The Coach Daniel Ratner Podcast
Coach Ratner is not a matchmaker, but a MateMaker. With 7 books under his belt, Coach Ratner is an accomplished author and sought-after speaker on topics such as relationships, self-esteem and spirituality. His unique insights and captivating speaking style have helped countless individuals achieve their goals and transform their lives.
The Coach Daniel Ratner Podcast
Are You an Emotional Vampire?
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Ever left a conversation feeling lighter—or strangely exhausted? We dig into what makes someone an emotional vampire, why it’s hard to see it in the mirror, and how simple shifts in awareness can turn draining patterns into healthy connection. We start by calling out a human bias: judging others by their actions while excusing ourselves with intentions. From there, we walk through real-life stories—awkward dates, nonstop talkers, and that friend who always needs you at the worst moment—to show how social awareness, facial cues, and true listening become your best tools in the room.
We also break down the “keepers” framework to help you choose the people who add energy, not steal it. Strip out ego and envy, and look for four traits: kind, peaceful, respectful, empathetic. Kindness softens edges. Peace reduces drama. Respect prevents contempt. Empathy fuels intimacy. We talk about narcissists and empaths, love-bombing that turns relationships into manipulationships, and practical boundaries that protect your sanity. You’ll hear why responsibility is irresistibly attractive—like quietly picking up soup bowls at dinner or getting up at 3 a.m. for the baby—and why presence beats perfect profiles every time.
If you struggle with second dates, feel unheard in friendships, or rely on constant validation, this conversation offers a mirror and a map. Try the 24-hour rule before hard talks, trade rebuttals for real listening, and run a friend audit to ask whether the price of admission is worth the emotional cost. By reading “the back of your shirt,” you’ll spot blind spots, build better habits, and choose people who make your life brighter. If this resonated, share it with someone who needs it, subscribe for more practical relationship tools, and leave a quick review to tell us your biggest takeaway.
How's everyone doing? Any questions? How are you feeling? I feel pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel pretty good. So this class is called Are You an Emotional Vampire? First of all, what is an emotional vampire? It's someone that drains you with energy. It's someone that you don't look forward to when you see their texts. And we all have them in our lives. They could be our friends, our family, most likely our family. Could be our girlfriends, our boyfriends, it could be, you know, our classmates, many people. So I'm gonna ask you a question. Who here has an emotional vampire in their life? Raise your hand.
unknown:Can you define it?
SPEAKER_07:I just did. Who here has a you don't have an emotional vampire in your life? No one's range of energy. You do? You some want to raise your hand.
SPEAKER_03:Is a financial vampire the same thing? Is a financial vampire the same thing?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, that drain of energy. Drain of money. Yeah, you have one, right? Obviously. So who here is You have a lot of them, right? We all have a lot of them.
SPEAKER_03:Some of them even under the title of a Jewish organization.
SPEAKER_07:Sure. So I have a question. Who here thinks they're an emotional vampire?
unknown:Definitely.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe someone.
SPEAKER_07:No hands going up. We have a problem going on. The truth is simple. We judge other people by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. This means that when other people do something wrong or upsetting, we tend to focus on their actions, but when we do something wrong, we often excuse ourselves based on why we did it. For example, if someone's late, we might say, oh, they're caused, they're disrespectful, they're careless. However, if we're late, we'll say, Oh, I hit traffic. Do you get my point? So this is pointing at a common double standard in how we judge behavior: harsher on others, more forgiving toward ourselves. You go to someone for three weeks, I was just overwhelmed. Someone does it to you, they're toxic and emotionally unavailable. So the question is, how is it possible that most of us have emotional vampires in our lives? Except no one here is raising their hand to say, I'm an emotional vampire. Something doesn't make sense, right? Go ahead.
SPEAKER_03:Well, we're always, I know I'm always sort of keeping myself in check when I need someone, but I'll make sure not to overuse and options. Sure. So these people aren't doing that. They're just using and abusing without even thinking taking other people into consideration.
SPEAKER_07:So I have a topic I talk about called read the back of your shirt. Because when you're when you're going through life, right, you have a shirt, and you have a shirt, and sometimes it has a writing on the front, right? And you can see what's on the front, but you don't know what's on the back of your shirt. And the problem is, since you can't read it, the only way for you to find out is if someone tells you. So no one's admitting they're an emotional vampire, but I'm sure there's some of us in the room who are emotional vampires, even myself. So we're gonna go through and we're going to uh we're gonna go through some questions on what an emotional vampire is. Now, I put emotional vampires in many different categories. Uh I shall even read them to you. I don't remember them all. But it's something as simple as the perpetual the perpetual victim, uh, the narcissist, the socially awkward, the drama queen, the emotionally constipated. Parents, siblings, and in-laws, these are its own separate category. Because if they weren't your siblings or in-laws, you might be friends with them or you might not have a relationship with them. But because they're related to you, they drain you of energy. The overly dependent, the non-stop talkers, the second guessers, the projectors. Then I have two for children, one's called the terrible twos, and one is called for teenagers, because they drain you of energy when you have them as a parent. So we're gonna go through some questions we're gonna ask ourselves if maybe we are an emotional vampire. I've never done this class before, so we're gonna see how it works out. Um, because really taking ownership of your faults is the only way to start the process of healing. You have to say, you actually have to say it to yourself every day, um, really, because you know, I always say, like, when you're when you're dating someone, if you're not sure if you're gonna marry them, you should have someone who that guides you, like a coach or rabbi or Robinson. But you don't want what I call a yes man. What's a yes man? Someone's a yes man like your girlfriend. Like you said you go buy a dress, and you go to your girlfriend, oh, how do I look in this dress? What's she gonna say? You shouldn't have bought that dress. No, she's gonna say you look great. Because she's a yes man. Or you invite someone over to your house and you just finish your kitchen. Oh, I got him in the kitchen. I've been in my kitchen, you wanna see it? You wanna see it? You bring him over. What do you think? What do you think? What are you looking for at this point in time? Are you looking for the honest truth or are you looking for validation?
unknown:Validation.
