Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Gabby Petito: What Women Can Learn From the Police Footage
22 Plays4 years ago
We discuss the most current information on the homicide of Gabby Petito and what can be gleaned about the nature of their relationship from the available police footage, as well as a discussion of protecting yourself during a police encounter.
Body Cam Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEU90P4thoY
Reactive Abuse:
https://breakthesilencedv.org/reactive-abuse-what-it-is-and-why-abusers-rely-on-it/
https://www.healthline.com/health/narcissistic-victim-syndrome#reaching-out
Follow us!
Weekly Bonus Content on Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheFemaleDatingStrategy
Website: www.thefemaledatingstrategy.com
Twitter: @femdatstrat
Instagram: @_thefemaledatingstrategy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Female-Dating-Strategy-109118567480771
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Case Focus
00:00:05
Speaker
What's up, queens?
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the Female Dating Strategy Podcast, the meanest female-only podcast on the internet.
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm your host, Ro.
00:00:12
Speaker
And this is Savannah.
00:00:13
Speaker
And I'm Lilith.
00:00:15
Speaker
Today we're going to be talking about the Gabby Petito case.
00:00:18
Speaker
Specifically, we're going to be reacting to the body cam footage by the police.
00:00:23
Speaker
For those of you who've been following this case on social media, I'm sure a lot of people are already familiar with this case, but we're going to do a bit of a rundown of the details of the case just for those who are not so familiar.
Recognizing Red Flags and Self-Protection
00:00:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:35
Speaker
And bring it into a broader discussion about how to protect yourself against men like this and also the red flags to look for.
00:00:46
Speaker
We're going to be breaking down some of the red flags in the police body cam footage.
00:00:50
Speaker
So a bit of a background on Gabby Petito.
00:00:53
Speaker
Her and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, had been dating for a few years and they had started a Van Life YouTube channel.
00:01:03
Speaker
And anybody that follows social media, the Van Life vloggers really took off in the past couple of years, maybe three, four years.
00:01:11
Speaker
And it's basically where a couple, a solo person, but often a couple,
00:01:17
Speaker
sell all their worldly possessions and then travel the country in a souped out van.
00:01:22
Speaker
So they are essentially travel vloggers.
00:01:26
Speaker
So it's a pretty popular genre of YouTube videos as well as on Instagram.
00:01:32
Speaker
I think we all dream of, you know, being able to travel and being able to see, you know, all the wonderful things that life has to offer.
00:01:39
Speaker
A big part of it is minimalism.
00:01:40
Speaker
There's always some part in the video where they describe how they're so much better off not having all of the things that used to tie them down.
00:01:47
Speaker
They've learned that they can live and be and leave anywhere and be anyone.
00:01:50
Speaker
It's fairly lucrative for a lot of the early adopters, I think.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, there's some of them.
00:01:55
Speaker
I mean, they have millions of followers and they do take a lot of really cool pictures.
Timeline and Social Media Contrast
00:01:59
Speaker
So that's the background in which...
00:02:01
Speaker
The world was introduced to Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie prior to Gabby's disappearance.
00:02:08
Speaker
And then the larger world was introduced to them, obviously, after her now confirmed homicide.
00:02:16
Speaker
So July 2nd, the couple left Florida to travel through Colorado and Utah.
00:02:22
Speaker
August 12th, they were... August 12th is a big date.
00:02:25
Speaker
That's the date that Gabby Petito and Brian Landry were stopped by Moab police in Moab, Utah.
00:02:33
Speaker
They received a 911 call saying that a male was seen hitting or slapping a female.
00:02:39
Speaker
And when the police arrived there, they found a...
00:02:43
Speaker
what they called the domestic dispute.
00:02:45
Speaker
And by now, I think so many millions of people have seen the body cam footage.
00:02:49
Speaker
It's very hard to watch.
00:02:52
Speaker
It's very creepy.
00:02:53
Speaker
But we'll get into that in a moment.
00:02:54
Speaker
So on August 19th, they posted on YouTube their channel...
00:02:59
Speaker
Van life, beginning of our van life journey.
00:03:02
Speaker
August 19th, this was after the domestic incident.
00:03:06
Speaker
So they posted a video about their van life.
00:03:07
Speaker
It was very idealistic, very, very like, you know, lots of pictures of them kissing, like holding hands, walking down the beach, that sort of thing.
00:03:15
Speaker
So it's almost creepy to me that that happened after the domestic violence.
00:03:20
Speaker
Like that was posted a week after the domestic violence dispute.
Brian's Suspicious Behavior and Statements
00:03:25
Speaker
It also goes to show you cannot trust the relationships that you see on social media.
00:03:28
Speaker
And Instagram.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:31
Speaker
So much of it is contrived and so much of it is them only showing you the parts of the relationship they want you to see.
00:03:38
Speaker
I mean, they were already on the road for over a month based on the timeline when the police were called and then they posted their video a week after that.
00:03:47
Speaker
So the last time that Gabby was seen alive was checking out of a hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah on August 24th.
00:03:54
Speaker
Then...
00:03:58
Speaker
Petito's mother said that she last spoke to her daughter August 25th, and that was also the same day that her last Instagram picture was posted.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:07
Speaker
So a witness claimed in a TikTok post that she and her boyfriend gave Landry a ride in Grand Teton National Park August 29th, that he was camping alone for days.
00:04:16
Speaker
That's suspicious.
00:04:17
Speaker
So this is a guy who, for at least from the last time that Gappy was seen on the 24th, 25th to the 29th, that he was aware of her death, that he's still out here camping.
00:04:30
Speaker
And she then more than likely was dead somewhere between this time.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:35
Speaker
That's like the kind of fucked up thing about him is that he probably murdered them and then he's like just going back to enjoying his vacation, you know?
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:43
Speaker
So then September 1st, police said that Landry returned by himself to Florida in Petito's white van.
00:04:50
Speaker
He was seen...
00:04:51
Speaker
For the next week or so, like cleaning his van, mowing the lawn, just going about his day.
00:04:59
Speaker
September 11th, Petito was reported missing by her family to the Suffolk County Police Department in New York.
00:05:05
Speaker
Her family lives in Long Island, New York, and said that Petito stopped communicating with her friends and family.
00:05:12
Speaker
And she was believed to still be near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
00:05:16
Speaker
And then during this time, for some reason, Brian's family never thought to...
00:05:21
Speaker
tell her family where they were or what was happening.
00:05:24
Speaker
The only reason why they reported, why Gabby's family reported the disappearance of the police was just because they hadn't heard back from her.
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, it was very odd that he showed back up to his parents' house.
00:05:35
Speaker
In her van.
00:05:36
Speaker
In her van.
00:05:37
Speaker
And it seems weird that the parents didn't ask questions or maybe they did and he gave them some lie.
00:05:42
Speaker
But either way, I think for...
00:05:44
Speaker
I don't know how close or how far they live, but the fact that he was riding around in her van without her should have been... A red flag?
00:05:52
Speaker
A red flag enough, yeah.
00:05:53
Speaker
And he didn't report her missing.
00:05:55
Speaker
He just carried on for another couple weeks, even though she wasn't with him.
00:05:59
Speaker
It's very bizarre.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:01
Speaker
And then on September 14th, Landry and his family released a statement saying that he will remain silent under the advice of his counsel, which...
00:06:09
Speaker
Super sus.
00:06:10
Speaker
Like, what kind of person comes back from a road trip where your partner just disappeared, apparently, and then the first thing you do when you get back is lawyer up?
00:06:19
Speaker
You don't even go to her family and say, oh shit, you know, Gabby's gone missing, like, this is supposed to be your fiancé, like, the person that you're closest to.
00:06:29
Speaker
And you just go ghost on her family when she doesn't come back with you.
00:06:34
Speaker
It's so...
00:06:35
Speaker
I don't know what kind of person would be cool with that.
00:06:38
Speaker
I just don't.
00:06:39
Speaker
And then September 15th, Northport police named Landry a person of interest in her disappearance, but that he was not making himself available to be interviewed by investigators or provided any helpful details.
00:06:51
Speaker
So he refuses to cooperate with the investigation.
00:06:54
Speaker
Another red flag.
00:06:54
Speaker
That's like, what, fifth red flag?
00:06:56
Speaker
I mean, there's no reason to not be concerned about her safety unless you already know she's dead, right?
00:07:03
Speaker
Because otherwise you would be like, oh, let's send a search party, even if they had split up.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, even if you're broken up.
00:07:08
Speaker
Like, I don't have a single one of my exes that if I thought...
00:07:12
Speaker
that they were missing and I knew where they were.
00:07:15
Speaker
Like, even if I didn't like them, I would still give information so that hopefully they'd be found, right?
00:07:21
Speaker
Right, exactly.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:22
Speaker
So, you know, it's very clear that he knows something happened to her.
00:07:26
Speaker
Or that she's not coming back, basically.
00:07:28
Speaker
Or that he's hella guilty.
00:07:30
Speaker
That's how guilty people act.
00:07:32
Speaker
September 16th, Petito family releases a letter to the Landry family pleading for their cooperation.
00:07:39
Speaker
And they just left them on read.
00:07:41
Speaker
Landry's family just leaves her family on read.
Media Coverage and Missing Women
00:07:44
Speaker
Don't respond.
00:07:45
Speaker
And keep in mind, Gabby lived with Brian's family, right?
00:07:48
Speaker
So she knew Brian's parents.
00:07:51
Speaker
She knew their whole family.
00:07:53
Speaker
You'd think that they would at least give somewhat of a shit about her safety.
00:07:58
Speaker
Disgusting.
00:07:59
Speaker
And then on September 17th, Landry was reported missing by his family.
00:08:03
Speaker
The family said they hadn't seen him in days, which again is also crazy to me.
00:08:11
Speaker
His whereabouts are currently unknown, and currently they're searching for him in a nature preserve in Florida.
00:08:19
Speaker
And so a lot of people are speculating that he's either committed suicide or that he's on the run.
00:08:23
Speaker
And then September 19th, that's when they found a body that they said was consistent with the description of Petito.
00:08:32
Speaker
They then did an autopsy, confirmed on September 21st that the body was in fact Petito's.
