Kristina von Hoffmann and Jeremy Topper

00:03 Hi, my name is Kristina Von Hoffmann. I'm 32 years old. So they say it is Saturday, January 11th, 2024 in Santa Monica, California. I'm here with Jeremy topper and he is my companion.

00:19 Hi, my name is Jeremy topper. It's Saturday January 11th. I'm here in Santa Monica with my partner Christina.

00:31 How old are you? I am 31.

00:37 What was your experience like the first time we met?

00:43 First time we met

00:47 Three different occasions. So are you referring to the first time we went out or the event the across? What about the CrossFit event Jose a CrossFit event where you are a member before and I was an active member and still add and it was a competition and I was sitting there with some friends and suddenly someone tapped me on my shoulder and came up behind me and said hi. I knew of you and I had interacted with you before.

01:27 But I don't think we really engaged much and at that point you had said that you learned about me speaking French and

01:39 If you came up and wanted to introduce yourself and were seeking a a french-speaking partner.

01:45 And and I was willing to do that with you though. I obviously had different intentions for what the weather's going to be like.

02:01 I guess it's interesting for me to take consider that you would actually come forward and

02:10 And ask if I were interested in a a french-speaking date, I don't know that.

02:18 I really consider the concept of a platonic.

02:26 Get together with a female person or perhaps it's just not something that I would do. I was 25 at the time 24.

02:39 So at what point did that become?

02:44 Natural thing for you to do and

02:49 Thinking back at it. Do you recall that is truly being a platonic interest on your part.

02:56 Well, I

02:59 I don't think it was a natural thing for me to do because like I shared with you later on I think basically if the day before I approached you I had decided to stop objectifying men.

03:13 And so my intent in approaching you was to approach you as a person and not as a sexual object, and I also didn't really know you so I didn't know much about you. I wasn't approaching you from the standpoint of somebody that I was just interested in romantically or sexually so I was taking that opportunity to practice what I wanted to put into play in my life, which was treating people with Equanimity and I also is genuinely interested in having a french-speaking buddy after my European trip that summer where my friend had gotten really good. So I was still a little nervous when I approached you to introduce myself and but I just kind of left into it and I think I was a little kitty but nevertheless I was still able to approach you with that level of neutrality that I was hoping to have and that interaction.

04:13 And I'm glad I'm glad you did. I'm not sure that.

04:20 I'm not sure what would have happened otherwise, so

04:24 I'm not even going to try to Think Through the counterfactual but

04:29 Yeah, so that was that was interesting and

04:35 And we went out that first time where that was supposed to be that french-speaking date and you quickly.

04:46 Ask me whether that was an actual date for me.

04:50 And you said it was and I said it was which I appreciated the fact that you could at least be honest about your intent. Yeah. Yeah. I think I was so.

05:04 I think I was pretty eager and interested and had a lot of energy flowing through my body that to say something other than was supposed to actually taking place is probably not not possible for me in the moment.

05:20 And what was it that interested you about what I said cuz I shared a lot with you in that conversation about how I going to cooperate in life. What was it that interested you?

05:37 I was reflecting on that a bit over the last two weeks. I think partially as a result of

05:46 The knowledge project podcast Esther perel where she talks through the kind of conversations and dialogues and circumstances that people find themselves in.

06:04 And

06:08 I think

06:09 What came to be what came to me irrespective of the content that you were sharing with me?

06:16 Was that you were an adult?

06:19 Or striving to be one.

06:21 And

06:23 I think the struggles that I had leading up to that point was meeting.

06:30 Women who were actually adults

06:33 And that probably has something to do with where I was spending my time.

06:40 But

06:43 I suppose I would say that.

06:45 It's not easy or comment to find someone who's in adult person and what you were communicating to me came across as very much adult like even though it was completely foreign to me.

07:04 And I really appreciated that. I think I was I was thinking that without really knowing how to name it.

07:11 He said something like that. Actually when we first spoke to the something to the effect of

07:21 What your interests was and that your interests was that?

07:26 How is naming something that you had been thinking about but didn't have a language for?

07:33 But it didn't necessarily have to do with adulthood. It had to do with having children and being part of a nuclear family unit because you were telling me that at that point a couple of friends of yours were about to get married. December and and that your friends even though that they were 25 24 25 26 years old. We're all kind of on the path to getting married and having children and you didn't necessarily know if that was for you at least not in the traditional and also kind of religious sense that a lot of them were participating in varying more in towards of religiosity that you guys hadn't shared in your early twenties.

