The Honeymoon Phase Is Over...What Now? 【 The Zero Dot Podcast #14 】

I remember I was in a relationship once and I said to the person, like, hey, I've been
thinking, I've been sacrificing a lot of social time or hobbies and stuff for this and I

really have no time with you, but I think I might need to start devoting time to that
again.

And she took it really well.

She was like, yeah, me too.

We should probably chill out a little bit.

And it felt really good.

It didn't feel like the thing was dying.

But now allow me to tell you why nobody fucking does this.

And that is the exception in my life that proves the rule.

I'm gonna fix my hair, and then we're gonna talk about our lives, and then I have just a
fucking bevy of good things to tell you about, so strap in for that one.

I'm here for the bevy.

A bevy.

Well, John, Daniel, it has been a week.

I'll say, I'll say, I'll say it's been seven consecutive days in a row.

A series of days followed by nights waking up in sequential order where various events
have happened.

I'd confirm that for you.

And you know what's crazy?

We have this thing called a weekend.

I don't know.

My weeks don't end there.

That's like, that's like the beginning sometimes.

Sometimes it's the middle.

Why did we decide that was the end of the week?

No, we gotta talk about this.

This is really important.

This is why people tune into our show.

Do you feel like a week starts on a Monday or a Sunday?

Because certain calendars, when you write a calendar, you go Sunday, Sunday.

But people call Monday the start of the week.

And as a child, I was like, that's wrong.

And no one helped me.

So I've carried rage about it for 38 years.

So help.

Wasn't it originally that Sunday was the first day of the week?

then because of like the corporate world and how jobs work and stuff, at some point in
time, it got shifted to Monday.

But technically, historically, it was Sunday that was the start of the week.

I could be completely wrong.

I remember hearing that somewhere.

Please tell me if I'm wrong.

I don't think you're wrong, Daniel.

I think also what's also true is that they used to work six days a week and you also
worked on Saturdays and Sunday was your day of quote unquote rest.

ah So that was the beginning or the end of your week, depending on how you calculated it.

But John, I've always felt that Sunday is the beginning.

That's how I look at it in the calendar.

Start Sunday.

Saturday is like my last day of like doing hard, hard, hard work or going towards my goals
or whatever.

Sunday is like, okay, break, relax, get ready for Monday.

And Monday is the...

First day of the work week, who cares about that?

Sunday is the first day of the week for sure for me.

And I used to work a job where Sunday, I worked Sunday through Thursday.

So I used to have that job where Sunday was the actual my Monday, which was great because
on Sunday things are quieter and it got you to like ease into the week a little bit.

Whereas Mondays things are crazy right off the gate.

Cause everyone's catching up like, oh my God, all things that didn't get done Friday.

It drove me nuts.

Mm, Fridays used to be my Mondays, which was horrible because anyone that wasn't me in the
workplace was like, thank God it's Friday, it's Friday.

And I was like, I am starting my week.

What do you mean?

haha

I don't wanna judge anybody else's schedule, but Friday as a Monday feels extremely
cursed.

That feels like you would have to deal with adversity about that kind of every time it
went down that way.

Can I tell you, it was extremely cursed.

You are correct.

It was incredibly cursed.

That's validating.

No, it has been a week.

I would speak to the people of the world, which is pretentious of me to say, but it is
also what we're doing in theory.

Sorry it sucked if it did.

I kind of bet it did.

I bet if you're the kind of person that listens to this show, you are like, not my
favorite week.

um No, I get you.

I've had, hey, camera, come here, thanks bud.

m

For the people who are at home, my camera wants to go to the left, like a lot of parts of
me do, but I can kind of fix the camera if I just do a little bit of head waggling, so I

do some of that.

You missed out on it, it's very dramatic.

ah Maybe that'll convert a listener or two to a viewer.

No, but it's been a tough week, uh and thank you all so much for tuning in.

One thing that we talked about before here, here at the Zid, no, that's terrible, I regret
that immediately.

Yeah, here at the ZD, here at the disease.

That's what we are.

The D- The DZ.

tuning in.

We're very plague-coded here.

Um...

The DZ.

Damn, that's a nasty DZ you got going on.

D...

to tell you, It's terminal.

You're DZ.

mean...

Fucking, I was gonna say a heartfelt thing and I don't have a heart anymore.

Here's the heartfelt thing.

uh We were talking about how we want this place to be a place that people can come and
have like a refuge to hang out and chill.

uh So while we do acknowledge the shittiness of our various weakery, like we're glad
you're here.

We're glad to be here.

It feels good to be here.

I always look forward to doing these.

To doing ZDs.

I can't, I can't stop it.

This is gonna be a chaos episode.

I hope that the topic is very stupid and silly.

because I'm going to be on one the whole fucking time.

So good luck, boys.

No regrets.

Yeah, nerds, everyone else, everyone included.

Yeah, it's been a week.

And yeah, we can certainly talk about some of the stuff, but before we do that, John, we
might need a little bit of an uplift.

We might need a little sauce in our day if you got anything.

Posi.

I'm doing a little bit of a lightning round today, because I was looking through things
and there were two things that I was like, these are both it, these both have to be it,

they're both so good.

And then I was like, no, I'm doing them both and another one.

So here just comes up a fucking a few things.

I'm not going to go in as great of depth because I just want to kind of have headlines at
you a little bit.

But thing the first, this is very important to me.

I got a bunch of homies who are more of a they them than anything else and they're pretty
happy in their non-binary ways and the Austrian Supreme Court was like that's a fucking

fair point and they are making new rules that say you must recognize non-binary people as
people no exceptions no don't answer it's its own fucking thing you have to fucking put it

in there you must accept the gender attributions imposed by state regulation of course
under their gender identity so way to go Austria, shoutouts to the non-binary homies if

you ever are a person who wants to learn about this and you're like what the fuck is that
what does that mean I was that person a while ago and I know

and we can talk about it here or elsewhere, like, feel free to be curious, but know that
like, this will make a lot of people happy.

So, next thing, uh you know the land and that stuff between it, the wet one, that's the
thing that separates us from Daniel, the other big wet one, wet one, this session is

sponsored by wet ones, uh the oceans, I refer to of course.

uh There has been a new record in ocean cleanup of getting trash out the ocean, the ocean
cleanup, hang on, record ocean cleanup, the ocean cleanup, I don't like the way this is

phrased.

but it removed 25 million kilos of plastic in 2025, totaling 45 million uh kilos of
plastic.

So we are ever so surely trying to make that a better place for our wetter friends.

That's their new slogan, a better for the wetter.

Next, water-based one, part two.

High-performance solar evaporator is rapidly transforming seawater into fresh drinking
water.

You I think I can't drink seawater.

Well, humans are good at science.

And they were like, we should not die from lack of water.

So they have got an...

I'm gonna spare you this.

Also, they use Eunice to refer to this, which if you're a fighting game nerd, that's a fun
little thing.

But they have said, the experiments show that a square meter setup can produce 4.1 liters
of clean water in one hour.

That is seven times the natural evaporation rate of seawater.

So we are continuing this.

Maybe you've noticed a theme in my good things lately, like humans can live, we can be
healthy, we can all have water and food and shit.

Speaking of living, seg to the next one, there is a study that came out that said the best
exercise.

for living long and staying healthy is a variety of exercises.

If you just do lifting, if you just do cardio, if you just do yoga, turns out not as good
as a mix of all of the above.

So yay, another fucking banger for the D word, diversity of things to do and get involved
with.

Some tell me that's a naughty word.

I told them to eat my freshly made pasta for them.

So a couple, maybe, I don't, this one's boring.

I'm just gonna do one more.

I think this one is both like wholesome and valid and a little cute.

Mattel has introduced its first Barbie with autism.

I have some family members and friends who are raising kids with autism and those kids are
the fucking, they're so sweet.

And when they like, you know what's up with the brain, they can get like the care they
need and be understood.

And they grew up in these wonderful, healthy homes.

But a thing that I think has been hurtful in the past for a lot of people, frankly, not
me, he said white manly, his representation.

I like to play a video game and play as a guy who looks like me.

I like to read a book about a guy who looks and sounds like me.

And it turns out I'm not unique in that way everybody does.

She comes with like little ear protections like this that she has and like a little fidget
or two and just like, I just think it's fucking adorable.

I, it took, it took like no effort to do this.

It's just like a, we'd like to do a representation of a group that doesn't get a lot of
it.

That's fucking cool.

have people in my life who are very important to me who wear those kind of like ear covers
when they go out.

