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Esther Perel – One of My Favorite People | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

In another My Favorite People episode, I sit down with Esther Perel. This time around Eshter reflects on her early life experiences and how those experiences have shaped her life and career.

Esther PerelguestGreat Minds Trevor Noahhost

May 29, 20252h 6mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

120 min read · 23,978 words

0:00 – 0:04
Intro
1. EPEsther Perel
  [upbeat music]
0:04 – 8:01
Where Should We Begin? Inside Esther's Podcast
1. EPEsther Perel
  You know, in New York, you ask people how you are, and they often tell you, "I'm behind."
2. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
3. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs] They're always-
4. TNTrevor Noah
  They tell you what they-
5. EPEsther Perel
  They're behind. [laughs]
6. TNTrevor Noah
  They tell you what they're doing, I find. Yeah.
7. EPEsther Perel
  That's the r-
8. TNTrevor Noah
  I find, I find that's the biggest change, is when I, when I'm in New York or when I'm in anywhere in the US, if I ask somebody ... And I notice it most glaringly when I come back from South Africa. If I ask somebody, "How are you?" or "How, how are you doing?"
9. EPEsther Perel
  Busy.
10. TNTrevor Noah
  They'll often tell me how they, what they're doing. You know, say, "Oh, I'm, I'm really busy." And that's even how they'll, people will ask me questions. "So what are you, what are you up to? What are you up to these days?"
11. EPEsther Perel
  What are you doing?
12. TNTrevor Noah
  "What are you doing? What are you, uh, what are you, what are you..." It's all about that. And as I say, when I go back to South Africa, it's all, "How are you?"
13. EPEsther Perel
  In fact, if I go home and I start to talk too much about what I do, people don't like it.
14. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
15. EPEsther Perel
  It's like you're not there to talk about yourself and, so much, and put, uh, and put yourself in the center. You're there to participate in a, in a collective experience, in what we are creating together, the afternoon, the lunch, the walk. And you're really n- th- there's a clear distinction between talking about work and talking about life, and life is not work. [paper rustles]
16. TNTrevor Noah
  Welcome to What Now? In today's episode, I'm gonna be having a conversation with one of my favorite people in the world, Esther Perel. Now, you probably know Esther as a psychotherapist, as a bestselling author whose work has changed the way millions of people think about relationships, sex, romance, and intimacy all over the world. But for today's episode, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to chat to the person behind the name. I wanted to hopefully give you an insight into why she is one of my favorite people. And so today we talk less about Esther's work and more about Esther's life and how she got to the place that she got to. And I really love this conversation because it really shows you how the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves aren't always true, and how the path that we choose to get us where we're gonna get to isn't often how we end up where we end up in life. I know you'll enjoy it. Esther is one of the most profound people I know, so you'll definitely learn something from it. Oh, and by the way, if you want to learn more about Esther's work or what she's doing right now, one of my favorite ways to engage in it is her podcast called Where Should We Begin? It's a fascinating look into couples therapy and what couples are going through in real time, so you're in the therapy session with them. That's Where Should We Begin? Check it out. [upbeat music] This is What Now? With Trevor Noah. [upbeat music] Why, why did you call it that?
17. EPEsther Perel
  Because it's often the first sentence that I ask when I meet a couple. Like, "Where should we begin? Where do I find you today? What's on your mind? Uh, maybe it's what you wrote to me, maybe it's completely different."
18. TNTrevor Noah
  Mm-hmm.
19. EPEsther Perel
  "But where should we begin?" Because every relationship is a story.
20. TNTrevor Noah
  Hmm.
21. EPEsther Perel
  Relationships are stories. We are both storytellers in some way.
22. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
23. EPEsther Perel
  But, you know, we're sitting here in m- in the studio. The first years until the pandemic, we recorded every session in my office. So people came in, like every patient would have come in, except that they come for the podcast, so they are not patients and never will be. Um, they sit in the waiting room, they walk into my office, and it's the same office in which I see people throughout the day for my practice.
24. TNTrevor Noah
  Right.
25. EPEsther Perel
  And then I see-
26. TNTrevor Noah
  So you're in the same, like-
27. EPEsther Perel
  I'm in the same-
28. TNTrevor Noah
  In the same mental space as well
29. EPEsther Perel
  ... Yes.
30. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
8:01 – 10:31
Moving for Love and Being Local in Many Places
1. TNTrevor Noah
  I feel like these days, and maybe it's, uh, maybe it's because of social media, I feel like these days people are sort of trying to win at relationships the same way people are trying to, like, win at therapy and y- y- you know?
2. EPEsther Perel
  Maximize.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, yeah.
4. EPEsther Perel
  Optimize.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Like, like you... I was, I was talking to a friend the other night, and I was saying, "Do you remember..." It was actually, uh, Simon Sinek.
6. EPEsther Perel
  Mm-hmm.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  You know Simon?
8. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah, yeah.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  And Simon and I were literally walking through the street, and I said to Simon, "Do you remember a time when people used to move for love?" I'm sure some people still do it, but it's less prevalent now. It's less an idea. It's even almost shunned on. You know, when people go, "Oh, I moved here for a boy. Oh, I moved here for a girl," people go like, "Oh, you should never do that. You can't just move your..." But I-
10. EPEsther Perel
  That's my story.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  What, what do you mean that's your story?
12. EPEsther Perel
  I'm here because [laughs] of my husband.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  That's how you got to New York?