08:13 And you were feeling kind of outside of all that.

08:18 Yeah, I mean.

08:22 Identities sound does

08:25 Something that I would have said at the time and

08:29 I think given that.

08:34 Meeting someone with your perspective at the time was so out of the ordinary when we talked about.

08:46 Cameron what contacts that was, but I remember where we were and we were in the car and had talked about

08:55 I don't think it was about non-monogamy at the time, but it was about something that would result in you and I not actually being together and

09:07 I was truly at a loss for where I would find someone else. I would share that perspective without would have the perspective that you did you work all that now, but I can imagine that we had that conversation end.

09:25 Amanda

09:29 You pointed to her as someone that could be an adult person in that way.

09:38 But yeah, so

09:42 How do you

09:47 Do you recall how you

09:49 Thought about yourself

09:51 During that time.

09:54 Because clearly I saw you as what I envisioned to be an adult.

10:00 I don't know that I would have described myself as truly one. Certainly not in how I think about that concept today.

10:10 How did you think about yourself?

10:13 I think I took myself a little bit more seriously at 26th and I do now at 32.

10:20 Because a lot of my ideas were serious and they were put into practice yet. So I had done a lot of theorizing participating in the group with stand and everyone else and and a lot of it had to do with non monogamy and related relating versus relationships. And at that point when we met I hadn't been I had had a boyfriend the last of like, you know, the sort of assumed nature of a relationship last of that era and had ended in 2010. And so it has been a few years of this kind of coming-of-age for me in terms of how I brought a different approach to the way that I thought about relating with to everyone but particularly with romantic partners, and I knew what I knew at that point. I was convicted. I had a lot of conviction about what I knew and a great deal of what

11:20 We've been talking about at that point in the group was about true companionship and unassailable positions and and how to be with another person as they are to themselves and not as your idea of them and not out of obligation and not out of judgment or belief. No no expectations. Just what it was who they were day by day even minute by minute because people are always changing and that was another part of what I had come to know to be true is that you could wake up next to someone from one day to the next and they would have transformed and it might be settled but that they were profound shift happening and people all the time and so I was really eager to practice at with someone to be a companion to someone to be curious about them to have that authentic curiosity that I could extend to person across the table for me in a romantic contacts, but I had

12:20 Had the opportunity to do that and I told you I think right from the start that the thing that attracted me to use that you were genuinely curious and that prior to that I had been.

12:33 In conversations in little like sort of blips on the radar with people who I felt like were interested in me, but from almost a spectacle stand for in they thought what I was doing was interesting, but they didn't actually want to get in there with me and that's what made you different. That's what what still makes you different than most people that I mean is that you're genuinely curious not just about me but about other people and that's part of what I find so attractive about you.

13:08 I'm curious. I have a question about which is different.

13:15 I'm curious what that is.

13:19 What what is it about people?

13:21 That makes them.

13:24 Think it's okay to turn someone else into a spectacle.

13:33 From as a female person. I think it's there's like a history of

13:44 U of A Prussian so any independent female person who is convicted and has like a sort of theory about life is interesting, even though we take it for granted people my age and younger that women are independent and

14:00 You know complete individuals of their own accord. I still think that there are deeply institutionalized patriarchal ideas and Society about how women are allowed to operate and so for me to be as independent, as I was I think was interesting in and of itself for people. I mean, even the person I'm thinking of now who had his own spiritual practice but still felt like he was making a spectacle of me came from a Catholic and Jewish lineage and so he came from dogma and there's no doubt that those things passed through Bloodlines, even if you decide to change your mind in your lifetime, so I think that that that was that that's it that's been in play for me over the years and I also think that because of the way that Society has developed in its own sort of striated segmented and individualized for a particularly here in the west that we are conditioned to

15:01 We're conditioned to withhold influence. I told other people to influence and so you can go about living your life having the ideas that you have and no one's going to challenge you. I mean certainly there's like call out culture online these days but face-to-face interactions are much more guarded people are kind of supposedly able to go about their business doing whatever it is that they're doing and you can't tell me that I'm wrong. Right? And so that there's this barrier between people where people don't actually have influence with each other because everybody's independent and everybody's doing their own thing.

