Ben Ryan

Q: So when did you start?

Ryan: Ninety-seven.

Q: Ninety-seven? As an undergrad?

Ryan: I started the minute I got to Columbia as a freshman. I’m so thirsty. Pardon me. I have been, I sort of volunteer in current HIV stuff. Are you recording this part?

Q: Yes.

Ryan: I started volunteering for HIV stuff in ’95 when I was 17. In the summer, I had been fired from a restaurant job and my mother was like, well, you can’t sit around the house. You have to do volunteer work. And I said that was fine. And I didn’t want to do work for the sort of City Park’s initiative that was going to fail anyway that my brother was working on. So I went to work for the AIDS Walk. So I did a lot of volunteer work for the AIDS Foundation over the course of the next few years, all the way up until I left – you know, I graduated high school in ’97 – I was volunteering starting in January of ’96 in their public policy department. And this is an antiquated job in the sense that I was, I cut out the newspapers. I cut up the newspapers, that was my main job at the beginning, I made the clips. And it was a thankless task. But I’ve had other, eventually I was doing some PR stuff for like an AIDS Ride and whatnot, and it was a little bit more complex. But I was sort of an obsessive volunteer. I logged 750 hours, which was like some record. And I won some volunteer of the year award my second year. It was for me just to, frankly, not be in high school, you know? Because I was just so bored with teenagers at that point in my life. Because I was a year older than most people in my grade and so on, so.

Q: I imagine you were out at the time?

Ryan: Yeah, I came out. I came out of the process with starting the volunteer work. Part of, one of the reasons why I did it was I wanted to see, you know, it was a way to get in the gay world. I’m glad that I didn’t have the, I had never seen the Internet until I was 19, so I, you know, I couldn’t just meet people online and I’m glad that it forced me out of the house in that way, because I never would’ve done it otherwise. You know? I never would’ve volunteered or met the people that I met there, and so on. The minute I got to Columbia I went to GHAP and I, let’s see, for me it was, I was very, I loved it because we got to be therapists for the four months of training and, you know, I’m really interested in psychology, I’m pretty much mired in psych. I took like six psych classes, but I pass/failed like two or three of them, so I made it a minor. But, you know, I’m just really fascinated with the human condition, and especially sexuality. So, for me, the, I don’t know, what do you call them? Clients?

Q: Clients, yeah.

Ryan: What’s a good word for them? They were. I hate using that word in therapy context.

Q: Yeah, it’s so –

Ryan: Apparently there’s some legal definition of a client versus a patient; if you see them a certain number of times, with a therapist only once. But we really were sex therapists, because HIV touches, you know, it’s this sort of flashpoint for all of these other issues in people, their sexuality, their, people who have hypochondria, or intimacy for example, and sexual guilt. To me, the number one problem was sexual guilt. Because – I wonder how it’s different now, but certainly in that time, in our culture, we were still really associating HIV as the direct punishment, illogical punishment for your behavior and frankly the people that we saw were extremely low risk across the board. The whole time that I was there I think we had like two positive results, you know? So we were seeing by and large white university students, who were well educated, which is a really low risk population in general. It’s not to say, you know, you can’t do that to the, you can’t sort of say that to an individual in terms of like their own behavior, you know, if that’s going to put you at risk, but in general, as a demographic, you know, we were seeing low risk. And there was really, there were only two people that I ever saw who were really sort of misbehaving, if you will, you know, one guy said, “yeah, I’ve going to Fire Island and having unprotected anal sex.” You know, and then you’re sitting there, and this guy was like 34 years old and I’m maybe 21 and I’m sitting there and I’m going, “this is hard to handle.” So what am I supposed to? How do I like tell this guy what to do? So I said, “well, could you,” – he was completely aware that this was not a great idea, but he was sort of the class case of safety fatigue, as they say where, you know, you’ve been around forever and you’re sick of it. You’re sick of the condoms and you want to throw them off. And I said to him, “can you tell me that in the future you won’t do this again?” And he said, “no,” he could not tell me that. So he probably would. And all I could do is know that it was significant that for him to hear himself say that, you know?

We really didn’t talk about HIV that much. I had all these, you know, facts and figures in my head, but it was mostly about relationships and sort of the problems of interacting with other people, and fear and guilt, and things like that. So that’s sort of my lay of the land; specific questions.

Q: Was this still when it was in John Jay? And has it formed into Health Services yet?

Ryan: Like before John Jay it was?

Q: Yeah.

