Latest / Head Shrink Inc. / Interview with Dr. Pepper Schwartz

Transcript

Interview with Dr. Pepper Schwartz · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey y'all, Doc David here.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: We are having a special guest today.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, listen in.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You are listening to Hedge Drinking, your ancestor life, relationships, and daily living.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome back.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's day 10,300 of the quarantine.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Where I'm at, at least.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's what day it is for you in the quarantine.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or stay home order in your various state wherever you're listening from.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I I'm wanting to do something a little bit more unique.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm wanting to start having um some guests on to talk about just life and kind of their experiences with life.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I and one of the things I like to do is um talk to people about people that interest me, right?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: People that have different stories.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I have a c some other people that I may be having on.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: But today, our first guest I want to introduce is Dr.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Pepper Schwartz.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Am I saying that correctly?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right, great.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: So so um I I think I've I've seen your name.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're on LinkedIn, right?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh we've never met in person, I don't think.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I I saw your name before I linked up with you on um LinkedIn, and I think I remember you because of your names unique, right?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's not many people named Pepper.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um not so many.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was I was curious what is the origin of that name?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's my brother's suggestion.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was 14 and I was going off on a a trip, and uh my legal name at that time, I changed it at 21.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: My legal name at that time when I was born was um Judith.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And um I was in a place where there were three Judy Schwartzes, and um I just couldn't handle it.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I was a cheerleader, and two of and one of them was a cheerleader.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was kind of like, no, I need a name.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was going away on a trip, but I knew no one, and my brother and I stayed up all night thinking of one, and among the many he suggested was Pepper, and I said, That's it, and he says, I'm kidding.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I'm not, that's it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I made my parents introduce me to these kids that didn't know me as Pepper, so I had a summer to see if I liked the name.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then when I came back, I told all my friends I had this new name.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: They said, you know, go jump in the lake, right?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: But um over time it stuck, and then 21 I changed it legally, and actually just changed it again because um I had not uh a two pepper because uh turns out I had an early passport with that other name floating around.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: I had to clear it up, but it's been pepper since pretty much 14 to begin with and 18 solid.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: That that is a great story.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like my name, uh I have a boring name, and if you Google it, it's I'm either a uh killer on death row in Oregon, a dentist, or a dead rabbi for that lived in uh Germany or something.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So uh not good choices.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: What those aren't good choices.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think you're the star of the group.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I I to light when I introduce myself to new clients, I say, yeah, if you search me on Google, these are who you find to kind of lighten the lighten the uh air when people first meet me.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so that is that's a great story.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I like that story.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um so now can you give me, rather than me try to explain uh all of your uh all of the things that you're currently doing, um I know you're teaching, you're uh on a TV show, um writing tons of books.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: So what are you what's what's currently going on in Pepper's life?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the overall summation of it is that I'm interested in intimate relationships and you know I pursue the um knowledge of them and the remediation of things gone wrong in different ways.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um so as a university professor, a professor of sociology, you know, I teach courses on intimate relationships or human sexuality.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: That sociology of sexuality has been something of my concern from the very beginning because of the women's movement and the knowledge that you know things really weren't researched about us, they were presumed or designated.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I've taught and then I've written about 25 books, uh, published books that uh were on my research or a compendium of others' research or trying to help people with their their relationships.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Somewhere on Glenn about eight years ago, um, Lifetime Television and Kinetic Content Production Company called me and said, uh, we're gonna do an experimental documentary type uh reality show.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um we're going to um marry people at first sight, we're going to match people and um by science, would you be interested?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I oh, I don't know.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: I thought, well, I at least want to know more.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: And as it went on, you know, that the idea interested me because I thought, well, what if people start with marriage in America?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Of course they do it all over the world, but it's done by parents.