A Tale of Two Relationships

➢People see things differently.

You'd think this an obvious statement, but somehow it manages to go right over our heads, so I'll say it again. People see things differently - and this goes double for a relationship. It's part of why we have these sayings like "boys are stupid and girls are crazy," and consistently accuse the other gender of being from a different planet.

Case in point: Matthew Santoro and Nicole Arbour. For roughly eight months this youtuber couple dated, each doing their own channels. Just recently, Matthew released a video in which he described his experience of being in an abusive relationship. He didn't name Nicole in that video, but the implication was more than clear. Shortly after, Nicole released a video entitled, "Abuse Story - My Side of Things," where she categorically denied abusing Matthew, and talked about the overall suckiness of the situation.

Of course, both sides claimed they broke up with the other person. Which I really don't care about. I'm not going to talk about it here. But I've observed a very interesting tendency of the public to take sides, especially when it comes to public breakups. In this case, the public seems to be categorically on Matthew's side - the comments of his abuse video seem to be almost universally supportive.

On the other hand, Nicole's comment section has been generally filled with nastiness.

- And it should come as no surprise. After all, our society makes it a point to stand for victims, and protect those who are hurt, which is never a bad thing. That being said...

I believe both of them.

You read that right.

I think that Nicole didn't see her behavior as abusive, and that she does view the situation as sucky, and she does wish Matthew well - and, I believe that Matthew views the past relationship as abusive, and has been genuinely hurt.

As a recovering douchebag ("recovering"), I've noticed how two sane people can watch the same interaction, and come to completely different interpretations of it. So, let me throw in a few wildly assertive relationship points that might explain exactly why both Nicole and Matthew believe what they believe.

When a strong personality with boundary issues gets in a relationship with a weak personality with boundary issues, the resulting relationship will be dysfunctional. Period.

Nicole Arbour is a strong personality, there's no denying that. On the other hand, Matthew is a sensitive, kind, caring individual who deeply values the input of others. Throw in a bit of crazy-hot-bitch jealousy, and it's unsurprising that Matthew, not being able to enforce his boundaries, quickly found himself cut off from his social life. This brings me to point two:

If you are going to wear the pants in the relationship, you had better take damn good care of your partner's emotional and psychological needs, because in the end you will be held responsible for them.

And Nicole is facing the backlash for that right now. Granted, she probably didn't want to wear the pants in the relationship, but she did, and she didn't do it well, and now she's facing the results of that. Nicole probably wanted to play the standard feminine role in the relationship. That role includes allowing the man to take a greater charge, including enforcement of boundaries. When that man doesn't know how to enforce his own boundaries (let alone take care of his significant other's boundaries)... You get where I'm going here?

Good.

The real thing to understand here is this: a personality that is famous on screen isn't necessarily the best person to be in a relationship with in real life. You may have discovered this any time in the past hundred years of observing Hollywood relationships struggle to achieve a success rate of anything beyond the five minute mark.

Matthew was bad at protecting and enforcing his own boundaries, and got hurt as a result. It genuinely sucks, and my heart goes out to him. No one deserves to be hurt in a relationship. I hope he recovers, and finds a healthy relationship, and gets to a place where he can express his boundaries and have them respected. Everyone deserves that.

Nicole may not have been intentionally abusive, but her strong personality definitely lended a hand in Matthew feeling like he did - and that's something that she will have to figure out how to deal with. One of the great lessons all people with strong personalities must deal with is learning to say no to themselves on the behalf of others - because not enough people say no to them.

Side note: Nicole. Listen darling. You dated a youtuber who puts his whole life on video, and even bragged a couple times about the popularity of your relationship in the public sphere. This may come off as a bit mean, but you should have figured this out already: If you don't want your private life public, don't involve your private life with a man whose job is making public money off his private life.  How hard is that to understand?


Finally: Matthew was right. If you are abused, don't keep silent about it. Tell someone, if only your best friend at first. Even if you are male. As a guy myself, I implicitly get the inherent shame and feeling of "less than" that goes along with admitting to abuse. Here's the thing: if you're being abused, you're already at that stage. And you will only get better by getting help and getting out and getting strong again.

When Midnight Strikes, Will Donald Turn Back Into a Toupee?

➢This post won't have any relevance a decade from now. That being said, it IS relevant now.

I really like the way Trump treats the media, and is destroying PC culture. That's awesome.

But, there are some things that aren't so awesome about him, and it's giving me serious reservations. I think it's pretty obvious by now that Trump has an ego. A big one. Not just a big one, but one that possibly rivals Obama's ego. Now granted, I'd rather have my narcissist in the White House than the progressives' narcissist in the White House, but...

How about at least a narcissist with solid philosophical backing?

And to answer the nay sayers: No, he really doesn't.

Trump may have positions - I don't deny that. He simply has no philosophical roots to his positions; they don't have any deeply held core principles propping them up. That's why a decade ago Donald Trump was perfectly fine with partial birth abortion. He didn't actually care about the issue at the time; he merely said it because he was a New Yorker, and he didn't care, so he picked the most popular "official" position of New York.