Ryan: Yeah? Where are they now?

Q: Well, we’re still on the fourth floor, but we have three or four dedicated rooms for us, and we have this like kind of large office that we use to hang out as our clubhouse.

Ryan: We had, I don’t know, we had a long boardroom table that we met at and Ryan [Kull] had his own office in the back. It was a problem, because we did share those rooms with the nurses, and they would burst in and they wouldn’t knock and they were so rude. It was really uncanny, it was infuriating. They did not take us seriously. So I don’t recall that ever changing. It may have toward the end.

Q: The people that took over after you left, they had both described it as, they adopted a program that was very much respected by the Health Services and Community Lead, it just kind of integrated into the university Health Service. And everyone beforehand says, no, we were the orphan that no one wanted. So Ryan [Kull] was somehow the change that …

Ryan: I guess there was a transition period, but I do know that I always, whenever I am writing a bio, I always say that I worked in the Health Services. So that is in my, entrenched in my mind, that we were, this I do remember, it was around maybe junior year, sophomore or junior year, they brought in this consultant group who rearranged the health services. And I didn’t realize she was a consultant, and at the time I had this very cynical view of what consultants were, because it seemed just preposterous for some moron to come in and rearrange. Now I understand why, but I firmly believe in the power of gain capital, but not exactly a consultancy group. I remember I was like, this woman was up at the white board and she’s like, she was the consultant, and I was like, oh god, you know. And I made some flippant remark about obnoxious consultants coming in with their ridiculous ideas. And then she just sort of ignored that. And then she drew some big umbrella and beneath that were all these subsidiary things and all of these lines back and forth of how, I don’t know, the chain of command went. But I guess people could get HIV tests on the third floor with the nurses, but they were evil, this I remember too. And I could say this on the record. I got mono my junior year, and it was in the fall term, and I came back to school and I just started getting better after being really sick off from Christmas break. And I went in to get an HIV test. And I don’t know why, I might not have gotten, I assume I got the HIV test through GHAP, but I had to get like – what is the name of the virus that causes mono? Whatever it is. I forget. I had to get that test. And I mentioned to the nurse that I was having some anxieties about that I was afraid that maybe it was HIV, seeing that I was always so ill. And she said to me, “well, have you been having unprotected sex?” You know, really judgmental. And I was like, well, no. And she asked me about oral sex, and she said, “are you having unprotected oral sex?” And I said, “well, yes.” And she said, “and you’re a GHAP advocate? You should know better.” I just, I wish I had punched her. I was so angry. And I’m thinking there’s a reason why we’re here and we hopefully are, because if you want to you can just get a test from the nurse without the counseling, and I think that’s fine for many, many people, and it’s probably better for them, but I see great value in the counseling, certainly in that time, I don’t know about now. But just because you get a chance to talk to somebody about things that you usually don’t talk about in that manner, and that could be really – some people like to have that one opportunity. So it really impressed on me on what a good service we’re doing. You know, think of how the other, because our, the whole reason we were there was to try to relieve shame and anxiety. We’re trying to make it easier and try to make people more comfortable with their sexuality. That was the way I saw it. You know.

Q: I also think it gives people an opportunity to talk that they weren’t expecting really, in a way that like …

Ryan: Yeah, they were always surprised. Yeah.

Q: That maybe they weren’t going to make an appointment with the counseling center.

Ryan: Yes.

Q: But like, “oh, since you’re asking me, I’ll talk about it.”

Ryan: Yeah. They were generally surprised. Somebody, it was a man who had a sexual experience, and he wasn’t saying too much that was revealing, but he was really, he did, he was expressing some sort of sexual guilt. And I just said to him, “why are you beating yourself up so much about this?” Because, you know, whatever he had been up to was not so shocking, from my perspective. And he totally changed and he got, I think he cried, I think he told me that his uncle had died of AIDS, or something, and that opened up this huge watershed of emotion. And, you know, I think it was really important for him to connect those two, you know. So that was the moment that I was really happy about, because you know, it just, it showed you how it’s so easy to tell people things, whether you’re a therapist or as a friend, if you could ask someone the right open ended question to get them to share things with you, it’s very helpful, you know?

Q: That’s something particularly I was curious, that’s, you don’t really play it out, but it is something like, oh, this isn’t some authority figure.

Ryan: Yeah.

Q: Even when, people — they’ll still talk to you.

Ryan: And it was weird because sometimes they’d be a lot older than you. You know, and that was awkward, you’re supposed to tell them —

Q: I started doing it when I was 19.