And I feel like a lot of them had said, like, I don't want to look weird, but like, I also
don't want to like be in just a fucking miserable experience.

So just like, just representation is always good, man.

Like it's always good.

I know that people will see like, no, it's tokenism.

No, dog, it's like more than tokenism.

Like it's, there's, a whole thing where it's like, if you feel included, you'll see
yourself represented.

It makes a big difference.

I said that very gobbledygookily, but like I'm telling you, it psychologically is a huge
thing.

So.

That's the good news avalanche.

That's a fucking wonderful avalanche.

I loved all the things you said, you know, I, I hate it when any group of people, good
people, which 99.9 % of us all are, whether you listen to our podcasts, whether you watch

our podcasts, whether you decide, zero dot, screw those guys.

I still think you're a good person.

99.9 % of people deserve to be seen and heard.

And so it's really nice when I

I have one more good thing.

This is the thing.

This was the first one that I found actually.

A uh woman had her ear severed.

Chopped off.

which is not the good part of the story.

So thank you for sticking to it.

No, no, no.

They wanted to reattach it, but they couldn't because of the circumstances, which I will
spare you, because I want to not make this whole show about the story, but it's really

cool.

This Chinese woman had in a industrial accident, a ear just clean off and they couldn't
put it back on.

So this is a cool thing, fun science thing, also kind of crazy science thing.

What they did to keep her ear viable and preventing it from effectively dying is they
grafted it to her foot.

and she had an ear on her foot for like five months.

And then they took it off, science, and it works and she can hear.

Isn't that fun?

Isn't that just the funnest thing?

Science times is crazy times.

Like we live in a magical time, it's amazing.

The ear was, guess the cells were gonna die, so they kept it alive by putting it on her
foot.

It attached to the cells of her foot to stay alive.

And then when it reattached to her head so she could hear again, she didn't lose
functionality?

Like she could still hear?

Yes, please.

the tops of our feet and the sides of our ears share similar properties of skin, thinness,
stable blood circulation, and blood vessel size.

After a brief fear of necrosis, the ear gradually retained its color.

Incredibly, she carried on for five months wearing a shoe several sizes too big to protect
her ear until October came around, and the surgical team determined it was time to

undertake the complex procedure of reconnecting damaged blocked blood vessels.

It all went well and she is now recovering.

So yeah, no, she just had like a solid patch over.

on the side of her head and then just wore a giant shoe with an ear under it and now she
has an ear again.

Like, I don't know, that's my favorite fucking thing in the world.

Like, when I was a child, there was all these books I would read about like sci-fi crazy
shit and a lot of the scary dystopian shit, something, something other parts of the show.

But like the cool parts like this, like that's amazing.

That's amazing.

In every part of history prior to this one, that woman has one less ear forever.

The end, GG, you lose, goodbye.

And instead they were like, have a funny shoe story.

and then be able to look and feel normal again, normalish.

I mean, I'm sure she has to recover for a while.

But nonetheless, if I get the choice between no ear or ear, I pick ear.

So just love that.

I love ears uh quite a bit.

I'm quite attached to how things sound.

I like the way things sound and it makes me happy.

So John, here's a fun story.

em I used to, I don't do it anymore, but I used to like every 18 months, shave my head,
give my hair to locks of love.

That's cool.

One time I did that and I was hanging out with a friend and his mom came in.

And this mom has always ever seen me kind of with longish hair.

It was the first time she'd seen me with short hair and I've been doing this for many,
many, many cycles.

But finally she saw me, she saw me with the short hair and says, my gosh, you cut your
hair.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, did.

says, thank God, I hated you with long hair.

Literally said that to me I'm like, oh well, I'm growing it back So I guess you're gonna
hate me again in a little bit.

You

have long hair these days for two reasons.

One, every once in while a person who's pretty will be like, like you to have long hair
and I'm like, cool, I'll do whatever you want.

And two, and more realistically, it's like a statement that I can, like, I don't know.

I remember I didn't have long hair for the longest.

Ha!

was in college, is the one that you go to after high school?

I had long hair, it was a good thing.

And then I was like, I have to join the world of work, can't have long hair there.

And then I moved to Minnesota and was working and I was like, everyone here is like a
giant hippie and nothing matters.

I'm gonna see if I can have long hair again.

And all my clients said nothing.

And now that I do have long hair, some of my clients who I would describe lovingly as
mean, said like with genuine affection, they're like, you cut your hair, man, you look

like a fucking bum.

And I'm like, yeah, I do.

And you're paying me.

And it's like a fun little thing.

no, have long, everybody, here's my advice to you.

You don't have to do it.

You don't have to do anything we tell you to do.

Have long hair once, have a shaved head once.

You should know what it feels like.

You should do both at some point in your life.

It's really good.

Would recommend.

picture of me.

Damn bro, you're looking good.

Thanks.

It is.

It was a relief when I shaved my head during the Rona because somebody tried to give me a
haircut and they gave me a bowl cut literally immediately.

it's nice to know that my head shape is pretty normal.

Just like a regular old head.

my head shape, go, god damn it, his head

No, no, I was saying, I felt comfortable saying it because you have, look good with a
shaved head.

When is that from?

That is from 23.

Nice.

Damn!

You've got lot of hair since then.

My hair grows incredibly fast, yeah.

My beard grows incredibly fast.

I have like perfect beard genetics.

So I'm grateful for those.

Thank you.

He does.

He's a pretty boy.

I like him.

I think you're a fucking stud.

And I think it's a tragedy that you're on camera the least out of all of us.

I think that's a mistake.

I don't think anybody likes that, but I accept it.

We could AI your face over my face.

We could, but that would deprive us.

but that might be an appropriate use of AI.

Just saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Also, fun story, John, because you said about going to the corporate world and having to
have your hair do whatever thing.

So I was in the corporate world.

And um I was in a job where having long hair wasn't a big problem.

But then suddenly, it became a problem.

And I was told, you should cut your hair.

You should be short.

Whatever, all that stuff.

John doesn't know this part about me and Daniel probably doesn't know this about me, but I
have a rebelliousness to myself that if you tell me to do something and there's no good

reason for it, I'm gonna do whatever I can to mischievously rebel against it.

So this was my haircut that I did to appease the overlords that told me,

yeah, cut your hair.

This was after it was very, very, very long.

I'm like, I'll cut the sides.

It's still long, suck it.

Technically you cut your hair.

What is that?

What is that called?

Malicious compliance?

I love that shit.

That's amazing.

Incroyable.

at home, what you are looking at is a man with blonde locks who is seven feet tall and
muscles out to here and just looking absolutely incredible.

And that man is me.

And I get to describe that absolutely true statement to you

Hey, I gotta tell you secret.

um I hate money, like a lot.

So I need yours.

Check us out at our Patreon, zero.media or the zero.podcast and tell you what, if you give
us the money, we'll give you a little something extra.

know, we'll look at you.

Extra extended versions of our episodes with more sauce, more lore and less interruptions
like this one.

That's right.

You won't see this face interrupting.

mid-sentence what John, Sam, or Daniel were about to say.

That's right, I'm literally telling Daniel to put us right between one of our sentences to
really annoy the f— you know what, out of you.

But again, if you want to solve that problem by giving us money, that thing that we hate,
check us out on our Patreon.

Otherwise, I guess you just wasted a lot of time, just like I did.

So, uh, thanks!

Let's see what else they have to say.

You ever have that thing where you like watch an anime or you listen to a radio or some
other or perhaps a podcast if you're doing that very thing right now and you have an idea

in your head what the people look like and then you look them up and you have one of two
reactions you go Yeah, exactly or you go.

Oh what?

Do you know who Trevor Hall is, the musician?

He sings the Lime Tree, which is a song I liked a million years ago.

uh I looked him up.

This is really tough to do this in a media mode that we can all use right now, but if you
listen to him without looking at his face, which is hard to do, because you have to search

him up somehow, you will not believe that he looks the way that he does.

His voice is not the way that he, I just think it's fascinating.

You got it.

Trevor Hall.

Understood.

Yeah, go get a friend of yours.

You know what this is.

Get a friend of yours to go look up Trevor Hall, The Lime Tree, play yourself a solid
minute 30 of that or something, and then look up what he looks like and you'll go, oh,

that's me.

There's your test, Zero Dot.

That's what you do.

And then get back to John about this.

Not me.

I don't care, but give it, give it, give John the deets how you feel about that.

Yeah.

John cares a lot.

Yeah, seriously.

We're shutting down the show.

If we just, if you don't do it, go do it, go do it now.

little.

