 To start this video off, let me start by asking you a very serious question. What is the point? What is the value of watching all of this YouTube drama if you're not taking a look at it and seeing what you can take from it to improve your own life? What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, sometimes what I do is take a look at the drama going on in the YouTube community and try to turn this mess into a message that may help us improve our own lives. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So yeah, I have just been getting flooded with videos and recommendations and all sorts of stuff because I've made some videos on James Charles and the YouTube algorithm knows what it's doing and there's some things going on with James and his quote unquote ex-boyfriend. I use quotes because I wouldn't consider that. If you want to know the full details of what's going on with those two and why it's so public, feel free to go check out some other channels and some videos on it and a bunch of text messages just got released and yeah, like I'm going to come back to this at the end but remember yesterday when I was like, so you want to be a YouTuber? Now what I'll say is, so you think you want to date a YouTuber or a celebrity? No man, no. So anyways, looking at this situation between these two and how it's very public, like let's see what we can take from this and learn from our own relationship. So I'm just going to touch on both sides of the story to give you some context but I can relate to both Gage as well as James in this situation. And I know a lot of you can too. A lot of you have struggled with relationships. Like we need to take a look at this. Like I am somebody who's been in a ton, a ton of messed up relationships before I found my beautiful girlfriend Tristan. We've been together for over two years now. But I made a lot of mistakes and I never understood why. And that's why I want to talk about this. I want you to take a look at this because so many of us are just in this autopilot just getting into bad situation after bad situation after bad situation and never understanding why it's happening. So let's talk about Gage first. So Gage is a young man. I believe he's like an Instagram model or something like that. He had a somewhat relationship with James Charles. He identifies as a straight male but it turns out he is more bi-curious. That's cool. That's cool. So from Gage's point of view, like I want to say this too. Like when you go through a breakup, like both of you feel like you've been wronged. You've both been wronged, right? Like that's just how it is. That's how our brain works. You know, we try to feel justified and we want people to understand our point of view and how we were wronged and all that kind of stuff. At the end of the day and many, many, many relationships aside from like when you get cheated on for like no real, like, no, there's not even like a really good reason. Like don't cheat. Don't cheat. Break up with the person. Go do your thing. That's the way to do it, okay? But anyways, like when you're cheated on and stuff, I can't always say or none of us can always say that, you know, both people were in the wrong. But in many relationships, like we are so blinded by the fact that we were doing something wrong as well. So in Gage's situation, he expressed to James where he feels, he feels that he expressed to James that he did not have those serious feelings, but he wanted to test it out. And in my opinion, there was so much that was not fair to James in that situation. And we need to look at ourselves with that. There's something called self-seeking, right? Self-seeking is doing something, expecting something in return, okay? And I know people hate when I say this, but we as human beings are selfish and self-centered by nature. It is our default. It is the way our brain works. No, I am not a neuroscientist, but I am somebody who's very nerdy and like to read a bunch of books on neuroscience, mental health, psychology, and everything like that. We are always trying to think about how we can benefit from a situation. And many times, many times, not all the time, but many times, we neglect to understand how it will affect the other person. And it takes a lot of work to get out of that mindset, right? Like this is something I've been working on for years and it's still a place where I sometimes trip up. But how often have we done the same thing where, you know, we are testing the waters of a relationship, we're testing things out. And how selfish is it of us to not think about how the other person will be affected by it? Like this is something that I used to do like for a long time in my single days. I was not a great dude. I was not a great dude at all. I would know. I would know for a fact that a woman had, you know, great, big feelings for me, liked me wanting to date and all these other things. And for me, I was like, okay, I'll just go with the flow and just kind of, you know, just see where things go, right? So I was allowing them to keep feeling those ways. And here's the thing, even after having that conversation, like later on, like, what did I still do? What did we still do to keep toying with their emotions? Like a lot of us have had our emotions played with. So we need to have empathy and think about how we're playing with another person's emotions as well, right? I didn't start getting better at relationships until I got to a place where I fully said upfront what my motives, what my intentions were, where I was at personally, mentally, emotionally, all those things. I said, listen, I am not ready to date. I am not ready to date anybody, okay? Like I had just got sober, you know, I was a single father and all these things. So I would have to tell a woman upfront, I am not ready to date. And by the way, for all of you out there, this is before you sleep with them. That's a major note. Before you sleep with them. Do not hook up with them and then say, oh, by the way, I'm not ready for a relationship. That's a dick move. Don't do it. Okay? But there still comes a point because I had many times where I said this to a woman and then like, you know, we'd still like see each other and they were doing it to try to like wait around for me. And it was my responsibility. It's my responsibility. It's your responsibility to take a look at that situation and saying, oh, no, I'm stringing them along and this is not fair. A great example is there was one woman way back way back in the day. This was years ago where I said this to them and we hung out a few times and then like a few times within a week or two. And next thing you know, they're inviting me to like meet their family and all these other things. And I had to say, you know what? Sorry, I got to end whatever this relationship is because I saw that they were investing a lot more than I was willing to give. So even though they agreed to the terms of that relationship before him, I saw that it was not going to end well for the other person. So I backed away. So in this context of Gage and James