Ryan: Me too.

Q: And it was awkward.

Ryan: I know. I really had to sort of give myself the credit that I know what I’m doing, you know?

Q: I don’t know, I feel like sometimes it’s to our advantage, though. Because people are like, “oh, you’re not –” I’ve had people that had just been dismissive, consciously or not, “oh, it’s like cute that you do this. Oh, I’ll tell you about my experiences.” And then they are talking about all their problems and stuff.

Ryan: Right, you sort of coerce them, if you will.

Q: Exactly.

Ryan: You seduce them into – I just, when I graduated, I did not have a great time at Columbia, I was very unhappy there. Like I never really fit in. It was a bad time of my life. My mother died my sophomore year. You know, I came down with fibromyalgia junior year. I tried to turn it around senior year, you know. I managed to get really good grades and everything, but at great cost to my psyche. I worked myself to death, you know? I wish I could go back and do it in a way, and frankly just get worse grades, you know, and worry about learning what I wanted to learn with the best professors. But the only thing I miss about college was doing, and I loved it, I just found it so rewarding and so interesting, so I wanted to keep doing it. I went to DMAC the fall after I graduated. And I went through 28 hours of training, two 14 hour weekends. I was so horrified by the people who ran their program, they were so unintelligent, and they were training us to be robots. They had an acronym and it was PLICIT. I don’t remember everything it stood for, but I remember that the L-I stood for Limited Information. And we were discouraged from overwhelming people with information, which I understand, but in their role-plays, this is the way they would do it, I mean, comically limited. They would say like; so, is AIDS a fatal disease? It can be. You know, it was that bad. I mean these guys were morons, and they were absolutely, they were complete numbskulls. And I just sat there in horror. And they made up this word, which they said, my inclination was to keep doing what we were doing, everybody was basically therapists. And they kept saying to me, “oh, well, we don’t want to therapize them. Don’t therapize them.”

Q: Oh, god forbid anyone talk about their problems.

Ryan: And I’m out of the ivory tower and I’m in the real world and it’s I’m over educated. I’m screwed. So they had this interesting thing. What they did was, I think they had a two week period after your training before they really initiated you into, I don’t know, supervised practice or whatever, I think because in their experience a lot of people dropped out after two weeks of that. And after the two weeks they called me and they asked me if I wanted to keep doing it, and I said; no. And I told them, I said; I think you guys run a terrible program. I think it’s shocking that you’re doing a great disservice to people, and I actually refuse to be a part of it. And it was certainly nothing like what I had been doing, and I think what I had been doing is the right way, when I think about it, is just to be very psychodynamic.

Q: And what did they say?

Ryan: They said, “thank you so much for sharing that information with me. I’m really glad you expressed your feelings.”

Q: (Laugh) So robotic.

Ryan: It was terrible. And I had, I heard people would go there, and they were like, yes, they were, they’re robots.

Q: Oh, so you mentioned that there were mainly gay male clients? Because we see something like 80% straight and …

Ryan: No, no, I don’t think I did. May I …

Q: Oh, just the people you mentioned …

Ryan: No, no, that one guy I talked about was straight. Yeah, I mostly saw straight people. They were like mostly straight graduate students.

Q: Were people, it seems like, because of anti-retrovirals, like were people quite as worried about AIDS?

Ryan: Yeah, well, they had just come out that, you know, the year before, and it was really, it was starting to become increasingly apparent that new things were working. You know, the study data said so in early 1996, but I remember probably in the spring of ’98 Laura was sort of talking about the Lazarus Effect and so many people and so on.

Q: The Lazarus Effect?

Ryan: The Lazarus Effect is when you’re, this is a biblical reference where you’re brought back to life. And I was like, I was kind of like, you know, I was the devil’s advocate, I was the doubter, I was like, “well, I don’t know if this is going to be around forever, I’m not ready to sort of. I don’t know, part of me wasn’t ready to get out of crisis mode, because it would make it seem less serious, or valuable, or something, so.” So that was certainly a change that everyone was going through in the country with regards to HIV/AIDS at the time. But there was absolutely a ton of anxiety about it. And it’s hard for me to remember if people were like, “oh, I’m going to die,” or whatever. But just the stigma involved with it, it was just so connected with shame, you know? So that was, I keep repeating that, but that was the number one thing that I would try to point out to people, was that what they were really feeling was not, they weren’t afraid of HIV, because that was an illogical fear, because the chance of them getting it was so small.