00:08:41
Speaker
And then September 22nd, they issued an arrest warrant for Landry.
00:08:45
Speaker
And that's more or less the summary of the timeline of events.
00:08:50
Speaker
That's still an open investigation.
00:08:52
Speaker
This is the best information that we have so far.
00:08:55
Speaker
There's a lot to dissect here as far as his behavior and the red flags that were presented during the initial contact they had with the police that we think is important to dissect in addition to the discussion of the case at large and his behavior afterwards.
00:09:13
Speaker
And also the behaviour of the police as well.
00:09:16
Speaker
I have a lot to say about that.
00:09:18
Speaker
So their roasting is coming.
00:09:20
Speaker
But before we get into dissecting this incident, we just wanted to say that our thoughts are with Gabby Petito's family.
00:09:29
Speaker
Ultimately, they are living every family's worst nightmare when their daughter goes out and doesn't come home.
00:09:37
Speaker
And we really empathise with their situation.
00:09:41
Speaker
and hope that they find healing at some point and justice over the loss of their daughter.
00:09:47
Speaker
And our thoughts go out to her and also to all the other families who are missing their daughters, their wives and sisters, because unfortunately Gabby Petito is one of many, many millions of women who are disappeared at the hands of
Police Interaction and Analysis
00:10:03
Speaker
men.
00:10:03
Speaker
I think the aspect of their social media presence and them being part of this van life movement really helps, really is part of the push of the visibility of the case.
00:10:14
Speaker
I spent some discussion about how the media only covers certain types of cases, mostly specifically around missing white women.
00:10:25
Speaker
I know there was some discussion that a lot of that had to do with Gabby's parents behind the scenes trying to push it to the media because they
00:10:30
Speaker
Obviously, their daughter had been missing for a month and they didn't hear anything from either Laundrie's family or the police.
00:10:38
Speaker
But I think it's a tragedy and that we're going to focus on the kinds of dissecting the kinds of tells that I think any woman can use in this situation.
00:10:47
Speaker
Because obviously, you know, when we're talking about male behavior and male violence, that's something that we all experienced.
00:10:54
Speaker
So we're going to dive right into Brian and Gabby's encounter with the police as taken from their video cam on August 12th.
00:11:03
Speaker
What's his name?
00:11:05
Speaker
Gabby.
00:11:05
Speaker
Gabby, Brian.
00:11:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:07
Speaker
What's going on?
00:11:08
Speaker
How come you're crying?
00:11:09
Speaker
I'm just crying.
00:11:10
Speaker
We've just been fighting this morning.
00:11:13
Speaker
Some personal issues.
00:11:15
Speaker
You want to tell me what's going on?
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know.
00:11:18
Speaker
It's just some days I have really bad OCD.
00:11:23
Speaker
I was just cleaning and straining up the sack of am before and I was apologizing to him and saying, I'm sorry that I'm so mean because sometimes I have OCD and sometimes I just get really frustrated.
00:11:36
Speaker
Not like, mean words to him.
00:11:38
Speaker
I just like, I guess, I'm just like,
00:11:41
Speaker
My vibe is like, I'm in a bad mood.
00:11:46
Speaker
I'm sorry if I'm in a bad mood.
00:11:48
Speaker
I'm really stressed.
00:11:49
Speaker
I had so much work I was doing on my computer this morning.
00:11:52
Speaker
What did you do for a living?
00:11:54
Speaker
Well, I hate to forget it all or getting too smart, but I just hit my job.
00:11:59
Speaker
I'm more than nutrition.
00:12:01
Speaker
That's my job.
00:12:02
Speaker
I just hit my job because I travel across the country and I'm trying to start a blog.
00:12:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:09
Speaker
So I've been building my website.
00:12:11
Speaker
I've been really stressed and he doesn't really believe that I can do any of this.
00:12:15
Speaker
That's kind of been like a, I don't know, he's like down there.
00:12:19
Speaker
I don't know.
00:12:20
Speaker
We've been fighting one morning and he wouldn't let me in the car before.
00:12:24
Speaker
Why wouldn't he let you in the car?
00:12:26
Speaker
Because of your OCD?
00:12:27
Speaker
He told me I need to calm down.
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:32
Speaker
This reaction that Gabby had was all too familiar for women who've ever been in relationships with narcissistic men.
00:12:41
Speaker
The self-blame, the, you know, saying, you know, I'm crazy, I have anxiety, I have OCD, that sort of thing.
00:12:49
Speaker
I think it's really heart-wrenching because you're watching her have almost a complete emotional meltdown, right?
00:12:56
Speaker
She's crying.
00:12:57
Speaker
She's rambling.
00:12:59
Speaker
She's talking about everything that happened that day.
00:13:04
Speaker
You know, she's talking about all her issues.
00:13:05
Speaker
The first one starting, like, I have OCD and I wanted the van clean and the parameters in which they had their argument.
00:13:12
Speaker
So red flag number one in what Gabby says is that she pathologizes her own
00:13:18
Speaker
She pathologizes.
00:13:19
Speaker
She blames herself, basically.
00:13:20
Speaker
She says, you know, I have OCD.
00:13:23
Speaker
I have anxiety.
00:13:24
Speaker
I'm apologizing to him.
00:13:26
Speaker
I said, I'm sorry.
00:13:27
Speaker
I'm so mean.
00:13:29
Speaker
And a lot of people on social media seem to be taking her statement and the fact that Brian later on, you know, blames her as well.
00:13:38
Speaker
A lot of people seem to take that at face value and they are just so quick to write it off.
00:13:41
Speaker
Like Gabby is the abuser.
00:13:44
Speaker
you know, Brian's the victim and, you know, just letting it end at that.
00:13:48
Speaker
When in fact, like the reality of domestic abuse or, you know, emotional abuse is that often the victim does blame themselves because they know that when, if they were to blame the abuser, that their situation would be much worse for them later on after the police leave.
00:14:05
Speaker
Well, yeah, and it's, I think that the tell to me too is that she doesn't just assert what was wrong and she starts to immediately pathologize herself to the police.
00:14:15
Speaker
We don't know if she actually has an OCD diagnosis or not.
00:14:19
Speaker
And also if that's, if she does have a diagnosis, if it's reactive to abuse or not.
00:14:24
Speaker
But the, I think the first thing
00:14:27
Speaker
tell that she was already undermining herself and undermining her feelings is the fact that she immediately went into pathologizing the fact that she just wanted, it seems like she just wanted the van to be clean, which doesn't seem like very strange.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:41
Speaker
Like, I'm so crazy because I want a tidy van.
00:14:44
Speaker
Like...
00:14:46
Speaker
Basically, this conversation has all the red flags of coercive control.
00:14:50
Speaker
The line, he wouldn't let me in the car, he told me I needed to calm down.
00:14:53
Speaker
Like in our episode with Al Kamihira, how an abuser often will use coercive control to control every little minute thing that the victim does, right?
00:15:03
Speaker
And very often they do end up blaming themselves or labeling themselves crazy because that's what...
00:15:09
Speaker
That's what coercive controllers do is they actively break down your psyche and make you think that you're crazy so that you're not able to recognize that the abuser is the problem.
00:15:18
Speaker
I mean, it seems like, I mean, from the footage that what Gabby is experiencing or happened might have been an incident of reactive abuse.
00:15:29
Speaker
And it's also quite interesting how she said, you know, we've been arguing all morning, whereas he was like, it was just... It came out of nowhere.
00:15:37
Speaker
A minor thing to escalate.
00:15:38
Speaker
It came out of nowhere.
00:15:39
Speaker
So it's almost like he's minimising his role whilst inflating her role.
00:15:45
Speaker
So she's saying how it was, you know, constant tension.
00:15:48
Speaker
You know, we've been on the road together for a month.
00:15:50
Speaker
It's getting...
00:15:50
Speaker
And to be fair, that's normal.
00:15:52
Speaker
Like, this is why I like travelling alone, because I just can't deal being with people at close quarters for any length of time.
00:15:58
Speaker
So that's quite normal to be, especially when you're living in a tiny van as well.
00:16:01
Speaker
Like, you've got no privacy and it's just, it's long.
00:16:06
Speaker
So she was saying a very different story and he just said, oh, you know, it just came out of nowhere and it's just, oh, yeah, she's got this, this, this and that, you know, listing off...
00:16:15
Speaker
you know, various instances of poor mental health.
00:16:21
Speaker
So, I do think what we're seeing is reactive abuse.
00:16:23
Speaker
That was my initial impression anyway.
00:16:25
Speaker
I want to say most of the time when a woman is blaming herself and pathologizing herself and saying she's crazy, chances are you're not actually crazy.
00:16:32
Speaker
That's just a completely normal reaction to being treated badly.
00:16:35
Speaker
Over a long period of time as well.
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:38
Speaker
Because she gives little tells that perhaps he's been either negging her or just pushing her to explode over time.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, he said she was talking about her van life YouTube channel and she said he thought I he thinks I couldn't do it or he thought I couldn't do it.
00:16:55
Speaker
Right.
00:16:56
Speaker
So it's been very clear that he's probably been.
00:16:58
Speaker
you know, complaining or having a negative reaction to her completely normal desire to, you know, document her travels, have a YouTube channel, that sort of thing, right?
00:17:09
Speaker
So he's probably been wearing down her self-esteem for a very long time.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's heartbreaking to watch, to see how women blame themselves for...
00:17:18
Speaker
the bad treatment that they received from men.
00:17:20
Speaker
So as a general rule, the less you say to the police, the better.
00:17:24
Speaker
And the thing that immediately kind of broke my heart and also made me just like want to come to the screen and like hold her and be like, girl, just don't...
00:17:34
Speaker
Hold it together in front of the police as much as you can, because like we've talked about in many, many episodes, the police is full of the worst and most low value scrotes alive.
00:17:45
Speaker
A lot of police officers, a large percentage of the police force are actively.
00:17:51
Speaker
Abuses.
00:17:51
Speaker
Like 40% of police officers are wife beaters, okay?
00:17:55
Speaker
Abusers themselves and also familiar with the tactics of coercive control because they are, in fact, the system and the system itself in a lot of ways exist to perpetuate power.
