08:03]

So it's just we went up and played basketball and my team did pretty well. And it got kind of physical on the brother, you know the brother, the younger brother of the kid who didn't give me the ride, I sort of roughed him up a little bit and he sort of left the game.

THERAPIST: Hm. Was it payback?

CLIENT: I said, "You guys had enough? " (laughs) There was a pause and then, "I think we're going to down to the house now." And I said, "Yeah, that's right." And it was that kind of stuff. Or that's how I look at it. I mean I played a song that night and I knew it was good, but it was strange because it didn't register.

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: Like it was great. It was "Lone Star" by Howard Jones. Do you know that one?

THERAPIST: I don't.

CLIENT: Well it's good. But it's just maybe it's not what they're used to or whatever. But it was like, I know it's good, but after I played people started like packing up and leaving. I feel like pretty strange. [00:09:04]

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: Well that's the tone. It's like I'm just there and I am who I am and, you know. I'm not fitting in all that well but it's, you know, kind of it's like a military outlook. I'm just sort of there and there's conflict and I'm, I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I was thinking that it seems to me that you feel this sense of, my sense is that you feel like there's this sense of being somewhat of an outsider now based upon kind of where you are with work and career and all that stuff to them. And you feel kind of like they look at you with some kind of mix of sympathy and kind of some vague disappointment or something.

CLIENT: They do.

THERAPIST: And you try to feel like, "Wow," I mean it must feel lousy. And what are you supposed to do except for try to steel yourself to all that? Kind of who wants to be [00:10:15]

CLIENT: Yeah. It is. It's like that. Although I hadn't made the connection to my career, my work. That's certainly part of it. But I like these people and I value my connection to them, but it seems like it' conditional upon that sort of doting some sort piteous energy directed towards me. I have no idea, you know. But yeah, everyone drank a little bit.

But it's strange because the cousins have grown older and my oldest cousin on that side was interested in beer pong. So I played beer pong and the cellar instead of smelling like sort of the warm, it's like a venerable cedar smell that usually sits in the cellar, it smelled like disgusting beer. [00:11:14]

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: Grit, mold. But, anyway -

THERAPIST: Hm. Unpleasant.

CLIENT: What's that?

THERAPIST: Unpleasant odor, yeah.

CLIENT: Oh yeah. Yeah. (pause) There was this 5K that everyone was set on running that's down by the beach. Just an informal thing. There are some professional runners but some not. It supports the community (inaudible at 00:11:49) or something just at the beach we all go to. And so everybody was interested in running that.

After the night, Friday night, a lot of people drank a lot and so about half as many people decided to actually run or were awake in time to run. I was one of those people. I didn't sleep much and I drank too. But it started at eight thirty and I got up at like seven forty and took a shower and started to eat.

At eight twenty I was finishing my bowl of cereal in my underwear when I took this rickety bike down to the beach. I got twenty dollars out of an ATM and then biked to the registration table and laid it out. And as I was at the registration table like two hundred runners behind me took off. The race started. (laughs)

So they threw a number at me and four safety pins and they're like, "Put it on as you go."

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: So I took my time actually. I needed to give them my accessories, like my hat and sunglasses and change and all that, and get it out of my pockets. So they got like a two minute head start.

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: But I still beat the half the field and I beat everyone in my family, more importantly.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: So I was making this shit a I feel like I established myself and I sort of, I don't know. [00:13:08]

THERAPIST: Yeah, established yourself. What, what?

CLIENT: That's too strong. I, in some Brandon sense, of putting them in their place. (laughs) But it's not like a happy time it's just like a shallow satisfaction.

THERAPIST: No, I hear, yeah.

CLIENT: So that's what the weekend was like for me.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: And that girl I was talking about, for her, I guess during the weekend her father left or something, her family.

THERAPIST: Left the family?

CLIENT: Right. I mean, from my point of view, you know, I'm waiting there Monday night having had this sort of dry and arrogant (ph) and average experience with my family. And I'm just really sort of banking on the cool touch of a woman or something.