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: What if they did it trying to match what we know in terms of compatibility?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what would what what would that initial vow make people do?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: Would they try harder, etc.?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: So um eight years ago I took that sort of leap of faith that you know, do no harm and try and see if people would be interested in such an experiment.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's been a runaway hit.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we have quite a few people who are married and have had kids and things like that.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, of course, that makes me feel very good.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And when it doesn't work out, I feel very bad.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I do I so I have uh as a disclaimer, I don't think I've I probably have talked about this before in my show, but I have seven kids, so I have one son and six girls.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I know it's a lot of kids.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I tell people like I'm not uh LDS or Catholic, people immediately assume that, oh, you must be Mormon or something.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I have always like so I've been working with couples and families for about 20 years, and I think, you know, I think people need to listen to their parents more, um, honestly, when when they're considering a mate.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um because I think most of the time parents know their kids best.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I know in America we're independent and we want to do our own thing and go our own way.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's the the premise of this show's I think interesting um because essentially you you're on a panel with two other people, right?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right, three of us.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then you guys look at something and determine, okay, these these people would be a good match.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, well, it's a lot more complicated than first of all, we get maybe two to three thousand people applying per city.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you do different cities, then we have uh a crew of people that whittle that down to about 300.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um everybody applies from uh like a YouTube uh, you know, like a little interview uh thing that they hand in.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and they get rid of people who are ineligible for various reasons.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: We don't take people who have kids previously married, um, over 40.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: I wish they did, of course.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and um, you know, anybody who looks like they're gonna be a serial killer.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we try and it's about 300.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Then they come and we interview that's half women, half men.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we interview um every single one uh for about 20 minutes, but that's an hour if we look at the three of us.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: There's three, they go through all of us, and we can review each other's films.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, they film out, they they fill out about a 45-page questionnaire of what they are, etc.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then after we get down, we have to get down to about 75 of each of those, males and females.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, they get two psychiatric interviews from an outside contracted service.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: So when that's all done, and believe me, we still get some real problems, but we have really spent, then after that, I go visit, then we get down to about oh, 30 finalists.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: And we only we're gonna have to pick somewhere between three and five couples.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I visit all of their homes, meet at least one family member or close friend, and then I report on that to my colleagues.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And after all that's done, we make our decisions.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, I didn't know that that is whose idea was it to go to talk to family and friends?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Was that from the beginning?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Was that your idea?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm the one that does it, and there was something done it in the original show was done in Denmark, um, but they didn't do it in the way I do it.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a kind of a combination.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that is that is I didn't realize that piece of it.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: That gives me more respect for the show that they're that you're actually willing to go do that.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: So so by the time you choose whoever you choose, they're like they've committed, they're committed to this process.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that is one of the biggest factors.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, every now and then we meet somebody who's a flake who or who's lied to us and done it so well that it got past the psychiatrist and the tests and everything.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: We get somebody that we're sad and embarrassed that they got through the process.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, we are.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's imperfect.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but on the other hand, people who've known each other for a very long time sometimes find terrible surprises once they've been married for a bit.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not to excuse us, just to say we tell people it's risky, you know, we don't pretend that we can know everything about someone we can't, um, particularly under stress, because this is not an easy thing to go through, being an eight-week meet somebody at the altar and then have eight weeks where we monitor and document you and have you do you know exercises and events just to bring you closer, let you know who you've got.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's it's it's not easy, um, but we we try to get to know people at more than surface level.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, that's great.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I I like that idea.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh let's go back a little bit.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: So when you first started off into the field of sociology, um, and I think I read like in the early in the mid-70s, if I'm um I got I I was already a baby professor by 72.