This is the only thing I've ever actually asked for.

So please do that.

I want to inflict this knowledge on you all because I learned about this from a person
that I know professionally and I'm aware of it and I hate that I know it now.

If you are a person who can pee standing up, you are setting yourself up for peeing
yourself more when you're old every time you do it.

Isn't that terrible?

Because your body's learning it's okay to do this.

So there's like a sphincter closing thing.

There's like whole don't keep peeing thing that you're getting worse at every time you do
it.

So if somebody is sitting down to pee and you're not understanding that they're just
trying to protect their old time peeing time, that's on you, buddy.

Also, can I just say, sitting down to pee is just comfortable.

Like, you kind of get to make a think of it.

Like, you kind of just be like, okay, you sit down, you get cozy and you do your business
and it's just a whole lot nicer, to be perfectly honest.

You don't have to aim.

That's really, really nice.

Mm-hmm.

what, while we're taking brave stances, I'd like to join.

I think we should sit while we pee.

We should stand.

We should, I'm saying it.

And we should stand for what we believe in, which is pooping while standing, just to
clarify.

I just kind of like do a little sumo and go, and then I just, instant, done, easy.

Would recommend.

This is the episode where we lose all of our youth listeners and viewers.

Talk about useful stuff.

right?

So we're here to tell you it's not.

Dude, I remember I was a young boy once and I remember people talking about like, you'll
be old and these things will happen to you.

And what I want to say is twofold.

One, if people are doing that to be shitty and like pessimism, throw it in the trash.

But two, if you can distill from those messages, the utilitarian warnings, it is maybe a
little handy.

Don't diminish your life.

Go nuts.

Do a little too much right now.

But also like the fucking back pain is coming.

The joint stuff, like if you take care of your shit, it will last longer.

I'm a big believer in lotion.

Put lotion on your face.

I've been told very often that it is evident that I have done that.

So that was nice.

Like just take care of yourselves, friends.

Pick one thing.

Do a thing for yourself.

You deserve it.

You're good person.

And if you're not, maybe fucking, you know, be a better person.

Start with that, asshole.

Grindset, mindset, alpha, sigma, other letters of the alphabet, as John has famously said.

All of those things.

You're weak.

indeed.

Yeah, no, this is the episode where we tell you that you're weak and that also you should
shit standing up and that also uh we're gonna sew your ear to your foot.

That was implied earlier if you caught that, but if you're not listening, we're gonna kick
your ass with your own ear.

How's that?

How's that for an idea?

Off the rails, you say?

I'm gonna do a quick little tone shift for a second and just say a few words.

So if you're watching this during the time in which I think you're watching this, these
are the times of all time.

And John already said it, I'm sorry, John's sorry, Daniel's sorry.

It's often many times that we all believe that in these times we feel helpless and there's
nothing we can do.

I wanna remind you that every single day people make incredibly small, very poignant
choices.

that connect each other and show solidarity, stand up for what's right, stand up against
evil, and we all feel more connected, more together, and it's in those exact moments that

you can be your best zero dot self.

So instead of going about anything specific right now, I think you know what I'm talking
about when I say that, you have my blessing, have John's and Daniel's blessing to be the

best version of yourself you can be.

Use the spoons that you can, but don't ever think for a moment.

Don't ever think for even just a second that what you're doing doesn't matter because it
does and it's the small things that matter.

Whether it's listening to this podcast, whether it's talking to a good friend, whether
it's just showing solidarity for someone else, whether it's literally camping out in front

of someone's yard just to keep a safe eye on things, whatever you've got the spoons for,
that all makes a difference.

And those that love you and care about you, thank you for it.

Very well said.

I would add on to it ever so quickly, because if you are listening to this when I think
you're listening to this and you're facing the things I think you're facing, it is scary

and it is confusing, but I want you to know you're playing for the stronger, bigger team
and the other team cheats and they tell you that you can't win, but don't believe them.

One of the reasons that we do this show is to help you remember and help us remember that
this team exists and we're all trying and we've come through bigger shit before.

And if you don't know what to do, the consensus thing that my community of the therapists
have kind of come to is like, look at the fire long enough to feel safe.

Do that to the tune of once a week or whatever frequency works for you.

And then do one positive thing a day towards your cause.

And that can be like, fucking I'm going to stretch.

That can be like, I'm going to volunteer.

That can be whatever.

It doesn't fucking matter.

But what you're doing is you're telling your brain, I'm participating in this.

I'm not hopeless.

And I'm not helpless.

So keep fighting the good fight, we're with ya.

We will be.

Now back to ears on feet.

Yeah, ears on feet you say?

That's whimsical.

And arousing.

I think I'm to get real lofty.

We got to, we got to do the fucking show, but like, um, I think the greatness that humans
can have and the interconnectedness and the joy and the safety and the experience and the

richness of life is so fucking amazing right now.

It's so, it's the closest it's ever been to perfect.

Like things are going really, really well.

Um, but if you just like jump back in time, you know, 60, 70 years, there's some real
nightmare shit going on.

but there's some like fucking end of time shit going on, which is why when you're facing
scary things these days, you know, like there's precedent.

Humans are really good at ingenuity.

We're really good at moving through things.

We're really good when we play as a team.

Don't let anybody take you off the team.

You're on a team.

Yeah.

And to that end, it's really common in times like this to be nostalgic to the point of I
wish I could go back.

No, you don't.

I know what you mean when you say that, but you actually don't mean what you're saying.

You do not want to go back.

As bad as things are, wherever you are in life, globally, zoomed out, it's better than
it's been and you do not want to go back.

I'm not saying...

We need to stay where we are though.

We need to keep moving forward and progressing and push through this.

that sentiment of things were back in the olden days, that's absolutely not true.

It never has been.

Yeah.

Nostalgia is like a whole thing that we can talk about sometime.

ah It's a valid feeling and a form of grief.

It's existentialism.

It's a whole bunch of stuff.

It's also a trap.

clinging to the past and trying to make things stay away that they can't stay.

Boy, that sounds like a great recipe for a lot of things.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, I was thinking about Zero Dot.

We should go back to the way our first episode was.

Let's go back to that.

Let's go back to that logo.

Let's go back to that art design, our vibe.

Let's just always keep progressing back.

Keep repeating that same episode over and over again.

I would like that.

I don't want to use this camera or this microphone.

I would like to use my onboard laptop camera and perhaps its microphone as well.

Daniel, our producer is like, I'm going to kill you both.

I would personally like to go back to a time when everything was fine.

Probably.

There you go.

m

I fear that we all have enough like aimless dad energy that this could just kind of go on.

So we should be vigilant against that.

That's a, yeah, let's protect ourselves and our listeners and viewers.

Thank you for putting up with our shit.

And if you didn't and you left, fucking good call.

Fucking solid choice, way to go.

Well done.

Thanks for coming back.

You probably hurt cats.

We don't want you to hurt cats.

We don't want that.

yeah, yeah.

You know, it sounds like herd cats, but the long time listeners know that we have a
historic tradition of like murdering cats.

We don't.

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Yeah.

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Otherwise, sorry about this.

You'll see it again.

Could you today speak to a lovely audience about...

in all walks of life, relationships, work, friendships, potentially with a new hobby,
anything, it can happen with anything.

Speak to me about the honeymoon phase.

I got a tight 400.

I got a lot to say.

um Sam, if you want to take point, feel free.

Otherwise, I can begin the yeeting into the abyss of information.

Ooh, I wanna make sure I'm honest to the topic at hand, but this is either closely related
or you're talking about something we might call limerence, intense infatuation with

something in the beginning onset of something, especially when it comes to human beings.

um I don't wanna take away from John's thunder, but I will say this.

As a young adult, or an aging adult, whatever, the sooner you can understand the
difference between limerence, which is intense infatuation,

due to hormonal and other factors, attraction towards something versus actual love,
affection, like, and all that other stuff, the sooner you will have a healthier balance of

knowing what those things are and you will be able to prevent yourself from setting
yourself up for failure.

em The amount of times you talk to someone and say, love this person or I love this or
whatever, and turns out it fades and very quickly it does.

And it turns out that what they had loved was the feeling and the chemicals that was
happening.

inside of them more than anything else and them either not realizing it or realizing it
too late and being heartbroken about it.

The Greeks actually knew this.

actually, they, I'm probably conflating the definition, but to be infatuated or to love or
to be attracted to someone was considered to be like punch drunk love.

Like it was an intoxication.

It was something happening to them.

It was not like I'd found my soul mate.

was all like.