THERAPIST: Mm.

CLIENT: Being cooked for, whatever. And, you know, she bows out because her father left her family. I don't care if her whole family is massacred (laughs), all I sense is I'm being stood up. [00:14:16]

THERAPIST: Ah. Uh huh. Well, yeah.

CLIENT: Right. So I don't know how to delve into that.

THERAPIST: Delve into that? Well how do you mean?

CLIENT: Well, my first response is to be like, "Do you always chicken out this dramatically?" Because we had a real connection and she, even at that time, she would send like We'd have this conversation and she was saying how I'm a man so I'm scary. And I said, "Well, (laughs) I've always wondered about that. What's scary about men?"

And she's like, "Oh, they might take my heart and break it into little pieces." She had these concerns about loving someone too much and then it's not reciprocated and whatever.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: So, I felt like that was a big part of it for her, whatever her excuse was nominally.

THERAPIST: And then she said her father leaves the family.

CLIENT: Right. So it's like I sort of hesitate before shooting back a response like that, and instead decided to take the solicitous act. [00:15:24]

THERAPIST: She might want to know what you're going to do.

CLIENT: It's just me feeling vulnerable, you know. And now, you know, I've made contact with her again. And I think she still has interest in me, but it's this sort of thing where I, at the advice of Edgar, my roommate, I sort of said (laughs) something like, I said like, I used "I" statements and I said like, "I really like you but I feel like I might like you more than you like me. So I'm probably going to back away." And then she said something back with "I" statements, saying like, "You know, that's probably safe for us both that I back away."

But then every text message I send her she sends these long ass text messages. Like she says, "I'm busy with work this week." And I'm like, "Oh, what's work like." And she sends like twenty lines of text describing everything that she's doing. She gave me her schedule for the entire week. [00:16:24]

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: I don't know. I'm not, in these situations, I'm not sure whether I should jump on this and say like, "Let's meet at this time," or whether I should just take her sort of cues to leave as poor indications. Where I stand now, I saw her on Tuesday and the way she was is that she takes this tone.

I don't know if she's watched too much "Law and Order" or something, but it's like she's explaining the hard facts of life to me. (laughs) And I'm just listening but it sounds kind of ridiculous coming from her, I think.

THERAPIST: What were the hard facts?

CLIENT: You know, like, "My Dad leaving the seven year old girl at home. She's seven years old. What's he going to do when she's smoking a cigarette?" And like, "Seven year old girl," da da da. Some sort of punctuation in the -

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: in the delivery. And so I feel like I'm being relegated to that, I don't know. I feel like there's some other guy involved and she's just not saying anything. Because who doesn't kiss you when you're like embraced or you know lying together on the grass? It's just weird. [00:17:40]

THERAPIST: Maybe, right.

CLIENT: I also, I could have pushed it at that point and probably had sex with her that night because, first of all, I have a key to where she lives. And although she's kind of pushing away verbally I think she probably would have taken me in.

THERAPIST: She what? That Tuesday night?

CLIENT: Yeah. Because she said something like what she was worried about, like (inaudible at 00:18:12) or whatever, da da da da da da. And so she has these defenses but, you know, once she's with someone all the walls come down and she's completely whatever, completely open. So I said, "Yeah. I would be wanting to allow that to exist." Or, "I'd be happy if that existed even if it wasn't for me necessarily." So I didn't push on that occasion but maybe I should have. Who knows?

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: But it leaves me feeling like I can't be myself though. Because my response to these things is kind of like I feel like she's not being straight with me in certain instances.

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: Or there are certain key -

THERAPIST: You don't believe her.

