YouSaid · the spoken record

Sarma Melngailis

lines on the record: 316
first: 2022-05-23
most recent: 2022-05-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Darkest, well, one of the things that was fascinating is reading through all of the correspondence between him and me that I was able to find because he deleted all our emails, but he didn't, I think he thought he deleted all of our G chats, but he didn't.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I wish it's in five parts, and I've written one through four and part five is like the chapters are all there, but some of them are messy. Some of them are, or some of them are just like a few paragraphs, some of them are just notes. Some of them are done. So I am kind of like five parts and part five is not quite finished.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, because I always air like I was very early to the airport and then I had all this time to kill. But that's fine with me because that's actually time I appreciate because I can. Write things, or you know, I worked on my book draft on the airplane, mostly editing. Which it needs a lot because it's really long. It's in word count”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Us I sent you a text message because I was early when I got here. I said that. I think I said my crippling fear of being late. I'm like always early.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Same psychological tactics were used on us. And then we experienced the same thing on the other side of it, which is it's hard for us to understand and it's hard for other people to understand and everybody's saying that would never happen to me or they're saying I don't get it because you're smart. How could you let that happen? Why didn't you leave? Why didn't you walk away? And on the other side of it, we don't have the answers or it takes a really long time of self-reflection and reading and investigation to try and figure out. How it is that it happened, and why didn't we walk away?”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, you can't. Well, I could have walked away at any point with, I call him Mr. Fox because it's sort of depersonalizes him. Could have walked away from him at any point in time, but that's the whole Kind of the whole point of what they do and the whole reason why people don't understand it. I mean, it's like being in a cult of one. So the people who've been in cults and gotten out, we understand each other very well because the same psychology was used.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Something happened where the garage attendant was wanted more identification and it was a pain in the ass. Anyway, this guy was so unbelievably rude to the garage attendant, like just nasty. And I was completely shocked and disturbed and we got in the car for this long car ride. And I was like not saying anything and really shocked. Then he noticed that and was very concerned and I explained, you know, like I just, I never, I would never treat somebody that way. And then he pretended to get incredibly upset and to feel horrible and remorseful about it. And it was like all we talked about for the next few hours. And then I kind of Thought like, well, okay, you know, I can get over that, and then the relationship continued, and it was a dark and destructive one. Whereas, you know, had I seen him behave that way,”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Destructive relationship with where we had already fallen in love and then went for the first trip. In a situation where we were like had to borrow, I guess he was still sharing his car with his ex-wife, so we had to go to the garage to pick up the car to go on his little trip.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. I think one of them actually is. Is somebody who doesn't have that kind of, I mean, plenty of people are private and they don't put stuff out about themselves online for all kinds of very valid reasons. But somebody who does share a lot about themselves personally is. Maybe there's examples, but it's probably not a sociopath if they're sharing all kinds of”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then, but then, but she's not who she that's all pretend. And so you very quickly could fall in love with her and she's going to turn out to like. Enjoy the game of destroying your life.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What if, like, a brilliant woman kind of threw herself in your path, right? Because talking on a podcast is a little bit like having a blog where you overshare because people learn everything about you, what you like, what you don't like, what your wants and dreams and, you know. So some women could pretend to throw herself in your path seemingly accidentally. And then you meet.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it's safer to fall in love in a You get to know somebody not in the context of dating them. Jim and Pam on the office. Did you watch the office?”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My frustrations professionally in growing the business and having read that and being a very smart person, he would have known kind of precisely what to say to get me drawn in. So I think by waiting so long before we met in person, he'd already gotten me hooked in a way that was going to then make it possible for me to, you know, see him. And even though he doesn't look like I thought he did, I'll make excuses for it. I mean, that's a dangerous thing about when people, and I'm not saying I fell in love with him in this way that I feel like there's another explanation for what felt like love. But when people fall in love quickly, there's that danger that... Because that's what happens first, that the more you learn about them, you'll sort of rationalize away things that might be red flags or things that you don't like. So I think.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One thing that made me extra easy to target is that I'd written a lot of very personal blogs. And things, so, in addition to him asking me questions and me probably just being insanely open and answering whatever he asked me, I had also written and posted a bunch of personal blogs. Some of them I've reposted on my new website and then some of them I haven't. But in one of them I go into detail about”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, because it was a restaurant, there was constantly, you're like constantly meeting people and really interesting people. And New York is full of a lot of interesting people.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Person that I heard that I quoted my book saying that when you're heartbroken, you can't rely on your instincts. Somehow your instincts are compromised when you're heartbroken. And maybe I'm just like looking for excuses as to why this happened.