I have my wife, have my partner, I have my soulmate, but you know, there's this person I
just have a connection with and I just feel so good when I'm around that person and they

knew it was temporary.

They did not think it was ever going to be permanent, although sometimes it might be.

And that's just one element of it.

That's talking about humans and relationships and so forth.

But we're also talking about, I'm assuming, attraction to things and infatuation with
things and hobbies and interests and so forth.

I know that's a very common, very important topic for my ADHD friends who have this thing
where they get super into something and then they just drop it.

And it's just, and sometimes they might feel bad they drop it.

Like, I feel bad.

I spent all this time getting into something and then I drop it.

And I'm here to say as someone who sees that, I would not feel bad.

That's time well spent if you loved it and cared about it and cherished about it.

Even if you don't like it now, you learned a lot to learn that you don't like the thing
that you thought you liked before.

And that's a beautiful thing.

uh Is that enough of an intro for you, John?

Talk about your stuffs.

it's a beautiful intro.

I have straight up taught classes on this before.

This is like extraordinarily my element in my zone.

And it's just fun to talk about.

you're super right specifically in the context of the good old adahatta people, ADHD
havers, such as myself.

um We have an extra funny relationship with this that I'll make mention of at some point
during this conversation.

But the honeymoon stage in general uh is a thing that should happen.

You're supposed to have it.

Let me talk about it in the context of relationships and then we can, I'm gonna make
little note to myself, broaden it out to hobbies and such afterward.

But I'm talking about people and dating.

If you're listening to this show and you're not interested in being with other people,
that's cool.

Maybe you're just not into that.

Maybe you're young, maybe you're old, who cares?

Whatever you wanna do and it's great and I it for you.

But I suspect the grand majority of people who listen to us and hang out with us and talk
to us and just walk the earth have an interest in some sort of relationship with others.

So here's how this works.

It's a first.

I used to do this as a thing when I talk about the honeymoon stage in groups when I was
working in a rehab I would say like, okay, so it's first date What are you wearing?

Where are you going?

And the people who participate in the group correctly say like, I'm going to fancy
restaurant I'm going to wear nice clothes.

There's always at least one guy who's like McDonald's Wearing a fucking dirty tank top and
then I go haha, why would you do that?

Because I'm they're playing into my hands.

They don't know that but they are

Hmm.

And they say I want to be my real self.

I don't want to I don't want to fucking be a phony I'm gonna tell you why you should be a
phony early in relationships.

Feel free to quote that it will make sense by the end of the conversation It is because
what you are doing is a monkey move.

This is a monkey times ritual We've evolved to do this.

So I look across the row and I see Sam and I go holy fuck that is a partner worthy of of
oh my god, just

a duration and just greatness and I would be so lucky to lock it in with him.

What an absolute stud.

How can I convince him that I am worth it?

And now my job is to demonstrate my worth.

So he goes like, oh, fuck.

Okay, I'm interested.

So what I do is I present my very best self.

This is effectively the same thing as a job interview.

And you're just trying to show off the best things about you, but you are going to show
off things that are unsustainable.

And in fact, the entire cycle is unsustainable.

But if you don't participate in the honeymoon phase,

People will think you're scary.

It's very real.

If you show up and don't have excitement, if you don't put a little investiture into the
relationship out of the gate, people will go, oh, they don't care.

Oh, they're not interested in me.

Or they might go, McDonald's on a first date.

I don't know that you have the capability of being in a relationship right now.

Like maybe your decision.

It's a social custom.

So that part is not only valid, it's actually important because it's telling the other
person, look, I know how to play in society.

I'm worthy of investiture.

Now I'm not saying be in society, just side shit all the time, but like wear pants
outside, solid rule most of the time, like use money to pay for things instead of robbing

people.

Once again, just very predictably useful.

So let's talk about the standards that get fucked up a little bit.

So number one is money.

I remember I went on a date, this was years and years and years ago, and I really wanted
this person to like me and I was offering to pay for everything.

And I did, as per the way I was taught, offer only after.

we'd already ordered everything.

So I didn't want the person to like diminish what they were going to get based on me
saying I'd pay.

And we got some really great food.

And I remember, and this was the old times before I had the nice job that I have now.

It was like $125.

I was like, what the fuck am I doing?

And I remember thinking like, I really hope she doesn't think that I can do this on a
regular basis, even though I'm doing this to a point that I can do this on a regular

basis.

Cause I can't.

And to those of you who just dropped 120 bucks on lunch every day, first of all,
congratulations on living in New York.

But also, well also kind of true, Numbers just kind of don't age well right now in general
because everything costs too much money.

But, uh super ice cold tag there.

But that's the thing, right?

Is you're supposed to kind of overdo it a little bit because you're saying, put value on
you.

And then, once you've established the relationship, you're supposed to withdraw that a
little bit.

And the fucked up thing is, this is a super unspoken process.

We never talk about it and people do get their feelings fucked up with the standards.

Thing number two in addition to money is attentiveness.

I, my name is John, hi, nice to talk to you.

I'm a really good friend.

I will care about you, I will invest in you, I will listen to you.

At some point you'll say, John's probably good, I'll communicate with him via text.

And then they'll be like, why doesn't he answer me?

Does John not like me?

No, I like you so fucking much, I just am a fucking bad texter.

Any of my friends know that I just, I try real hard to respond to messages, but I got the
ad hat, and also I'm just a busy boy, and also I'm bad at prioritization.

But that's my point, is.

early in a relationship, if you text me, see that shit fucking frame one, I'm getting back
to you as soon as possible.

And I set this unrealistic standard that I'll always do that.

So the honeymoon stage, while very exciting, also sets a lot of things that have to go
back to the mean for both parties to be okay.

And we're both gonna get our feelings hurt.

So you should do the thing to show investiture, but if you wanna get like turbo, mega,
super, ultra healthy, one of the things you can do to transition out of the honeymoon

stage,

is you want to help just literally say out loud what you're going to change, right?

I remember I was in a relationship once and I said to the person, like, hey, I've been
thinking, I've been sacrificing a lot of social time or hobbies and stuff for this and I

really have no time with you, but I think I might need to start devoting time to that
again.

And she took it really well.

She was like, yeah, me too.

We should probably chill out a little bit.

And it felt really good.

It didn't feel like the thing was dying.

But now allow me to tell you why nobody fucking does this.

And that is the exception in my life that proves the rule.

It's because of a drug.

this is especially true for the relationship piece.

Oxytocin is a little drug your brain makes when you fall in love.

And if you're wondering what that shit feels like, it feels like heroin.

It is a really, really, mm-hmm.

It's so good.

Like, it is.

better than sex and makes the sex better if you are a sexual active person.

mean, it's just, woof.

Yes, well, and that's the thing, right?

Is like, I'm not gonna turn that down ever.

Like, I'm just, it's just I'm not, and I said heroin not to be cute, like, heroin gives
you this.

There's a reason people do so much fucking heroin when they get stuck with heroin, is
because you get this feeling, and if you can get the fucking feeling of falling in love in

a needle, well, that's a fucking problem.

Like, you shouldn't have access to that.

Human beings, quick drug rant in general.

We're so great, I love us so much.

We got too good at too many things and now we can give ourselves things that our brains
can't tolerate.

Funny example, not a funny example.

Funny example is cheesecake.

When your brain eats cheesecake, it thinks, I'm the healthiest boy.

I'm gonna live forever.

Taste all the nutrients in this because things that taste like sugar, things that taste
like salt, you're like, that's probably food.

Things that are bitter, like that's probably poison.

Cheesecake has to be so good for me, says your body, as it consumes 2,000 calories of
nothing.

It's wonderful, I fucking love cheesecake.

But my point is like, if you eat only cheesecake, you gonna die.

Like 100, it's just, it's not gonna work.

And then you bring it up to like the not fun example, is like meth.

I'm not gonna lie, meth feels pretty good.

uh You shouldn't do it though, because your body can't make a healthy relationship with
it.

When you get prescribed like an ADHD med, you get prescribed a certain dosage you are
supposed to take by a doctor who does not live in your body.

Doctors cannot prescribe their own medicine.

When there's like a morphine poker on the, you're in the hospital bed, fun fact, it'll
make the beep every time it stops giving you morphine after like four or five beeps or

some shit like that.

because it's like, you'll kill yourself with this and you will.

And it's not your fault because human brains are terrible at regulating good feelings.

Hence the problem with the honeymoon stage.

Another thing humans are so cute about and dear, if you happen to be like 16, 17 and
you're listening to this, first of all, fucking check you out.

That's cool as hell.