14. EPEsther Perel
  That, that's how I came... Well, I came to America to study for one year.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
16. EPEsther Perel
  I then thought I would stay a second year and kind of get more training, and then, um, I basically never used my return ticket.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  Wow.
18. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs] So I am that story.
19. TNTrevor Noah
  What was it about him that made you stay? Like, what was... 'Cause staying in ano- it's one thing to visit another country. It's another thing to stay in another country. 'Cause where were you living then? Was that France or Belgium?
20. EPEsther Perel
  No, I actually came from Jerusalem.
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Wow.
22. EPEsther Perel
  I came from Jerusalem.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  You've lived everywhere.
24. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs] I've lived in a few places. I came from Jerusalem to Boston.
25. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, wait, wait, let's, let's list them. Where, where have you lived?
26. EPEsther Perel
  I've lived in Belgium-
27. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
28. EPEsther Perel
  ... in Antwerp, where I grew up.
29. TNTrevor Noah
  Mm-hmm.
30. EPEsther Perel
  Um, it's not where I was born, but it's where I grew up. I lived in Jerusalem, I lived in Boston, and I lived in New York. It's not that many.
10:31 – 14:53
The French Lens on Love: Frisson, Flirting and American Pragmatism
1. TNTrevor Noah
  You're, you're a little softer than the Paris I know, but maybe that's just how I see you. Like, I find, I find Parisians to be very blasé about-
2. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah
3. TNTrevor Noah
  ... most things, or they appear blasé. But you, you have a little more, like, your eyes open a little more when you notice things or when you see things.
4. EPEsther Perel
  But I am very much not French. [laughs] I mean, I have a French accent. I know that. I'm, I'm educated in Flemish. I mean, what you call Afrikaans, you know. My entire 12 years of schooling was in Flemish. I am from a Flemish city. I'm from Antwerp.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
6. EPEsther Perel
  I have, uh, we spoke five languages at home. I mean, I, French is a big part of mine, of me, but it's, it's not, um, it's not the only one. [laughs]
7. TNTrevor Noah
  I've always... I don't know why I've always thought it was more you. I think it's because of how you'll, you'll talk about love and seeing love through, like, a French lens-
8. EPEsther Perel
  Yes
9. TNTrevor Noah
  ... sometimes, you know?
10. EPEsther Perel
  That is true. [laughs] That is true.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  Like, like, I, I think what I've always loved about French and the French and love is, is, is how differently you get to see something, you know? I mean, we have this in, in Zulu, you know, in, in South African languages. I always feel like our greetings are, are, are more warm. Our greetings say more than just, like, "Hello."
12. EPEsther Perel
  Don't you have a beautiful expression, sawubona?
13. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, sawubona means I still see you.
14. EPEsther Perel
  Yes. It's beautiful.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  You know? That, and that's what I mean, and I feel like French is like that for love, love, relationships. Like, um, what's the word you, you, you spoke about? You, I, I remember you saying it to me once. Was it frisson?
16. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  Frisson, whi-
18. EPEsther Perel
  Yes
19. TNTrevor Noah
  ... which is like the-
20. EPEsther Perel
  It doesn't exist in English, a frisson. We use a French word.
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Like at all?
22. EPEsther Perel
  I don't think, I've never seen an equivalent-
23. TNTrevor Noah
  I always think of it as friction, but I don't think it's, it's-
24. EPEsther Perel
  No
25. TNTrevor Noah
  ... it's not, right?
26. EPEsther Perel
  No, it's not friction. It's, a frisson is a shiver. It's, uh, the literal translation is a shiver, but it's a shiver with anticipation, with excitement, with a kind of a current that runs through your body. Um, [laughs] now I've mixed up. This is good.
27. TNTrevor Noah
  No, I mean, you've got me. You've got me.
28. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs]
29. TNTrevor Noah
  This is, this is what I mean by frisson.
30. EPEsther Perel
  This is the French-
14:53 – 27:11
Hitchhiking America and Falling for the Culture of Possibility
1. TNTrevor Noah
  So what-
2. EPEsther Perel
  I write, think, speak
3. TNTrevor Noah
  ... what do you love about America then? 'Cause you, you've lived here for how many years now?
4. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs] Mm, 35.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  35 years-
6. EPEsther Perel
  Close. Yeah
7. TNTrevor Noah
  ... you've lived here. You, you, you engage in it in a very honest way and, and not in an America bashing way, uh, I've never found. But I, I've always been intrigued by the paradox of like why you would... Like, why would you live here when it is that direct and that immediate, and it's all about the goal, and it's all about the obj- objective? And like, what about it made you fall in love, other than meeting somebody?
8. EPEsther Perel
  I mean, I definitely l- fell in love with New York, and before I came to stay here, I had been here already. At first time I came to the United States was in 1976.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay.
10. EPEsther Perel
  Bicentennial. It was kind of the first time that we began to travel to the US. I came with a cargo airline. I hitchhiked around the corner. Uh-
11. TNTrevor Noah
  What does that mean, a cargo airline?
12. EPEsther Perel
  It was one of these airlines that took old cargo-
13. TNTrevor Noah
  No, Esther, come on
14. EPEsther Perel
  ... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  You came with like a DHL plane?
16. EPEsther Perel
  Yes.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  That's not even a thing.
18. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs]
19. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs] That's not a thing.