SPEAKER_07:You look for validation! If you really wanted their opinion, you would have asked them before you designed your kitchen. Do you get my point? And that would be a nightmare if you start doing that. So even when my books, when I say, when I when I, you know, people give me their opinions in my books, if you've been to my class and you like my classes, and you read my book, unless my book's complete trash, which it's not, right, you're gonna say, Oh, I like the book. So no offense, your opinion doesn't mean a lot to me. It does. I mean, I enjoy your opinion, but again, it's a it's a biased opinion. Because you like my class, therefore you're gonna like my book. Is that making sense? So we sometimes need a yes man. This is what a good coach does. They can see your situation, especially if you're dating or in a relationship, from the outside. Even though it's not just dating, life skills are if you want to get a job, what you're what you want to do in life. And a coach can see things that you can't see because they're not emotionally involved, they're not in the middle of it. Does it make sense? So we're gonna ask some questions to ourselves. Determine if you are an emotional vampire. And maybe you might leave this class like, oh, I hate this class. Right? So, question number one: do you have a hard time keeping friends for a long time? Anyone want to comment? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Thank you, Hegel. I'm glad you get that. Do you have a hard time giving friends for a long time? That's one way. That listen, if you have a hard time keeping friends, you have to look at your you can start blaming your friends for all their issues, right? But really, you have to look at yourself in the mirror sometimes. Maybe I'm the one that's causing the friendship's not the last. This might not be an easy class. Uh, number two, do you have uh trouble getting second or third dates? Again, when I was in my early 20s, I couldn't get second dates, and I said to my best friend, Hackman can't get a second date. He said, Stop talking and start listening. Because listening is how relationships are formed. I remember another time I was on a I was uh on a date with a woman, cute girl, and she would not stop talking. I mean, I thought it was uncanny camera. I'm like, you kidding me? Who can talk this much? She's probably really nervous. Thank God she got married, poor guy. I mean, I hope he has a good set of noise-canceling headphones. My point is, you know, she was probably just very nervous and stuff, but I couldn't handle those too much. Maybe she found a guy, maybe she's just a very, I don't know, right? But if you're having a hard time getting second or third dates, you might have look at yourself in the mirror. Now, it doesn't matter if it happens, it happens to everyone all of us, either the best of us it happens to, right? But like if you're having a hard time with relationships, maybe you're the vampire. It doesn't mean you can't improve yourself, as we talked about yesterday. Yes, you can't improve yourselves. You're not animals, you're humans. You can improve your character traits. You can come better people, better listeners, more patient. Do you find that people will sometimes I have a story? I want to tell a story. Actually, I might want to read it. I was in uh Florida last year giving a class, and after there was a woman in the back of her class. I was doing my dating relationship class, my marriage class, and she looked like she had this scowl on her face. And I said, I thought to myself, does she hate what I'm saying, does she like, can't stand what I'm saying? Like, what I'm saying is like like wrong? She's not like it. So uh I'm actually gonna read to you how everybody, it's very funny. I had just wrapped up teaching a dating class, and the vibe after was pretty calm. People hanging around, nibbling on desserts, waiting their turn to chat with me to get free dating advice. A few women decided to save time and approached me as a group. One of them, very direct, asked, Why don't men ever ask me out for a second date? Am I doing something wrong? Now, usually this is where I generally dodge it and say, Well, who knows? Men are mysterious creatures. But this time I actually did know. I was dreading saying it out loud. During my talk, I noticed this woman. She had a look on her face, like I just insulted her cat and grandmother in the same sentence. Total scow. Some call it RBF. If you don't know, ask me afterwards. I made a mental note. She's definitely having a tough time in the dating world. So when she asked, I took a breath and decided to tell her the truth, kindly but directly. I said, Well, you're actually very cute when you smile, but your resting face is telling a completely different story. She looked at me like I told her that she had an upside-down unibrow. I tried to soften it with a humor saying, You ever see that Seinfeld episode when Jerry's date looked gorgeous in one light and like a goblin in the other? She goes, Yeah? Kind of like that. You're the gorgeous part. Just make sure to leave the lights on. She didn't love that. Okay, I really didn't tell her to leave the lights on, but I wanted to. Here's the thing: don't ask the question if you don't want the truth. I didn't want to say it. Telling someone they're unknowingly scaring off dates with a face is not exactly a great way to make friends, but I generally felt it was something she needed to hear. That she needs to smile. We talked about this next week I'm gonna give the class from Swipe Right to Wedding Night, How to Myourself Irresistically Marriageable. We're gonna talk about smiling on dates. When you see a picture of a woman or a guy with a face and he's smiling versus a woman who's not smiling, it is a world of difference. The face that you have, the I think this might be in the uh our stage say that you actually don't own your face. Why is that? It's your face, I know it's your face, it's your beautiful face, it's beautiful, but you don't see it like I see it. You wake up in the morning, if you're a guy, you see your face for five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the after in the evening. A girl, okay, a little bit, put any makeup on, right? You spend okay, maybe an hour, whatever it is. But you come to a class like this, I'm looking at you for an hour. I'm seeing your face way more than you're seeing your face. Therefore, your face is reshoush harubi. Your face is public domain. It is, it's public domain, which means you should put a smile in it because you have an effect on everyone you come in contact with. Beautiful smile. I love that. Actually, I when I was started teaching, I guess, about 10 years ago, I'm I'm kind of passionate, I think, a little bit. And a few might one or two people said to me, You sometimes come across a little bit angry when I'm speaking. So I made sure to put the word smile in big letters on all my notes, and I had the word smile. Because sometimes we forget to smile, especially if we're engaged in something. So it's very important to smile on the first date. And if you have a hard time getting a second date, maybe you're not smiling. People like to see happy people, people want to be around happy people. So if you're having a problem getting a second or third date, that could be an issue. Just saying. I mean, like, I know the story's not very nice for this girl, but it really was an issue when I was giving the class, I'm like, wow. I mean, when she smiles, she's cute, when she doesn't, ugh. Poor girl, I feel bad for her. Anyway. So we asked Russ some questions. Do you find that what people will stop, do you feel do you find that people will sometimes stop listening to you when you are talking with them? You're giving you a story, and I we talk about this next week also. But you have to have what's called uh the social awareness that when you're giving a story in a pla in a in a with a group of people, or you're uh, and they're not, they're like, look like they're bored, it's because they are bored. And if you're on a date and you're