00:18:08
Speaker
And specifically male power.
00:18:09
Speaker
So in this particular video, her undermining her feelings about all these things gives the police reason to then create a narrative that blames her.
00:18:21
Speaker
Dismiss her.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:22
Speaker
So what's really, really frustrating is because you can almost see as she's talking about it, like, okay, this is how the cops are going to then build a case against her.
00:18:34
Speaker
Because she's pathologizing what seems on the surface as a reasonable request of wanting the van to be clean.
00:18:41
Speaker
And then also being upset that Brian apparently locked her out of the van all morning.
00:18:45
Speaker
I mean, especially I'm guessing August in the middle of fucking desert is probably insanely hot.
00:18:51
Speaker
You know, so you're also dealing with a person who's more than likely just reacting to the actual weather.
00:18:56
Speaker
If you've ever been in that kind of hot weather can just make you very emotional.
Critique of Police Bias
00:19:01
Speaker
So you have the, you know, what's clearly like a physical background in addition to emotional breakdown, which is a completely normal human response.
00:19:11
Speaker
But I think talking with the police at this point and then her highly emotional state, her blaming herself for everything that happened and then not,
00:19:21
Speaker
setting up the boundaries and then sticking to the facts is what the police are going to then use to later blame her it's a common misconception that the police are neutral let me tell you this the police are not your friend they are nobody's friend what they are looking for is information to get you with down the road and you know gabby went into this with good intentions i believe she was being very honest and this isn't her fault this is a problem with the system but when
00:19:51
Speaker
If we look at the police, they are not trained to deal with domestic disputes.
00:19:55
Speaker
They are not trained to deal with a lot of issues that women face, let's be real.
00:19:59
Speaker
So when they come across it, they come into it with their own prejudice, with their own ideas of how things worked.
00:20:05
Speaker
And again, like Rose said, a lot of them are misogynists.
00:20:08
Speaker
So what you get is misogynists crafting the narrative, which...
00:20:13
Speaker
is what's happened here.
00:20:14
Speaker
Like, none of them are mental health professionals, you know, none of them said, okay, let's get you to a hospital to get you evaluated.
00:20:20
Speaker
None of that.
00:20:21
Speaker
They just took her word for it that she was hysterical.
00:20:25
Speaker
And these men, they may have, I think one of them had experiences of a woman being, in quotation marks, hysterical.
00:20:33
Speaker
We don't really know what that's true.
00:20:35
Speaker
And then he used that schema.
00:20:36
Speaker
He was like, yeah, my ex-wife was crazy.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:45
Speaker
So some bitter divorce scrote rolls in going like, yeah, oh my gosh, like just his jaw clenched looking for an opportunity to stick it to a woman for having emotions.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
And he then used that schema and applied it to this situation because he said when he was taking Brian to the hotel at the end, oh yeah, you know, my ex-wife was, you know, she had anxiety as well.
00:21:08
Speaker
Oh, crazy, bro.
00:21:10
Speaker
I know what it's like.
00:21:10
Speaker
Like, ha ha ha, da da da, slap, slap, slap.
00:21:13
Speaker
They've even fucking fist bumped.
00:21:14
Speaker
I'm just like, so as a woman, you know, as women, like, you know, when people were talking about defunding the police...
00:21:22
Speaker
I completely get it because the police are clearly ill-equipped to deal with, you know, what was an incidence of domestic violence, but they missed the tells that they should have picked up on that would have allowed them to correctly identify who was the real victim and perpetrator.
00:21:43
Speaker
Because...
00:21:45
Speaker
The way she's reacting is a symptom of reactive abuse.
00:21:49
Speaker
And let's face it, right, you know, Gabby was what, you know, five to 110 pounds.
00:21:53
Speaker
Realistically, what damage is she going to do to somebody unless they were attacking her first?
00:21:58
Speaker
They pointed out that Brian had scratches on his face, but I want to point out that scratches are usually defensive wounds.
00:22:03
Speaker
And also, the person calling in, they said he was slapping her.
00:22:06
Speaker
Why was that not... But why was he not questioned about that?
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:10
Speaker
I mean, I think the police said something along the lines of like, yeah, but we didn't know what she was doing before to make him hit her, pretty much.
00:22:18
Speaker
Which is like classic abuser, like, look what you made me do kind of shit, right?
00:22:21
Speaker
Oh my god.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah, so I think the police just rolled in.
00:22:25
Speaker
They see a woman pathologizing herself and blaming herself.
00:22:28
Speaker
And of course, like, given that police are so much more likely to be abusers than the general population, abusers love that.
00:22:35
Speaker
They just jumped right on that and were like, it just made their job...
00:22:39
Speaker
so much easier to just their job in their mind being to blame women and exonerate abusive men, right?
00:22:46
Speaker
It just made it so much easier to do that.
00:22:48
Speaker
And also when Brian was showing clear signs of deception or that his story differed from hers, again, they didn't question it.
00:22:55
Speaker
So do you want to go to the second clip here?
00:22:58
Speaker
The part where Brian's talking?
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah, where Brian's talking.
00:23:01
Speaker
I didn't get overtly physical.
00:23:02
Speaker
I was just trying to keep her away and not get hit.
00:23:05
Speaker
And then I got really loud and then that's probably the fear of everyone's attention where I was going, back up, get away, just give me a... Okay, so you said you pushed her to create some distance, obviously, right?
00:23:16
Speaker
What happened after that?
00:23:17
Speaker
What got...
00:23:17
Speaker
What got the scratches on your eye?
00:23:21
Speaker
The phone.
00:23:21
Speaker
The phone.
00:23:22
Speaker
So you push her and she hit you?
00:23:25
Speaker
She was... It wasn't like a push and she jumped on me.
00:23:27
Speaker
She was already... She was already... I don't want to... She was already swinging.
00:23:32
Speaker
A lot of angles, a lot of nails, a lot of rings.
00:23:34
Speaker
You got three scratches in your neck.
00:23:37
Speaker
You got one on your left side of your neck.
00:23:41
Speaker
You got one on your face here.
00:23:42
Speaker
You got four footers.
00:23:45
Speaker
Do you mind lifting up your right sleeve for me?
00:23:47
Speaker
I'm curious about something.
00:23:49
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:23:51
Speaker
I suppose fingernails, but I'm not complaining.
00:23:54
Speaker
I'm not complaining about fingernails.
00:23:57
Speaker
Is it bruised or tender or anything like that?
00:23:59
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:23:59
Speaker
I'm fine, and I love you guys.
00:24:01
Speaker
I wish you guys had too many complaints about me.
00:24:04
Speaker
I'm just, uh, you know, like...
00:24:07
Speaker
I feel bad.
00:24:07
Speaker
I think it's so public.
00:24:10
Speaker
I was just trying to be loud.
00:24:13
Speaker
So one of the things that was sort of striking to me about the video is how at a lot of points it almost seems like the cops are leading Brian.
00:24:23
Speaker
It's both, you know, scrotes, scrote recognized, scrote.
00:24:26
Speaker
But also, I know the police just are always trying to create a narrative so they can just wrap up a case and leave.
00:24:32
Speaker
So they've been known to do this, that they lead the conversation in order to create a plausible enough narrative for them to...
00:24:40
Speaker
basic case on.
00:24:41
Speaker
Right.
00:24:42
Speaker
And what's telling to me was when Brian's describing the alleged fight, we're like, Oh, I was, uh, he, he does say like, Oh, I pushed her a little bit.
00:24:50
Speaker
And then she started scratching back at me.
00:24:53
Speaker
And then, uh, the cops are like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:24:56
Speaker
I totally understand.
00:24:58
Speaker
And then start like trying to like, Oh, so I see you have scratches on your, on your, on your face.
00:25:01
Speaker
Uh, once you lift up your arms, I can see the scratches in your arm and everything.
00:25:04
Speaker
See if there's anything on your arms.
00:25:05
Speaker
So then what they're doing after that is helping to build a narrative, helping him build a narrative, right?
00:25:12
Speaker
Notice how they extend the effort to build a narrative for Brian that they don't do for Gabby, right?
00:25:19
Speaker
That's actually a choice, right?
00:25:20
Speaker
That's a choice that they did to...
00:25:23
Speaker
take his version of events at face value and then create a scenario in which she's the aggressor.
00:25:30
Speaker
Right.
00:25:31
Speaker
And to be fair, I don't know if she actually gave them enough to work on as far as what else ever happened.
00:25:38
Speaker
And this is like not necessarily clear from this small, the small clip, even though the original video is like over an hour, but they do take some time to, uh,
00:25:49
Speaker
At least thoroughly, like, actually physically examine him and then feed him the information that they would need to then build their police report.
00:25:59
Speaker
So they basically cast Brian as the victim, even though they either don't have any evidence to show that or they have plenty of evidence showing the opposite, that...
00:26:08
Speaker
That Brian's actually the aggressor and that Gappy's the victim.
00:26:12
Speaker
But no, they have a scrote to scrote moment and decide like, okay, we're going to cast our fellow bro here as the victim.
00:26:18
Speaker
Because of course, abusers love to cast themselves as the victim.
00:26:22
Speaker
So they kind of like see each other that way.
00:26:24
Speaker
And as an aside, I just want to rant about the whole...
00:26:31
Speaker
You know, whenever women talk about, like, abuse as something that men do to women, or abuse or domestic violence as something as, like, a male pattern behavior, there's always people going, like, but women can be abusers, too, and men can be victims, too.
00:26:44
Speaker
And, like, while it may be true, it's only in very, very rare circumstances.
00:26:49
Speaker
And it bothers me a lot that this push, this narrative that, like, men and women are equally abusive and can equally be victims of abuse, what you end up having is when you try to make...
00:27:01
Speaker
when you try to start out with that narrative and then you try to make reality fit your narrative, you end up with cases like Gabby Petito and Brian.
00:27:08
Speaker
Oh, women can be abusers too.
00:27:10
Speaker
So you show up to a scene where it's very obviously the man is being, is the abuser towards the woman.
00:27:16
Speaker
And yet they have to cast this sort of opposite role to make reality fit that narrative, that non-existent, that narrative that's not based in reality and that only serves abusers.