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I feel like that happens a lot. Maybe there was at some point, but I don't think so because what made that relationship work. His name was Tobin, was that there was no drama, not at all, and I don't think I could have handled it. And I feel that way now, too. Like I just couldn't, I can't, like, fighting or any kind of like. People being passive aggressive, I can't handle that. So”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's just because the age difference I just knew that eventually he'd want to move on and probably he'd find somebody younger and or was young enough that he still needed to go have a bunch of other experiences and probably wanted a family or whatnot eventually so he was 21 and I was 34 when we first met But then we ended up living together for four years, and it was the most drama free. There was no drama. And I had just come off my prior relationship with Matthew Kenney, which was very... Dark in many ways and full of all kinds of. Yeah, and I just couldn't handle that so.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it's funny and it's beautiful and shocking that he wrote it when he was very young. And I first heard him on a Christa Tippett podcast. That's how I end up reading a lot of books is like you hear somebody on a podcast.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, it was, I knew it was a relationship that I knew would end even when I got into it in the first place. He's 15 years younger than me.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was a slow process, and I think he found me at a time when there was sort of a perfect storm of the right conditions for me to fall into whatever I fell into with him. Because that was heartbroken for the first time in my life.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the interesting things is that I used to think that he used an app to look up things, but then he would do it in front of me. He could look at, he was really good at it, and he could look at the board and just like. Come up with a hundred point word that I'd never even heard of. So I think he had a little bit of that something going on in his brain that was like. I don't know, a little rain mannish or something in the way that he was able to recall. I think his recall is. Incredib”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. But All of that lasted a really long time, and he would give me little tiny bits and pieces of information about himself that made him seem kind of mysterious”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Escalated Slowly. And I think I'm sure it was intentional because had I met him right away, I would have probably thought like, oh, he's not what I thought he was and no thanks. But it was a long time. It was many weeks of back and forth conversation digitally one way or another. So it was via Twitter and then via direct message. And then we both played words with friends back then and we would message in words with friends and then eventually, you know, we exchanged phone numbers.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't do it all the time. It just happened upon that one, and I was just in a certain mood, I was just in a certain mood.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I told him that that was hurtful And I guess I wanted to understand more why he said it. And it was surprisingly insightful, but he said something about, again, I wish I hadn't deleted it, that he... He was like, I guess I was just angry because. Like that guy He said something like, I guess I was just angry because that guy got you Would have, you know, so it made me think of the whole Incel jealousy thing that can be very terrifying if you're female is that like If you reject a guy, they might turn around and be violent or angry at you And so”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Pretty good, yeah. He ended up having such an insightful comment. I just found it interesting, and I think. First, he said, I never imagined you'd reply, which is, you know, it's like part of the whole thing with social media. Although this guy wasn't anonymous”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. And then also wanted to get to know me and live in Pennsylvania and was like, I'll come to you. I'm like. You realize if we somehow this just turned into like that would be our how did you meet story? Well, he called me trash. Online”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just was in a mood. And so I responded. And I wish I hadn't deleted it because I sort of deleted a bunch, and then I was like, oh, why did I delete that one? Because I was curious what exactly I said to him. But I responded to him in a nice way. And then he responded back. And then it started this whole back and forth conversation.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's sort of like a, I might be procrastinating, but I would scroll through. The private messages were overwhelming, and there's still just this massive backlog that I'll never probably get to read.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There were overwhelming kind comments, and so that helped and felt a lot better. But sometimes the negative comments were based on, you know, they're based on false information. So if somebody knew everything that happened and then wanted to judge me or say things like that's somehow At least that's all right. People saying these things based on things that are totally false is just. It's hard to just let that go. But I know that people also say things for their own personal reasons. I had a fascinating exchange with somebody who direct messaged me and called me trash.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think that somebody had just called me that, and I think that. Know it's easy for people to say, like, don't read the comments, but it's hard not to because then also you'd miss the beautiful ones. Or sometimes, like you have to go on there to check a private message and you just stuff, it's there, people saying terrible things. I try to. People say, you know, don't pay attention to the commas, it's hard not to, but I try to.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a Don't think you would be doing the work. You'd probably be running for office or a trader on Wall Street. Or one of the things about sociopaths is they kind of need the stimulation of risk and danger”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. I don't remember things in that way. I try to usually remember the conclusions. Like, I might remember that. He might give a whole long explanation about why it's good to do this or to take this supplement. That's a bad habit I have. Sometimes I'll order supplements. And then by the time they arrive, I've forgotten why. I forgot why Supposed to say.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably in part, but there was some other explanation related to the brain structure that I read somewhere that made sense to me, and I won't remember it because I don't usually.