CLIENT: Yeah, but at this rate she's just describing Like her parents were already separated and -

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: She's making it out like she's incredibly busy all the time. And if that's a ploy I don't really care. It's just like maybe I'm too sensitive to that stuff. But before she was trying to help me. That Tuesday night she was saying like, "You know, I'm available this day and this day." She proposed the date after the weekend to meet again. [00:19:32]

Now it's just like I can't. I can't do anything. I'll text her to like, "Hey, so you want to talk about something on the phone?" And she's like, "I can't. I have work." Or, you know, I started singing a song and I said, "Do you want to hear a song?" And she said, "I can't, I have work." Or, "I can't," because she goes up to [visit her Mom] (ph), or whatever.

So it's sort of a sad thing for me because I actually felt this is not just some shallow principle thing. Like I felt a genuine connection, especially with the Hamptons thing.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And maybe it's just a door that is shut. That seems like that's what that means symbolically. So I just can't really climb back to that.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. It's also she really did kind of, you know, open up to some extent and then she goes to this business of, "My father's left." Something about the dangers of men. [00:20:37]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: She sounds kind of trepidatious. Huh.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. And I think you're also saying, God, you felt like a taste of a certain degree of intimacy and wanted more.

CLIENT: Yeah. Exactly. But I think she thinks that I'm like on a string or something.

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: Like a victim of love or something. But, you know, in the past I would be sort of emotionally invested and probably angry at her for trying to manipulate me or something. And now I think I sort of recognize the same machinations that have bothered me in the past. But instead of being angry I'm just sort of puzzled. (laughs)

I mean I feel like I'm, I mean I'm not incredibly attractive, but I look alright. I'm pretty popular in terms of where she lives and works. [00:21:46]

THERAPIST: What do you think? Do you think she likes you?

CLIENT: I think That's just it. I don't understand why she's not like crazy to meet with me or something.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: It sounds like such a stupid thing but that's exactly how I feel. I was just like that's my (laughs) query or my puzzlement or bewilderment. I just don't understand.

THERAPIST: Mm hm.

CLIENT: How am I not intensely desirable? (laughs)

THERAPIST: Mm hm. Well I guess you get the feeling, though, that she does like you. That she finds you appealing, and yet she's kind of, you know, trepidatious.

CLIENT: I think she, at this point, she feels like I'm too available because I've been the one always pushing her. Although she responds with these huge text messages it's just kind of me sort of thing. [00:22:40]

THERAPIST: Well, you know, it doesn't seem like you've been I mean, I guess you've been pushing it in response to kind of this ambivalence that she shows you. But I don't hear you, you know, climbing down her throat. You know, like it didn't seem to me like you were desperate to see her, you know, and start text messaging her or calling her. I mean, it seemed more like (laughs) she seemed to, as you were saying, your thought about her What did she do? She cancelled plans?

CLIENT: Yeah, she cancelled. I texted her the night before to confirm and she texted back at like four in the morning saying her father left.

THERAPIST: I don't think it had much to do with you being available as much as something inside of her that's, you know.

CLIENT: I saw her like two days later. She seemed like she was genuinely grieving. She [looked pretty bad.] [00:23:46]

THERAPIST: Well, yeah, you seem to equate a lot of kind of like women's, you know, ambivalence towards you to have to do a lot with you being too eager.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Like your eagerness is a turn off.

CLIENT: Something like that, yeah. I recognize it as a strength. Like your ability to share things that are intimate, or to put significance out there, significant emotional feelings, sort of significant personal experience on the table, I guess.

THERAPIST: I think you do too. But I think there's also another side to it which is that it makes you feel like you've put too much of yourself out there.

CLIENT: Exactly, yeah.

THERAPIST: And now they have a certain amount of I mean there really is a certain amount of power, a certain amount of like they have the right to say "yay" or "nay."

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) (inaudible at 00:25:02) So I feel like I can't be myself. It's weird. Like I wish this were something that just came naturally. I feel sexually impoverished.

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: And I wouldn't talk about it so much if I were getting what I needed.

THERAPIST: Mm hm.