telling a story about something and the day looks bored, probably because they are bored. I mean, like, the you you can read facial clues. I'm thinking about doing a whole class on facial clues. Because it really you can tell so much by the way whether people react. It's really hard to like lie with your with your face. My we have a friend who's uh she was an FBI expert in telling if people are lying or not. So there's like thousands of clues your face gives off about if you're telling the truth or not. I mean, if you're on a date and you're telling a story and the guy looks bored, you've got to change the subject. But you have to have the awareness. Most people don't even have the awareness. They tell a story, oh, I remember I was giving a class to Chabad one time, some guy comes up to me after class and give me a Devar Torah. I'm like, you know, I love Devar Torah, but like I just finished giving a 45-minute class. I have people waiting to talk to me. I'm like, this is not the time for Devar Torah. Or I I when I spoke at you uh for Shavuas here, on Shavuas, uh last year, if you were here, it was packed. The whole room out there was like 400 people. It's crazy. And I gave my half-hour class, and after class, you know, if you saw that class, it was pretty funny. Uh I put a lot of energy into it. And, you know, I had people waiting to talk to me afterwards, and this guy comes up and starts telling me about his relationship with his ex-wife. You know, there's a time and a place at Shivuas at 2 a.m. when you have 20 people waiting to talk to you. It's not the time to give me his story about his life, you know? He didn't have the awareness. Now, obviously, there's an issue in his marriage because if he's not aware that that's not the time to talk to it, he could have said to me, Hey coach, I want to talk to you in a different time. Can I get your number after, you know, after Shivuas and contact you? That's what he should have said. But he didn't have that awareness. And we have to have the awareness what we're talking about. If people are bored, it's because they are bored. Especially all us men in this room. No offense to you guys. No, we are. We're not good listeners. And we have to train ourselves to become better listeners. It's very it's a it's a trait that women love. And it's a trait that you can practice. And when you're 22 years old and you're focused on you know football, you're learning something, it's hard to talk to people.
SPEAKER_00:How do you know if we're a bad listener or not?
SPEAKER_07:I'm just I'm the making of general generalization, which means there's exceptions, right? But in order to become a good listener, it takes practice. It really does. And I've gotten good at it. I've I've not I was not a good listener. I mean, like, my mind's going to million, I do a million things at once. Like, I'm doing coin deals, I'm piano, I'm like writing classes, whatever I'm doing. A million things going on. I'm always thinking. So, like when someone tells me a story, I don't want to listen, I just want to think to myself all the time. This is what I do, I just think to myself, make up stuff. So I've gotten good at it. I've practiced. You know, I sit out after a class, you'll see me coaching people in this room out in this room all the time. And I listen to you, and I've gotten really good. And people say, Man, uh, one of the rabbis said to me, 'goes, you would really focus on people and you talk to them.' I go, it's taking some practice. This wasn't my skill of mine, but I've gotten much better at zoning in what people are saying. Remember, we talked about, not if you weren't here, listening versus hearing. Right? In the second paragraph of Shema, we say twice a day, Shemuova Tishmu'u, you shall hear and listen. Because there's two times of hearing. There's one where it goes in one ear and out the other. And there's the other when you internalize to understand it. And we have to understand that in order to form relationships, in order to not be a vampire, in order to have loving relationships, we have to actually listen to our spouse. And listening and hearing are two different things. Hearing means it goes in one ear, out to the other. Listening means you internalize it, understand it, can replay it back. And by the way, if you're on a date and you have a hard time listening to the person you're on a date with, that is a person you should not go out with. You have to give it two or three chances. But by the third date, if you do not have, if you're not having, if you're having a hard time connecting with them, this not person is not for you. And it's no wonder that the word heart, we want to be on a date and we want to connect someone, we have to use our ears. And the word heart has the word ear right in the middle of it. Because if you want to capture someone's heart, you have to use your ears. And it's no coincidence that the words silent and listen have the exact same letters. Because when we're, you know, if you've ever been in an argument with someone, what are you doing the whole time? They're yelling at you and you're thinking to yourself, you're not listening to them. You know what you're doing? You're forming you're formulating a response in your head. And this is why we talked about yesterday in the 12, 10 commands of marriage, that when you're emotional with your with your spouse or your girlfriend or boyfriend, it is not good to engage. Because you're going to lose. Because nothing good happens when you're emotional. And this is why I have what's called the 24-hour rule in a relationship. That you have to wait, it's a recommendation, not khalala. I'm just telling you this. You have to wait, like I told you the story yesterday about when I come home from from uh when I came home from Schul and the food wasn't on the hot plate, and I was late, and my wife didn't notice it, and I didn't say anything. Why? Because it would have done no good. Create animosity in your relationship. And I told her five days later when it wasn't in the moment. And if if most parents could understand this with their kids, they'd have a better do a better job of raising kids. You cannot negotiate when someone is emotional. Listening is such a great skill to have. And when you go, I'm like, and I asked this guy yesterday. You're a girl, and you have a choice of two guys to grow out with. One guy is six foot two, good looking, but doesn't listen to you, doesn't understand you, doesn't get your jokes. Or you can take a guy who's five foot six, twenty pounds overweight, but gets you and understands you and laughs at your jokes. Who would you rather grout with? Who would you rather grow out with? The second guy. You can say it somewhere in the middle. I understand. I get it. Us short guys get completely discriminated against, which is ridiculous. Right? Because in ancient times we had to have a big guy with muscles, right? To protect you from the marauders and saber-toothed tigers. But nowadays you don't need that anymore. You don't need a guy who's six foot two with big muscles that can protect you when a ropper walks into the coffee shop. You don't need that anymore. So short guys get completely discriminated against. And by the way, I believe, and you can disagree with me, it comes from low self-esteem, because we don't want to be a woman walking to a restaurant with a guy who's two inches older than us. And by the way, you probably can't tell the difference in bed anyway. And by the way, if that guy is manning up at 3 a.m. to change the diapers and bring a bottle to your kid and bring you a cup of coffee and give you attention, affection, appreciation, and awareness, that's the guy you want to be married to. Who cares if he's five foot four and you're five foot eight? It means nothing in a relationship when it comes to time. When it comes to reality, it means absolutely nothing. I know how many people I know, nice, beautiful Jewish women, marry handsome, handsome guys, and they're now divorced. Looks only go so far. This is why we want to marry because the body is what we see, and our soul is