15:40 And I don't think that lice works like that. I think for the products of influence not just from our parents and family is but from everything that we consume humans are malleable evolving creatures and we need influence to develop our intelligences and you know, all can all types of awareness.

16:01 I think that we're conditioned to just you know, look at people as objects.

16:08 In or subjects in the objectivity of our own experience.

16:14 Not real living

16:17 Evolving creatures outside of us that might be able to

16:21 He know to do something.

16:24 Yeah, and I think

16:29 You brought it back to

16:31 Something that I think about which is the recognition that

16:39 You are going to eventually need to rely on other people.

16:44 And

16:47 I don't see that I don't see that recognition.

16:50 And people early on

16:52 And perhaps one way in which you recognize it is by creating a family in which they can introduce their children into indentured servitude.

17:03 And I'm sure that would make it too when they make it to her. I know the age that they have someone to you.

17:11 How to take care of them as my grandmother once told me

17:18 Yeah, children become private property then their products of the parents. They're not their own individual worlds.

17:25 I see that.

17:30 To you when we talked about coming here you had mentioned wanting to

17:37 Spend time talking about relating.

17:41 How do you think about?

17:44 Relating to

17:49 Non romantic companions as compared to romantic companions, do you?

17:56 How different is that to you?

18:05 Will having been in the practice of being in a romantic partnership now for six years, it's different than it was six years ago, but

18:14 For me

18:18 I guess.

18:20 Relating to people who I'm not romantically connected to is in some ways always slightly disappointing because I wish that everybody felt as free to get as close as possible with me as I feel like I'm capable of getting with them cuz I just want to know everything about everyone and I want it. I'm so curious about them. I and I want to be close to them. I wish you know kind of food. We're all one big happy Human family. And so I extend my interest to other people but I also I mean in the Rotator day of going about going to work and going to yoga class and things like that. I'm not always trying to have this kind of conversation with people because people also will show you how much they're willing to extend themselves very quickly.

19:07 So, you know, I I bring the same level of curiosity that I have about you to lots of other people, but I think I do that less so now simply because I have an outlet with you and with a few other people who are close companions in life to have these kinds of conversations. And so I'm not necessarily trying to extend that level of exploration to other people because I just know that outside of the context of a romantic relationship. Lots of people don't feel like this kind of conversation is appropriate.

19:41 And so I withhold at times.

19:46 But you know, I'd love to know what's going on for everyone and every at every moment and kind of unpack the layer beneath what it is, whatever it is that they're saying the how of how they came to say what they're saying.

20:00 But you know, I I guess I guess I guess I just do a little bit more compartmentalizing now and I exercise that with the continuance in my life that I know I can do that with people like Blake and sand you and Liz and Heather another folks.

20:16 How about you I'm interested because you're really good at extending yourself to other people and being curious about them and they reflect that back to you and their appreciation for you. I'd like to hear about how that is actually in your words.

20:29 How what is exactly relating different relating to other people?

20:40 I think

20:44 The level of authentic curiosity is

20:49 Is the same.

20:56 So

21:06 It's interesting for me to just think about that for a moment because

21:12 I think that the The Narrative that I've communicated.

21:17 Based on the experiences that I've had is that

21:23 As a relates to straight men, they're not really capable of having many of these conversations.

21:32 I think it comes from a homophobic.

21:41 Perspective

21:44 So the level of intimacy with with

21:48 Straight American men doesn't really exist too much.

22:00 And

22:03 Ultimately, don't see it very different. I think.

22:09 The

22:13 The Romantic companionship is

22:17 An extension of the of the initial curiosity and the interest in being engaged with the other person.

22:32 But I really haven't been in a situation where

22:36 My wear as a release of female persons, they're able to take in what I'm extending and get to a point to where

22:51 Where when they recognize that I'm not fucking around that.

22:57 Is there willing to do that with me?

23:01 Until

23:04 Non monogamy in a

23:07 As a

23:10 Concept in the sense that you and I think about it is is interesting. But practically speaking.

23:22 I haven't really.

23:24 I haven't really come across many instances where I can think to myself. Oh this could actually this could actually work and here's a person who is capable of going there with me.

23:35 I'm so

23:39 I don't know how that answers the question exactly, but it helps that's what was coming to me. I thought you were asking.