20. EPEsther Perel
  But it gets better. I spent almost seven weeks hitchhiking across the country. I saw America like one will never see it again. I stayed with all kinds of people from every, every walk of life, every race, every religion, every profession, every class, and, um, every culture. And really, I think that that was such a powerful experience. I was 18, not even, and at the time you could hitchhike. And-
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, those were the good old days
22. EPEsther Perel
  ... I was totally received by the kindness of strangers. And really, um, I went to parts of the country that I never even thought I would go because it wasn't in my... I was originally gonna do an, a Greyhound tour-
23. TNTrevor Noah
  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
24. EPEsther Perel
  ... [laughs] on the bus. But people were so kind that, um, I ended up doing the entire trip hitchhiking. I'd go from New York to the West Coast. I'd do the whole loop of the West. Then I go-
25. TNTrevor Noah
  And this is, well, so what, this is all for fun?
26. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah.
27. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay.
28. EPEsther Perel
  I finished high school.
29. TNTrevor Noah
  So this is, yeah.
30. EPEsther Perel
  This was before going to college, and I came with my boyfriend, and we decided to travel, but I didn't know it was gonna be a hitchhiking trip.
27:11 – 32:52
Stability vs. Change: Europe, America and Belonging
1. TNTrevor Noah
  I agree. I agree with you. I think, I think in many ways in Europe what I felt, I... Africa might be different in some ways, but it, it, it definitely has elements of it. In Europe specifically, I know it's all about what was, and I find in the US it's all about what could be.
2. EPEsther Perel
  That's right.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  That's constantly the dance. But then I find Europe comes with a certain measure of breathe into it because it is what was. As long as it matches it, then you can relax. So the way people treat their, their summers and their time off and their... There's a certain level of patience and calm that comes with it because they know what, that it always was that. In America, there's a certain edge of, uh, well, maybe I'll work on a Friday. You know what? I'm gonna work weekends. I'm gonna, I... You know what? No time off. I'm just gonna push a little bit more. And I, and I think both of them come with the, the pros and cons. You know, the one metastasizes you.
4. EPEsther Perel
  Yes, yes, yes.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  The other one liberates you. But I think everything needs to bounce off something, right? Too much liberation is now just chaos, and then too much of a metastasized system is, is, is, uh, I guess it's just stuck in time. It doesn't, it doesn't move and it doesn't evolve. I, I'm always, I'm always trying to play with that balance just in life is you go, how many times do you wanna evolve, change, move, grow, move on to the next thing? And how many times do you just wanna sit and say, "Yeah, you know what? Tuesday will be like Friday will be like Saturday, and let's see."
6. EPEsther Perel
  Every, I mean, this is something I teach, actually. You know, when I teach systems, I say every system, every relationship system, be it an individual or an, an organic system in nature, straddles stability and change. If you change too much too fast all the time, you disregulate and you go chaotic. If you don't change, you fossilize and you die.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Hmm.
8. EPEsther Perel
  So you need both. I think in the US you are often on the treadmill and you're moving very, very, very fast.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
10. EPEsther Perel
  One thing I never lost was the idea that I leave for the summer, and I leave not for 10 days. I leave for six weeks, and people always would say, "Oh, you don't feel guilty?" [laughs] And I never understood why I should feel guilty. You take time off. And I maintained that notion of the breathing, the space in between, the time to do nothing-
11. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
12. EPEsther Perel
  ... except dream.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
14. EPEsther Perel
  Reimagine your life. Think what else you wanna do. And, and that form of reset was, I, I never stopped. And I traveled back home, you know, a dist- a few times a year, and that was the essence of, is like- You, you go there not to do necessarily, but to be.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
16. EPEsther Perel
  To enjoy the company. You don't have to prove anything. You don't live to work.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  Mm-hmm.
18. EPEsther Perel
  And that is still very much present, and I try to bring some of that back with me here. I try to, to have it as part of, of, of my life, and, um, it's a, it's a privilege really to be able to straddle both, really. I, I didn't think about it like that. At first when I was young, I would go home and I would think, "Ah, they all know where they belong, and I don't know where I belong."
19. TNTrevor Noah
  Wait, what do you mean by that?
20. EPEsther Perel
  Like they, they, they never ... You know, there's, in my mind, there were two groups of people, those who never left-
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Yes
22. EPEsther Perel
  ... and those who left once. Once you've left once, you know that there're more than one place, and you no longer have that sense of roots.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
24. EPEsther Perel
  So I would look at my friends who stayed, and I would think they, they have such a clear sense of where they're going. Of course, it was linear, but I-
25. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
26. EPEsther Perel
  ... I envied that piece of their ... And then but after a week, I thought, "Oh, now I'm, I'm restless. Now I wanna go back. I wanna go back, go back to my life." And I would get all busy. And so I, I ... At, for a long time, I'd wanted to f- to have the f- freedom of being in two places, but I wanted to still have the sense of rootedness and belonging that is part of belonging to one place.
27. TNTrevor Noah
  Hmm.
28. EPEsther Perel
  And over time, decades maybe, huh? It's not ... I slowly began to actually appreciate that I was part of many places, even if I didn't necessarily belong to all these places. You know that distinction?
29. TNTrevor Noah
  No, I, I, I like that. I'm, I'm just trying to think of it. I'm trying to process it.
30. EPEsther Perel
  Like it's a part of me.