our purpose and destiny. We want to marry our soulmate. Not someone we meet online that's our codemate. You know, it might match online, but in reality, it's not the same thing. And you might the problem with someone's dating now is like, you know, because people use Chat GPT to write their bios. And some girl sees this guy with this beautiful bio, and she and she goes to a coffee shop to meet him, and she realizes it's a MacBook computer. Now it's great because he's gonna, you know, you can power him on only with a push of a button, but it doesn't last very long, right? That doesn't make a great relationship. So you have to be the real person. And I it's funny, I get this all the time. I get emails every single day from people, because I you know I have a bunch of books on the Amazon, and they're trying to become they want to market my books. I can help you with their books or their book book clubs, and their emails are not written by themselves. You can tell they're all chat GBT emails. No one's writing an email, hey Coach Radder, my name is Sarah, I live in Houston, I'd love to help you, but like no one can write that email. It's like all this, they put my book through the thing, all these it's like four paragraphs of like talking about the nuances in my book. You did not read my book, no offense. Every single day this happens. These aren't real people. I mean, there may be real people, but I'm not gonna connect to them. I want someone who's real in life. So we just did do you find that people will sometimes stop listening to you when you're talking with them? If that's the case, maybe you're a vampire. Okay. Doesn't mean you can't improve. Next question. Are you upset when you're not the center of attention? This is a big thing. We have um a friend who who um we found out, well, it's not a friend anymore, we've we figured out as a narcissist. And we we we kind of assumed this, and we found out later on when um she was at a Shabbat dinner that like she had to be the center of attention. Because this is what she needs, this is this is what fuels her is being the center of attention. And if you don't feel like you're a center of attention, it's possible that you're a narcissist. Uh do you have a hard time saying I'm sorry or I forgive you? This is an issue. This is an issue in relationships that people have a hard time, like I say, being empathetic. The whole purpose for the this book, Emotional Vampires, that we're discussing now, and Are You an Emotional Vampire is we want to find the keepers in our life. Keepers in our life that people that we need that are healthy for us to have as friends and as romantic partners. And this is an acronym. We're gonna use this word, keeper. The first thing we're gonna do, these are people who in our life. The first thing we're gonna do, we're gonna get rid of two of the words. We're gonna get rid of ego. We don't want ego in our life. Ego means that I control everything and God has nothing to do with it. You know, they said, Who's the most humble, who's the humblest person in the world, would the Torah tell us?
SPEAKER_00:Moshe Rabeno.
SPEAKER_07:Moshe Rabino. Do you think Moshe went to Pharaoh's office and said, Pharaoh, will you let our people go? No! He walked in, Pharaoh, let our people go! And being humble isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking less about yourself. And realizing everything you have in your life is a gift from God. And if you're not raised in a spiritually influenced home like I was not, you have an ego. And in relationship, let me tell you something. This is the truth. Your ego is not your amigo. Thanks for the smile back there. And actually, the word ego actually stands for something else. Exiting God out. Even in my 20s, when I was very successful, thank God, in the coin business, I'm like, it's all me, I'm pretty good in coins, I make deals, look at me, I'm the big man on campus, BM, you know, BMC. Was it BMO, Big Man on Campus? No, BMOG. And I finally realized God just gave me gifts. God gave us an easy check at birth, and our job in life is to cash that check. He gave you one for$10,000, he gave you one for$5,000. But you never go to a bank with a$5,000 check and say, just give me$4,000 and keep the change. That's exactly what you're doing when you don't reach your potential in life. And having the awareness of when you're draining people of energy and having the awareness of who's draining you of energy in your life will make you a much happier person. Because you have to protect your happiness. No one else can do it. No offense. Your parents aren't gonna be there your whole life protecting you. You have to protect yourself. And knowing who to have in your life and not having your life. Is a very important factor, and this will help you also in dating, too. When I first, when I wrote the book, I didn't like, I wasn't thinking about dating, I was thinking more about like interpersonal relationships with our family and our friends. But really, it comes in a partner. So if you want a partner, you don't want someone with an ego. We talked about yesterday the the the second commandment of the Ten Commandments is to not worship idols. But if you marry a guy who thinks they're a god or wants to be a god or wants to have a body like a god, right, you're marrying an idol worshiper. That's what you're doing. You don't want to marry someone like that. So you want to get someone who marry someone who doesn't have an ego. Get rid of that. Then you want to get rid of envy. You can substitute jealousy. There's also, there's like yesterday we talked about the 10th commandment of the Ten Commandments, is do not covet. You know, 10 things, 10 fingers. I want that, I want that, I want that car, that house, that wife, that job. And you're not happy with what you have in life. And if you marry someone, if you date someone with envy, you if they're if they're already, I I was coaching a guy, and he's uh he was he was came through Aish and he was living in North Miami Beach. And he calls me and he's dating this girl who's modern Orthodox, and he says, uh she's very nice, he likes her, but he's complaining to me because she likes to have the newest cars. Like she every three years gets a new, I guess, a new lease. Is that still a thing in America? Is that still a thing? I mean, I things change, I haven't been there in six years. And then she always has to have the newest designer purse. Now, I don't know if you know, but like purses can get expensive, you probably don't have no idea, but like, I mean, if you buy hermaise or Louis Vuitton purses, they get to be tens of thousands of dollars for a purse. It's the stupidest thing. It's the craziest thing in the world. There's arme's purses. Hermes, you know, hermes? Is it actually pronounced hermaise? Hermes? Hermes. Hermes, Hermes. That sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have a buddy who actually deals in Armaise purses, and I asked him, why do people pay so much for this stuff? He goes, Well, they're rare, they're with crocodile skin, they have, you know, they're made hand sticks and everything. I go, why do people really buy them? And he explained to me one thing. He goes, it's just because of ego. He goes, he buys lots of purses back from people from divorced women who got them when they were married because the husband's trying to. In fact, I talk about this in my upcoming book, that the five love languages, one of the love languages is giving of gifts. Do you guys know that? Giving you gifts? I do not believe that's a love language. I finally can't, you know, this is what I do. I say stuff that people think, but don't come out and say it. And I started thinking about this. Why does someone have to have gifts? Do you know why? It's compensating for a lack of emotional connection. When you're buying your wife gifts all the time, it's because there's probably a lack of emotional connection, not putting the effort into the emotions, and therefore you're substituting for gifts. You can disagree with me. That's my opinion. What do you think back there?
