Co-Host Daniel Ratner (https://mountaintoppodcast.com/ratner) On this first day of 2026, we hit the ground running with how to eliminate the WRONG people from your life this year, and from now on. Daniel Ratner is a Jewish-American coach who made Aliyah and now lives in Jerusalem. So obviously, specializing in vampires of any kind only shows he has a sense of comedic irony that would make Mel Brooks blush. But for sure, the whole weird but tragically common phenomenon is what it is, and Daniel has studied it as much as anyone. So much so that he has identified several different types of emotional vampires and described them. For starters, what's the pattern that makes so many of them narcissists? And what exactly is "covert narcissism" again, and why are they typically among the worst offenders? How do women in particular draw us in with vampirical patterns that seem "cute" at first--even attractive--only to truly wear us out over time? Can a real, actual emotional vampire really, actually love us? Why is it so many of us as men will tolerate a woman who is an emotional vampire way more than any woman would tolerate a male one in her life? (Hint: We coined the term "training and draining" there.) How do we set boundaries with emotional vampires...and is it too late after they sink their teeth in? What is Coach Ratner's acronym for figuring out who to keep in your life and who to get rid of? And why is a certain type of person the favorite target of emotional vampires? Finally, living in Israel Daniel wrote a piece over the summer called "Bomb Shelter Sex". Listen as he offers some amazing insights into what social life was like in Israel then. Get in on the newly-updated VAMANOS app and more at: https://mountaintoppodcast.com/vamanos

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