32:52 – 35:08
Individualism and the Marriage as a Social Welfare State of Two
1. TNTrevor Noah
  So I think, I think I've probably adopted that. Um, what else is it? Some, there's also some negative things that I think you adopt, and then you, you ... If I'm, if I'm aware enough, I can leave them behind, you know? So America will make me feel like I have to be actively engaged in everything all the time. There's a certain FOMO-ness to America as a, as a whole. It doesn't matter what it is. Business, are you missing out? Are you not doing the thing? Are you not engaged? News, have you kept up? Do you know what's happening? Has it broken? Is it breaking? Is it live? Is it hap- You know, that's, that's always going on. Um, it, it doesn't matter what, even, even small things like food. Have you tried that place? You've gotta try that place. Oh, my God, I can't believe you haven't tried that. Why haven't you tried that place? There's a, there's a certain, you know-
2. EPEsther Perel
  Drive.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, but a, but an urgency more than just a drive. There, there's, there's an urgency to be part of and to not miss out on that I don't experience when I'm back home. When I'm back in South Africa, it's different.
4. EPEsther Perel
  Because when you live in a more collectivist culture, the culture drives you. You don't have to go and attempt everything and be part of everything in order to know that you exist because you are absorbed by a larger tradition. I think the, that is part of the individualism here, and part of the individualism is also, you know, once I had a family, I had a very different experience here because you have to do everything yourself. It's not just you have to go, you have to keep up with the news. You have to ... You also have to pay for your education.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
6. EPEsther Perel
  You also have to pay for your health.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
8. EPEsther Perel
  You have to ... You, you are in- responsible for everything. And when you come from a social welfare system, that is a very different experience. The idea with which people take it for granted that they have to, uh, put all the infrastructure in place. A marriage here is a social welfare state of two.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Hmm.
10. EPEsther Perel
  And versus, you know, there's a social welfare state that exists as part of the system, and within that you create a family. That puts an enormous burden on people, enormous. [upbeat music]
11. TNTrevor Noah
  We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. [upbeat music]
35:08 – 39:57
Childhood Dreams, Necessity and the Family Clothing Store
1. TNTrevor Noah
  Did you always think you would do this?
2. EPEsther Perel
  No. [laughs]
3. TNTrevor Noah
  The, what was, like, the idea be-
4. EPEsther Perel
  [sighs]
5. TNTrevor Noah
  I, I find that there are almost, like, three different stages that people s- um, sort of project themselves in. One is when you're very young. What, what did you think you would be when you were, like, a young child? What'd you want to be?
6. EPEsther Perel
  Oh, I think I, I, I had different ... I, I had three things.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
8. EPEsther Perel
  I either was gonna be an interpreter, because my mom said, "You speak all these languages. You like to travel. Interpreter will give you tho- both."
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
10. EPEsther Perel
  A journalist.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay.
12. EPEsther Perel
  'Cause I was curious and, and, and a theater actress.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay.
14. EPEsther Perel
  I loved the theater. But I think- Honestly, for me, there's the people who've always known what they wanted to do.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
16. EPEsther Perel
  The people who just stumbled upon something, and then the people who had an inclination, and then they matched it with what life put in front of them.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  Hmm.
18. EPEsther Perel
  I think if, so much of what I did is because I arrived to the US, because of the opportunities that the US gave, because, and because of the-
19. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
20. EPEsther Perel
  ... because of the obstacles. Because I w- I didn't have the right license, and I couldn't do what one would have done normally-
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, I love that. I love that
22. EPEsther Perel
  ... if I had studied here.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  So necessity became the mother of invention.
24. EPEsther Perel
  So com- I had to hustle. I had to create myself. I had to find a way to do. And so it became a kind of a combo between what I bring and what life is putting in front of me-
25. TNTrevor Noah
  Mm-hmm
26. EPEsther Perel
  ... and says, "Do this now."
27. TNTrevor Noah
  So the friction is the reason we have... Yeah. You see? This is what I mean.
28. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs]
29. TNTrevor Noah
  No, it's, it's, it's amazing. Um, my producer, uh, loves, uh, a story. He was, he was telling me that there's a story you told, I guess that paints a picture of a little bit of a life that most people wouldn't associate you with at first glance. But I do think it explains a lot of, like, your style and how you see fashion and everything is like, how did you get into f- and not fashion the way people think of it, but what is your relationship with fashion?
30. EPEsther Perel
  Uh, uh, I, my parents had a clothing store. They had clothing stores. I lived above one of the stores. I worked in the store pretty much since I could talk.
39:57 – 51:39
From Mating in Captivity to Relational Intelligence
1. TNTrevor Noah
  And here you are. I could be wrong, but I, I feel like there was the Mating in Captivity Esther who came onto the scene and in many ways gave people their first look at an idea that went beyond the flat way they looked at-
2. EPEsther Perel
  That's the title of my first book. We should probably explain.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, Mating in Captivity?
4. EPEsther Perel
  It's a book. [laughs]
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, for those who don't know, it's a book. Yeah, it's a book. And for those who, uh, don't know, if you-
6. EPEsther Perel
  It has its 20th anniversary next year.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Congratulations.
8. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs]
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Wow. Um, yeah, but I think it, it, it, it was one of the first pieces of work that changed people's flat perceptions on not just relationships, but infidelity, the infidelity of the mind, how people, you know. And for a moment in time, that's sort of w- you know, how I think a lot of people thought of Esther, and that, that sort of was... Yeah, it, it, it really was your, your conquest at the time. It was the, the, the, the journey that you were on. Now I feel like you have this, this passion and this laser focus specifically around community, the village, reconnecting with people, finding people. I actually thought about you the other day because I walked past a laundromat.
10. EPEsther Perel
  Mm-hmm.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  And I literally thought to myself, "I need to talk to Esther about this." I, I, I have this-
12. EPEsther Perel
  What did you see?