Abusive Tactics and Personal Experiences
00:27:28
Speaker
And another thing as well is that abusive people, they very much lean into the fact that people who are calm and collected are taken more seriously or they're believed more than the person who's hysterical.
00:27:42
Speaker
That's why in Lindy Bancroft's book, why does he do that?
00:27:46
Speaker
He says this very well, is that an abuser will be out of control in quotation marks, smashing stuff,
00:27:54
Speaker
shouting and screaming, but when the police arrive, he's very cool, calm and collected, whilst the woman is obviously a wreck because he's broken her down.
00:28:03
Speaker
And the police see that and think, well, we've got this well-spoken, young, credible gentleman, as in the Gabby Petito case, so he couldn't possibly be lying.
00:28:13
Speaker
But meanwhile, you've got the woman who just can't stop crying, who's basically blaming herself,
00:28:21
Speaker
And then they're obviously going to believe the person who's cool come and collected.
00:28:25
Speaker
And that is an abusive man's tactic is, is crazy making, right?
00:28:30
Speaker
If you're, if you're coherent and able to speak well, you're not crying.
00:28:35
Speaker
You're just saying, you know, I don't know what happened, bro.
00:28:37
Speaker
I just, she just came out of nowhere.
00:28:39
Speaker
That's a red flag.
00:28:40
Speaker
You know, they're gonna, they're gonna think that, okay, okay.
00:28:44
Speaker
That's the rational one in this situation.
00:28:46
Speaker
She's crying.
00:28:46
Speaker
So yeah, clearly she's hysterical.
00:28:48
Speaker
Yeah, you have to get your story straight in front of law enforcement, period.
00:28:52
Speaker
That's the thing that can be an entire case can hinge on.
00:28:56
Speaker
It's just like your initial reaction with the police and your ability to craft a convincing narrative and have some semblance of objectivity.
00:29:05
Speaker
Because that sets the tone for the rest of the interactions that follow.
00:29:10
Speaker
It's like it's almost creating like an outline for how the rest of the case is going to be conducted.
00:29:14
Speaker
You have to understand the police are fundamentally lazy.
00:29:17
Speaker
And they're fundamentally male as well.
00:29:19
Speaker
I mean, they're scrotes.
00:29:20
Speaker
Scrotes are low effort.
00:29:21
Speaker
To go full all cops are bastards, you have to understand, and as a person who dated someone in law enforcement, long story, that essentially they get a lot of calls.
00:29:32
Speaker
So they're like anybody who has a job, they're looking to do the least amount of paperwork possible.
00:29:37
Speaker
They're looking for the easy win.
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:29:41
Speaker
That's true.
00:29:42
Speaker
They're looking for the ability to wrap it up and call it a day.
00:29:46
Speaker
So the more convenient and convincing narrative, especially if there's not like a body and especially in domestic incidents, is always going to be the one that takes precedence.
00:29:57
Speaker
So just understand that even in the best case scenario, that the...
00:30:03
Speaker
reality of anybody who works a job that sometimes is frustrating is going to kick in and they're going to look for the easy one.
00:30:09
Speaker
So that's why when you encounter law enforcement, it's so important for you to have a coherent story, like feed them something to help them do their job.
00:30:18
Speaker
And to help yourself.
00:30:20
Speaker
Or say nothing.
00:30:21
Speaker
Plead the fifth.
00:30:22
Speaker
Either say nothing.
00:30:23
Speaker
I mean, it's so hard for women who are actually in that situation when you're fresh out of the, you know, when you've just been subjected to, you know, emotional abuse.
00:30:33
Speaker
Here's another red flag was the driving thing, right?
00:30:36
Speaker
So he says that she grabbed his arm and she blamed, she didn't
00:30:43
Speaker
say that she grabbed his arm.
00:30:44
Speaker
She just said that they were arguing while driving, and that was the result of the reckless driving.
00:30:50
Speaker
From personal experience, abusive men will use reckless driving as a scare tactic.
00:30:56
Speaker
Like, I have had times where I'm sitting in the passenger seat arguing with a man, and he'll threaten to, like, drive.
00:31:02
Speaker
Like, there have been times where I've been dating a guy, I'm in the passenger seat, and he threatens to, like...
00:31:07
Speaker
you know, drive off a bridge or drive into a tree or something like that.
00:31:11
Speaker
And it's, it's almost fucking sad looking back on my life that this has happened like multiple times, but it's just a scare tactic to get the woman to be like, no, babe, like, I'm so sorry.
00:31:20
Speaker
You know, don't do that.
00:31:22
Speaker
And like to beg for your life and that kind of stuff.
00:31:24
Speaker
It's a power move.
00:31:25
Speaker
It's a power move.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:27
Speaker
So that is a huge, like reckless driving is a power tactic that abusive men will use over women.
00:31:33
Speaker
So after that sort of,
00:31:36
Speaker
life or death kind of moment.
00:31:38
Speaker
You got that adrenaline rush, man, it's like kind of triggering to think about.
00:31:41
Speaker
They're pushing, they're pushing you to react by doing things that are purposely going to scare or antagonize or just overall heighten your emotional state so that if you do later try to explain anything, you're going to look comparatively unhinged.
00:31:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:57
Speaker
And like, okay, so I had a moment that was quite similar to this when I was driving with my narcissistic ex.
00:32:03
Speaker
We were driving through a rural mountain road that had, like, on one side it was a mountain, on the other side it was like a cliff.
00:32:11
Speaker
And we were arguing, and he starts suddenly, like, speeding.
00:32:15
Speaker
So he starts going...
00:32:16
Speaker
10, 20, 30 kilometers over the speed limit.
00:32:19
Speaker
And I'm screaming.
00:32:19
Speaker
I'm like, this, you're driving way too fast.
00:32:22
Speaker
If we hit a curve, you know, we're going over this cliff, like that kind of stuff.
00:32:25
Speaker
And he's like, I could see this fucking evil glint in his eyes saying like, he clearly enjoyed like my distress.
00:32:31
Speaker
But after that happened, I could, it's like, I thought I was going to die.
00:32:35
Speaker
Like when you, when you have that moment of like thinking you might die, you can't, it's like, you can't control yourself.
00:32:39
Speaker
Right.
00:32:39
Speaker
I'm trying to think like what would I have done if I'd been pulled over by the police in that moment, what I've been able to, you know, maintain my composure.
00:32:46
Speaker
You know, it's really fucking hard, but it's something you have to do.
00:32:49
Speaker
I think you just need to channel it into righteous anger.
00:32:52
Speaker
And that's something I can think
Coping Strategies and Relationship Signs
00:32:54
Speaker
of is like not pathologize and immediately blame yourself, but be like this asshole went 30 over the speed limit.
00:33:01
Speaker
and almost killed us both, right?
00:33:03
Speaker
And this is where, if you have healthy self-esteem... But I would have been acting crazy.
00:33:08
Speaker
That's the thing.
00:33:10
Speaker
If you have healthy self-esteem, you can do that righteous anger, right?
00:33:14
Speaker
And healthy boundaries.
00:33:15
Speaker
But an abuser, if they've been doing their job right, quote-unquote right, as an abuser, is breaking down your self-esteem.
00:33:21
Speaker
So they'll start before that, like, well, I had to go fast because you were being irrational or something.
00:33:26
Speaker
And so then someone like Gabby, whose boundaries don't seem to be that great, would have been like, well, I was acting really irrational in the car, so then he had to speed up or something like that, where it seems like his behavior and reaction to her behavior is clearly disproportionate.
00:33:43
Speaker
But it doesn't come across that way because she spends so much time blaming herself before she gets to the fact that he did something actually insane.
00:33:51
Speaker
Which actually, I would even actually put locking your girlfriend out of a van in the middle of the desert in August is insane behavior.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah, he's the crazy person here.
00:34:00
Speaker
Yes, that is insane.
00:34:02
Speaker
I actually hate the police, I'll say on record.
00:34:04
Speaker
Oh, the part where he says, he says...
00:34:07
Speaker
I hope she doesn't have too many complaints about me.
00:34:10
Speaker
That was the other red flag when he was talking to the police.
00:34:13
Speaker
That's an admission of guilt.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yes.
00:34:18
Speaker
Like their stories don't match up.
00:34:19
Speaker
She's blaming herself.
00:34:20
Speaker
She's being apologetic.
00:34:21
Speaker
Here's the thing.
00:34:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:23
Speaker
So for all the people trying to cast Brian as the victim and Gabby as the abuser, if that was really the case...
00:34:28
Speaker
the way that Brian would have acted, um, like, let's say Brian was innocent.
00:34:35
Speaker
Um, if a man who's in a relationship with a woman he loves is going to want to protect her.
00:34:40
Speaker
So he's probably going to want to say things about his partner, like, you know, to try to smooth things over.
00:34:46
Speaker
He's not going to just immediately like blame and, you know, um, throw her under the bus.
00:34:52
Speaker
The very fact that he was so quick to throw her under the bus was another red flag.
00:34:56
Speaker
And then the saying, um,
00:34:58
Speaker
I hope she doesn't have too many complaints about me.
00:34:59
Speaker
That means he knows he's fucking guilty.
00:35:03
Speaker
That's a really good point, actually, because, you know, let's say, like, you know, you rightly said, if she was the aggressor, we know that if a victim speaks out against their partner, the repercussions can be very, very bad.
00:35:18
Speaker
And the fact he was just so comfortable just, like I said, laying the blame at her door, it shows that he knows there's going to be no repercussion.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:26
Speaker
And then there's a moment where the police say, so, you know, you're the victim here.
00:35:31
Speaker
Gabby's the aggressor.
00:35:32
Speaker
And Brian fucking laughs.
00:35:35
Speaker
It's deepest delight.
00:35:36
Speaker
It's the deepest delight, as they called it.
00:35:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah, he scoffs.
00:35:40
Speaker
He's like, like, that is, like, when a narcissist has crafted a narrative that they know is not true, the moment when other people buy that narrative, that's when they're like, holy fuck, like, these idiots around me actually believe my lie.