Q: Yeah.

Ryan: What they were really upset about was their own feelings about their sex life. You know, like I remember one woman, she comes in and she said, “I have had four partners in the last year.” And I was supposed to be like, “honey, my god.” You know?

Q: Yeah.

Ryan: And I was just like, you know, and you just had to meet everyone where they were, but to her that was really upsetting. And HIV just sort of stirred those feelings in her, so.

Q: It’s interesting, because what you kind of articulated, the work doesn’t feel urgent in the same way, but interviewing these people who did it in 1985, 1986, compared to now it’s more what you said about getting people to talk about things, like unrelated things, it’s a vehicle to bring that up. I’d say that’s much more the case.

Ryan: Yeah, I mean, I’ve been thinking about it lately, I know that I was thinking about just the other day when they approved the OHSURE(?) tests for the over the counter use. And I’m thinking, you know, is there still a value for that kind of counseling today? Do you need it? Is it a barrier to people getting tested? So I don’t know. I, personally, don’t need to be counseled when I get an HIV test. I just want to get the week over with. So I go to my doctor and I always go in and he’s like, well, your triglycerides are, and I’m like, get to page three. You know? And he’d be like, “oh, you’re fine.” And I’m like, “ugh.” And he’s like, “what’s wrong with you? Why are you so upset?” I’m like, “it’s just, you know, I’m just anxious.” “Have you been having unsafe sex?” I’m like, “no.” Although I did quibble with him over that, even he was like, you can get it from oral sex. And I was like, “no, you can’t. And I’ll show you the study that says so.”

Q: I mean, you can.

Ryan: It’s so, but I’m, and I’m …

Q: Statistically your chances are, I don’t know, but it’s possible.

Ryan: Yeah. Even then you don’t know if it’s true. They may be lying. But what I always told people was: “Don’t do any kind of recent dental work, you know, don’t brush or floss for, I forget, it was like two hours, or four hours afterwards. Don’t do any, if you have like a cold or a sore throat or something, and don’t swallow.” And that was, those are my rules, which I have followed myself.

Q: I guess you touched on this a little bit, but could you talk a little bit more about Poz, like how you got involved like writing for that stuff?

Ryan: Well, you know, I had, I was always, more so than really anybody else in the group, I was really interested in getting even more knowledge than was necessary just about HIV being in the news and I was always, you know, trying to just learn more about whatever was going on, et cetera, you know, especially because I had been like the guy who cut out the newspapers for the AIDS Foundation, so I read all those articles. I read every single article in The New York Times about HIV. You know, I was so sad when like Sheryl Gay Stolberg became a political reporter as opposed to a health reporter because she stopped writing the AIDS report. They used to have an AIDS beat. So … you know, I graduated, I, you know, was looking for writing work, and somebody just referred me to Poz. So I just started writing for them immediately because I just had this perfect experience, you know, job experience, per se, for it. So I always thought it kind of funny, because it’s an ironic, a very ironic position in where the only thing I could think of when you’re trying to keep your bosses from knowing that you don’t have a disease. I’ve never discussed it with anyone that I worked with, you know. Some of them, I think, may assume that I do have HIV. So, but I would prefer they not know because I may be discriminated against, and they may think that I don’t, that I’m not familiar enough with the topic. So, but I like writing about HIV because it touches on so many parts of human life. It touches on sexuality and addiction, and psychology, policy, healthcare, medicine, microbiology, you know, insurance. So all these, I’m interested in all those topics, so you know, it’s … it’s … you know, immigration rights, and prison life. So I’ve gotten to learn like about so many things and talked to people that I’d never talk to. I’d say one of the most challenging questions I ever had to ask, you know, was just to say to somebody, “so how’s it been since you got out of prison?” You know, because I had never in my life asked anyone that. I’m trying to ask it in a way that’s sort of casual that’s, because that’s his life, you know? So, you know, those are the skills that I learned, in a way, from working at GHAP was trying to meet people where they are and, you know, use their verbiage and their sense of whatever is normal. And four people is a lot in one year, and yeah, let’s work with that that. So, you know? I remember Laura saying, let me see if I get this right: at GHAP, we are sex positive. We are gay positive. And we are psychologically savvy.

Q: I like that Laura has that southern belle in her.

Ryan: (Laugh)

Q: I can very much imagine her saying that.

