2023-02-13
35 分钟Ted audio collective.
You're listening to how to be a better human.
I'm your host, Chris Duffy.
I am fascinated by other people's relationships, specifically their marriages and their dating lives.
It's mind blowing to me that one of the most common and day to day building blocks of our society is also so completely opaque from the outside.
Is that couple just like us, or are they doing things completely differently?
Are we normal or are we doing things completely wrong?
I'm also fascinated by relationships because even in good ones, there's so much to think about and to work on.
For example, I'm a big talker, and I come from a family where we're always yapping away, interrupting each other, constantly laughing and chatting at the dinner table.
And my wife and her family, they're much more reserved.
So it took me a long time, I'm talking years, before I could finally start to trust that if she was eating and not also talking, it wasn't because she was silently fuming at me.
Even now, if we're in the car on a long drive and she's having a quiet moment, I sometimes have to check, you're just being quiet right now, right?
You're not angry at me?
And when she says yes, I'm like, okay, cool, fine.
I will let you get back to that.
There are these constant adjustments and negotiations that we have to make in relationships because every pairing is ultimately also bridging a cultural divide.
Even if it seems like you're coming from exactly the same background, no one's family and friends all interacted in exactly the same way.
So how does understanding those dynamics make us better humans?
How do we relate to one another?
Whether it is professionally, platonically, or romantically?