00:35:53
Speaker
Like, I'm such a genius, and these people around me are so stupid.
00:35:56
Speaker
It's called duper's delight.
00:35:58
Speaker
That's why if you see someone, I'm not saying all the time, but it's common when, if it's a serious situation, they start grinning and laughing a lot.
00:36:06
Speaker
It's because they know it's bullshit, but they're happy that somebody else believes them and they start smiling, basically.
00:36:15
Speaker
Yeah, so if he was really the victim in that situation, he would have been dead serious.
00:36:19
Speaker
Like, if you're a victim of domestic abuse and someone comes up to you and says you're a victim of domestic abuse,
00:36:24
Speaker
you don't laugh, right?
00:36:26
Speaker
You would just be like, fuck.
00:36:28
Speaker
You would just sit there like dead serious.
00:36:31
Speaker
But the fact that he wasn't taking it seriously is another red flag.
00:36:35
Speaker
He knows they're painting this narrative that he's the victim here because they're checking for bodily injury.
00:36:41
Speaker
And I don't know, and to be fair, I don't know what the laws are in this particular state or particular county because sometimes there are laws that say whoever has the bodily, if somebody has a bodily injury injury,
00:36:52
Speaker
They have to take someone into custody or something like that.
00:36:55
Speaker
I don't think anybody actually got arrested, but they actually have to believe the person with a bodily injury.
00:37:00
Speaker
And we go into this a little bit in the coercive control episode, that sometimes even well-meaning domestic violence laws can have applications that
00:37:11
Speaker
and practice are unfair because they're open to the interpretation of the police officer at that given time.
00:37:16
Speaker
And again, like I said, a lot of cops are just lazy.
00:37:19
Speaker
And so if they're just like, okay, we can build a case based on the fact that this guy has a scratch.
00:37:22
Speaker
So over and done, Johnson, let's get out, get out of here.
00:37:26
Speaker
Right.
00:37:26
Speaker
And at the end, when they say, go up to Gabby, like, we're not going to cite you.
00:37:30
Speaker
Like she should be fucking grateful to them.
00:37:32
Speaker
Like, oh my gosh, thank you for not citing me for something in which I'm a victim.
00:37:36
Speaker
The whole case just makes me so angry.
00:37:38
Speaker
Okay, so in the last part of the video, it's where the police are explaining to Gabby the parameters in which they're releasing them, and as well as to Brian.
00:37:49
Speaker
Chris, let's make crisscross applesauce.
00:37:51
Speaker
Can I just sit in the shade to see them all?
00:37:55
Speaker
It's okay.
00:37:56
Speaker
I'll give you some shit.
00:37:57
Speaker
Sound good?
00:37:59
Speaker
All right, just hang tight for me.
00:38:02
Speaker
I've decided I am not going to cite you for domestic violence.
00:38:06
Speaker
Okay?
00:38:08
Speaker
It was only going to be a class B misdemeanor.
00:38:12
Speaker
However, the domestic violence portion of it enhances it.
00:38:17
Speaker
Makes life a major pain in the butt, especially at year 22, right?
00:38:21
Speaker
So I'm choosing not to cite you today.
00:38:24
Speaker
I'm not going to release you guys together.
00:38:26
Speaker
I want you guys to stay away from each other tonight, okay?
00:38:31
Speaker
She's agreed to it.
00:38:33
Speaker
Take some time to yourselves.
00:38:35
Speaker
You guys both have the exact same story as to what led up to the incident.
00:38:38
Speaker
So taking some time tonight, specifically, taking tonight away from each other is going to be the major breaker in all of this.
00:38:47
Speaker
I think that'll help you guys, especially tomorrow when you guys meet up.
00:38:50
Speaker
Just try to not contact each other unless, like I said, first chattering, something happens.
00:38:54
Speaker
You guys have to jump in the car right now and drive back to Florida because something happens.
00:39:01
Speaker
At first, the cops are talking to Gabby.
00:39:03
Speaker
Gabby's sitting in what looks like the back of a cop car.
00:39:09
Speaker
They say to her, well, I'm not going to cite you for domestic violence.
00:39:13
Speaker
It would only be a class B misdemeanor, but the domestic violence aspect of it can essentially put you in the system, right?
00:39:22
Speaker
Or become a bigger problem for you in the system because domestic violence arrests, depending on your state, can are potentially, even if they're a misdemeanor, may not be able to be expunged, could put you on a registry, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:39:36
Speaker
So the cop is basically saying, we're not going to
00:39:39
Speaker
arrest you.
00:39:39
Speaker
We're not going to cite you.
00:39:41
Speaker
We're just going to tell you guys to split up.
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:43
Speaker
I mean, I wish that they'd driven her to a domestic violence shelter so that, and in fact, I heard somewhere that there was actually a women's shelter, like five minutes drive away.
00:39:56
Speaker
I wish they'd brought her there so that she would have someone to talk to, to unpack some of, you know, what happened.
00:40:02
Speaker
But no, they left poor Gabby in the van by herself and they take him to a hotel.
00:40:07
Speaker
And it was interesting that the only person on that call out who suspected that the relationship might be toxic was a woman.
00:40:16
Speaker
A park ranger who attended the call said that she tried to essentially talk Gabby out of the relationship and asked her to question it.
00:40:31
Speaker
Yeah, so this wasn't recorded in the body cam footage, but she came out... What was her name?
00:40:38
Speaker
Melissa... Yeah, Melissa Holtz.
00:40:40
Speaker
I mean, and the police officers, so essentially the overarching point is that police officers are not counselors and not psychologists.
00:40:48
Speaker
They're there to build a case for a crime, right?
00:40:51
Speaker
So essentially this is probably, again, probably the easiest way to resolve for them paperwork wise, right?
00:40:59
Speaker
Because this is her car.
00:41:01
Speaker
So they're releasing Gabby with her car because they think the car's in her name.
00:41:05
Speaker
Tell her to go home.
00:41:07
Speaker
Giving Brian a hotel since he doesn't have a ride anymore.
00:41:10
Speaker
telling them to just split up.
00:41:11
Speaker
And so I would say this is more or less probably a standard reaction if they're not going to arrest anybody is to just tell them to leave.
Lessons from the Case and Advice
00:41:20
Speaker
And I think if I believe the reason why Brian was able to get a hotel is because they have some kind of fund or ability to invoke shelter for victims of domestic violence in this particular state.
00:41:34
Speaker
So he was a beneficiary of this law.
00:41:36
Speaker
Which is fucking bullshit.
00:41:38
Speaker
She should have been the one to benefit from that.
00:41:40
Speaker
But I don't know, because it was her car.
00:41:41
Speaker
So I kind of feel like they basically were trying to find the easiest way to split them up, right?
00:41:46
Speaker
I guess.
00:41:46
Speaker
Rather, they can't give the car to Brian and he can't sleep on the street, I suppose.
00:41:51
Speaker
But at the same time, she said that he drives the car.
00:41:55
Speaker
She doesn't, she didn't drive the car like round.
00:41:58
Speaker
But she owns it.
00:41:59
Speaker
But she owns it though.
00:42:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:42:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:01
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:42:01
Speaker
So it's her, it's her vehicle.
00:42:03
Speaker
So they can't, they can't release her vehicle into his custody.
00:42:06
Speaker
So again, if you just look at it like Occam's razor and remember that the cop's job is to, or the cop's job in their mind is to create a narrative and get the fuck out of there, that this was an easy resolution for them.
00:42:18
Speaker
So more than likely, when you look at the entirety of the video, they're already,
00:42:22
Speaker
calculating in their mind, how are we going to resolve this in the simplest way possible?
00:42:26
Speaker
So they say, okay, well, if the vehicle's hers, release the vehicle to her, get Brian a hotel room so that they can split up and then we won't have to arrest anybody, don't have to do any paperwork, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:42:37
Speaker
So that
00:42:38
Speaker
That more or less to me seems how most police interactions are going to go in addition to the scrote nonsense where they just believe Brian or they try to create a narrative with Brian.
00:42:50
Speaker
So you have both of those factors working against you as a woman.
00:42:54
Speaker
A lot of times when you were having this encounter, these encounters with the police,
00:42:58
Speaker
the desire for the police to take the easy narrative to not have to do a lot of work, but also the tendency for police to empathize with men over women.
00:43:08
Speaker
So what can we learn from this?
00:43:10
Speaker
Like, I don't want this, the lessons learned to be like, you know, shoulda, woulda, coulda, you know, Gabby should have done this, like Gabby should have done that because unfortunately it's too late.
00:43:21
Speaker
You know, what happened was not her fault also.
00:43:24
Speaker
So it's not like it's her responsibility to avoid being murdered.
00:43:27
Speaker
Larger point.
00:43:29
Speaker
Larger point.
00:43:29
Speaker
I don't know how long they had been together and if they had made any type of vacations before, but being on a vacation with a guy that's already kind of shitty could be a horrible nightmare even in a small amount of time.
00:43:40
Speaker
But you're putting a small space and a long period of time with a man who is a shitty person.
00:43:47
Speaker
You know, the larger point of really vetting men before you even make, I would even say just like short vacations with them because you're going to be stuck is so important.
00:43:58
Speaker
Brian's behavior throughout the entire process just points to a large, a long pattern of toxicity and more than likely gaslighting her out of her boundaries.
00:44:08
Speaker
Seems to have a lot of toxic elements.
00:44:10
Speaker
So many women seem to have just accepted this idea that it's okay to be miserable.
00:44:16
Speaker
Like, if you're in a relationship, it's okay to be miserable a good chunk of the time.
00:44:21
Speaker
You know, like, at FDS, we tell women, like, if you are...
00:44:26
Speaker
If this man makes you miserable even a little bit, dump him.
00:44:29
Speaker
Like, walk away.
00:44:30
Speaker
He should be making you happy all, if not like, at least 99.99% of the time, right?
00:44:36
Speaker
And the times he's not making you happy, it shouldn't be because he needs a personality transplant before he's a nice person.
00:44:43
Speaker
It can just be a minor disagreement or something like that.
00:44:47
Speaker
Something that is not, that isn't fundamentally wrong with him.