Ryan: I don’t want to be critical about Laura, but in a way, in my own life, I felt like we were so sex positive that I went through a long period of feeling like that was almost like my duty was to be as free sexually as possible. And most young gay people do that, you know. And then as you get older you wonder if you’ll ever get out of that trap and if you’ll ever be with one person, et cetera. But I remember looking back and I’m wondering if maybe I had taken that too seriously, that message, in my own life. One other anecdote that I, this is just very off the topic, but a really powerful moment of something I learned when I was in training was this woman came in, and she worked with Health Services in some capacity, she was a nurse or something, or a doctor, and she was just brilliant. And she comes in, and I don’t know why we were talking about this. She said two things that were fascinating, and this has to do with HIV. She was able to remove all morality out of the transmission of the disease. She said transmission of HIV was two organisms coming together and another virus passes between them, and because it’s given the opportunity. So that was, my goal was in a lot of ways with a lot of people was to try to scrape away at the morality that had been so entrenched in them, like all the signals in our society, that make people upset about their sexuality. And the other thing that she said, we were talking about people with Downs Syndrome. And I think maybe, you know, should you have to elect for abortion or something, and that’s a very difficult question. And she argued for the point, she said, in regards to Downs Syndrome, she said that they were different, they were different kinds of people, and she said, they add something to society. And I was just so, because like it was a different way of thinking of something, and I was just so moved by that idea, because that somebody can be different and totally have a brain that is not the same as your own, but that that difference should be celebrated. And that relates to being gay. That, well, why would you want everyone to be the same? Wouldn’t it be more fun if we were all different? If we were all different races? Wouldn’t that be more interesting? Wouldn’t you learn more? You know? It’s easier to be with just the same people like you, and I do that, it’s a common tendency, but it’s also good to be challenged by different kinds of people, so. And to tie all that back in, that’s something that was afforded to me by doing this kind of work and has been since then, you know, the people that I’ve interviewed have told me such amazing stories. You know? By and large most of the articles I did for HIV Plus are really sociocultural stories. So there’s a lot of sort of psychological profiles and that kind of thing. And there were by and large most people who were no longer ashamed and were, and come out on top, so to speak, you know. So here are these stories of people who had been through terrible adversity and had made it. You know? So that was really cool. Once we were writing an article about people who are getting older and doing well. (Chuckle) And one of our subjects died before we went to press.

Q: Oh, my gosh.

Ryan: My editor calls, and we couldn’t help laughing, it was just like so ironic. And somehow or another we found out and she’s like, “do you have another person on hand we can change for that lead guy?” I was like, “I do.” Another really, really cool thing, I never really have gotten feedback much, especially my editor at HIV Plus wasn’t really big on feedback, and I never really saw a letter to the editor about my work. So I sort of went into a vacuum, which was frustrating, I hope that it’s doing some good somewhere. Poz is different, they really gave me good feedback personally. And I know a lot of people read the magazine. But I had written this article many years ago about a guy named Danny Gray who was a yogi in LA. And, you know, he was just very spiritual and a sort of very Zen guy. And he told me years later that he met this man who said that like article that had changed his life, that he was a crystal meth addict, and that he had been in prison. And I don’t quite understand how this worked, but I think he basically got his behavior together to the point where he could prove to the parole board that he was worth being let out. And then when he got out he became a yogi and like turned his life around. But he attributed this like eureka moment to my article. And like, you know, that’s what the guy said. So that was really cool. I literally have goose bumps just saying it. It’s rare in our lives, in any career, to know that we’ve had an effect, that this is substantial, and you know, I think it’s, is it’s Beck’s, I can’t remember, or Beck’s Stages of Emotional Development; basically in your adult life you’re essentially looking to pass on what you know, either by raising children, or having a career and effecting society. And if you don’t do that you’ll sort of fall into despair. So those are sort of the moments that keep you going, knowing that you have a positive effect around you.

Q: I can imagine how, not rewarding, that sounds so trite, but knowing that you affected someone like that.

Ryan: I don’t know, it’s funny, often I get some like genuine compliment. When I look at it, it’s a weird reaction, and of course, if somebody insults me I’d be like re-reading the email over and over, but there’s some phenomenon.

Q: But that’s human nature.