Now Trump wants to represent conservatives - so he'll represent conservative positions. But once he's president, what's to stop him from deciding suddenly that he doesn't represent just conservatives; he represents all people. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, because most people have some form of philosophical core. Hell, even Barack Obama, as jaded and narcissistic as he is has a philosophical core (of sorts).

But Donald Trump is a populist. And when he gets into the White House, he may decide that he represents everyone. And he'll pick the loudest people "in the middle" to represent.

Of course, the media controls the perception of what "the middle" is, so while Donald Trump is blasting the media, he's also going to suddenly start doing everything they tell him to do, because he doesn't really have a political opinion of his own. Will he still do great on certain things? Certainly. He will probably do exceedingly well in regards to the economy and America's foreign affairs. But socially, not so much. He simply doesn't care.

Donald Trump is smart enough to destroy the media hold on politics, and officially put an end to any idea of political correctness. That in and of itself has value - and it sends a really clear message to Washington that nobody buys their bullshit any more. But, if Donald gets owned by the media's portrayal of America, then all of this ends up being a big joke.

And Donald has one hell of an ego. Hell hath no wrath like a Donald scorned, but hell is no icier than a Donald pretending nothing ever happened - and we can't ignore the fact that Donald HAS lied about his own words in the past.

Or conveniently forgot, as it may be. I sincerely hope he doesn't conveniently forget any of his campaign promises once he's in office.

Progressive Hatred of Capitalism: a Theory

➢While the particular ideologies of conservatism and progressivism are explained at the fundamental level by r/K theory (and philosophically and emotionally explained by Thomas Sowell and Evan Sayet, respectively), I want to address a nuance of liberalism: the instinctual hatred of capitalism.

Of course, many liberals will loudly proclaim that they don't hate capitalism, "per se." However, I find myself rather unconvinced, when nearly every policy put forth by liberals entails severe regulations on the "free" market, and liberals consistently espouse a near-vile hatred of corporations, and generally anyone successful within the capitalist system (i.e. the majority of rich people).

Consider our poor. Most people with a shred of humanity within them have compassion for the poor, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. And yet, there is a consistent claim levied by the progressive left that  conservatives hate the poor - a claim that has persisted for decades despite studies showing that Republicans give more to charity than Democrats do. There are arguments as to whether the divide is actually religious or political in nature, but the general principle remains: the more 'traditional' or conservative a person is, the more generous they are with their own money (on average).

So why this blatant falsehood? Why is it that progressives, who are more than generous with other people's money, would blatantly push a falsehood?

- As a side note, some liberals will tell you that they're being taxed too. That may be true, but they want the rich and the corporations to be taxed more, and I've yet to see a liberal write a check to the government for the sole purpose of charity. Any person giving this line is being facetious.

The truth is, conservatives view poverty differently than liberals do. Conservatives make a *distinction* between different kinds of poor: the deserving poor, and the undeserving poor. One of the primary reasons why conservatives prefer to keep their money and donate via choice is their ability to decide who to give it to. The incredible waste and frivolous expenditures of the government make a second, incredibly compelling reason.

The conservative is perfectly fine with giving help to people who are truly in a scrape, and who genuinely are trying to get out - but they have very little tolerance of people who are simply lazy and looking to get a free ride. Moreover, Conservatives believe that personal intervention is vastly more effective than impersonal money-throwing.

So with this in mind, this is my proposal for why progressives hate capitalism and insist on government charity over personal:

1) Laziness - As we established beforehand, progressives are statistically less likely to give to charity. Why put forth effort to actually figure out who's worth helping out when you can just let the government take a cut of your paycheck and sloppily do it for you? Related to number one is...

2) Self-doubt - or more specifically, self-doubt of the American people. In the same way that the average American thinks they're a better driver than average (spoiler: I'm a terrible driver), it'd be no surprise for us to discover that most progressives think themselves as charitably average as well. And given their poor charity rates, switching America from government charity to private charity would be a night mare... if progressives were the average. Luckily, they are a minority in America.

3) The undeserved poor - this is the big one. And because of that, I'm switching back to paragraph format.

You'll see a strain of thought within many progressive posts, comments, articles, etc, regarding wealth - that it is unearned. Every time a progressive complains about the rich, and how evil they are, and how bad corporations are, they include a tiny implication: "this person or company is evil, and their wealth is undeserved. That's why I think they should be taxed so highly - I want their wealth taken away and given to someone else. Preferably me - oh and those other unfortunate poor too." Progressivism doesn't believe in capitalism, because progressives are anti-competition. And because they don't think wealth is undeserved, they're against discriminating against the undeserving poor - because that would mean them.

On the other hand, most conservatives aren't afraid of discriminating against the lazy poor and undeserving poor in society. Why?

Simple. Conservatives believe in competition. And that means they're willing to try and fail for what they believe in, and because they're willing to try, they're not the undeserving. But you'll rarely (if ever) hear a progressive admit to this. Why?

Because up to 80% of drivers think that they're above average in driving - and we all know that's impossible.

Don't get it yet? Try this quote on for size:

"It's very hard to get a man to understand something when his very livelihood depends on him not understanding it" - Stefan Molyneux