CLIENT: Or a natural part of me. I think I talk about it a lot because I just need some sort of outlet.

THERAPIST: [It's frustrating. Wow.] (ph)

CLIENT: I'm frustrated. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I get to this dreaded phase where I'm text messaging or Facebook messaging someone. Like we're supposed to meet and then we start messaging and don't have them. And it's like I want to kill the person or kill myself.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Or I have no idea. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Hm hm.

CLIENT: I'm just in a rut.

THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause) Yeah, I mean, you're feeling very, you know I think what, as you just put it, really want sexual connection. You want to feel a body. [00:26:04]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And yet, when you do I think you feel this terrible vulnerability too, because it's really, you really, really want it.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. It's almost unfair because it's so valuable -

THERAPIST: Mm hm.

CLIENT: and I'd love to, not just the body, but another spirit -

THERAPIST: Mm.

CLIENT: as conveyed through a body.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: I mean I've taken conscious steps to pursue this. And it makes me think maybe I'm trying to hard or it's too convoluted. I'm not being myself. But at the same time if I sort of shut that door, which I've been thinking about for a while. If I just shut that door and said, "Okay, I'm not going to, you know, go pussy hunting anymore," inevitably, no matter how much I build myself up, let's say tomorrow I'm on the cover of Time Magazine as some business magnate, it doesn't matter. [00:27:09]

It's still like there's no way that that temptation is not going to be able to return me to rubble. (laughs) It doesn't matter. Like no matter where I'm at, you know, I'd give up everything just to have that.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I'd let everything else go. And really these past few weeks I haven't been doing much. After that Monday when she bailed out, it affects me the whole week. It was just like I really needed this.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I had sort of burned, I burned. I don't know how to phrase this right, but I sort of burned the home when I went back to the Hamptons. I beat the race. (laughs) I just sort of took, I don't know, almost like an angry protagonist to look at the whole family and pass them by indifferently.

THERAPIST: Mm.

CLIENT: There was some expectation of having the satisfaction of the real world, and then this relationship unexpectedly falls through.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: And I spent the rest of the week with my weed, smoking pot, watching (inaudible at 00:28:16). And I just, I was not happy.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: And I've been doing nothing. I mean, I just work a couple hours and then I go home. And I sit in the air conditioning and I don't do anything. Like I'm supposed to be working. I talked to the mayor. It's the second time I've met him and told him he had to see the same guy at the same senior center. And I'm not [acting out] (ph) for the grocery business. I just have no motivation.

THERAPIST: Mm hm.

CLIENT: I need something and I'm not getting it. And the harder I try the harder it slips away, it seems like.

THERAPIST: Yeah, something about having, you know, the idea of Are you saying like the idea of having this What's her name? What's her first name?

CLIENT: June.

THERAPIST: So having the interaction with June, maybe the possibility of sex, yeah. But something with her, it seems like, is critical, in that it kind of felt like, "Oh, I can do a lot. I want to be out in the world," and all this. And, "I can handle my parents and all this if you have June." And then when you lost, it was like you lost a lot of will. [00:29:40]

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) Yeah. And I'm just puzzled. I mean the same phase where I'm like, "I'm great." (laughs) I'm like intellectually I don't feel I have very low confidence in general, but I also recognize that I'm pretty smart.

THERAPIST: Yup.

CLIENT: I'm not terrible looking. You know I'm pretty adept socially. I have all these great characteristics. For all they know I'm rich as fuck. And I just don't understand why stuff doesn't happen. It's like I'm looking at myself like a picture, you know, and it's a pretty good picture. And I don't understand what's the next step.

THERAPIST: Why the response.

CLIENT: Or I don't understand (inaudible at 00:30:37). And I don't grasp the next step. It just slips out of my reach. It's like I'm great and I look at them as a picture and I say, "Well, that's a cool person." You know? And just nothing happens. They just remain in separate frames and it just pisses (laughs), it drives me crazy. It debilitates my life. I feel like -

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I'm just sitting in my own little frame and just like a car or a bicycle, it's just running (ph) through traffic. You never touch anything, you just ride around in circles with no contact.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And then Friday (ph) I was thinking of I sort of spurned my parents' patronage because it seems to come with this sort of pity or something.

