Hey there, everyone. This is Clay, and this is going to be a followup video and blog post
for the last two videos and blog posts that I put out last week. By the way, thank you
so much for all the comments and all the feedback that you have given me on those posts. Basically,
what has become really clear to me is that a lot of people want help with communication
and being able to handle intense conversations and intense moments with their ex, with their
partners. And so what we're going to do, I'll get to this more in a little bit, but what
we're going to do is I'm going to be creating a free Facebook group where we can start to
have a conversation about this. Okay? And I want to see how deep this really goes.
I'll tell you a little bit more about that later on in this video. But first I just want
to tell you a story and maybe this will resonate with you, maybe not, but this is how I first
fell into this whole strange world of communication. And that was when I was going through my breakup
with my big ex, I'll spare you the long complicated details. I mean, if you've been following
me and you know my story, you may know that me and my ex had this, me and my big ex had
this really big, complicated breakup. We broke up, got back together, broke up again, all
that stuff. But when we broke up for the second time,
it was as if this strange world of communication became evident to me. And it was really confusing
at first. Again, if you followed my story, you know that I was studying abroad in Rome
and my ex broke up with me on Thanksgiving Day. I mean, I guess it was the day before
Thanksgiving for her, but it was Thanksgiving Day for me. And so that sucked. But anyway,
I finished up my term in Italy and then came back to the United States where I was trying
to patch things up with her. And we spent some time over the holiday break trying to,
at least I was trying to patch things up with her, but it just seemed like everything that
I tried to do wouldn't get through to her. And that caused me to try to study some different
things. I was avidly reading this online forum. I think it's still around. It was called eNotalone,
and that's where I was posting about my situation and trying to get some help with my breakup
and getting through to her and communicating with her and everything. That wasn't very
helpful. Oftentimes most of the people on the getting back together with your ex forum
there were telling me to just move on, just do no contact, just move on. If she wanted
to get back together with you, she'd make it clear. I'm like, okay, this is like, what
is the purpose of this forum if that's what everyone is saying? But whatever.
I also went to this other forum, it was kind of like a pickup artist forum. This was really
before pickup artists were a big thing, back before Neil Strauss wrote The Game, but there
was this form called SoSuave, I know, really classy. Right? But they were trying to teach
men how to become what they would call a Don Juan. And what they're trying to do is demystify
women. And they were telling me all these sorts of things like, oh, you have to be mysterious.
You have to be a little bit unavailable. You have to, give you like these backhanded compliments
and things like that. And so I met up with my ex and I was trying
out some of these things that I'd learned on these websites, these forums, because I
mean, everything I was doing didn't seem to be getting through to her. And it was like,
okay, there's this strange world of communication. She seems to be bringing up these things and
saying these things that just seem totally out of left field to me. It definitely seems
like there's something deeper going on. I can't put my finger on it. So I went ahead
and I tried out some of these things that I had learned because I was like, well, hey,
apparently I don't know what's going on. Apparently there's all this stuff going on
beneath the surface that my best instinct is clearly very wrong about. So, okay. Let's
see what these people on the internet seem to know about all this stuff. So I went and
I tried it out and it, I mean, let's just say it backfired terribly, very, very, very
bad. And it turned out that shortly after that, out of, honestly, desperation on my
part, I ended up going into no contact with my ex. This was the first time I actually
did real no contact. And it honestly scared me to death because I thought that that thin
thread of contact that we had was the one thing that was keeping us from actually drifting
out of each other's lives permanently. I had all these irrational thoughts, like,
oh, if I'm out of contact with her, she will literally forget about me. Nevermind the fact
that at that point in time, we were together for five years. But I went ahead and I did
it. And then my school started up again in the winter term, and this again, was a long
time ago, back before we all had smartphones and all that stuff, social media accounts
and everything. So what we had were these computer terminals out in the common area
of the building between the classrooms. And what people would often do is they'd go to
these computer terminals and they'd check their email in the, whatever it was, 10 or
15 minute break between classes. And so I was in one of these breaks. So when
I checked my email and suddenly there was a message from my ex and she said, "Hey,"
something to the effect of like, "Hey, I'm really tired of playing this game. I just
miss you and I want to talk to you." And so I had to go to my next class. So I was like,
okay, I'll call you when I get out of my class later tonight. And so when I got out of class
later that night, I did have a cell phone. It was like one of those rudimentary ones,
but there were no apps on it. I mean, it was not a smart phone. It was a dumb phone as
they call them now. But I saw that I'd missed a call from her and it was, she left a voice
message and she was just really desperate to talk to me.
And so that night I talked to her on the phone, I called her back and we had this really intense
conversation that really was this pivot point that turned everything around in our dynamic
from that point onward. And it was in this conversation that I was completely detached
from outcome and I was just trying to understand where she was at and where she was coming
from. And it was through this we actually were able to communicate in a way that we
were never able to communicate before. And it was really the moment that shifted everything
in us getting back together. And over the next several weeks and months,
because we were taking it slow, honestly, but over the next couple months, we did start
to rebuild our emotional connection and we did end up getting back together that spring.
And if you know the rest of my story, that's when all that stuff played out. But that is
my introduction to the whole world of communication. And there is something going on beneath the
surface when it comes to communication and maybe a lot of people find an alien strange
and difficult to navigate world. And that was my introduction to it. That was what got
me really interested in communication. That's what got me really interested in interpersonal
connection and put me on the path to do all the things that I do now.
But I want to actually open up a conversation with you to see if this might be something
that you might want to learn more about. So what we're going to do is I'm going to be
putting together a free Facebook group that you are free to join. And if and when we get
enough people to join this Facebook group, I've got a number in my head that I'm thinking
of. I'm not exactly sure what it is right now, or if I want to say what it is right
now, but I'll put it in the blog post below. And if we get that number of people to join
the group, I'll go ahead and approve everyone. So if you join the group today, I'm not necessarily
going to approve you immediately. I'm only going to approve you if and when this group
goes forward. So if we get enough people that join the group,
I'll approve everyone and then we'll go ahead and get started with a free training in the
Facebook group to go ahead and talk about communication. Okay? And then if it makes
sense, depending on how this training goes, we might talk about putting together a course
on communication too, but I want to just start it off by putting out some feelers and seeing
if you might want to do this free training on communication just to see if there's enough
substance there, just to see if there's enough interest there, and so that I can also get
a better sense about what specifically your struggles are when it comes to communication.
And then through that free group, if it makes sense to do so, we'll go ahead and create
a full on course. Okay? But if this is something you're interested in, on this page, there
will be a link to the free Facebook group, go ahead and request to join. And then if
and when we get enough people interested in this Facebook group, I will approve everyone
and we can go ahead and get started with this. So yeah, if you want to get in on this, join
that free Facebook group and we will take things from there. But anyway, thanks so much.
Take care, and I will talk to you later.