13. TNTrevor Noah
  I have this theory in my head. I think we have neglected, or we have gotten away from two elements in life that have robbed us of intimacy, and we didn't realize it. It's a second system effect, and those are need and friction, right? And when I looked at the laundromat, I saw both, but in different ways. The main thing I saw was friction, and I thought, it's amazing how now we live in a world where if you live in a building, you want the building to have a laundry, you know, in, in-unit laundry, what- whatever it is, washer, dryer.
14. EPEsther Perel
  Mm-hmm.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  And when I looked into the laundromat, I thought, ah, imagine how many love stories wouldn't have happened if people didn't have to come and wash their clothes. Imagine how many friendships would have never been sparked if people-
16. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah
17. TNTrevor Noah
  ... didn't have to come and w- And it's friction. It's, it's, it doesn't seem like you, you, you know, the, the right ingredient to get there. But when I looked into that laundromat, I was like, "Oh, wow, what a, what a cool organic way to meet." Because you're stuck with somebody for three hours, and you might find you're with them every single week. At some point, you might just say hi. At some point, you m- "Nice to see you again. Hey, you left your... I put the, the, the, the coins in the dryer. I..." You know? And I, I literally thought of you, and I was like, "Wow, I wonder if this is, like, part of what Esther's fighting." Well, not laundromats obviously, but-
18. EPEsther Perel
  Friction
19. TNTrevor Noah
  ... friction.
20. EPEsther Perel
  Yes, the importance of friction. That is definitely a piece I, I talk about. But if you wanna go back for a moment, so I had been a couples therapist for quite a while when I wrote Mating in Captivity. I just had not focused on sexuality-
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
22. EPEsther Perel
  ... and the cultural story that supports our expectations around sexuality, around desire, around, um, eroticism in long-term relationships. And I, I took a, I took a, a kind of a, a side road and that w- and I just thought, "Oh, I wanna, I wanna explore this," because I had been trained in certain ways to think about sexuality in relationships. And I just thought, "Is that really true? I mean, is that the way it works?" Because that's not what I see in my office, and I don't think it's what other colleagues see in their office.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  Wait, your- you're saying your training wasn't matching up with what you were seeing-
24. EPEsther Perel
  That's right
25. TNTrevor Noah
  ... in the real world?
26. EPEsther Perel
  That's right.
27. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, I had always assumed it was your training-
28. EPEsther Perel
  No
29. TNTrevor Noah
  ... that, that had informed you.
30. EPEsther Perel
  No, not at all. That's part of why the book became so, uh, significant, because it actually questioned a whole set of, uh, uh, suppositions that were parading as truths when they were actually not.
51:39 – 1:02:36
Friction, Obstacles and the Ice Cream Problem
1. TNTrevor Noah
  There's no story because there's no friction.
2. EPEsther Perel
  But give me obstacles.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  Exactly.
4. EPEsther Perel
  That's the same as the erotic formula, attraction plus obstacles equals excitement.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, wait. Hold on, hold on.
6. EPEsther Perel
  [laughs]
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Attraction plus obstacle-
8. EPEsther Perel
  Equals excitement
9. TNTrevor Noah
  ... equals excitement. Huh.
10. EPEsther Perel
  It, it's the same in the l- in the rules of desire.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  You know what's funny? I remember-
12. EPEsther Perel
  If there's no obstacle, if there's no friction, it's-
13. TNTrevor Noah
  It's so funny you say this
14. EPEsther Perel
  ... we're going back to what we said. [laughs]
15. TNTrevor Noah
  I remember once having a conversation with a stripper who s- like, I ... It was the most random conversation. And I said to her, I said, "Why do you put your clothes back on?" And it was just a joke, right? Because like we, we, we ... all of us are in this club, and here we are for a bachelor party, and this person dresses and then undresses and then dresses and then undresses. And I just said as a joke, I said, "Why do you put your clothes back on? It would be more efficient to keep them off." And she said, "Yes, but you'll be surprised," I think, I, I, I won't articulate it as well as she said it, but she said, "You'll be surprised at how the men aren't turned on by us being naked. They're turned on by the idea of us becoming naked at some point." And she was like, "That's essentially what we're playing with." And now when you say it like that, I go, "Oh, yeah, it sounds like the same thing. It's the attraction, the obstacle is the clothing, and whether or not it will come off or when it will come off, and that creates the excitement."
16. EPEsther Perel
  Correct. That's a good analogy. [laughs]
17. TNTrevor Noah
  Huh.
18. EPEsther Perel
  Of course, whose bachelor party was this? [laughs]
19. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, what do you mean? This is the most common thing.
20. EPEsther Perel
  Of course.
21. TNTrevor Noah
  It's like, you know, people are like, "Bachelor party." Um, it's actually more common in the US. I, I don't think I ever got invited to a bachelor party at a strip club in South Africa.
22. EPEsther Perel
  No. What do they do?
23. TNTrevor Noah
  I think it's more, it's more of a you have a what we call a braai, like a barbecue, and you, you hang out. But I, I don't think it's a ... It's funny, actually, now that you're asking me, it isn't seen as an ending of a life. Does that make sense?
24. EPEsther Perel
  Yes. Yes.
25. TNTrevor Noah
  So I find, I find a lot of-
26. EPEsther Perel
  Yes. Yes
27. TNTrevor Noah
  ... American bachelor parties are, "Well, this is the last time you get to explore sex and craziness and eroticism and all of it, so you better enjoy it."