THERAPIST: Mm.

CLIENT: Or something that's not healthy for my individuation. And at the same time, though, I'm taking patronage from other sources that know me less well. Like certain individuals that I've been meeting. They'll buy me dinner, buy me lunch. or I go out to get [me food] (ph) all the time. This guy gave me money for pizza so I could go to the Young Adult Friends event. It's just like I'm (laughs) kind of a whore, but I'm taking money from different people and taking favors from different people. [00:31:57]

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: I'm not a whore but like one of those women who just depend on someone else.

THERAPIST: Mm. Mm hm.

CLIENT: It's just switching, switching patrons in some sense.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what I sense though is that you don't feel necessarily pity from these people.

CLIENT: That's right. That's right. That's it. (pause) Also, I'm looking forward to the family reunion on my mother's side at the end of the month. But my mother's brother he offered me suits. I don't know what to do. I feel like I should take the suits from my uncle but I have one suit I bought myself for ten dollars. It's pretty good. [00:33:00]

THERAPIST: Well, what do you feel about the offer?

CLIENT: Well I don't want my mother to be involved. I could use suits, I guess, but it's almost like that too. I mean after that weekend, the July Fourth weekend, and June not coming over, I haven't been doing anything. I've just been on my heels just kind of showing up for work. You know? Just getting by and showing up.

THERAPIST: Mm. But not feeling motivated or interested.

CLIENT: Yeah. No. No.

THERAPIST: Engaged.

CLIENT: Yeah. I'm not seizing any opportunities.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: It's like there's no purpose to anything.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think yeah, I mean June in a way is a I mean, I was thinking one thing that seems to come from a woman for you, not just the physical needs and the kind of connection of minds, but some way that somebody feels good about you. You know, like a really clear sense of being loved (laughs) and valued in some way that I think you're needing. [00:34:26]

CLIENT: Yeah. I guess so.

THERAPIST: You know, I hear that in the frustration you feel. Like, "Well, why the hell can't this " I mean, "What is June not seeing?" (laughs) You know? Like, why?

CLIENT: Yeah. I guess I'm kind of like an acrobat but how often are you going do these spectacular things just for nobody? (laughs)

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: You need some kind of audience.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I think it would fun practice with another acrobat.

THERAPIST: Hm. How do you mean?

CLIENT: (laughs) It isn't explicitly sexual.

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: You know, I was thinking, all I thought was that a pair of acrobats that liked practiced together it would be fun. It would be pretty engaging. [00:35:30]

THERAPIST: Hm. (pause)

CLIENT: Yeah. That's real though. I mean the being too available. It's not just like, maybe I make it real by how much I believe it in it or how I act, but if you put too much on the table people just feel like they can (pause)

THERAPIST: They can what?

CLIENT: I'm not sure if what I was about to say is true, but I feel this need to manage someone's, you know, just the other person's idea of how they can treat me. Or manage their idea of how much they can pull on me. [00:36:35]

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: That I can go visit June right now if she's there, but I'm at the point where I'm kind of like vacillating. I'm thinking maybe I should just cut her off because I feel like she's just taking me for granted already.

THERAPIST: What if you went to see her? What were you thinking if you went by to see her?

CLIENT: What if I would?

THERAPIST: I just noticed you saying, "I could go by and see her right now."

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, probably nothing would come of it.

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: The only thing that would come of it is just like her having another chip or something.

THERAPIST: More demonstration of how much you need her.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: (laughs) And I do need but I can't let on that I do. That makes me feel fake. And the thing is I can't express my cynicism. That makes me feel like I can't be myself in these courtship situations. [00:37:41]

THERAPIST: Yeah, What do you Cynicism more generally? That general trait or about the -

CLIENT: These women. The excuses they come up with.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: I just want to be like, "Are you for real?" (laughs) I mean -

THERAPIST: "I don't buy this."