SPEAKER_01:I disagree. I I think that some people feel love when they hate when people buy their gifts.
SPEAKER_07:Well, they should feel love without gifts. That's the thing. It's compensating.
SPEAKER_03:So why is active service says yes, we feel love love? It is gifts. Some people do think it's gifts. Is the act of love? Is that the same thing? Do you think it is? Some people think it's that it's okay, but it depends why these people don't feel like that.
SPEAKER_07:I understand, and I can disagree with him.
SPEAKER_01:From your end, you can receive it as love.
SPEAKER_07:You can receive it as love.
SPEAKER_01:Like they don't really have a connection, they're trying to compensate for something.
SPEAKER_07:Let's let's be honest here. There is a lack of there is what I call emotional constipation in this relationship. I'm being honest. It's because one person cannot open up emotion to the other, and so one of them feels like they're not being loved, so what they do is they compensate by buying gifts. That's my opinion. You don't agree with me.
SPEAKER_01:Is there a place for gifts, any like a birthday gift or anything?
SPEAKER_07:Yes, on holidays. Rosh Hashanah, so code, pays off, you buy your wife a gift.
SPEAKER_03:If it's a real love language and that's what your spouse likes, then that's the way you love them. But you're doing it out of love, not out of, oh, let's just be pata, she's annoying, he's annoying, buy them gifts.
SPEAKER_07:Well, I think both issues are correct. I think both issues, I think. I think the reason people do it is because there is a lack of emotional connection. That's my honor. You don't agree with me. Like I said, I'm not here to be I'm not here to be liked. You can disagree with me. Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Is there a difference between acts of services and gifts? What like both of them are physical actions and both of them are, in my opinion, a love language. Why would you differentiate pieces of gifts?
SPEAKER_07:Well, let's let's let's acts of service, right? That's something you're doing in the cleaning the kitchen up. You're for example, we're gonna talk about this next week in my in my uh class, make yourself irresistibly marriageable, that a woman, like you're you're dating and you see a guy and he's doing things that not not he's not being asked to do, like picking up the chicken soup and things like this, right? Like you do on Friday night. Young man, 20% hotter off the bat, right? Picks up the chicken soup in my job's table without being asked. Women look at them 20% hotter because they're being taking responsibility for something. But going out and buying a gift, listen, it's definitely buying something that you need or something but I don't feel now. This is my opinion. I don't feel the need to buy my wife gifts. I I just don't feel that need. If she wants gifts, you know what she says, oh you bought me a gift today. She'll buy it herself. I don't feel that need to have a great relationship with my wife. You know what I'm saying? I my opinion, I think it's a lack of emotional connection. And because some huh?
SPEAKER_01:It might just not be a love language. It doesn't be like That's why I don't think it's a love language. It is one of the five.
SPEAKER_07:I know it's one of the five, it's not halacha, though. It's some guy's opinion, and I can disagree with him. You know, unless, you know, unless Rashi said it is, okay, I'll believe it. Right? But it's not from Rashi or the Rambam or Hillel, right? Or Shmuhanabe. It's not for any of the sages that this is a love language. But there is halacha that we have to buy our gifts three times is it three times a year? I don't know, for all the holidays. So we do buy gifts. It's a halah we have to buy our life's gifts.
SPEAKER_06:Some of you was never taught emotion love from an emotional perspective. He's gonna look at love as gifts.
SPEAKER_07:That's my point. Thank you. Thank you. Have someone agree with me.
SPEAKER_06:Well, they're they're just like an emotionally Detaxed!
SPEAKER_07:Detaxed, what I call it, I call it in this book I call it emotional constipation. These are guys who, and I'm gonna I hate to say this for guys because guys are diagnosed with Asperger four times the amount of girls. And by the way, when you meet a girl who has asperger, it's just not as weird as a guy. I don't know why, it just comes across differently, at least for me, right? And women, and we have a new data guy, and unfortunately, I think it's a big thing in the Jewish world. I don't know why. Maybe because I'm in the Jewish world, but like it just appears that when you I think these singles events, there'd be a whole group of guys who are just all awkward. You're like, you know, and these guys are still in their 50s and 60s and not married, they wonder why they're not married, because they don't know how to be married. This is why I give the class next, I think Sunday I'm giving it. From swipe right to wedding night. How to make yourself irritably marriageable. And no one's teaching them. And I know guys who have Asperger's and have been trained by therapists on what to say in certain situations. And they come across, okay, they're not my favorite people in the world, but they're not weirdos at least. You can train yourself to not be a weirdo.
SPEAKER_06:It takes a lot of awareness.