Second of all, you have to learn this the hard way and I'm so sorry.

So if you can learn this from us now and then like have a pillow to crash into, I love
that for you.

Sam made a face, what's your thought?

I love the human race.

I love you as listener, but if you've never experienced what we're talking about, it's
cool that we're telling you a little bit about it and we want to prime you for it as much

as you can, but literally you have to experience it.

Unfortunately, it that's how this works.

Yeah, and this is where I hope this gets really uplifting to a person because I know a
very specific rendition of me.

He was about like 18, 19 years old and he did not hear this and life was very, hard for
him for a while because I had fallen deeply, madly in love with a person and we were going

to get married for stone culture and it was the greatest thing and the sex was phenomenal
and everything was perfect.

And then she went to a different college than me and I was like, well, we're to do long
distance.

And she was like, fine.

And I just like, I watched this thing limp to death.

And I was like, can't lose this because the oxytocin feels so good and I'll never feel
this good again.

A couple of things.

One, you will feel that good again.

In fact, you'll actually feel much better.

um Two,

The honeymoon stage is built to be an intro process to whatever you end up doing.

It's not built to be a permanent thing.

It has to be temporary.

It's the same way that when you play a new video game for the first time, or you play a
new board game, or you meet new people, whatever you do, it should feel really, really

good.

your own borrowed time.

How many people have said like, would love to play, you know, Dark Souls.

I'd love to watch this movie for the first time again.

That's what they're referring to.

It's a special thing.

It is folly to try to go back into that and just try to do it up again.

So, honeymoon stage, oxytocin flooding your brain, sex more than ever, money more than
ever, it's unsustainable.

Let's talk about what the difference between that is and like actual companionate love.

And then we'll talk about how this applies to hobbies.

So one of my favorite things that I ever was told,

is the definition of true love as opposed to like the manic joys of the honeymoon stage,
which they're fucking awesome and you should do them, they're great.

But it's a deepening cycle of contentment.

It's you and your partner feel a little closer every day.

You feel a little bit special or and closer with them every day.

You know that that's your home.

You still have the joys and the fun.

You still have the sexual connection if that's part of your relationship.

You still feel that depth.

You don't feel the like, my God, I can't wait to as frequently.

But you're trading that in for this

incredible stability that can last as long as you want it to.

And let me tell you, I've sampled that.

It's a really fucking good trade.

It is less of a high though.

And if you have ADHD or a whole bunch of other shit going on, your brain's drawn to highs.

Less of a high, but less of a canyon as well.

Yeah.

So true.

The honeymoon stage is inherently...

Have we talked about the cycle of violence here before?

I think we may have.

briefly, we didn't do a deep dive.

it's a little circle.

It starts with honeymoon stage, tightrope stage, bang stage, jackass stage.

That's the way I learned it anyway.

And this one uses the same terminology, I'm gonna talk about that for a brief second.

In honeymoon stage, not to love, but in honeymoon stage to conflict, during early
interrelationship, people are very willing to overlook flaws.

So I remember I...

I dating somebody and like this person's a wonderful person and I hope they're having a
great life.

But we were eating food and they like a food used a fork, you know, the, you know, the
traditional fork methodology, fork to mouth.

And each time I randomly have a fork here because I'm gross and I'm going to show you.

USB cable to eat my food.

Jeez Louise.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

what they would do is this.

would get a bite of salad and then they would do this.

Isn't that horrible?

Didn't that make you sad?

For the people who are listening at home and didn't see that horrific visual, it was my
fork on my teeth.

Every bite.

And it was day one, dinner one, and this person was extremely attractive.

And I liked them and they were very funny and they liked me.

And I thought, ha, what a funny quirk.

it stopped being funny.

What time?

What was the time marker?

Do you know?

Like a couple of months, same time that the...

the same amount of time.

Do you know the exact amount of months?

The way I learned it is per person and frankly per level of like ADHD or whatever.

It's like six months to a year and a half is the actual honeymoon stage.

You can stretch it.

Yeah, yeah.

months, even if something hasn't, even if the honeymoon hasn't ended, that's when people
notice the signs, that people notice the change, yeah.

and I couldn't tell you the specific time, but I remember very much I was in an Applebee's
and I was like, that is fucking terrible.

But like didn't want to hurt a person's feelings, but I was like, I think I'm noticing
flaws about you or things that you'll even be able to like hand wave earlier.

Like surprise, surprise, I'm late to things a lot of the time.

And if you're like super in love with me, like, that's okay.

And then I'm sure you're like, it's my fucking birthday asshole.

Be on time.

And I'm not saying that we should start condemning things, but oxytocin, once again, hell
of a drug, you will overlook a bunch of shit.

You just will.

Which is another reason why the honeymoon stage is good to be a temporary thing, because
you can't afford to overlook things all the time.

Because if you only feel the good positive parts of things and just do things based on
feeling good all the time, you're about to spend a lot of money and have a lot of

consequences and I wouldn't recommend it.

So I want to, I want to make sure to mention, excuse me, speak to, I think that Daniel
said when he introduced the topic, which is the honeymoon stage in terms of like a hobby,

right?

So I love way lifting.

I have a home gym, it's my pride and joy.

I say, you should get into home gyms so you can save money.

Stupid, because you could if you were a minimalist, but what I wanna do is buy all the
shiny toys, make my place super special and get special art for it.

And then I wanna get a new toy, it's better than my last toy.

And then I wanna get that, that, that, that.

And I have this home gym and it's really, really, it's like actually really nice.

I haven't used it in like five days.

I traveled out of town for a few of those days, so I have an excuse there.

But then I came back and it was cold, so I didn't do it.

And I'm gonna get back to it, but the person who was just beast-moting it this summer,
five days a week, four days a week, just not missing one, that guy, was like a

hyper-focus.

It was like a honeymoon stage.

And that's part of why things fail too.

So there's like a thing every New Year, right?

Where people are like, they're going to the gym, I'm gonna get back in shape, can't wait
to be a frigging beast again.

Don't feel bad for feeling those ways.

Don't feel bad for signing up for that thing.

That's totally fine.

But do recognize that when you're making those decisions, you're under the influence of
emotions and you may be signing up for a thing that can't be sustainable on a long-term

basis.

And that's okay.

So how do we handle the honeymoon stage in a hobby or in an activity?

First thing is you wanna have your brain define your goal by your values.

So I'm a big video game player.

I'm a competitive video game player.

And if I'm like, I'm gonna be the best player in the fucking world.

No, that's a feelings induced goal.

I want to have a good time with my friends.

I want to make this a hobby that I craft some skills at and get better at.

I want to compete at this thing.

Those are, those are goals, right?

um And these are nice because you can refine them or craft them, but the temptation of the
honeymoon stage, and this is especially true for relationships, but it's this is my thing

now.

I'm going to make this my life.

If you find yourself doing that with anything from the love that I bear you, please find a
second thing to go along with it.

There's a thing that we do in Therapy Town called the table legs thing.

where you make a little table surface and you prop it up with different table legs.

So for instance, I love my dog, table leg, little Dungeons and Dragons group, it's a
podcast with my friends, video games, exercise, fucking partner, like all these just fun

little things to pop up.

If you just go, wow, this relationship is fucking amazing, one big ass table leg, I'm
locking it in.

Oh my God, I love this video game, World of Warcraft per se, for a lot of us was this for
a while.

I'm gonna play this every night oh I can't, eventually...

either the honeymoon phase will begin to wane or sometimes the thing will just leave or
end on its own and you're like, my God, my table's on the ground.

So we're not saying don't have a honeymoon stage.

What I want to endorse to you here at The Zeed is know you're in it, act accordingly and
diversify your interests.

Diversify is like such a good word.

Diversity turns out, good thing, who knew?

Me, fucking scientists, everyone, really actually.

Because humans can't do one thing all the time without getting sick of it.

That's just a thing.

If you disagree with me, good luck.

I have a whole lot of research on my side.

But also it's like a thing, right?

Like if you have a food that you love, maybe it's like your safe food or something.

That's great.

You can eat the heck out of that for a long time.

If I told you, you can only have that food for the rest of your life, you should not like
that.

Yeah, it doesn't feel good.

So you want to have more than one thing.

And in relationships, if you're a person who's in monogamous relationship, this poses a
challenge.

Cause I just told you that you can't have only this relationship and you're like, so I
should just go around and be with a bunch of people, but I don't want to do that per my

values.

Now you should just devote your time to other styles of relationship as well.

There's that thing, especially for young people and sorry young people, I'm just like
crabbing on you.