28. EPEsther Perel
  Yes.
29. TNTrevor Noah
  "One last ride."
30. EPEsther Perel
  That's right. You're about to enter the marital cell.
1:02:36 – 1:16:33
Esther's Parents, Courage and Living Life With a Vengeance
1. TNTrevor Noah
  What is the system that, that made you this way? Like, I've, I've always wondered, like, what was little Esther like when, you know, when, when your parents would talk about you? How were you with other kids, or how were you in the house? Was your world certain, or was it more uncertain or?
2. EPEsther Perel
  My world was certain, but my parents' world was a world that was completely decimated, so predictions. So I, I think it's two different things. On the one hand, you know, one of the most important aspects of my, my background is that I am a child of two Holocaust survivors, and my parents were the sole survivors of their entire family.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  Jeez.
4. EPEsther Perel
  So my mother was the, the youngest of seven. My father was the youngest of nine. Nobody, nobody, nobody survived but my parents. So they definitely dealt with uncertainty, and they dealt with the unknown, and they dealt with a, a world where you have no idea where kindness will come from and where order will be restored and where humanity will come back and all of that. So I have all of this in my background. They each spent four years in concentration camps, um, many camps. They were slaves, basically. I think that all of that is extremely important in how I look at the world, how I look at who is, who is good and who is not.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Right.
6. EPEsther Perel
  Who thinks of others, who doesn't, who can be kind, how much is our ideology defining who we are versus how much does our behavior and our actions actually define who we are, all of these big questions. But then I think, in addition, whenever I see dogma or groupthink or mass psychology or crowds, I tend to think, "There must be something else. There must be another way. Is this really so, or is this just so because that many people think like it?"
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Hmm.
8. EPEsther Perel
  And I think it's the combination of those things. I, I, I act very fearlessly, but I am not, but I act fearlessly. [laughs]
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Well, so I guess you act courageously then.
10. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah, that's interesting. I never, I never saw it like that, but yeah, potentially.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, 'cause that's, 'cause that's what courage is, right, acting in spite of the fear.
12. EPEsther Perel
  I think to, I think of myself as, as counter-phobic. Do you know that term?
13. TNTrevor Noah
  No. [laughs]
14. EPEsther Perel
  So you can be phobic. You can be fearful, and counter-phobic is when you actually do the things that frighten you the most. [laughs]
15. TNTrevor Noah
  How do you find the balance between that and living life with a reckless abandon that causes danger to you and others? 'Cause some things scare you for the right reasons, don't they?
16. EPEsther Perel
  Yes, of course.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  Like, like when you were hitchhiking, you didn't go with that one person because something scared you in some way.
18. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you always want to keep judgment. You have a healthy dose of skepticism. You don't believe what everybody tells you.
19. TNTrevor Noah
  People will say this in different ways. They'll be like, "Go, go to the thing that scares you." And then I, like, I mean, you know, and I've been public about this, but I always think to myself, I go, "I wish my mom was a little more scared of domestic abuse."
20. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah.
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Because then I, I wonder what it would've changed in my family, and I talked to her about this, you know? And I, I'm glad I spoke about it publicly, 'cause people have even spoke about it publicly as well now with me. They go, "Yeah, I..." When do you allow the fear to control you or to inform your decision, and how do you know when it's a good fear, when it's a bad fear, like?
22. EPEsther Perel
  This is, you don't always know. I mean, you, you have a sense. You look around. You ask other people for a reality check.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
24. EPEsther Perel
  When I am very worried about things, I ask for a reality check. I w- I also know that in my stomach lives a real long history of, of, of fear and, and, uh, and that I can have very strong reactions, you know, to, to situations. But I also know that the, that- The legacy of this is, is, precedes me, and then what do I do with it is a different thing. But I think when do you know if your fear is valid? It's a fear. So what helps you with fears is grounding yourself in reality. How do you trust reality? Generally, it helps to have other people around you to help you. You know, am I s- is what I'm seeing what you're seeing too?
25. TNTrevor Noah
  Mm. Okay.
26. EPEsther Perel
  I mean, is, is a check.
27. TNTrevor Noah
  Right.
28. EPEsther Perel
  And the check is not al- uh, is not always done alone. You're not always the best person to actually know, or at least for yourself. You can be perfectly perceptive for others. But for yourself, you don't necessarily know because you have all k- you sense a lot of things.
29. TNTrevor Noah
  In football, we say, "Man on."
30. EPEsther Perel
  What is that?
1:16:33 – 1:39:23
Expansion, Contraction and the Burdens of Freedom
1. TNTrevor Noah
  When you look at, um, I, I don't wanna say the way we are today 'cause I've, 'cause I, I learn the more I travel, the more you realize that there's no myopic lens on what the world is feeling, but there's, there's no denying in Europe especially, in, in the United States, there's a lot less thinking of what could be-
2. EPEsther Perel
  Mm-hmm
3. TNTrevor Noah
  ... and really, really sitting back into the like, "This is the way it was. This is, this is the how." As somebody who thinks about systems, where do you think we are in that journey? Because it seems like that journey has, you know, a sort of natural curve that it follows in history.
4. EPEsther Perel
  If you look at the history of cultures and societies, it's, when you do this-
5. TNTrevor Noah
  Mm-hmm
6. EPEsther Perel
  ... I would say it's periods of c- expansion and periods of contraction.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
8. EPEsther Perel
  That is the movement I see, and I think that we lived for a long time in a system that was more contracted. I'm gonna give it to you from the point of view of relationships.