SPEAKER_07:It takes a lot of awareness, and people just don't have it. I know someone in my life who has no idea they have Asperger's. And they're in their 60s, Divorce. I know they have Asperger's, and they told me, Oh, I finally got diagnosed of ADD. No, you have Asperger's. It's like come so blazing sad. Like, how do you not have Asperger's? And I actually in the book I talk about ways you can tell someone has Asperger's. They don't understand nuances of jokes, right? They they start the conversation with the top ten Dungeons and Dragons games. Like, you know, like, come on. That's what I teach next week. The first thing you do when you meet someone, hi, I'm Daniel, what's your name? Where are you from? Because it creates a connection. You can start a conversation off that way. And you have a lot of guys who are terrified of social situations, they're terrified of dark women, because maybe a little bit awkward, they've been turned down a lot because they're awkward. And so now they're terrified and they end up not being married. Or they are married, you date a guy who's got Asperger's or who's socially awkward, and you marry him, he's a cute guy, nice, whatever. And they can be very smart people, make good money. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg. I know, I know a few billionaires who are have Asperger's, they're great. You marry them, great. You know what happens? Elon Musk. You marry them, and when you're married, you want to be able to share your emotions. You want to be able to share your feelings, you want to be able to cry with you and be happy with you, you want to come home and have something to share and feel open. This is why the passion, like your passion in the bedroom, starts from the living room. When someone's there to share with you and connect with you, but when you have a guy who has a hard, I'm saying guys, but a hard time connecting, that passion is not gonna be there. And you might be married for your whole life, but guess what? It's not a killer marriage. And I don't want to make a I want to make killer marriages. Not just good marriages, not great marriages, but awesome marriages. Go ahead, I don't need it. Okay. Um oh, here's a good question. Do you rationalize when what you consider a close friend suddenly ignores you?
SPEAKER_06:Isn't that a natural thing?
SPEAKER_07:What?
SPEAKER_06:Isn't that a natural thing?
SPEAKER_07:A natural for a close friend to suddenly ignore you?
SPEAKER_06:No.
SPEAKER_07:I don't get your question.
SPEAKER_06:I thought you meant like over text like this.
SPEAKER_07:No, no, I'm talking about someone you're close to as a friend and suddenly they're not friends with you anymore. They're like they're trying to break we'll just keep you out of the way. That's the clue you might be an emotional vampire. Um, we talked about having a hard time saying, I am sorry, I was wrong, or I forgive you. I got off topic. We were gonna finish this. So we're sorry about that. So we're talking about finding keepers in your life. So we first got rid of envy and we're envy, ego, and we got rid of envy. And by the way, envy is basically saying, God, you made a mistake. It's like idol worship. Why is that? Because you're saying, God, I don't have that car, that house, that body, that job. You made a mistake. We don't want to have that, we don't want to have idol worship. We don't want we don't want to have that in our life. So when you get rid of those two, you're left with four characteristics that you want in your life. The first person you want in your life is kind. This can substitute for a lot of bad things. Next, you want some, you want someone e who's peaceful. Someone who's always looking, you know, to for peace. Doesn't need machlokis, then the word machlokus means the chalik, which means to divide. You don't want someone dividing your life. You want someone who's there and back. We talk, I talk about this all the time. The most important thing you have in your life is shalom bayot, which is peace is in the house. In fact, it's so important you're actually allowed to lie for it. You shouldn't spend your time lying to your wife, right? But like, if something happened, it does not like I said, sometimes you have to filter what you say to your spouse. Peaceful and you want respectful. Because when you're in a relationship and respect goes unchecked, your marriage is going to be a wreck. And you may be suspect, and in retrospect, it was cause and effect. That works on that one. Then you're laugh with empathetic. And this is the most important thing. Empaths. Who are empaths? These are people who have a who love to give. These are people who love to give their time, their energy. My wife and I are both empaths. But the problem with being an empath, you know what the problem with being an empath is?
SPEAKER_00:You get taken advantage of?
SPEAKER_07:You get taken advantage of. And who takes advantage of empaths the most? Narcissists. Narcissists. Because what they do is they smell shark bait. And they're the shark. They put their claws into you, they love bomb you, next thing you're not in a relationship, you're in a manipulation ship. And this is a very common theme today. I think because of social media, I think narcissism has become very, very more uh pronounced, I guess, is the word. In my opinion.
SPEAKER_03:Social media narcissism, or is it more aware? I don't know if it's both. It could be, I think it's both. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_07:I think there were narcissists back then, but I don't think as many. I think we become very, very self-centered in our when you when your best friend is your phone. I think you just become less aware of other people's needs and other people's feelings, and other people, and you just want to be the center of attention.
SPEAKER_00:So it trains you or it just I don't know if it trains you.
SPEAKER_07:I haven't I haven't thought about that.
SPEAKER_00:It could train you.
SPEAKER_07:It could train that. That's what I said, you know.
unknown:It disconnects us.
SPEAKER_07:It does disconnect us. It's one of the help on the healthiest things. That's why I talk about if you want to increase your self-esteem.
SPEAKER_03:So considering always means thinking about rather thinking about. It's a constant.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, I talk about this in my class. I go and I talk about in my substance.
SPEAKER_03:It's so easy to find.