I don't mean to be, like, you'll, it was me, did this.

A lot of us did this.

um You'll fall in love and then suddenly you don't see your friends for like six months.

And then all you do is just like, you see the same person every single day.

It's really fucking fun.

Until eventually you and that person like disagree on a thing.

And you're like, going to, I don't, I abandoned those things.

I don't have those anymore.

So instead, um, savoring it, enjoying it, like knowing it's a thrill, like, sorry for
using such a video game heavy thing, but it's just, it's like the perfect analogy for me.

Um, I really like dark souls games.

If you haven't played them before, there are three of them and there's some little
peripheral ones, your, your blood, bones, your elder rings.

Um, they don't come out very often.

And when they do, it's like an event.

Like I take some time off of work.

I take like a five day weekend.

and like I just go home and like I play it blind and I have this really wonderful special
time.

And eventually I play through the first playthrough and I come back and I dabble around.

If you try to recreate that constantly, if you try to just keep living in that, you're
gonna kill the game, you're gonna stop the joy.

So what you gotta do is savor it and savor it in the way that works for you.

So if it's a relationship, see that person, see them more than once a week, spend that
extra money, have that extra like sexual connection, but acknowledge that you're in an

unsustainable thing.

and begin to plan not your exit strategy, like you're going to bail on the person or the
thing, but like as this goes back to normal, what should that look like for you?

I have a lot more to say, but as per always, I want to stop yammering for a second and
check in with Sam or Daniel if they have any thoughts or feedback.

Everything I said seems wrong.

You meet someone new and you're kind of a better version of you for the first couple
months.

You're not your real you and that's a natural part of the process.

I wanna speak to the fact that some people are gonna hear that, John and go, but that
doesn't feel right.

That doesn't feel authentic.

I want people to know who the real me is.

And I wanna let people in on a secret.

If it's the right person, they'll know the version of you that they're seeing right now
isn't exactly who you are.

They'll see when the guards start coming down to that seven month mark, that that's more
of the real version of you.

And I can't say for certain they're gonna love you more.

But I can say this, if they know it, and I've seen it myself through friends and family,
the social scientist says this, and I've lived it myself.

They go, I see the person you were trying to be.

I see the goal you had for yourself.

I will never expect you to raise up to that goal and that marker, but I'm here for you if
you want to keep trying.

Meaning in another way, I think the most successful relationships are ones where both
people, they're not necessarily satisfied with themselves internally and they want to be

better every single day.

And their partner doesn't expect them to raise that bar, but they cheerlead for them.

Like, I see the way you look at the world, John or Dan or Sam.

That's beautiful.

and I want to do whatever I can to help you get to that.

And so there's a beautiful moment that can occur if the song and dance occurs in the right
way.

So I encourage everyone that kind of has a sensitivity to that.

I don't want to set myself up for failure.

I don't want to lie to my partner.

I get that.

But actually, in reality, it can be a really beautiful thing.

And you might find out years down the line, you look at yourself and go, man, I'm a lot
better than I was.

And man, I'm really proud of me.

And your partner's proud of you too.

That's pretty phenomenal.

The other thing about John Witt said uh about this limerence, about this intense
infatuation, oxytocin, all that good stuff, a very uncomfortable truth, but it's one of

the best pieces of advice I ever got for love is this.

It is impossible to love 100 % of the time, just as is it equally impossible to be loved
100 % of the time.

And sometimes a new relationship, it's 100 % all the time and it doesn't stop.

and then suddenly it stops and that's a culture shock for a lot of people.

Your partner, your perfect partner, whoever that person is, if you ever find that person,
they don't love you 100 % of the time.

There's some times when if the frontal lobe was gone, they'd be like, fucking hate,
they're going nuts, right?

Cause it's human being and you're a human being and you got different emotions on stuff,
that's to be expected.

But if both people understand that and respect that about each other and don't hold each
other to that standard, man, it's pretty magical.

It's pretty wonderful.

I say that from experience.

I say that from other people's experience.

They tell me that as well.

I don't want to steal from John Sunder, but the other thing I'll just simply say is I've
been in my relationship with my wife for over 20 years now.

Lover.

But guess what?

Oh, thank you.

We have had multiple relationships.

And what I mean by that is I don't look at that 20 year period as just one giant long
globby relationship.

There have been phases.

There have been eras.

And there was a time in our relationship where things weren't looking so good.

Things were really rough.

And thanks to some outside counsel and some other factors, we were able to recognize that
we were now beginning a brand new relationship.

And what did we want to do out of that?

What were our goals out of that?

And right now it's the best fucking thing ever.

old me that thought that things were about to end, he's an idiot.

Because he didn't know that this was an opportunity for us.

Old her feels the same exact way.

And there's that warmth and that kindness and yeah.

The oxytocin isn't there.

We're not climbing Mount Everest anymore.

But you know what we got?

We've got the best safety net ever.

We've got the best network ever.

It feels home.

It feels cozy.

And I wouldn't trade that for anything.

And I think if people...

There's no way that I can communicate this to you and you can learn the message now.

You have to experience it, unfortunately.

You have to learn a little bit of heartbreak.

But I think if you hear it now, if this is your first time with it, you experience it,
you'll remember, you'll know you aren't alone and trust that there's a better path

forward.

I really like what you said.

And I would build on that in that like, I feel annoying in this episode a little bit, but
only to young people.

um Because I've been saying, and we've both been kind of saying a little bit of like, you
kind of have to cross these bridges to know some of these things, which feels pretentious

and condescending.

I'm so sorry if it feels that way.

uh I don't want it to feel that way.

uh But I would say like,

when you feel like you're really in love with somebody and it's the first time you feel
that feeling, especially if you come from a fucked up home, it's gonna feel too good.

It's gonna feel so good you're like, holy shit, this is the best thing.

I will devote my life to this thing.

You'll be ready to fucking throw it all in.

And the best persuader of all time can't talk about it.

Because you're an animal.

We make emotional reasoning decisions.

That's okay.

That's totally fine.

But what I would always say too, in the same, like the not 100 % category is never give
100 % of yourself to somebody.

by that, don't mean be inauthentic.

I mean, you need to always a minimum of two stewards of emotion in your life.

so like, okay, two things, as per always.

uh Thing the first is if you ever tell yourself if you ever talking about your feeling
you're thinking through your love situation And you're like would I be okay if I lost this

person if the answer is I would be devastated I would be sad.

I would be like a real sad times person for months.

It's actually fine If you're like, I would not be okay That is infatuation and frankly,
it's probably codependence Codependence is the thing that's wildly misunderstood.

So I'll speak to that really quick

Codependence is needing another person to be okay.

We uh as a creature, as humans, we need to be part of the team.

Like humanity is a team sport.

um But being like, without this person, I'm nothing, that's a liability.

That's like a safety issue.

So kind of building on that and kind of going back to what Sam said about like, nobody can
love you 100 % of the time.

um I'm a little artsy fartsy love boy and I disagree with that.

but I disagree with it on a technicality.

So I agree with it in principle.

I would talk about like, you know, like, what are they, the eight types of love, Agape is
one of them, Manny is one of them, Eros is one of them.

So I like to, and I can get into those definitions a little bit, but I like to think about
like, if I can't be obsessive love, oh my God, you're fucking amazing.

I want to be with every second of the day.

Let me just fucking worship the ground.

You walk on whatever else you can pivot to when you're mad at that person because they're
insisting you watch the 18th horror movie of the weekend.

You're like, God, fuck.

You can love them as a human, like a gapé, like my fellow person.

It isn't passionate.

It's just like, I care that you are okay.

You can be mad at them during that.

You can be disgusted with them during that.

But like, I think for a lot of people, love is such a binary term of I love you, I don't
love you kind of a thing.

So I want to make like a little wiggle room that like, there's like, you know, there's
like playful, fun love.

There's like appreciation love.

There's romantic, sexual love.

Like there's all kinds of things.

Yeah.

versus the infatuation love.

When I speak about that, I'm saying the infatuation of love is not 100%.

Totally, and you said it brilliantly.

just, I know Young Me in a different universe hears this and he goes, no, I fucking don't
know.

You know what I mean?

Like, and that's the other thing too is like, I don't, I would never forgive myself if I
was like yelping in somebody's yums when they're in love.

No, man, carpet the fuck out of that DM.

Like lean in, have fun, make incredible memories.

But like what I'm also saying, surprise, surprise, there, possessed thing he always says
at more than 11, is like love yourself too.

Don't let honeymoon stage deprive you of your relationship with yourself.