Ryan: Yeah, the phenomenon in psychology is the sense of like if it contradicts your self-concept or something you’re more likely to obsess over it. You know, and try to figure out where the discrepancy is, you know? But I don’t know about people who already think they are awful and they’re told so today, just go, “oh, yes.” I don’t know. But you know, most of the cases that we got at GHAP were run of the mill. And by and large they were pretty fast and got in and out. But there were a few that were very powerful. I wish I could remember them more now, I think it’s been so long. But I remember a woman, she was sort of confessing to me that she was, I think she was afraid of her roommate, she was a graduate student, and she had been put in housing with males, and she was afraid of, I don’t know, one of them had made some uncomfortable pass at her or something, and we were constantly making referrals, like you should see a psychiatrist. Or why don’t you try the counseling services that are available, you really should talk to the people in Housing, or whatever it was, because we were only going to see them once. So if it seemed like they were distressed, which many of them were, because they were tense graduate students, or undergrads, or whatever, that they should seek help, you know.

Q: You just said that you only see them once. Did you guys not do result sessions as well?

Ryan: In our day we didn’t give results. Ryan did all that.

Q: All positive and negative results?

Ryan: Yeah.

Q: Oh? Wow. We give negative results only. So when we write the forms we always write up with follow up issues with what we want to talk about with them.

Ryan: That would be so much better. It’s a shame. But unless I’m completely mis-remembering it, which I don’t think so, because people would always ask, oh, my god, if you’re going to give me a positive result, and I would be like, we don’t give results, so.

Q: Well, Laura still gives all of our positive results. I would never want to give a positive result, you know?

Ryan: Yeah, you know, you’re in college, you’re not equipped to. I would never have wanted to do that.

Q: Yeah. I think we covered pretty much everything. Do you have any last thoughts? Anything else you want to cover?

Ryan: I was really proud to be a part of it because of Laura’s legacy, and that she was in the oldest college campus testing site in the world, and that we had the oldest, and then a really ridiculously gay group in the world, but it was really cool to be a part of that legacy and to be in New York, you know, where everything, the epicenter had begun, and to be working on this cause and in our own way, our own little loose foot soldiers. But it was also, in a way, it was very difficult for me to do to it because I, myself, experienced terrible hypochondria in college. So here I was, just facing it day to day, I had constantly faced my own anxieties, which were just terrible at the time. And that was really hard on me. And there was once – this really made me mad, was that I had, after the experienced I referred to when I had mono and I was so, I mean, I was just distraught and terrorized, I was so afraid, I mean I was suicidal that period when I thought I was positive, you know? And I came in, when we were back, and I really wanted to talk about my experience after the fact with our, in our meetings, in our meeting. And I did, you know, I told this long story in what I’d been through. And there was one guy who got really angry. And he said, I didn’t come here, I didn’t sign up for this, I didn’t consent to come in here and hear your story and have to deal with you. You know? And he thought that I was way, and I was so shocked, it was so ironic because here we were, we were, that’s what we were supposed to do. And now I was the client, you know, and he didn’t want to listen to me. I was so hurt. It was really violating. And I, you know, I know I talked about it with Laura and Ryan in length, but it was one of, I really wish that guy would’ve left the program, he didn’t belong there. I loved the meetings, I always, I never missed them. I loved talking about the cases, it was really interesting to me. (Chuckle) I remember once I had made what Laura thought was a grave error, so this guy came in, and he was really funny, and I was just telling everybody how funny he was, what he had said. And Laura goes, “Ben, he disarmed you.” In her opinion. You know, like covering up this huge anxiety disorder. I was like, oh, no! And I felt like I failed, and I was so ashamed. But the group, they were so eclectic. They were really an interesting group, all the counselors, some were really brilliant. And one of the best things I had learned, (and I was, I used this yesterday with somebody I was Skypeing with, this boy I was seeing, and we were having a tense discussion.) And she said she was, you know, going to become a teacher. And so she had experience teaching children. And she’s like, well, with kids, if they’re not saying anything, you just sit there, and you wait. And the uncomfortable silence will force them to speak. You know. And I was like that’s brilliant, because I was always having to fight my need to just keep yakking, you know? And that taught me in that context and in my own life just to allow silence and then people then will feel comfortable to share with you. I can’t think of anything else I’d want to say.

Q: That’s what I really found with these interviews too, to just like sit back and let people talk.

Ryan: Yeah, well, I interview people all the time. I always do it over the phone, so it’s frustrating, but I mean, you sort of, you just kind of bat the ball around and they eventually (come around), but it’s frustrating if you’re like you don’t want them to keep talking and they go on and on, because you’re hoping the interview will only be 11 minutes so you don’t have to transcribe it. So. Yeah. I’m really glad to know that it’s still running.

Q: It’s strong. Anything else? Last call?

Ryan: I don’t think so.