CLIENT: Do you actually -

THERAPIST: Well, I think you're right though. Listen, I think you're right to sort of see through the BS. But what I think, though, is that maybe what you think is behind the BS might be different than what you think. I'm thinking with June, there's something about her fear of men here. You know?

You're right, she's giving you maybe something about, "My father just left the family." And maybe there is some legitimate feeling. But why would that prevent her from still hanging out?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Maybe you can kind of hang out.

CLIENT: Yeah. Exactly.

THERAPIST: But she's sort of saying, I think, maybe in some way, all this imagining or feeling like, "I just had one guy leave me, the hell if I'm going to let some other guy do that." You know? Is that what she was communicating in all that? "I don't know that I can trust you, Brandon. I don't know." [00:38:50]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And that being what's behind that. Especially with somebody who seemed so interested in her.

CLIENT: Hm.

THERAPIST: Who seems open and available.

CLIENT: Well that's great then, but why can't she say that? You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. She can't or she can, I don't know. Maybe she could. I don't know. (laughs)

CLIENT: She's giving me a lot of order (ph) crap.

THERAPIST: She's giving you a lot of order (ph) crap. Right.

CLIENT: It's true. But I can't broach the subject because I don't want it to be serious, I just want it to be playful.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: I don't want to bring up this conversation. It's like that's the thing. While she's looking for excuses, or I feel like she's looking for excuses or she's looking for She's like baleful. She's always complaining about shit. She's like before I -

THERAPIST: She's what-ful?

CLIENT: Baleful. Before I had the connection moment it's like, you know, I would see her out at the meeting house and I'd just be like, "Oh, so what are you doing?" And she's like, "Oh, I have to clean up this stuff." Or I said, "Oh, you want to out dancing?" And she's like, "No, I have to work." And that kind of thing. And she's like she means that she's (laughs) suffering. You know? [00:40:10]

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: It's part excuse but it's also like she's really, it's that sort of like maybe grad school or law school, the complaint department's always open [and doing great] (ph) business.

THERAPIST: (laughs)

CLIENT: People bitching about their work and shit.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: That sort of stuff.

THERAPIST: What does she What's her story? What does she do?

CLIENT: She's a law student, thirty one. She's studying really interesting stuff. I feel like she (inaudible at 00:40:42) the rights of adolescents.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: (inaudible) But while she's looking at the negative side of things and the complaining or that, you know, I'm looking for a fight. You know, I'm not looking for a solution. I'm not looking to like There are tons of openings. I mean she gave her whole schedule. So I could have been like, "Huh, it seems like you have a time on Thursday." She gave me her whole schedule for the week.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: "On Thursday where you could, you know, go out for a drink or whatever." And instead of doing that I just like, you know, I'm there but I just say, "Why don't I play a song for you?" And she says, "No I can't." [I know she does have work,] (ph) but I'm just, I'm looking for a fight.

THERAPIST: (laughs)

CLIENT: I just want to be like, "You're not real." Or, "Your excuses are bullshit." And that's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for a solution. So I'm sort equally ridiculous. [00:41:43]

THERAPIST: I see. Does it feel at all like she dangles certain things by giving an opening on a Thursday, for instance, and then it opens a door for you to ask her? But then she could easily just take it away.

CLIENT: It doesn't feel like she's You know, I didn't take that opportunity.

THERAPIST: Okay. Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: I certainly have that fear that if I did then she would -

THERAPIST: She would say, "No."

CLIENT: say, "No, I can't do that." But it doesn't seem like she's I mean I've seen some operators and not she's at least not as bad as some of the people I've seen. (laughs) It doesn't seem like -

THERAPIST: Yeah. But she's also not initiating, is the other thing.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: She's not saying, "Hey, I've got this Thursday. I want to see you."