Charles, he should have never gone to Coachella. Never ever ever gone to Coachella. Like knowing how James felt about him, he should have just not done that. Now from James point of view, like reading those text messages. Again, let's go back to self seeking. I mentioned this when I was talking about, you know, the lessons we can learn from the Tana situation with Brad. This is something that happens all the time. We give, give, give, give, give, give, give, right? We give, give, give, give, give. All these things we give to the other person, but it comes attached with an expectation and that is not fair. That is not fair to another person because we're not being selfless. Our brain likes to tell us that we're being selfless. We're being kind. We're being generous, but it came attached with expectations. And you can see that from what James was saying, but how often do we do that? Like when we are like a great example is if any of you have been stuck in the front zone, all the things you did for that other person, all the nice things you did, all the conversations you did, you had with them, how you were there for them emotionally, maybe you took them out, maybe you bought themself or whatever it is. Like we have to realize the other person does not owe you squat. And I want you all to remember that as well. Like you don't owe anybody squat. If somebody else makes a decision to invest in you, whether it's financially or emotionally or anything like that, that is not your fault. Now, if you continue to string them along, that is your fault. But if somebody just shows up and starts giving you things and everything like that, you really need to like not hold any guilt over that because what we see, what we see is that people like James or like you and I, we try to hold that over another person's head. And that is just not fair. That is not how healthy relationships work. That's not how they work at all. I am teaching this to my son and he's only 10 years old. My son is only 10 years old. Obviously he's not like a baller like James Charles. But Fortnite has a new gifting system. All right. My son saved up a lot of money for Christmas and his birthday is right after which kills me financially. But anyways, a lot of money plays Fortnite. They have a new gifting system and he's constantly giving his friends Fortnite skins and everything like that. And it's great. I don't want to deter my son from being a giving person, but I've had multiple conversations with him just to get ahead of it. And I said, listen, Dylan, if you're going to give things to other people, do not expect anything returned. Okay. Do not like, I don't ever want to hear you say, oh, no, you need to play with me because I bought you a Fortnite skin or oh, you need to be nice to me because I bought you a Fortnite skin. Oh, you need to buy me a Fortnite skin because I got you one. Because that's not how relationships work. This kind of tick for tat thing. When we are keeping a scorecard on other people, that is a way that we can tell that we are being self seeking and we are not being truly altruistic. So like if you want to give, go ahead and give, but do not attach expectations about how that other person needs to treat you because of it. All right. Like when I was working in the addiction treatment center, I gave and I gave and I gave and I gave and I poured my heart and soul into the groups that I did into the one on one talks. I was having with people and everything like that, but I could not attach an expectation to that. I just did my best. I gave freely of myself in the context of, you know, working at an addiction treatment center, but I did those things without expecting anything in return. And that has helped my mental state immensely. All right. The last thing I want to talk about is this whole clout thing. Oh my God. Clout, clout, clout. This is just the bane of my existence. All right. Like people are using this as currency and it's just so messed up. Like this can be a whole different video in and of itself, but like everybody is so paranoid. Nobody trusts anybody. You can't even have conversations or friendships with people without wondering what are they trying to get from me? What are they trying to get from me? And this came up multiple times between James and Gage and everything like that. But just think about that. Think about that for a second. Like we've gotten to a point where when people are even nice to you, we question them, right? Like we question them. Like what do you want from me? What are you trying to get from me? You know what I mean? And the reality, the sad reality is that a lot of people are trying to get something from us. You know? So like the solution to this is like building trust with people and like what I found is just my suggestion. Like what I found is not giving too much, not giving too much to kind of test the waters and everything like that. As I've grown as a YouTuber, I've had plenty of people like reach out to me. Hey, can you shout me out? Hey, I see you do guest videos with smaller creators. Can I do a guest video and all these other things? So like I try, but like I really look at the person to try to develop some kind of, you know, relationship and have conversations to see what their motives are. You know what I mean? But hey, at the end of the day, some people might use me and I don't really care because again, I'm not attaching expectations to those things anymore. And that's the thing. If you are afraid of being used, just remember this. Nobody can use you if you don't expect anything from them. Just think about that for a second. And it is way easier said than done. But just think about that. Whenever you get upset, whenever you get upset at another person, all right, try to think of what your expectations of that person were and how they screwed you because our expectations give us personal responsibility and give us accountability, all right. But anyways, again, like look at this whole situation. Like a lot of people want to date like people who are rich and famous and everything like that. Like imagine, imagine this. Imagine you're very private, you're very personal conversations, getting blasted to tens of thousands of people. Like why do you think I don't break up with Tristan? That was a joke, calm down, calm down, all right. But I'll end on that light note. Let me know your thoughts on this subject down below. Do you ever struggle with this? Do you ever struggle with stringing people along, doing things, knowing they have feelings for you and keep playing them like a fool in that sense? Or have you been somebody who has given a lot to other people and then expected something in return? And how is that working out? How does that affect your emotions in your mental state? Let's have a conversation down in the comments below, all right. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing and all of you beautiful patrons out there I am recording the April Q&A and it will be up over on Patreon very soon, all right. Thanks again so, so much for watching. I'll see you next time.