SPEAKER_07:I think it's I think it's a huge issue that when you post on social media, that you need to think of this need, that you have to think about what other people you don't have to. Again, again, when I teach this class to high schoolers, they completely disagree with me. They'll say, Why should I care what I post on media? You don't have to, you can post what you want. Post to the fact you're having a baby boy, post the fact that you just, you know, you went to France and spent$10,000 on the restaurant, and post these things. But you're having an effect on how other people feel, whether you believe it or not. And when you start to become aware of other people's feelings, this is the key. When you become aware of how other people feel, you'll be so much more aware of your own feelings. And do things to protect yourself. Like I said, you have to put a fence around your happiness, just like we put a fence around uh the Torah to protect it from breaking the mitzvas. I mean, why can't I eat a chicken and cheesesteak sandwich? Why can't I? Because the reason the reason the Torah gives us for not eating, you know, meat and milk is that we can't cook a kid in its mother's milk. And last time I checked, chickens don't have nipples. Do chipp do chickens have nipples? I don't think so. You'll see chickens breastfeeding their chicks. Huh? Right? So why can't I have a chicken and cheesesteak sandwich? It's a no, it's a fence. It's not a hulk, it's a fence. Koshru is a hulk, for sure. Hulk. We don't understand kosher, but it's a fence to protect us from breaking koshroot. Because when you cook chicken thighs on the grill, if you've ever had, you know, I cook it on the grill, it's like meat. It's meaty, it's yummy, it's delicious. There was a guy who was uh here and he was not observing yet, but he was trying to start keeping kosher. So he went to he would tell me he went to like uh Prague or something. He ordered a barecka. It was a cheese barecka, not kosher, but he was like, I'm gonna try to keep kosher. It ended up being chicken. Having chicken. He goes, Koch, I I had a chicken and I'm like, it's not from the Torah, it's it's a ribbonic law. At least it wasn't meat and cheese. Right? It was chicken and cheese, which is a lesson of era. Let less of us in. All right. Uh more questions. Do you dominate conversations or interrupt others frequently? Maybe people who do this probably don't realize they're doing it. I actually used to interrupt people all the time, and I learned not to do it. Do you often direct, redirect conversations back to yourself? This is someone who's needy or someone who maybe. Self-centered, narcissism, whatever you want to call it. Do you need constant reassurance, compliments, or validation? Are you always needing compliments? We all listen, we all like having compliments. This is the truth. But I talk about my low self-esteem class that when you're fishing for compliments, it's because of low self-esteem. It's like if I ask you, how's my class today? Well, am I gonna tell you, no coach, it really sucks. No, and why don't I use it? Give me a positive answer. I wouldn't ask, that's why I don't ask. Right? And the thing with empathetic people, they can say, I love you. Some people can say it, but they don't actually follow it up with the action of loving you, which is a big issue. This is what narcissists do. I love you, I love you. No, you love me because you can abuse me, you can gaslight me, right? You can manipulate me. That's why you love me. You love the feeling you get from me, not me and myself. It's how I make you feel. And then empathetic people can say, I'm sorry, which is a very big heart for narcissists. They cannot admit they're wrong. And there's I uh we have a class, I did a class a number of weeks ago called Nine Ways to Say I'm sorry, because there are different ways to say I'm sorry. When you say I'm sorry with a butt, that's not a real sorry, right? And they're sorry, I'm not gonna get into this, but there's nine different ways to say I'm sorry. And then you can say uh I'm sorry, and you can say I forgive you. And this is one of the hardest things for us to do is to let things go and let it flow. Because we want to forgive all the people in our lives that have harmed us. Because if you don't do it, you're gonna be carrying this burden of pain for the rest of your life. And this is a common theme today. You know, people came from dysfunctional families in their 30s, they're still not married, they're 20s or 30s, having a hard time getting married, or they have low self-esteem, they feel like, oh, if I meet a guy that loves me, then I'll be happy. Not only are you still unhappy, he's unhappy, and our relationship falls apart. People with low self-esteem can get married, it's just a much harder marriage. So when you're looking for validation all the time, it comes from low self-esteem. If one person calls you a donkey, don't believe them. If a second person calls you a donkey, don't believe them. If a third person calls you a donkey, buy a saddle. Right? So you am I an emotional vampire? You can improve yourselves. We all have the ability. We do, we all have the ability. We discussed this yesterday. Are you an animal or a human? Obviously, you're not an animal. Animals live on instincts, and you have instincts also, but you can control them. When you go to lunch today, you can use a knife and a fork. Right?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:You're not gonna use your hands. What happens when someone is a narcissist? This is what's gonna happen. So we did the do you guys got keepers? I thought that's pretty good.
SPEAKER_02:That's good.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it's nice. You can remember in your head. Give it an evil and be, I want kind, I want peaceful, I want empathetic, and I want respectful. If you can find someone like that in your life, you're pretty good. Not just, and by the way, you have we I have not talked about, but like the friends that you have now, because most of you are pretty young, came from a circumstance or event. Your friends came from the fact you were in school with them, you're ashiva with them, you grew up with them, your parents are friends, or whatever it is, right? You went to school with them, or you're in class together. That's your friends. But generally, you don't really pick your friends. They say you can pick your friends and you can and you can and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose. Or you can if you want to, obviously. That'd be really weird, obviously. But the point is, you have to make, you have to do what's called uh a friend audit as you get older and say, do I need to have this person in my life? Because just because you're a friend at 18 years old and you relive those days of you drinking together and having fun together, and now you're 40 years old, maybe they're draining you energy and you don't realize that because the price of mission is worth it for you. Is the price of mission worth it to stay friends with a person? And as you get older, you'll find, I'm trying to there's not that many old people in this class. I love when I have old people in the class because they totally know what I'm talking about. And you guys have no idea. Especially when I talk about uh laws of family purity, like, oh my gosh, sexual ambiguity, such a big issue in relationships. So the thing is, I love when they're they're like bobbleheads like this. The guy yesterday, right? I got in the class probably 60 years old. He was like a bobblehead the whole time. I love it. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:I just want to ask, what about like productive things? Isn't a key factor in somebody you look spend all the rest of your life with that they're a contributing member of society and that they make use of themselves?
SPEAKER_07:Two things that you said are correct. So one is, again, we're going in this class next week, that when you're dating, especially this is more for men than women, that when a girl wants to know where you're going in life, right? Am I gonna be a productive member of society? Which means you don't have to know at 21 years old, okay, I'm gonna be a brain surgeon. You know, but I am planning to finish a Shiva, I'm going to YU, I'm gonna study to become a doctor, I'm hoping to work in a hot life, you have to know where you're going. You don't have to go on that path, but you have to have an idea of what you want in life. It's when you have no idea what you're doing in life, you know, it's not so attractive for women. They want to know that they can be supported and also know that they have a guy who is. And the second thing I'm telling you, what you just said, is someone who takes responsibility when they're not being asked. And this is the whole thing I talk about in my classes. That when you, especially a guy, it's more for men than women, that when a man, when a woman goes with a guy, you can tell me if I'm wrong, because I'm not a woman. You guys are women people, so tell me if I'm wrong. But you'll tell me the wrong and back, all right? You'll you'll agree with me. My point is, you go with a guy who's taking responsibility for something he's not being asked to do, you're gonna, it's like he makes him 20% hotter. You know?
SPEAKER_03:89% of the time.
SPEAKER_07:How much?