00:44:51
Speaker
Yeah, not, I was afraid he was going to lock me out of the car and then leave me for dead in the desert.
00:44:55
Speaker
Like, that's a pretty fucking big disagreement.
00:44:57
Speaker
It shouldn't be because there's something, you know, fundamentally wrong with him.
00:45:00
Speaker
Again, the fact that he locked her out, that is a testament to his character, which is what I was saying.
00:45:04
Speaker
Like, they shouldn't need a personality transplant before you can enjoy the relationship.
00:45:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:09
Speaker
So first of all, like vet men heavily before traveling with them or being in a confined space with them at all, because like, okay, side note, but so many of the van life couples that I see online, even when they're posting their best moments, their relationship seems toxic.
00:45:24
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:45:25
Speaker
Like there's, there's one in particular that I've been following for a while now called Eamon and Beck.
00:45:29
Speaker
I don't know if I want to call them out.
00:45:30
Speaker
I don't think Eamon's going to murder Beck anytime soon.
00:45:32
Speaker
I hope they don't, but
00:45:34
Speaker
I fucking hope he doesn't.
00:45:35
Speaker
But, like, every single video, there's so many, like, little red flags.
00:45:40
Speaker
Like, you know, he'll do something that pisses her off, and she'll be, like, passive-aggressively upset about it.
00:45:47
Speaker
And, like, apparently they've been engaged for, like, nine years or something.
00:45:50
Speaker
And, like, so she's a forever girlfriend.
00:45:53
Speaker
You know, he, like, fucks up really minor things that should be really, like, you know...
00:45:59
Speaker
You know, he has this sort of like almost like strategic incompetence that really pisses me off.
00:46:03
Speaker
I don't know if I want to put this in the video because it's almost too dark, but still.
00:46:07
Speaker
The larger idea here is that don't let the beautiful scenery of the van life hide the fact that you're still going to have to be in close quarters with this person when the cameras are off for...
00:46:20
Speaker
24 hours a day for months at a time.
00:46:22
Speaker
And if your relationship is not stable, especially if you didn't live together before and he's at least a tiny bit of a kind of a scrote, then there's going to be things that
00:46:34
Speaker
Things that seem like little things that are suddenly going to blow up because you're in close confined quarters with each other.
00:46:40
Speaker
The thing with skirts as well, they're like rotten apples.
00:46:43
Speaker
And the saying a bad apple doesn't spoil them is wrong.
00:46:46
Speaker
It's a bad apple like ruins the rest of the bunch.
00:46:49
Speaker
Like their toxicity will leak onto you as well.
00:46:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:53
Speaker
And in fact, like the closer you are to someone who is toxic, the more they will poison you.
00:46:57
Speaker
So, um, exactly.
00:47:00
Speaker
You know, like, I don't know if you've ever seen that picture of like two pairs, you know, and one, one pair is rotting and it makes the other one rot kind of thing.
00:47:06
Speaker
It's like proof that you shouldn't be around toxic people is like the meme usually like with toxic people or with shitty people, like the further you are away from them, the safer you are, the closer you are to them, the more like they contaminate your life.
00:47:20
Speaker
I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
This is the pattern of escalating abuse, right?
00:47:24
Speaker
So one of the ways that abusers work is by isolating you, right?
00:47:28
Speaker
And making it so you cannot leave.
00:47:30
Speaker
I can't think of anything more isolating than being stuck in a van with someone in somewhere as like remote and desolate as Utah, right?
00:47:37
Speaker
You're driving through places where, you know, there's some places on the West Coast where you could be driving like 100 kilometers and not seeing a single gas station, you know?
00:47:45
Speaker
And you're thinking, fuck, like I'm so far away from civilization.
00:47:48
Speaker
If anything happened and I'm stuck with this person, I'm totally fucked.
00:47:51
Speaker
Like, I don't know.
00:47:53
Speaker
I feel like so many scenarios are bad to be an abusive relationship, but van life is probably the worst one.
00:47:59
Speaker
I think that just compounds everything.
00:48:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a pressure cooker.
00:48:04
Speaker
If you put yourself in a situation where you can't escape because you're hundreds or thousands of miles from home, it's like being a boiling frog in a pressure cooker, right?
00:48:12
Speaker
And this is a perfect time for a person who's abusive to ramp up their abuse and ramp up their narcissism, right?
00:48:20
Speaker
Because now you have no escape.
00:48:22
Speaker
So when I'm looking at this dynamic, you can kind of
00:48:26
Speaker
You can almost kind of infer that the time they spent together over the month that Brian is increasingly amping up his abuse, listening to her less, punishing her more for her behavior.
00:48:42
Speaker
And he probably feels justified in this because they're spending so much time together.
00:48:47
Speaker
And then he can always just say, well, I don't want to have an argument.
00:48:49
Speaker
So then he just starts trying to... So then he just locks her to the van.
00:48:54
Speaker
Yeah, just lock her out of the van.
00:48:55
Speaker
Do things to antagonize her or feel justified in ramping up his abuse because it feels like them spending so much time together, there's probably more incidents that he can claim triggered him.
00:49:08
Speaker
A second takeaway from this incident for me was that police are not your friend.
00:49:16
Speaker
And they made a series of errors that...
00:49:22
Speaker
that I believe is just unacceptable.
00:49:24
Speaker
So if we look at the body cam footage, for example, the police acting, you know, like they're Brian's bros, Brian has several inconsistencies in his story.
00:49:34
Speaker
So he says that...
00:49:37
Speaker
It just came out of nowhere.
00:49:38
Speaker
She just, you know, you know, kicked off and she was, you know, I was trying to push her away to get her to calm down.
00:49:45
Speaker
She says that, you know, we've been arguing all morning.
00:49:50
Speaker
The call itself was that he was slapping her.
00:49:53
Speaker
That wasn't questioned at all.
00:49:56
Speaker
And then there was a funny one as well when he was like, oh, I don't have a phone at the very beginning.
00:50:01
Speaker
And then at the end, he magically, like a magician with a bunny and a top hat, produces a phone.
00:50:08
Speaker
Again, they don't question that.
00:50:10
Speaker
I don't know if that's in the video, but that's in the larger video, right?
00:50:12
Speaker
It's not in the video that we're going to post, but it's a longer video.
00:50:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:15
Speaker
It's in the longer video.
00:50:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:17
Speaker
It's in the longer video.
00:50:20
Speaker
I mean, or you can link it at the bottom.
00:50:22
Speaker
But then as well, when Brian returns home alone...
00:50:29
Speaker
The police, for some reason, don't consider him a person of interest until he disappears several weeks later, even though he was the last person or should have been the last person to see Gabby.
00:50:41
Speaker
And he has her car.
00:50:42
Speaker
And he's got her car.
00:50:43
Speaker
That car is not his.
00:50:45
Speaker
So for, I think from the time they reported Gabby missing on the 11th of September to the time he disappears, he's still not considered the prime suspect, which is just bizarre to me because he was, he should have been the last person to see her.
00:50:59
Speaker
It's tough with homicide investigations when they don't have a body.
00:51:03
Speaker
So I don't even know.
00:51:05
Speaker
Again, we're working from a second hand knowledge of whatever their particular police protocol is.
00:51:11
Speaker
They should have brought him in and it wasn't considered a homicide until they found the body and ruled it that.
00:51:17
Speaker
But even so, you have a missing person.
00:51:19
Speaker
Surely logic dictates that... It's just like my dad, when I lose something, right, and it's really unhelpful, he was like, where did you last see it?
00:51:26
Speaker
I was like, if I remembered that, I wouldn't be looking for it.
00:51:29
Speaker
But anyway, stuff like that.
00:51:31
Speaker
So you go back to the person who had the last contact and they just didn't do that.
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:36
Speaker
you know, for whatever reason unknown, which is a big failure on their part because it also allowed him to get away.
00:51:42
Speaker
He up, sticked and left.
00:51:43
Speaker
Like, God knows where he is now, but perhaps if they'd brought him in, then, you know, perhaps they wouldn't be spending hours and hours doing a nationwide manhunt for this.
00:51:53
Speaker
So, and...
00:51:55
Speaker
you know, the bigger point that I want to make, especially to women, is that the police are not your friend.
00:51:59
Speaker
If you are struggling with something like domestic violence or you want to help women who are struggling with domestic violence, calling the police is sometimes, like, one of the most unhelpful things you can do because they are not trained to deal with this issue.
00:52:13
Speaker
Right.
00:52:14
Speaker
You are much better off donating to your local women's shelters or women's charities or homeless shelters because they will have people who actually give a shit and who are actually trained to spot abuse.
00:52:27
Speaker
The police ain't it.
00:52:29
Speaker
They're not it
Impact of Bias on Police Procedures
00:52:30
Speaker
at all.
00:52:30
Speaker
Yeah, so it looks like it took a couple of days for them to get a search warrant on the van, just looking at the actual things here.
00:52:37
Speaker
And it's not even his van.
00:52:38
Speaker
Why are you back in someone else's car that's not yours?
00:52:42
Speaker
And the person's not there.
00:52:43
Speaker
Like, shouldn't they have at least arrested him for car theft or something like that?
00:52:47
Speaker
Because... For car theft!
00:52:49
Speaker
Carjacking!
00:52:50
Speaker
That's carjacking!
00:52:51
Speaker
So here's the conversation about what actual protocol is, which is what they did and what they typically do for people who are not white.
00:53:01
Speaker
There's the law on paper, which it seems like more or less they were following.
00:53:05
Speaker
And then there's also the reality what the police would have more or less jumped the gun or more than likely brought in a person, just picked him up off the street if he were not white.
00:53:16
Speaker
Part of the reason why the police do that more so with white people is like,
00:53:21
Speaker
the expectation they'll be able to lawyer up and lawyer up well, which makes the police reactive by trying to create an airtight case, which makes them take longer, right?
00:53:30
Speaker
Versus someone they know doesn't have any money that they can just pick up off the street and they're like, oh, this asshole is going to get a public defender and it'll be easy for us to Swiss cheese through that.
00:53:39
Speaker
So that's also the other thing that I think worked a little bit in Brian's favor is that the police had to take additional time to actually build a legitimate case before they take this guy in.