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay.
10. EPEsther Perel
  For a long time, people lived in tribes, communities, villages, but re- relation- and they still do in the majority of the world, mind you, and the relationships are organized around duty and obligation, around loyalty and community, and there's a lot of clarity. I mean, there's been polarization always. There's, peo- churches fought each other. Tribes fought each other. It's not like we haven't been polarized, but it was slightly different because every one of these hierarchical structures, communities, and religions provided people with a good sense of clarity and certainty. What you didn't have is personal freedom or personal expression.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  Hmm.
12. EPEsther Perel
  We moved with the modern era and with, to a system of relationships where for the first time we began to switch from duty and obligation. We moved to choice and option. And from, and, and, and basically at the center now of relationships is the individual in search of a community, not an individual in a community in search of personal freedom and expression.
13. TNTrevor Noah
  Hmm.
14. EPEsther Perel
  And you have more freedom than you've ever had, but you're more alone than you've ever been. And you are crippled with uncertainty and with self-doubt because you have a tremendous amount of decisions to make when you have freedom. You can decide so many aspects of your life today that were never available, talking in the West primarily. And with that, the burdens of the self have never been heavier, and it's all ruled by the rule of authenticity, meaning being true to myself. Now, how do I know what is true to myself with such absolute certainty? That is really exhausting.
15. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
16. EPEsther Perel
  It's difficult. So you add to that the speed with which technology is transforming us. This is the, one of the biggest revolutions that we're gonna go through, and people are dizzy, and they are anxious, and they are uncertain, and we know that, uh, anxiety and trauma constricts our imagination, and so we go into a contraction again.
17. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
18. EPEsther Perel
  And that we are looking for people to give us some relief and some certainty, and autocracy comes with that. And that's the motion that we are in now. So we become less welcoming. We become less tolerant. We start to see other people as threat, what they take away rather than what they bring, and this is not the first time by far. I mean, it's really important at this moment to listen to historians as well-
19. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
20. EPEsther Perel
  ... so that we get a sense that... But it hasn't happened with that kind of speed and that kind of intensity maybe ever or at least, you know, where we were-
21. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
22. EPEsther Perel
  ... we had the industrial one. We had the agrarian one before. But I think that that's what we are in, and I went to, to Sotheby last week, and I did a conversation with, uh, with the futurist Amy Webb. And, you know, she was giving the f- predictions of the future, and, and it, half the slides, not half the slide, but many, was like, "This is happening, and you don't need people anymore, and this is happening, and you don't need people anymore," and I'm, and everybody's clapping.
23. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
24. EPEsther Perel
  And I'm thinking, "These people are cheering their own extinction."
25. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
26. EPEsther Perel
  I mean, what is happening to us?
27. TNTrevor Noah
  Not just our own extinction, I think we're also cheering our own purposelessness.
28. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah.
29. TNTrevor Noah
  And that's, that's-
30. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah
1:39:23 – 1:40:23
Withdrawal From Connection and the Need for Shared Rituals
1. TNTrevor Noah
  So if you were creating a perfect world... In fact, we, we play this game on the podcast. One day you should join us.
2. EPEsther Perel
  Mm-hmm.
3. TNTrevor Noah
  I think you'd have a lot of fun. We call it If I Ruled the World.
4. EPEsther Perel
  Mm-hmm.
5. TNTrevor Noah
  And it's, um, it- it's, it's, the idea is you, you rule the world. You can change it however the way you, you'd like to change it. But it's nothing boring like, um, you know, everyone gets free healthcare or that. It's like we, because we sort of agree. It's more, like one of the more recent ones I had was I said, um, if I ruled the world, I would make it that everybody's thoughts that they're having during sex is heard by the other person that they're having sex with. [laughs]
6. EPEsther Perel
  Oh, no.
7. TNTrevor Noah
  It failed terribly.
8. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah, but that's not such a good proposition. [laughs]
9. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, it failed, Esther. I don't need you to tell me it failed.
10. EPEsther Perel
  Okay.
11. TNTrevor Noah
  It failed terribly. Um, my reasoning was good though, and that's oftentimes what we're actually trying to get into, is the reason versus the, the idea. Um-
12. EPEsther Perel
  I'm very, I wouldn't know how to answer this. If I ru- I-
13. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, but it's fun. I think it's like-
14. EPEsther Perel
  It's, uh-
15. TNTrevor Noah
  Because I think it gets, it, it's not about like knowing certainly.
1:40:23 – 1:49:45
Holding Polarities and Redesigning Algorithms for Connection
1. EPEsther Perel
  Okay. I, I know how I would answer this.
2. TNTrevor Noah
  Yes. Go.
3. EPEsther Perel
  But it's not, I'm gonna start on the conceptual level. I think this thing I just described, how do you balance the I and the we?
4. TNTrevor Noah
  Okay.
5. EPEsther Perel
  You know, me and the other, us, them, all these divisions. The majority of these issues in relationships, for sure, are, the, it's complex. In relationships of two people, if there is a, a, a complicated question that can have two as- two polarities-
6. TNTrevor Noah
  Mm-hmm
7. EPEsther Perel
  ... it's very easy to take half of the story. I take one side of the issue, and I put the other side on you. And you could do this with should the kid have a pacifier, as you could do this about sex, as you could do this about money. It doesn't matter the issue. Polarization doesn't have much to do with the thing that you're actually differing about. It's the fact that you've taken the complexity and you have parceled it out. If you were alone, you would have to deal with both parts of it yourself.
8. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh, damn.
9. EPEsther Perel
  Right? Do I wanna clean, or do I not wanna clean? Do I wanna get up? Do I wanna exercise? Do I wanna pray? The, you would have to negotiate inside of you the two sides of the complex, of the complexity of this issue because they are different sides.
10. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11. EPEsther Perel
  And you would have to figure out yourself, do I work or do I take off? Do I want kids? Do I not want kids? Do I want to be in a relationship? Do I... I, but when you're in a relationship, it becomes I want A and you want B and now let's fight. And this piece about how you have to negotiate the complexity and you can't resolve it by just picking one side, but it is all about integrating these polarities, is, I think, w- what makes us either in a good relationship or not or in a good society or not, for that matter. The opposite of that is cleavages, intolerance, conflict, disconnect, polarization, all the words that are rampant these days.
12. TNTrevor Noah
  S- so am I hearing you correctly if, if, if I say that essentially what you're saying is we need to still be able to grapple with both parts of the conversation?
13. EPEsther Perel
  Yeah. Do I want tradition or do I want innovation?
14. TNTrevor Noah
  Yes, but you must-
15. EPEsther Perel
  Do I want the European system-
16. TNTrevor Noah
  You must sort of hold both
17. EPEsther Perel
  ... or do I want... Exactly.
18. TNTrevor Noah
  Right.
19. EPEsther Perel
  Do we want Europe tradition, history-
20. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
21. EPEsther Perel
  ... the past, the, the, the, the, the timelessness, the Sunday?
22. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
23. EPEsther Perel
  Or do we want the United States, efficient, pragmatic, everything is open 24 hours, seven days a week, da, da, da, da? As if it's that or that. It's not. We need, we appreciate this, and we appreciate that.
24. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah.
25. EPEsther Perel
  So how do we bring these things together? You know, complex problems don't get solved. They are paradoxes that you manage.
26. TNTrevor Noah
  Hmm. It's like a, it's almost like s- I'm picturing sliders while you're saying this.
27. EPEsther Perel
  Yes.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  I'm almost going, you, you might raise a slider and say, "I think 70% relaxation right now, 30% not," but not on/off.
29. EPEsther Perel
  Exactly.
30. TNTrevor Noah
  You know, it's like do you, you, you talking about, like, dimmer switches for our, for our opinions versus on/off switches.
1:49:45 – 2:06:00
Connecting Audiences, Romantic Consumerism and Closing Reflections
1. EPEsther Perel
  what I did in my show about that?
2. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah?
3. EPEsther Perel
  And so the first thing I asked, when people, uh, when, as, as I meet them, is, um, "How many of you are here as a plus one, know nothing about me, but were recruited, and you were curious and open enough to come on some anthropological field trip? And so I just wanna welcome the skeptics."
4. TNTrevor Noah
  I love that.
5. EPEsther Perel
  So that's number one. So that... And it's al- there's always a group of people, they, they just came because somebody said, "I really would love for you." And, and I'm just saying, you know, it's much easier for the person who already knows me or is into this kind of work-
6. TNTrevor Noah
  Yes, yeah
7. EPEsther Perel
  ... to show up than the person who, you know. So I shake hands with them. And my second question is, "Where are you from country-wise?" So I get a complete sense as to what are all the places that people have come from.
8. TNTrevor Noah
  Right.
9. EPEsther Perel
  And knowing that each of you is gonna hear me with a different ear because you come from different relationship traditions, different relational systems and cultures, et cetera. And then my third question is, um, "How many of you have ever been involved in a consensual sexual experience that was oh-so unsatisfying, but you went along with it anyway and you said nothing?"
10. TNTrevor Noah
  Damn.
11. EPEsther Perel
  And they all stand up. This is always the same.
12. TNTrevor Noah
  Damn.
13. EPEsther Perel
  So they all stand up, and it becomes very clear that there's a ton of bad sex in the theater.
14. TNTrevor Noah
  [laughs]
15. EPEsther Perel
  And, uh, that, you know, all, all genders, all orientations-
16. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah
17. EPEsther Perel
  ... all backgrounds included. So that kind of creates a... And then I ask how many to stand up if you know no one here. And then I ask every person that is sitting next to someone standing to actually introduce themselves, so that if you came alone, you won't leave alone. That's the-
18. TNTrevor Noah
  That's amazing
19. EPEsther Perel
  ... kind of opening thing. And, and then I do a lot of, you know, they play the card game during the, the, the, the show as well. So, uh, they have four cards, and they, they tell each other stories. But it's really such an important thing to... I mean, what if you actually asked people if they could tell a joke to each other, and you make ... you give them five minutes or four minutes to talk to each other?
20. TNTrevor Noah
  Oh. I mean, jokes are, are dangerous, but-
21. EPEsther Perel
  Of course they are
22. TNTrevor Noah
  ... no, I'll try
23. EPEsther Perel
  ... to each other.
24. TNTrevor Noah
  Yeah, yeah. No, no
25. EPEsther Perel
  ... to the people they're sitting with.
26. TNTrevor Noah
  Ooh.
27. EPEsther Perel
  Or just to, to tell a, uh, or pick some question.
28. TNTrevor Noah
  No, they, they could be, they could be something. I actually think they could. I, I think, I think, um, a lot of the reason crowd work has become so popular in comedy now is because it's connected audiences to each other in a way that it hadn't before.
29. EPEsther Perel
  So give me an example of crowd work, because-
30. TNTrevor Noah
  So-