The context of the following conversation is Robin knew they would give up eventually, so they just went ahead and gave up now.:
Robin says I knew that I would burn out doing this, so I just quit before I got real bad..
The friend responds Are you talking about your university thesis?.
Robin responds Yeah, there are so many discrepancies in the study that there is truly no point to keep it going..
The friend responds You could always use some of the research and restart?.
Robin responds Yeah, I will use a different approach, but with this one I have given up for sure...
The friend responds Don't beat yourself up about it, quantum mechanics is a difficult topic..