• 10:28
  unknown: Okay.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I was uh went to graduate school from 69.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, 68, I got a master's, and then I went to onto a different school, and then I got my PhD um by uh 72.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was born in 70, so we're a little baby.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're close in age.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what when you first started out, is it did you like uh research?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I loved it.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I mean, there's a part of me that's a detective.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I want to know what causes what.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: I want to know why I observe something, I want to know what people say about their lives as opposed to presume them.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like um one of my motivations when I was at Yale was that um uh a book came out called Everything Everything You Ever Want to Know About Sex or something like that.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I read it and it was just full of presumptions and prejudices about women and biological prejudices.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: I remember one of them was said if you didn't have your your babies by age 25, you know, you risked, you know, you know, having terrible things happen.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, and I thought, well, where's the research on that?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, and then it was like all that, and and and stereotypes of women.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it was probably written by a guy, I imagine.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was written by a guy and it was a bestseller.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Can't remember it.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't, you know, ineffective, it was very effective.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: People were reading it and believing it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I said, um, what am I gonna do to refute this?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: I can't say is to is not, you know, how effective is that?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: I have to do research.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, you know, some people say, oh, publishing perish.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: For me, I wanted to publish, I want to find out, I wanted to have the tools to feel feel like I was finding out something that could be proven right or wrong, you know, not at the 100% level, but at least more than the this is my opinion level.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: My my problem is I want to know all this information as well.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to do the research.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm here for.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm here for, seriously.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Which is um the idea being that everybody should do their best, most favored thing.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're best at what we love.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't if you love knowledge, but you don't love, you know, all the gut work that goes into it, then all you do is you you read and you judge and you look at people's different work and you make us assessments, you know, through your own clinical practice.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: And in a sense, that's the reflexive thing that goes on.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: We give information, you find out if it really fits, it becomes useful and part of the um part of people's practice if it's useful.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: And if it isn't, we go back to the drawing board and find out more.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes, you know, it takes an accumulation of knowledge to believe it, as opposed to one person's work, which might be sloppy, might not be something you want to rely on.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's all it's also why I hired a statistician to do all my um numbers and number crunching, because I suck at number crunching for sure.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: So do you do your own stats or do you have someone else do those?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: I usually get a co-author who really likes to do um the statistical work because I too don't like it.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: But what I do, what I've always done, um is try and find somebody who was much more detail-oriented than I am.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, because you know, I I'm for example, I don't think I wrote, I have maybe not written a book that I didn't do the first draft of.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe one.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, I'm a very fluid and fast writer, um, and I I love to write, but for some people that's their pain point.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: They like to, you know, um crunch the numbers, see what the data tell us.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um now it's two kinds of data.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: One is qualitative, one's quantitative.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very comfortable with qualitative data where I'm reading doing the interviews, reading the research on those interviews using a content analysis uh program.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's easy.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I can understand statistics, but that's not my um that's not my talent.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's perfectly wonderful that you or anyone else says, I don't do that as well.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Let me get somebody who loves it and does it really great.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Why do a mediocre performance onesel's oneself when there's somebody who can do a superior performance and all you have to do is be colleagues?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and the and the um project would come to a virtual standstill.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: If I see so it just wouldn't happen.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: If I was the one left to do because I'd be thinking, I gotta get on that today, and then uh I'll just do it tomorrow.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just get on it tomorrow.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it wasn't until probably about uh two years ago I read this book that said, Why are you work uh I was feeling kind of drained, and I don't know if you experienced this in in your practice.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, because you do you see people on occasion or you just too busy with that?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know I don't do therapy.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what I do is I'll give advice, I'll have I'll see people for two or three times max, and then if they need to go on and have you know true commitment to therapy, I'll give them three recommendations.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that's usually one of the the um you know one of the requirements of of me seeing them, which is if I give you some recommendations for a therapist, you say you'll go.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 16:00
  unknown: Okay.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes people really will talk to me, it's just a chat, they just need to think about a few things, and um, and that's all they want.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm good to that, I'm good for that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't have the kind of life where I can make a commitment to a therapeutic situation long term.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: I need people who do that.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was gonna say back to what you said um had said earlier, like when you love something, you'll do you'll do well at it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was realizing, man, I am not I'm not cut out for individual therapy.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I meet one-on-one with someone, it really tires me, it physically tires me out.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's hard, it's difficult.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy, but then I have a person that works for me that loves working with individuals but can't work with families or couples because that like wears them out.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I I what I encourage new therapists or mid mid-season of life therapists is like find what you love and just focus in on that because you're never gonna get tired of that.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're always gonna have passion for it for sure.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, go ahead.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Just a second.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I did see your dog.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: I did see your dog moving around.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've got I've got uh one dog which is my uh uh what a special needs dog.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's blind and if he doesn't know where I am, he gets upset.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: So okay.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because you I don't know if you saw behind you, but your husband had come in and closed that door.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh I'm sure he was trying to protect me.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you guys are working, you guys are working in tandem.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so what so now uh you know you've written these books and and done research on sex and stuff.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: So so then like I give lots of advice um to couples and families about how they should be doing their parenting or how they should be doing interacting with their partner.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and then I go home and I don't sometimes practice that same advice that I'm giving, right?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like ever I think many people think, oh, your family must be perfect because you know you're giving all this great advice to us.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: So do you run into that as well?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think everybody's imperfect.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't levitate, you know.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think I would have to levitate if I were that perfect.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think the difference is probably uh when I catch myself doing something that I think is not something that I'm proud of or I wouldn't advise, I would advise otherwise against, I tend to recognize it, if not in the very second it's happening, uh, at some point close to it, right?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And make my apologies or you know, work with my partner to make that less likely.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think I think I'm very capable of taking uh accountability for my acts.