And if you know what that means, we can do a whole episode about that shit.

um But yeah, it's like the all the eggs in one basket thing.

Honeymoon stage is like, we should put this is the best basket we've ever found.

And it is, but it's still a, you are.

And also you need some eggs.

So like, careful, eggs are important.

Yeah.

Those are a lot of the pieces I wanted to say about this.

The other thing I wanted to say is like, this is maybe a little bit of an ADHD shout out.

It is okay when your honeymoon stage with like a hobby ends.

It's okay.

And it doesn't mean you're done with the thing either.

It just means your brain's not gonna hyper focus on it anymore.

Like I'm a little bit out of like the honeymoon stage with lifting right now.

I'm going to keep lifting.

Cause if you don't keep lifting, like your body hurts and shit sucks.

Um, but also my brain isn't like gravitating to it.

It's like, right.

I should do that thing instead of like, I can't wait to do that thing.

Uh, if you're a person who has a hobby, like, um, let's see, like I have a, like a
crochet.

One of my friends is like mad into crochet.

I have another friend and she's like really into like puzzles.

Those are faces they're going to pass.

They'll also come back.

But if you feel that waning, all it's telling you is, okay, let's go find a new thing to
be excited about.

Please don't perceive that as a failure.

A lot of times people are like, but I thought this was my thing.

No, having things is your thing.

Finding things is your thing.

This was a thing and it's really great.

And if you're a person who's real set, yeah, yeah, you're worthy of so much more than a
thing.

I fucking, we talked about this in a little bit of a different episode, but like, if I can
reduce you to a personality trait or a interest, you're an NPC.

but there's not enough person to go around there.

Hello fellow traveler, would you like some wares?

Hello, I enjoy tennis.

I can tell you more about tennis.

The tennis courts are located here.

Can I answer any tennis questions?

No, yeah, scroll past that.

um

You did a fantastic job.

Compelling narrative design.

Like if you if you

turn yourself into just like a one dimensional, this is my whole thing, you better be
ready to just be tennis person A.

And even my most hyper fixated of friends, my most neurodivergent friends, this shit
rotates.

It does.

So letting yourself know that it will and that it's okay and that your investments in the
previous thing weren't foolish is okay.

Somewhere on the ground over here is my fight stick that I use for playing video games.

One of multiple that I have, hundreds of dollars went into that thing.

Am I using it today?

Probably not.

Tomorrow, who knows?

I'm still gonna have it.

And that's the thing, I'll talk about every time you ever talk to me, I was gratitude,
right?

So one of the pieces of transitioning out of the honeymoon stage is your brain's like,
this is bad.

A good thing is lowering its level.

That's not the fair take I would offer you.

I would offer you instead, wow, what a fun ride that was.

The next thing's gonna be way more sustainable and also very, very good.

You're not losing a thing.

You're just changing the flavor of good.

I hope that marinates well.

Young me hated it.

He was like, no, this is worse.

I hate this.

You're making me think of something that I just saw recently.

my wife has been rewatching all of Friends again.

uh She does this from time to time.

Good show.

I got no notes on that one.

You have the main actor, the six actors that play the characters.

And one of the people is Lisa Kujo who plays the character of Phoebe.

Crazy, kitschy, wild Phoebe.

She was being interviewed recently and she was talking about how there was a point during
season three, which I think they had 10 seasons.

She started feeling really down and depressed because seasons one and two, she was working
really hard to get this character right, this Phoebe crazy character.

She was really fixating on doing it right, doing it correctly.

She did a bunch of research.

She wasn't just being herself.

She was being this character that worked in this division of these other characters.

And during season three or something, she was like, I'm really feeling depressed because I
feel like I'm not putting in enough work.

Like I put in a lot of work in seasons one and two, but like now I...

I'm not focusing on it as much.

I'm just kind of like showing up and doing the work and I feel like I'm phoning it in and
all that stuff.

And the actor, Matt LeBlanc, who played Joey said, well, Lisa, you're not phoning it in.

You hyper fixated on this for years.

You studied the craft of this character.

You've mastered it.

Now you get to take it easy.

Now you get to give yourself some grace and not focus in on it every single time.

None of that has ever gone away.

The hyper fixation, the hyper studying, the hyper focusing was not what made

a great character, it's all the work you put into it and now you get to be on top of that
platform of doing that.

In not so many words, that's what he said.

And I think about that, I think about what John's saying, which is when you hyper-focus on
a skill, on a hobby, on an interest, it doesn't go away.

And even if it did, if John were to spend three years learning fighting games and then
forget fighting games for 10 years, and let's pretend for a moment that John has...

something wrong with his brain where he truly did forget everything about fighting games
in 10 years.

He wouldn't, but let's just pretend for a moment he does.

Fun things about brains.

When they learned one thing once, they remember they had learned it.

And so when you learn it again, it learns it twice as fast, which means you never truly
lose sight of what you had done in the past and you don't lose those mileage.

You don't lose any of that.

It was all an investment inside of yourself.

That's what I would say to John as John was speaking to that in that capacity.

I would also say to John, wow, you look exactly like me.

That's really crazy.

We should hang out sometime.

I can't tell if I'd hit on him or not.

I don't know.

I just, feel like you're supposed to do that when you meet yourself.

You're like supposed to either fight him or the other thing, but yeah.

If you wouldn't flirt with yourself, if you wouldn't hit on yourself, if you met yourself,
uh I feel like you could be better.

you know, just be, be the you that you want to hook up with when you meet yourself.

Know what I mean?

you were going to do the Army slogan and said you made it, be the you you want to hook up
with yourself.

That's fantastic.

That's our new slogan here at Zero Dot.

That is good.

to go back to the, you know, brains remember that they've learned something and they
relearn it twice as fast.

To go back to lifting, that's also true of physical activity.

If you take a massive break from the gym and then you go back and you're just like, oh, my
muscles are coming back like twice as fast as I originally built them.

It's a thing.

It's really cool.

It's really good.

Oh, just to testify to that, um I took seven years off of lifting weights.

started again in June and I am within shooting distance, 20 pounds of all of my maxes
after like seven months.

That's fucking incredible.

That took me like years and years the first time.

So it's very true.

It's also true with love and like people and romance.

Not like you'll be back in love with the first person, uh but like your brain has pathways
for this now.

And that's why it hurts so much the first time is because you're like, my God, this
special thing.

But that's the thing.

There's like infinite fucking special things.

And you can find like the specialistest, bestest one also, um young people, that's for
you.

I've been in this like relationship, been growing it for a couple of months.

And like the navigating like disagreements thing is so much easier when you know how to
navigate the honeymoon stage.

Because people will be like, I want to go on a roller coaster.

And other people will be like, I don't really love roller coasters.

Would you rather do that with someone else?

Because if I go with you, it might be like this, and I want to support you what you want.

And the person goes, okay, I'll make an informed decision.

And then everyone's happy and it's fucking easy and everything's amazing.

So I just like, strongly recommend like do the honeymoon stage, be your fanciest, like
unsustainable self for a little while, but then look forward to the part where you get to

like be your authentic or more authentic, whatever the fuck.

um And don't think of the honeymoon stage as inauthentic.

Think of it as showing a person you're interested.

If you even just like have a fucking friend that you have like a bromance honeymoon stage
style thing with, like showing that person like, hey man, I really liked this thing that

we did, or hey, that was really funny the day, like that's really good.

But if you've been like homies with the person for a long time, you might not say that as
often.

You frankly, you should.

But like, there's just this level of expectation that changes, but you're doing them a
service by saying, hey, I want to establish this relationship with you.

So I think the honeymoon stage, to kind of like recap it up, the things I would take away
points.

One is like,

This is necessary, you have to do it.

It's okay that you're doing it.

It's not bad.

You're not being insincere.

Two, it will end.

It will end.

Attempts to make it not end are foolhardy.

Three, it is both, like in a way, honestly, a little sad to lose the oxytocin shotgun to
the face of just raw joy that you will feel, but it's traded in for a much better, more

sustainable thing.

And four, and four applies to both hobbies and romance, don't invest all of yourself in
one area.

There's that song, All of Me, loves all of you.

Fuckin' the song should say it, like 75 % of me is really into this, but I also enjoy
playing table hockey.

Not as catchy, but healthier.

I feel like you're going to end on that.

Yeah, I don't have a whole lot more to say about this other than the like...

No, I do.

I have a bonus thing.

My bonus thing is my green screen's on a fucking angle.

It drives me insane.

But my other bonus thing is a survival guide for what to do when your friend is in the
honeymoon stage.