SPEAKER_03:89%. 89% hotter.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. I have a friend who um, I have a friend who who who's doesn't have a resume, and I have a girl for him. And I said, Yeah, I you need a resume. He goes, Can you help me? I'm like, yeah, I'll help you. And I started thinking about what he does. He helps he helps manage a colo. He he also has his own business. I'm like, it's gonna be very easy to do this resume for this guy because he does a lot of stuff that's not required of him. You know, running a nonprofit organization, or not running it, but like being part of it and fundraising for it, shows he's taking responsibility for the world, and women are gonna find that attractive. And I use this example in my house, which some of you have heard already, David, right? You come to my house and I serve chicken soup in my Shabbat's table, and you know, my wife and I are talking to our guests, and we have men and women at the table, and occasionally a guy will stand up without being asked and pick up the bowls of chicken soup and bring them to the empty bowls of chicken soup and bring them to the kitchen. And women look at that guy as 20% hotter. Do you know why? Because he took responsibility. Am I wrong? Someone tell me. Am I making sense? Back back row there?
SPEAKER_03:Creates respect and admiration. I was gonna say it's not just hotter, it's respect.
SPEAKER_07:Well, it's respect, but it's also I'm saying he's more attractive. Of course. He's more attractive in your eyes. Because you're taking responsibility for something he's not being asked to do. There's a whole thing I talk about in dating, and I I I want to make it funny because I went to a coffee shop recently. I was looking on the table for the sugar. So I I say on the first date, your first date with a guy, right? And you sit down at a coffee coffee shop, and um they bring you two coffees, and there's a and there's packets of sugar on the you know those packets of sugar and the thing? And there's like three packets of sugar. She right? And she takes two packets of sugar, puts it on her coffee. A guy with awareness is gonna stand up, walk to a different table, grab six or seven packets of sugar, and bring it back to his table. Without saying a word. And a woman that has awareness is gonna say, Wow, that is awesome. He was aware of my needs, even though I don't need the sugar, or I do want the sugar, he doesn't know. But she he's thinking in his head, maybe she actually wants four sugars, but she's embarrassed to take all three of them, so she's only using two. Do you get that? You're thinking be out of the box from people. And this is what makes relationships passionate. When you have the awareness of someone else's needs, that is the most important thing. When a man is waking up at 3 a.m. to change the diaper, when a man is reading stories to his kids at night with voices, what do you think of that?
unknown:10 out of 10.
SPEAKER_07:Amazing, right? What did you say?
SPEAKER_03:10 out of 10.
SPEAKER_07:10 out of 10! It's not hard, guys. It's not hard. I'm giving the tools. I'm giving the tools. And just because you when you you're young, like even like women, some women who are young might not realize this. It's only when they're become like in their 30s and 40s, like, I wish I did the five foot six guy with 20 pounds overweight, could I rather have him in my house that gorgeous six foot two guy that doesn't listen to me or pay attention to me. You get my point? Yes.
SPEAKER_05:So, how important is it for a woman to have the qualities of being proactive, being involved in the world?
SPEAKER_07:I think, from my opinion, please tell me if I'm wrong. I I I thought about this. I just don't think it's as attractive to a man when a woman does things that are outside. I just don't think it's something that it's just like the tricks I give you in my dating marriage class, that if a woman walks into the house and the husband's on the phone, hey Joe, I gotta go, my husband, my wife just walked in. Hey, honey. It just doesn't work the same, right? Or if a woman comes in and says to herself, hi honey, oh, how do you feel today? What do you do? It just doesn't work the same. We don't like, what are you doing? It's weird. Right? The clues I give, the tips I give in my dating marriage class, it doesn't work the different. It makes we have different needs and desires. So I I for some reason I don't think, I mean, it's nice if you know you're dating a girl and she's like, you know, more of a nonprofit or you know, feeds the animals, uh, you know, it's like there's you know, I I I walk my dog at like 4 30 a.m. sometimes, and there's women that go around my neighborhood feeding the the cats.
SPEAKER_00:At 4 30 a.m.
SPEAKER_07:Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 4 30 a.m.
SPEAKER_03:They obviously can't sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds wrong.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, and you see the cats running? So funny.
SPEAKER_03:For a woman to all the time be doing big things is a bit.
SPEAKER_07:Well, actually, it is attractive. It is. I think I do have respect.
SPEAKER_03:What I've what I've understood recently is uh I've learned actually is that for a woman it's for both readings. When we when we see good middle person, that's it. So that is small.
SPEAKER_07:But when they're feeding like thousands of cats, it's just a little bit weird. Like it's like this person's gonna be like 80 years old and have a thousand cats in their house, right? And they never clean the house and it's be full of cat litters. Like, this is like you know, the old leading the cat thing. So we so sometimes when we talked about uh you know, a vampire are you a vampire? Sometimes if you call someone out and being a vampire, they're gonna they're gonna give you three responses. They're gonna um blame somebody else, right? Oh, it's not my fault, I'm this way because of my parents. It's not my fault because my got fired. It's not this fault, blame somebody else. They're going to argue with you, or they're going to be in complete denial. And the denial is not a river in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00:That's bad.
SPEAKER_07:Right? And these three things are bad. The most important thing you can do is to take responsibility for your actions and take responsibility for your personalities. And it's not easy sometimes. As Andy Dufren said in the Shawshank Redemption, get busy living or get busy dying. If you don't gain clarity about your own weaknesses and take steps to grow, relationship struggles will follow you throughout your life. And that means doing the inner work you have to do to become people who are not emotional vampires. We all have them in our life. Every one of us, if I if you were raised your hand, I everyone did, but I'm sure everyone has someone in our life who's an emotional vampire. But if I ask in this room who's an emotional vampire, no one's gonna raise their hand. Something doesn't make sense. We all have times that we're emotional vampires. The key is to recognize it, understand it, and do things to improve ourselves so we can be an amazing, amazing partner, friend, parent, son, daughter, whatever it's gonna be in our life. And you have to put a fence around your happiness because no one else can do it. My blessing is to you to take what I've learned and taught you today, become self aware of your issues, become self aware of any problems you have in life. You can ask yourself these questions. This is my book, Emotional Vampires, it's for sale out there. And thank you very much.