• 18:51
  unknown: Yeah.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think that comes from a lifetime of asking other people to do so.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I just it's funny you say that because I just yesterday after work I got home and I was I don't know what it was, I was feeling a little spicy.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so my mother-in-law and my wife were talking about something that just kind of annoyed me.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I asked a very rude question, letting them know I was annoyed.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so then last night I apologized to my wife, right?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like I think that this job, she has told people like this job she has appreciated because it seems like it it does make me more aware of when I do bad in my relationship, right?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: When I and when I need to make amends to my wife.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so what is something that uh moves you emotionally?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh gosh, there's so much.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: I've had tears in my eyes so many mornings these mornings as I listen to the news where I hear these acts of self-circle have put themselves in harm's way to help other people, where they give plasma because they know it could help, even though they must be very hard for them to go back into a medical uh situation after they've had COVID-19.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um where there's been uh this morning they were talking about the people who died, and there was a young girl who looked like she had just this wonderful, brilliant future, and she died at 18, I guess.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, those things when I think of the loss of a wonderful life, the people getting cheated out of their share of a life cycle, people who go over and above with a kind of generosity and courage that I sometimes feel I am not worthy in the same way.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I still admire the fact that somebody is.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um everything like that moves me.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: A beautiful sunset will move me, an embrace of life will move me, uh, chick flicks move me.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm easily I'm pretty easily moved, you know.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't, you know, break down and sob, but I get tears in my eyes quite often.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I I like uh I like sci-fi.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know what it is.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: The end of this sci-fi movie I saw just like started getting tears.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily I was alone, so no one could see that this uh being being moved.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: I worry if I know people who've never been moved.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: If if nobody's ever teared up at something that touched them, I you know, like, what's the problem there?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, you want to feel that you understand your emotions.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously there's a spectrum on everything, and if somebody, you know, can't help but crying every time they see a puppy or something, I know, you know, I go like, okay, you know, pull together.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I I do think that there for some reason that whole stoic, you know, maybe not to make too um stereotypic a uh uh uh you know, but the idea of the the Nordic god, you know, who can take on everything and never has an emotional doubt or an emotional weakness.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's just not a good model.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean again I I'm f I find that a lot of trauma that people experienced when they were kids, uh and in particular it's it's guys, right?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I think guys are the ones that are are kind of notorious for not showing emotion.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's possibly like a societal thing, but I also think it's an upbringing thing as well where there's trauma.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean I I agree with you.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think feeling emotion is just a normal human function and so when people don't um I get so I get curious about it, right?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: I get I wonder okay what's going on in this person's life that's or what has gone on in this person's life that leads them to this place where they're not able to talk about emotional things with their partner.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely what so as far as the stay home order are you going out at all?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Are you um staying home or what's what's your life like we've been heavily sequestered.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's easier for me because I live on a big piece of property so I could go walk in the woods and be on my own woods, you know.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: I have um seen a few friends um you know I think total and the whole sequester and all of them in the last three weeks.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: And they've uh come over to their place or they've come up to ours and we don't embrace, we don't get sick we stay six feet apart from each other.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's no touching I mean we're we're careful I believe the public health officials I believe that our best um personal health and public health is trying to stay away from each other.