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a hollowness, so it's like you don't have. Just completely lacking the capacity. I mean, it's tragic because they wouldn't understand or feel love, but it's like a hollowness. And then. Something also about the wiring, and I think also because of that hollowness, they're able to incredibly quickly Look at others and identify their insecurities and buttons and weak spots. So they're incredibly good at manipulation.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's both. I think it's genetic, and then it's like genes that are turned on By things like a particularly violent childhood or some sort of a dysfunction. So I think somebody could have the gene that's not turned on. And then the sociopaths. Have the gene and it's turned on.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had all these interesting thoughts, all these sort of questions and thoughts about it because the book I'm reading now that I'm only about a third of the way through, she talks about some of the things in the brain structure that are particular to sociopaths. And so then it makes you think, well, what if that could be tweaked in some way? Like, could you unsociopath a sociopath?”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Child. It was a business, but it was special. So, I don't feel guilt. I feel responsibility. And then, um, Know I'm angry at him, even though that anger is pointless.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Both. I think that. The privacy of my own mind, and to what everybody listening, it's, I feel responsible. Feel responsible in the same way that if you kind of did something, if you were driving and you did something stupid and caused an accident in which other people died, you would feel, I think, horrifically responsible and you'd blame yourself because maybe you looked away or checked your phone or something. But you didn't intend to kill those people, of course. So for me, it's like. Didn't intend to kill. Know sometimes I say, like my own child. I don't know if that's offensive to some people, but it's like as if I killed my own.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know, allowed my mother to get hurt, and I wouldn't have ever willingly done that, so something else must have happened. And that's the part that's difficult to understand.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, part of why the story is, you know, everything that happened is hard to summarize and talk about in any concise way is that So much of it happens in this very slow, slow, slow way. You know, people always use the whole like frog and boiling water example so that by the time you realize you're fucked, it's too late. And it seems hard to believe or understand to other people because they see where you are or where you ended up. And they think, well, how did you let that happen? Well, I don't know. Would I have willingly destroyed my life and hurt all the people I care about?”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, sort of like lying to somebody because you're planning their surprise party, you think, well, I'm lying to somebody, but it's because there's a good reason. Know it's sort of that's not a good example”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Regret lying to anybody. All of those circumstances, but I wasn't lying. He made me think that everything was going to be reversed and okay, and anybody that money was borrowed from, they would get it back, you know, maybe tenfold. And so it was this weird situation of having like one foot in his reality and potentially believing the things he was saying or even over time wanting to believe them more and more because the alternative was so The alternative was worse. The alternative was like Was increasingly a bigger and bigger nightmare”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, hurting them was sort of the last That I would ever have wanted to do. And in part, I mean, there was financial harm. I don't know whether it's more important or not, but It was taking a place that was very much like a family to them. And it was as if I destroyed. And so I think Because we are so much like a family, it was almost as if. Mom went off the deep end and got together with some. Cuckoo, abusive guy, and sort of abandoned them, and they didn't know what was going on and what was happening”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so that quote resonated for me because, you know, he kept me in this incredibly stressed out, afraid, confused state. And then whatever he's sort of planting in my mind, I'm going to be that much more likely to just kind of go along with it.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, and I think that's part of one of the things that might have saved me or anybody that's pulled into a cult, one of the things that they do is they keep you exhausted, overwhelmed, confused, and afraid. So, you don't have any time to think, so you're just kind of constantly running and you're confused, and then things are happening. It's funny, I have some quotes in my book draft because I listen to a lot of podcasts. I don't know what the logistics are of crediting a quote from a podcast in a book. Have a couple. I think it was Andrew Huberman on Joe Rogan said something about if an animal, if a human or animal, I don't know how he would know is stressed. I'm paraphrasing this horribly, but. They're much more easily prone to be, not prone to, but forced into delusional thinking.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, I wouldn't have reopened the restaurant and then knowing I was going to all of a sudden be taken away from it and it was going to get closed again. You know, it's like, why would I do that? Why would anybody do that? And one of the things that I tried to do towards the end was I was trying to get myself off the bank accounts because I didn't want him to be able to get money out of me. And so there was one time when I tried to get one of the investors, we went to the bank together to put her on as the signer and take me off. And because we didn't have the operating agreement, they wouldn't let us do it. So it was like this little snafu. So all of these things are... Of the opposite of criminal intent.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it seems kind of more straightforward. Whereas psychological, you know, and you have a bruise on your face, or you break a bone, and those things hopefully heal in a visible way. But psychological stuff, you can't. Easily identify or understand, or others can't easily identify it.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, what would qualify as sexual abuse? Yes, but physically, no. A couple of times we would get into a slightly physical fights, but he never I mean, he was big and as large and blubbery as he was. He was also really strong. So sometimes he would like subdue me. But other than that, no, there wasn't physical violence. But a lot of people will say that, um... Psychological violence is. Don't want to diminish physical violence, but some people say that the psychological and emotional violence is more destructive.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source