CLIENT: Yeah. It seems like women make the final choice, but I also feel like if I don't take action nothing happens.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Which is bewildering.

THERAPIST: It's like dancing. (laughs)

CLIENT: Yeah. It's like that somehow (ph). [00:42:45]

THERAPIST: The guy has to go up and ask and the power is in the woman to Well, I guess there's power in the asking too.

CLIENT: When I was down at the Hamptons I was playing catch with my brother. We played like [pickle] (ph) in the water. Well first what happened was there was my sister, her boyfriend, my brother and me. We were sort of wading into the water and I just started tossing the ball. But what was my concern is that we all played together and it seemed like my sister and her boyfriend were sort of going off and maybe talking about doing something else.

So I started walking towards the group because I was farther up in the sea. But my brother threw the ball past me so I had to swim back and get it. And I threw it back to him and then I started walking towards my sister and her boyfriend again. And my brother threw the ball past me, so I had to swim out and get it again. And so I didn't swim out and get it again, I just let it sit there. So I looked at my brother and sort of walked towards the group so I could talk to them. [00:43:59]

It was almost like I sort of failed there. It's like I lost my sister almost. They were already, I don't want to make myself [feel like this] (ph) -

THERAPIST: No, no, what were you thinking though?

CLIENT: Well, it's like they, you know her boyfriend went up to get the tennis ball and then they went off and did their thing.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: And I kept trying to play with my brother, but as I was throwing it to him he just took the ball and walked out of the water. So what do I do in that situation? I'm sort of in the ocean and, you know, my brother, I love my brother, but he's one of the few people who could actually hurt me. You know? I'm out in the water and he takes the ball and he just leaves.

THERAPIST: Hm.

CLIENT: And, you know, it might be a similar situation with women. If you think about dancing or anything else.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I've put something out there, I want to play, basically.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But there's nothing that stops me from just being in that situation where I'm just at sea -

THERAPIST: At sea, yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: I don't know what action to take in that situation. [00:45:15]

THERAPIST: Yeah. And you ended up What did you do? You just left the ball out there?

CLIENT: Well before I did and then her boyfriend got it. Yeah, I just let it out there.

THERAPIST: Hm. Did you feel like he was doing it so he could just continue to have the private moment with your sister? Was that the feeling?

CLIENT: No. It was my brother throwing the ball.

THERAPIST: Yeah. But he kept making you go back in the water? Right?

CLIENT: Yeah. It was very close. I don't think he did it intentionally, but the effect was the same. I was being drawn away from the intercourse with the rest of them.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So I just got pissed off. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Huh. (pause) I was thinking that in a way it sounded like it would have been, again, this kind of like exposure or even been revealing like how much you wanted to be around them. [00:46:30]

CLIENT: If I did what?

THERAPIST: Yeah. When you left the ball behind and walked towards them. That's sort of saying, "I don't give a shit about the ball, I want to be with you guys."

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And yes, it sort of again, that feeling of how bad you need it and want it.

CLIENT: Hm.

THERAPIST: That's what I sense. Kind of like, you know, asking June out on a date on a Thursday. Like it would be revealing. "I want you." And you're putting your neck out there. (pause)

CLIENT: Right. In the situation in the water, though, I came off like an asshole. That's what it seems like to people.

THERAPIST: Huh. (pause) I'm just realizing it's two and half weeks since we met, not a week and a half. [00:48:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. It's been pretty hard.

THERAPIST: It has.

CLIENT: I've needed to talk to you -

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: a couple times.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Or it felt that way.

THERAPIST: It was a hard That Fourth and then June really punched the stomach.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, yeah. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well we're where we have to stop. But, yeah, it seems like we just got back in to it.

CLIENT: (laughs)

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Yeah. (clapping sound) (pause)

THERAPIST: How'd you like the Hamptons (ph).

CLIENT: It was great.

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