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you know I mean it's hard if you have you have six kids that makes it a lot harder for sure well we're all so we're my two oldest are uh 22 and 20.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: So they were in college and their college shut down.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we're all home but we're I'm st my wife and I like we have an RV and I I love to go out in my R V and I'm trying to talk my wife and say hey let's go on a trip you know end of June but we have a nine year old who's been on a ventilator before and who has lung disease.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: So my I and I'm fearful you know I I'm not fearful but I don't want her to get sick and for sure my wife doesn't want her to get sick.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we've kind of uh we've been on lockdown for the last about two months or whenever it started March beginning April and uh I'm starting to hear rumblings from my kids this is gonna be the worst summer ever we're not gonna be able to hang out with friends I want to go on a trip blah blah blah right so it's definitely weird um all of this kind of distancing stuff for sure but all our all our groceries are delivered um we don't go into any I mean I'm in my office now but I'll I'm doing all telehealth right so no one comes into my office or anything so it's just it is an odd situation where you can't it's a horrible situation.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean uh and it's it's and it changes for a while and God knows maybe what the future is um I don't know if the statistics correct but there's a estimate that one in four people are on um uh out of a job and have applied for uh some kind of unemployment and that's the people who would qualify there's plenty of people who don't qualify well and then and then oh go ahead no and I was just gonna say in a hundred thousand people I mean and they're not done yet uh it's uh it's mind boggling actually right and I I don't know if you've heard I don't know the statistic of it but there's been an increase in suicide um I could imagine because of you know because of being stuck home not being able to have human contact and et cetera et cetera I mean we could just kind of go commiserate back and forth about it it uh I ultimately it's like not a good time right now.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I think what we're doing now we're doing a professional deal but I really encourage people to zoom or Skype or FaceTime or anything to talk to the people their friends to catch up.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: I know I have a weekly uh girlfriends meeting at five to six at night on Fridays um I make appointments with people who are friends just to check in um it's not the same but it's it's better than nothing and I tell people just make appointments as if you were seeing people as if you were going over to their house.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I've certainly had dinner with people you know over the Zoom and again no it's not the same but those attachments are important to keep up.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: That I appreciate that we're I was gonna ask you what your pandemic advice is so my my son had his 22nd birthday and so he was all bummed out and so I planned for a bunch of friends to zoom him so um it was definitely a unique birthday for him.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Any so I appreciate I so appreciate you coming on and taking some time out um to chat with me here Dr.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Schwartz uh what would be a I I know this question is like super broad so whatever you say is fine.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm just curious like some love advice or relationship advice um as we sign off here.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well I'd ex I'd say the obvious that um the reward is great but the effort is great too and by the effort I mean resilience when it doesn't work out and uh maintenance when it does um love is a life's work you have to be willing to put it in I think it's so worth it um but whether you're trying to find someone or get through a tough patch or uh just keep it you know um vibrant um this is not something you can put on automatic pilot if you decide you want to have love in your life or you want to keep your relationship you better be willing to put in the emotional and uh physical work that it takes to to create that real reality.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oof yes that that could that could create a whole nother conversation about the amount of work that goes into it.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: But we don't we don't have time I want to let you go and respect your time.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I hey I appreciate you coming on how can people find you um how can they um you could find me at at I think drpepperschwartz.com or pepperschwartz com.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: I have a uh travel site called places for passion dot com for romantic travel and they can look for me on married at first sight and on married at first sight dot com.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: So if you want to find me I'm pretty findable.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right just google just Google Pepper Schwartz and all that stuff will probably come up.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah sure okay all right hey thanks for what I'm sorry I said it was a pleasure talking to you I enjoyed it yeah it was nice meeting for the first time over Zoom or Skype yeah um but yeah thanks for coming on and uh hopefully we can do this again soon.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: That'd be great I enjoyed today.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks by have a good day let's see there we go how do I do this you know I I lately it's been Zoom