Because you'll have this friend and you'll be like, friend, you're so great.

I like you so much.

And they're like, I'm in love with that person now.

And you're like, great, I'm so happy for you.

Did you hear that?

Oh, you're gone.

Okay.

Neat.

That person right now is riding the oxytocin train and you're gonna be like, my friend has
abandoned me, especially if you're young, cause it will feel like that, cause it kind of

is that a little bit.

People get better at this, which is a sidebar.

You learn to say, wow, holy shit, I'm on this wonderful honeymoon thing.

I'm still gonna devote time to the things that I care about.

I very specifically, I would say I'm in the honeymoon stage in my life right now.

In that relationship I was alluding to earlier.

I'm still gonna be here for this.

I'm still gonna go to D &D later.

I'm still gonna work out because if I don't do those things, I'm sabotaging that
relationship and the rest of my life.

And you learn that lesson and that's really cool.

But when you're watching your friend do it, what you'll be tempted to do is one of two
things.

Maybe more, you can tell me.

I would like to know.

But what I've seen people do and done is I will be like, hey, stop fucking doing this.

You're a shit head.

That doesn't work.

Humans in general don't like being told not to do things and then they do the thing even
harder or they say, you don't understand.

Which even if you do, like, it doesn't matter.

But also I would talk about this little concept that I came up with a while ago.

And if somebody like made this before me, cool.

You can have credit, I don't care.

But I call it like anti-chambers to the heart.

So this is your heart.

It's where all your love is.

It's where your vulnerable shit is.

You need to build a couple of rooms off to the side that people need to get through to get
there.

And oxytocin just opens all the fucking doors at once.

like, get on in there.

And like, it feels really, really good to let that person in.

It's not about them not being good enough.

It's not about you being right or wrong.

It's about relations.

This is a whole other thing actually, but like relationships are healthiest when they're
built as friend, companion, regular companion, let people in more about romance.

Like that's what you're supposed to do.

But in the age that we're in, that shit does not happen at all.

and worse is associated with like a value system I don't necessarily agree with.

But um since that is the case, and instead I'm like, hey, swipe, swipe.

Okay, cool.

Let's hang out tonight.

which you wanna do is like give degrees of vulnerability as you go.

Also a thing, I'm gonna sound like a whiny old Puritan when I say this.

When you have sex with somebody, you skip a chamber.

You just do.

It automatically happens because your brain biologically goes, we're gonna raise a child
with this person.

It doesn't matter if you are not making a child during that act at all.

It doesn't matter if you biologically can't make a child during that act.

Your brain's like, well, that's the thing you do with people you stay with forever.

and you will start to feel even for that person.

And if you're like, I don't feel that way, I'm cool and capable of being callous during
this whole thing, fucking cool for you.

Feel free to prove me wrong.

Nobody has.

And worse, even if you are that thing, the other person won't be.

you can't regulate that other person's emotions.

So if you are a said person who feels I could create a separation of this between illicit
wonderful feelings, but it's not how I emotionally feel and all that good stuff, you can't

guarantee that the person doesn't feel that way either.

You can't.

And if you both can, and I'm wrong, fuck it, I'd love that for you.

Yeah, no, great.

and let us know, hey, Sam, John, and Daniel, even though Daniel was cool and didn't say
anything, you're both wrong.

All three of you are wrong.

And here's our story.

We'd love to share it and talk about

Also, real quick thing I want to mention.

I have been speaking about this a lot from the perspective of like a monogamous person.

Like this still applies to polyamory.

This applies to like ethical non-monogamy, this applies to all kinds of stuff.

Like you want to be careful with your stewardship of emotion.

You want to be careful with how much of yourself you give to somebody.

You do want to do it.

It's fucking amazing.

But just keep yourself in a blast shield that you're like okay without needing it.

Thing number whatever the fuck we're on several things ago.

When your friend is in this position.

Yeah, tell us what thing we're on.

Number them.

Thank you.

Let me check the notes here.

We're on thing 31.

um When your friend is doing this and you're like, stop doing this, what you can do for
them, if you love them and want to be kind to them, is with the spoons and resources you

have, you can keep yourself in their life so that when things go stupid for them, they
will be like, I have a bridge to that person.

That person is very kind because they're going to be embarrassed to take the bridge.

I've been the bridge taker and the bridge builder on this before.

And when you're like, Hey man, you know how I was spending all that time with that person?

And now we broke up because it turns out that wasn't great.

I'm really sorry.

It wasn't there.

I apologize.

And that person is receiving that you have this huge chance to be like, I get it, man.

Like I care about you.

Like you're going to bet friendship leveled up immediately.

But also like said, love don't, don't take it personally.

If you can't compete with oxytocin for someone's attention.

You can't, I can't, Sam can't, Daniel maybe can't, but most people can't.

And I feel like just...

in every single way.

yeah, just gorgeous.

But the point being, uh humor aside, like, you can't.

It's the morphine button at a hospital, right?

Well, people will press it till they die.

That's why it has the cutoff thing.

So, love is awesome.

Connection is awesome.

Sex is awesome.

Deepening relationships is awesome.

It's also the Wild West, especially when you're new to it.

And it's okay if you got hurt.

It's okay if you made a bad choice.

It's okay if you made a lot of bad choices.

I know that I did.

Said with like a compassion and a humor, not like a shame.

So yeah, if you had a relationship where you felt like your honeymoon stage got away from
you, if you had one, if you want to be like, you're wrong about this thing, always tell me

I'm wrong about this thing.

I don't care.

I'm open to that information.

You're like, I've been on honeymoon stage for 37 years.

If I can write it, let me know.

I might disagree with you.

We can talk about it.

It'll be fun.

We're just telling you the stuff that we believe and that we hope will be helpful.

I want to give a quick thank you to our paid Patreon members.

God of Grunts, Aid, JP, William Kirk, and Robert Rustant.

Thank you very much for supporting us.

You are what keeps us going.

I appreciate you more than you know.

Sam, John, would you be kind enough to play us out for this episode, please?

Absolutely.

Well folks, been another episode of the Zero Dot Podcast.

I'm Sam, this has been John and Daniel.

I can't wait to talk to you next week, but until then, can check us out at
thezero.podcast.com where we have every single one of our episodes.

You can check us out everywhere where you're our podcast.

That includes Amazon, that includes Apple, Spotify, YouTube.

You know where we are at, but you know what, most importantly,

If you've got a question that you want to ask, that you want one of us homies to answer,
mull on address, or even just say your name out loud in a digital space because we love

you, you can do that by going to our email address at questions at thezerodotpodcast.com
and submitting your questions, or going to our website, thezerodotpodcast.com website,

which is a website that you can go to.

And filling out our form, it's on the internet, the World Wide Web, and you can fill out
your...

You can fill out your question, your answers, sorry.

You can fill out your query.

fill out your answers.

um We'll give you a question, you give us an answer, we'll do one of those too, just to
throw it in there.

to throw in the meta, just to make things happen.

So do that and um if not, then I guess we'll just keep making zero dot stuff, which good
thing I like doing this.

if I didn't that'd be a problem.

Until next time, be the best version of you you can possibly be.

If you wouldn't make love to a pretty version of yourself then maybe change yourself a
little bit per what Daniel said earlier.

And I'll see you around.

Thanks for watching Bang Your Clone, Zero Dot Podcast.

See you in a week.

Thanks for watching, you stink, take a shower, see you later!

Thanks for watching.

The honeymoon stage is okay, unless you do it too long, in which case it's bad.

Watch the actual episode.

This isn't enough, you fucking asshole.

Well, this is the end of the episode, which you know because you scrolled all way to the
end to figure out what the end word was about to say.

So, you're really a jerk.

You should have watched the entire episode.

Look what you've done.

You made it awkward for everyone.

Everyone.

I bet you shit sitting down like a weirdo.

I bet you shit's sitting down, you fucking pervert.

I bet you walk to the toilet, bend your knees, fucking 90 degree angle that thing, bloop,
bloop, bloop, and then maybe you wipe like a coward.

I do it like Mother Nature intended, while running.

Hahaha

It's...

Warriting.

a very visual mind, so all I did was think about that.

Every step I drop a nug.

That's how we do it in the streets.

Well, it's

funny to imagine

No, it's great because if a predator is chasing you, they slip on your poop.

It's like this is it's natural oil.

It's it's good.

a banana skinny Mario Kart.

That's the secret is I eat a whole banana skin at a time so just bloop and out it comes
it's like corn

Mmm.

Can't take that image back.

Bye.