00:53:49
Speaker
Yeah, they had to go buy the book because they didn't want the case to get thrown out on a technicality or something.
00:53:54
Speaker
That's the other subtext when we talk about the way that Black and brown people are treated by law enforcement versus how white people are often treated by law enforcement.
00:54:02
Speaker
It's like...
00:54:03
Speaker
Again, cops are lazy.
00:54:06
Speaker
If they could just bring this guy in and be done with it, most of them kind of would.
00:54:11
Speaker
But the reality is like you're talking about institutional power.
00:54:14
Speaker
And when you look at a person like him, who probably comes from, I guess, an OK background, I don't know how wealthy he is or not, but he did lawyer up.
00:54:21
Speaker
They probably expected him to lawyer up.
00:54:24
Speaker
And so in that case, they have to make their case a lot tighter, which bought him a lot of time.
00:54:29
Speaker
So my first thought watching the Gabby Petito footage, the body cam footage, was that this is why you should never admit fault in front of a man.
00:54:38
Speaker
Like you were saying, don't admit fault in front of the police.
00:54:40
Speaker
I'm going to extend that to not just men, but any person who might not want to trust your boundaries.
00:54:48
Speaker
This might be seen as controversial.
00:54:50
Speaker
I know a lot of people are going to be like, oh, that's toxic to like, you know, never admit fault and blah, blah, blah.
00:54:55
Speaker
But here's the thing.
00:54:56
Speaker
A few reasons.
00:54:57
Speaker
One.
00:54:59
Speaker
like I was raised by narcissists, right?
00:55:00
Speaker
So whatever, you know, before I found FDS, I was always the sort of person where, you know, if something happened, I would often like blame myself or admit fault or apologize, even if I didn't actually do anything wrong, just to sort of keep the peace.
00:55:14
Speaker
And also because I had this idea in my head that if I admit fault or if I apologize, or if I say sorry, then the other person's going to see that and they're going to do the same thing and like meet me halfway.
00:55:25
Speaker
It was like a sort of, I thought,
00:55:27
Speaker
in my head that, oh, if I lead by example, you know, the other person will show me the same courtesy.
00:55:32
Speaker
And they never fucking do, okay?
00:55:35
Speaker
Especially if you're talking to a man, right?
00:55:37
Speaker
And so one of the ways that my life has markedly improved since Finding FDS is realizing that female socialization has kind of fucked us over.
00:55:47
Speaker
You know, a lot of women have been raised with this idea that
00:55:51
Speaker
You know, you should be the first person to admit fault, that you should apologize and so on.
00:55:57
Speaker
And that makes you more mature or like a better person or whatever.
Self-Advocacy and Relationship Boundaries
00:56:02
Speaker
Unfortunately, when you're talking to men, especially like narcissistic or, you know, like...
00:56:08
Speaker
A good man, for example, you could, you know, maybe apologize for something and, you know, have a conversation about it and it would be fine.
00:56:16
Speaker
Most men are not high value, right?
00:56:18
Speaker
Majority of the time I find when you apologize to a man, they just take that as an admission of guilt.
00:56:25
Speaker
They don't have to think any further about the way that they contributed to the situation properly.
00:56:30
Speaker
When you're talking to a shitty man, more often than not, they're just happy to be like, yeah, you're right, it is your fault, and then just completely lay the blame on you, and then...
00:56:39
Speaker
you know, they don't, you know, you're not going to get a cookie for being mature or for being the big or for taking the higher road or for being the bigger person or whatever, right?
00:56:47
Speaker
You're just going to be seen as a sucker.
00:56:50
Speaker
And I'm now of the view and my life has markedly improved since I've taken this attitude of like, never show weakness to a man, not just in my romantic relationships, but also at work, you know, in business, for example, like, you know,
00:57:03
Speaker
I remember when I was younger and I would, you know, sometimes admit mistakes to my boss and then that would be used as an excuse for why I don't deserve a raise or, you know, why, you know, oh, maybe, you know, I shouldn't deserve to get this next project or, you know, maybe I don't deserve this promotion or something like that.
00:57:18
Speaker
Right.
00:57:18
Speaker
And I learned pretty, I learned the hard way that when you're talking to a man, you have to, you have to advocate for yourself ruthlessly and, you
00:57:27
Speaker
And never admit weakness, never admit fault, never apologize.
00:57:31
Speaker
Because the moment you do, the moment you show any weakness, men are willing to pounce all over that to destroy you.
00:57:37
Speaker
So I'm of the opinion that that's just a hallmark of low-value scrote behavior and sociopathic behavior.
00:57:43
Speaker
Yeah, majority of men are low-value scrotes.
00:57:46
Speaker
So that's why you have to act that way with them.
00:57:48
Speaker
To extend that to the workplace, like the workplace, especially in a capitalist system, often rewards psychopaths and sociopaths.
00:57:56
Speaker
So a lot of the behavior that you find present in a relationship that is toxic is
00:58:07
Speaker
That would lead you to believe that, okay, it's never okay, or you should never admit fault.
00:58:12
Speaker
But I think the argument I would make is that if you were actually in a relationship with a high value man, you should be able to at least like come to a compromise.
00:58:19
Speaker
And again, I think more often than not, if you approach a problem from like whose fault it is, you're already... You've lost.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah, you've lost.
00:58:28
Speaker
you're already in a bad relationship.
00:58:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:30
Speaker
It's already a red flag.
00:58:31
Speaker
It's time to cut your losses because again, in a good organization and a good workplace, as well as like in a good relationship, it's everybody versus the problem, not everybody versus one person or one person versus the other.
00:58:45
Speaker
So my, my argument, I guess my counter argument with that is that I think you should never pathologize your feelings because
00:58:53
Speaker
And I know for me, especially sometimes that time of the month for me, like I can just be really, really exhausted.
00:58:59
Speaker
And so my patience is wearing thin.
00:59:01
Speaker
And so there are certain things where I'll just be a little bit less patient during certain times of month and other things.
00:59:05
Speaker
And I know this for a fact because I can just literally feel like the blood draining from my body and I don't
00:59:09
Speaker
when I listen to people's shit, but I would never pathologize that to my boss.
00:59:13
Speaker
And I would never pathologize that to, or in a relationship, right?
00:59:16
Speaker
Assert yourself, uh, validate your own emotions and a person who is high value will allow you to have your boundaries and emotions without trying to pathologize you or trying to assign blame, right?
00:59:29
Speaker
Because it's not, if you're in a good relationship, it's not you versus the other person.
00:59:34
Speaker
It's you versus a problem.
00:59:35
Speaker
And, um, yeah,
00:59:37
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:59:38
Speaker
I think if you're in a situation where you're with a scrote, then I think Lilith's advice applies, which is like, definitely never admit fault to a narcissist.
00:59:47
Speaker
Because a narcissist will take any little type of piece.
00:59:50
Speaker
Ever.
00:59:51
Speaker
Even if you are wrong.
00:59:52
Speaker
Here's the thing.
00:59:53
Speaker
Even if you are fucking wrong, never, ever admit it to a narcissist, a sociopath, or even just a low value manipulative shitty person.
01:00:02
Speaker
Men or women, right?
01:00:03
Speaker
I, I, I'm of the kind of person I keep my guards way high and I only show vulnerability to women that I really trust who are very close to me.
01:00:12
Speaker
My female, like a limited number of female family members and like five female friends tops.
01:00:18
Speaker
Those are the only people that, and also on the podcast, but that's because it's anonymous and I can say whatever the fuck I want.
01:00:23
Speaker
Anyways, but the rest of the time in real life, I keep my guard way the fuck high.
01:00:29
Speaker
And, you know, some people might say, oh, that's like a trauma response or that's not healthy and blah, blah, blah.
01:00:33
Speaker
You know what?
01:00:34
Speaker
It keeps me safe.
01:00:34
Speaker
Okay.
01:00:35
Speaker
So that's why I do it.
01:00:37
Speaker
I mean, it's like being a politician.
01:00:38
Speaker
Right.
01:00:39
Speaker
So, I mean, I think you have to understand that's what politicians do.
01:00:42
Speaker
They try to take credit for all the wins and then deflect all the blames.
01:00:46
Speaker
Just watch any politician ever.
01:00:48
Speaker
This is a skill.
01:00:50
Speaker
So most people who work, if you work in any type of organization where there's politics, which is pretty much all of them, especially the higher you go up on the food chain, you
01:00:59
Speaker
You have to learn how to spin a narrative in your favor and knowing that people have short attention spans to keep building a narrative, constantly building a narrative in your favor and then deflecting attacks against you.
01:01:12
Speaker
But in a relationship and in a long-term, I would even say in a long-term job, unless you're really a person that likes politics like that, it's not healthy and it's not a person, it's not something I would...
01:01:24
Speaker
recommend for your health and sanity.
01:01:26
Speaker
And so the people that tend to thrive in that kind of situation are in fact psychopaths and sociopaths for that reason, because they never see a problem with like taking all the credit for themselves and deflecting blame on other people and like completely bullshitting people all the time.
01:01:40
Speaker
and creating a narrative in their favor and against other people because they thrive or like that kind of environment or it's just second nature to them.
01:01:47
Speaker
And it's really hard to compete with people like that who have been swimming and who are the sharks in the shark-infested waters or at least have been swimming much longer than you.
01:01:55
Speaker
But that's what I'm saying.
01:01:56
Speaker
There are people who are psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists.
01:01:59
Speaker
Those people exist.
01:02:00
Speaker
They're out there in the world.
01:02:01
Speaker
And that's why I tell women, your default position, until you have assessed that that person is safe,
01:02:08
Speaker
Until you have done your vetting and you've built rapport and you trust that person and you've seen examples of their character to show that they are not the sort of person to throw you under the bus if you admit fault in front of them.
01:02:20
Speaker
Until you've determined by your own means that that person is safe, your default position should be to never apologize, never admit fault, never show weakness.
01:02:29
Speaker
I know a lot of people are going to be like, oh, that sounds miserable and I don't want to live my life like that.
01:02:33
Speaker
Well...
01:02:34
Speaker
You know, that's your choice.