23:48 Yeah, I I I hear that and I get that.

23:54 I think part of it has to do with the thing that you bought it in the beginning of the conversation, which is adulthood but we're in the privileged position of having the primary companionship to so it really depends on the other person's will an interest right are they actually interested one in being involved with someone who would have who has another partner and then beyond that being involved with somebody who has a primary partner. So are they interested in I mean for back of a better word a secondary partnership with someone

24:26 Practically speaking there those people exist, you know, they're all probably some of them around alt.com an adult friend finder, but on a rotated a basis. It's definitely it's difficult to cultivate that kind of Alliance. I think people

24:45 Yeah, I am.

24:48 A lot of what you and I are doing and the way in which we

24:54 See the world's outside of us are influenced by the work that we've been doing with the with a teacher and

25:07 Given that he crossed over

25:10 And considering how unique that perspective is.

25:20 I

25:22 I see some people doing work in those areas.

25:26 But it's not the same.

25:28 And

25:30 I remember that when he crossed over you had expressed a concern around.

25:38 Him being the glue that was holding you and I together.

25:48 And that in one way or another we may end up.

25:55 Continuing along this trajectory

25:59 To honor him and his work, which I don't think is is actually true and I don't see that happening.

26:08 But

26:11 It would be interesting to.

26:15 I don't know how you bring someone into that who hasn't actually had the experience necessary to develop the vocabulary that you and I use.

26:26 Considering how important and integral that is to how we relate our worlds.

26:36 I hear that you also.

26:43 On the other hand, I will I will say having hearing you bring that up about Stan crossing over. It's almost 3 years now.

26:53 My interest in you extends Beyond Your Capacity to do this work with me. I think my interest is in you.

27:01 Primarily as an extension of your ability to have these kind of conversations to be able to communicate in this way in your philosophy about how you go about life, but I

27:13 But I know that having come through that. Of questioning and just wondering what life would look like on the other side on the other side on the other side of stand for that.

27:30 That my interest in you is genuine.

27:35 And there's many facets of you that interested interest me and an interested also in your own.

27:43 Independent trajectory

27:46 And what that looks like for you?

27:50 So I don't have that same fear anymore.

27:57 Yeah, I suppose.

28:01 Who's that?

28:04 That resonates with me at the same time.

28:09 When you find yourself.

28:12 In close quarters with another person in a partnership.

28:22 To be able to communicate the way we do.

28:27 Is really important. I really

28:31 I'd actually anticipated the facilitator to ask us questions, which isn't happening.

28:39 Is it possum coming? Okay, should we stop?

28:44 Finish what you were going to say first. I want to hear the end of your sentence.

28:51 So the question that I was anticipating was what has been the most difficult moment for you and I and our relating over the last 6 years.

29:05 I know it is for me.

29:08 And it has nothing to do.

29:12 With how you and I interact with each other and I find that.

29:20 Three really remarkable

29:32 I can't think of anything.

29:39 Do you want to sell it to ask a question or would you like to share that moment with me?

29:44 I'm happy to hear the question.

29:50 Dying

29:52 Yeah, those are his words.

30:01 That moment was the realization that when you were talking about non-monogamy.

30:09 But that wasn't just an idea.

30:16 Is that in the beginning?

30:22 So

30:27 I am lucky.

30:31 And especially when I hear

30:34 The kinds of circumstances that people in

30:41 Conditions relationships find themselves in

30:47 And that is not something that you and I do.

30:52 Sure. I have a lot of appreciation and affection for your existence as it is to yourself.

31:00 And in addition to that the protocols that you and I have

31:09 Are as much part of the foundation of how you and I continue to relate to each other and how are they able to be in these parallel trajectories?

31:19 And companioning each other

31:22 I'm in agreement with that.

31:32 Yeah, I'm really grateful to.

31:37 That we don't do any of that bullshit that we were hearing Esther perel talk around.

31:47 Yeah, that does not sound.

31:50 Interesting to me at all and

31:53 Know-it-all. Send me one wondering.

31:57 Whether that means that were internalizing what is taking place?

32:05 That is really not the case.

32:07 It's through externalizing.

32:10 That were able to

32:14 Be where we are.

32:17 No neutral.

32:22 I'm complete. Okay. Thank you Jeremy. Thank you, Christina.