01:02:35
Speaker
You can live your life however you want.
01:02:36
Speaker
Well, I think you have to test them with something small.
01:02:38
Speaker
And I think, again, it's not.
01:02:39
Speaker
Oh, that's the blood in the water strategy.
01:02:41
Speaker
Have you heard about that one?
01:02:42
Speaker
It's a yeah, it's not a it's not a never.
01:02:44
Speaker
It's just a matter of like being strategic about it as you're getting to.
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:48
Speaker
As you're getting to know someone, start small.
01:02:51
Speaker
This is why, again, we tell people not to trauma dump on like the first or second date.
01:02:54
Speaker
Don't tell them about like your long history of abusive relationships and all the like terrible relationship you have with your mom or whatever.
01:03:00
Speaker
And the reason for that is because it looks like shark meat, right?
01:03:04
Speaker
It looks like bait to a shark.
01:03:07
Speaker
That is like delicious, tasty chum to a shark when you give them all of these pieces of information that they can then use to manipulate a narrative against you and in their favor.
01:03:19
Speaker
So when you're dealing with someone and you're trying to figure out if they're a safe person, you got to see that they're the type of person that'll keep your secrets or will respect when you've made a vulnerable discussion.
01:03:32
Speaker
And that's part of the vetting process of a relationship because you can't be in a relationship where nobody can ever admit fault.
01:03:39
Speaker
That's a
01:03:40
Speaker
That's definitely going to ruin your relationship and have it explode eventually.
01:03:43
Speaker
You just have to find someone who can sit with you and not blame you, but help to attack whatever the issue is or the miscommunication rather than be collecting evidence to build a case against you later.
01:03:56
Speaker
Because that's like, and funnily enough, that's actually one of the hallmarks of divorce where I think Chris Rock does like a joke about this or he talks about...
01:04:04
Speaker
Um, at the, you know, once you file for redores, everything you say and do is just this other person building a case against you.
01:04:09
Speaker
And you don't want to start that dynamic off in your relationship.
01:04:12
Speaker
You definitely don't want to start on that.
01:04:14
Speaker
Um, and it's a shame if it ends that way.
01:04:16
Speaker
I mean, okay.
01:04:16
Speaker
I agree with what you're saying, Ro, in the sense that yes, like you don't want to be like that in with your like husband, you know, someone you care about, someone you love, right?
01:04:25
Speaker
Someone who
01:04:25
Speaker
You know, you don't want to be in a relationship, an intimate relationship with someone that you can't trust, who you have not determined to be safe, who you can't show vulnerability to, and so on, right?
01:04:35
Speaker
So, yes, like, ultimately, the goal should be to find someone that you can be vulnerable with, that you can...
01:04:41
Speaker
admit fault, you can apologize and so on too.
01:04:45
Speaker
Right.
01:04:46
Speaker
But what I'm saying though, is like, there's, it's, it's one thing to be like, this is the ideal situation.
01:04:51
Speaker
And it's the other thing to be like, this is the reality of the general world that we live in.
01:04:56
Speaker
Right.
01:04:56
Speaker
So what I'm suggesting is like, there's basically two different strategies almost like,
01:05:01
Speaker
the way that you are with the world, you know, when you haven't yet determined that they're safe.
01:05:05
Speaker
And then the way that, and then once you finally determine that someone is safe, then you can relax a little and, you know, and then have honest conversations with them about, you know, and try to have these kinds of problem solving type discussions.
01:05:17
Speaker
Right.
01:05:18
Speaker
And one of the ways that I mentioned earlier, the blood in the water technique, one of the ways that you can determine if somebody is safe is by mentioning like an insecurity.
01:05:28
Speaker
That's not a real insecurity.
01:05:29
Speaker
Right.
01:05:30
Speaker
So say something like, oh, I'm really insecure about, I don't know how my arms are super long or something, I don't know, something random that you're not actually insecure about.
01:05:38
Speaker
And then see if this person tries to use that against you.
01:05:41
Speaker
Like if they make a comment like, oh, look at your gangly arms or something like that.
01:05:45
Speaker
That's a sign that they're probably a narcissist or a sociopath, that there's something wrong with them for them to want to bring up.
01:05:50
Speaker
Or at the very least insensitive.
01:05:51
Speaker
Or insensitive or manipulative.
01:05:53
Speaker
There's something wrong with them, right?
01:05:54
Speaker
And the key is that you should bring up something that you're not actually insecure about.
01:05:59
Speaker
Because if you bring up a real insecurity, that is when you're actually giving... You may be accidentally giving ammo to somebody who...
01:06:08
Speaker
like real ammo to somebody.
01:06:10
Speaker
You basically want to give someone, you know, blanks, you know, you don't want to give someone real bullets to use against you, if that makes sense.
01:06:17
Speaker
So that when they do try to use it against you, they're just shooting blanks.
01:06:19
Speaker
They're not actually shooting real bullets.
Male Socialization and Trust
01:06:22
Speaker
I think to your point, Liz, I think there's just a ton of women who have experienced or been in this dynamic before because of the way that men are more socialized, not to admit fault.
01:06:32
Speaker
And that's how they socialize with each other as well, because we've talked about and the larger culture has talked about certain aspects of toxic masculinity where men don't ever drop the mask with each other.
01:06:42
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:43
Speaker
Or it's very hard for them to show any type of emotional vulnerability because of the fact that there's most men or a lot of men don't feel...
01:06:50
Speaker
Either that their friends are trustworthy or their friends don't know what to do with it, right?
01:06:53
Speaker
Or their friends are more likely to make fun of them if they start to be emotionally honest.
01:06:57
Speaker
So there's a certain level of way that men are socialized to that effect.
01:07:03
Speaker
So then when they get in relationships with women, even if they're not like actively sociopaths, it's just the way that they've been taught to relate to one another, right?
01:07:12
Speaker
So then when they bring it back to the relationships with women, so then...
01:07:16
Speaker
I mean, and I know I've seen this all the time with like groups of guy friends where one guy, you know, they'll just, they'll point out some fucked up thing about the other person.
01:07:25
Speaker
Like, oh, your nostrils are too big.
01:07:26
Speaker
Right.
01:07:27
Speaker
I don't know.
01:07:27
Speaker
Or like you have a crooked tooth.
01:07:28
Speaker
And so then that guy's called crooked tooth.
01:07:30
Speaker
Right.
01:07:31
Speaker
Like, so forever.
01:07:31
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:32
Speaker
That's how guys...
01:07:33
Speaker
That's what I mean.
01:07:34
Speaker
Like, even guys that are not sociopaths or who are not narcissists, this is just how male and female socialization works, right?
01:07:40
Speaker
Men are ruthless with each other.
01:07:43
Speaker
Like, and that's how they're socialized with each other, and that's how they treat both men and women, right?
01:07:49
Speaker
Like, talking to a man, for me, a lot of times, it's like talking to a brick wall, right?
01:07:54
Speaker
You know, if you try to admit fault to someone like that, you're never going to win, right?
01:07:58
Speaker
You're never going to get the result that you want.
01:08:00
Speaker
And so...
01:08:02
Speaker
I do think a hallmark of maturity, though, is that men learn to do that.
01:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, and most men are not mature.
01:08:08
Speaker
Okay, that's what I'm saying.
01:08:08
Speaker
I'm saying like 90% of men out there, yeah, there's some exceptions who are high value, but the vast, vast majority of men have received this shitty male socialization, and they're immature, and they're selfish, and they will try to fuck you over.
01:08:20
Speaker
And that's why you have to have the default high guard, never admit fault, never admit weakness until you've decided that you can trust them.
01:08:27
Speaker
And the other thing is like some women, like narcissistic women can be dangerous in this way as well.
01:08:33
Speaker
Well, and that's my point is that, listen, like if you do encounter a high value male and you can't work with him and can't admit fault, he's going to run out of there screaming too, because there's enough of women who are, that can't admit fault, that are narcissistic and who have cluster B personality disorders, that it would make, it would make you look like a red flag if you haven't learned how to...
01:08:53
Speaker
If you don't know when to drop, yeah, if you don't know when to drop the barriers.
01:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, if you don't know when to drop the facade and if you haven't figured out how to engage with this person in an honest way.
01:09:03
Speaker
So there's the danger on both sides.
01:09:05
Speaker
But at the same time, a high value man will also run if you trauma dump.
01:09:10
Speaker
Right.
01:09:10
Speaker
So if you reveal too much, you don't want to go too extreme, maybe.
01:09:13
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:14
Speaker
So there's trauma dumping is not just like overwhelming for the person, but it's also a hallmark of manipulators too.
01:09:22
Speaker
We talked about this as like people try to reveal trauma too early because they're sometimes they're just really, really notionally needy, but also it's a way to kind of hook their claws into some people if they want something, right?
01:09:34
Speaker
If they're trying to work an angle from this person.
01:09:36
Speaker
And it could potentially, like another reason why trauma dumping is not a good idea in the early stages is that it can send a signal to somebody that you're going to be troubled down the road as well.
01:09:46
Speaker
Because traumas can be very complex and it can manifest later down the road as well.
01:09:53
Speaker
So that's another reason why it's not entirely attractive to trauma dump when you've just met someone.
01:09:59
Speaker
But anyways, that's just my two cents.
01:10:01
Speaker
Like, it's up to the individual listening to this to decide which, first of all, like, which person is safe to show vulnerability, which person is not, and what's a good time, what's a bad time, and what kind of vulnerability is appropriate to show and when kind of thing.
01:10:17
Speaker
So that's just my two cents.
01:10:19
Speaker
Do that with that information what you will, dear listener.
Conclusion and Call to Action
01:10:22
Speaker
Do we have anything else to say about this case?
01:10:25
Speaker
I think we've covered everything.
01:10:27
Speaker
So that's our show.
01:10:28
Speaker
Please check out our website at thefemaledatingstrategy.com as well as our Twitter at fem.strat and our Patreon, patreon.com forward slash thefemaledatingstrategy where we have weekly bonus content.
01:10:40
Speaker
Thanks for listening, queens, and for all you narcissistic and sociopathic skirts, die mad.
01:10:45
Speaker
See you next week.