Speaker 1: Welcome the Guys We Bought, the Anti Slutshamings podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Christina Hutchinson, I'm Karen Fisher and I'm ye so was friends.
Speaker 2: Bring us to.
Speaker 3: Its flooding, your horning and your shame.
Speaker 2: Hey was what?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Okay? Talk about fucket? What up?
Speaker 1: Fuckers? How you doing? Where you've been? Where a condom?
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Guys We Fucked. It's the
Speaker 1: anti slut chaming podcast. I'm Karen Fisher, I'm Christina Hutchinson.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Make sure have so many shows. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you're in New York City, February first, which is
Speaker 1: a Thursday, Karin and I are doing Guys We Fucked
Speaker 1: Live at the MasterCard Midnight Theater, the first one of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: It's going to be ahoot.
Speaker 1: If you've been to any of these shows or you've
Speaker 1: watched the live stream, you know we ain't lying.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's so fun.
Speaker 1: And then in Los Angeles February fourteenth, Yes, it's Valentine's Day, Yes,
Speaker 1: it's you know what you're in luck, doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you got a partner or not. You're gonna come to
Speaker 1: our show at the Comedy store. We're headlining the main room.
Speaker 1: We're doing the Guys We Fucked show in the main room.
Speaker 1: It's already half sold out, so make sure you buy
Speaker 1: your tickets. You can get them anywhere. Our social media
Speaker 1: bios are a great place at Guys we Fucked without
Speaker 1: the you and Fucked. I'll cross all platforms. I'm at
Speaker 1: Christina Hutch, I'm at Philanthropy Gal.
Speaker 3: And I'm at Mike Coscarelli.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also just go to the website. You can
Speaker 1: google them that you can. There's so many places. It's all.
Speaker 1: It's very very If you want to email us, the
Speaker 1: email address rather is sorry about last night's show at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. Today's subject line electation lovers journey to Intimacy. Oh,
Speaker 1: I love that for you to your current and Christina
Speaker 1: and of course Mike. I subscribe to Luminary just to
Speaker 1: listen to you guys, and I'm reaching out to you
Speaker 1: today to share a personal aspect of my story in
Speaker 1: the hopes that it might resonate with some of your listeners.
Speaker 1: I hope that by sharing my experiences, I can gain
Speaker 1: valuable insights and advice from you both. As a twenty
Speaker 1: seven year old male from Saudi Arabia. I've always been
Speaker 1: captivated by the unique intimacy and nurturing nature of lactation.
Speaker 1: This is not where I thought this was going. The
Speaker 1: act of providing sustenance and care has always been deeply
Speaker 1: arousing to me, and I've been fortunate enough to experience
Speaker 1: this with a few women who have been open to
Speaker 1: this kind of connection. However, I found that it's becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly difficult to find partners who are comfortable with this
Speaker 1: form of intimacy. As I've grown older, the longing for
Speaker 1: this particular connection has left me feeling lonely and yearning
Speaker 1: for a deeper bond with someone. In my pursuit of intimacy,
Speaker 1: I've turned to booking sex workers, not for sexual services,
Speaker 1: but for the opportunity to cuddle and be close to
Speaker 1: another person. I understand that this might be considered a
Speaker 1: taboo topic, but I believe that the essence of your
Speaker 1: podcast lies in addressing the unconventional and sometimes uncomfortable aspects
Speaker 1: of sex and relationships.
Speaker 3: You are correct, sir.
Speaker 1: As a fan of your show, I'm eager to hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts and advice on how to approach this topic
Speaker 1: with potential partners without coming across a strange or fetishistic
Speaker 1: I found that the subject can be challenging to bring up,
Speaker 1: and I worry about the impact it may have on
Speaker 1: my chances of forming a serious relationship. Furthermore, I'm interested
Speaker 1: in hearing your perspectives on the ethics of booking sex
Speaker 1: workers for companionship, as I believe it's a complex and
Speaker 1: controversial virtual issue that warrants open discussion. No, I think
Speaker 1: it's completely normal to book a sex worker just to
Speaker 1: hug you one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: It makes total sense to me.
Speaker 1: It's your honesty about choice, and that sex worker will
Speaker 1: probably be amped.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My concern would just be making sure that you can
Speaker 1: set up a boundary for yourself where you don't then
Speaker 1: and accidentally fall in love with a sex worker who
Speaker 1: is literally just doing their job and does not feel
Speaker 1: the same way about you.
Speaker 3: I think it's like, I think that's the only danger there.
Speaker 1: But as long as you're clear on the boundaries that
Speaker 1: exist within the reality that you're both living in, then
Speaker 1: I think it's totally fine. That's why sex workers I
Speaker 1: think to me, that's like the primary reason why sex
Speaker 1: workers should be exist and it should be legal because
Speaker 1: of companionship. Yes, intimacy, emotional intimacy and physical intimacy is
Speaker 1: so valuable for a person's like mental and physical health.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go out there and say it.
Speaker 1: This journey has led me to question whether I am
Speaker 1: emotionally prepared for a committed relationship or if I should
Speaker 1: seek therapy first. Seek therapy to address this need in
Speaker 1: a healthier way. I appreciate your honesty and openness in
Speaker 1: discussing various topics, and I would love to hear your
Speaker 1: perspective on my situation. I want to express my gratitude
Speaker 1: for your work in fostering a space for open and
Speaker 1: genuine conversations about.
Speaker 3: Sex and sexuality.
Speaker 1: Your podcast has helped me feel less alone yay, and
Speaker 1: I'm informed about my own desires and I'm confident that
Speaker 1: your insights will be valuable to others as well.
Speaker 3: Thank you for your time and consideration. What a lovely
Speaker 3: great lactation email.
Speaker 1: Also, dude, I you're twenty seven. Props to you. You
Speaker 1: are a twenty seven year old man who knows himself.
Speaker 1: That is beautiful, That is sexy, That to me is masculinity,
Speaker 1: that's humanity. But also like a man who knows himself
Speaker 1: and knows what he wants and seeks it out in places,
Speaker 1: you know, like go into a sex worker to kind
Speaker 1: of experience emotional intimacy. I think that's very wise decision,
Speaker 1: and good on you for putting your needs first. I
Speaker 1: think that you will actually be a very good partner
Speaker 1: to somebody one day. Here here and also in expressing
Speaker 1: your like the lactation thing, I think if you should
Speaker 1: definitely talk about it with potential partners, because if it
Speaker 1: makes them run away, then maybe that's not your potential partner.
Speaker 1: Although I know some people that have like these more
Speaker 1: niche sexual desires that they cannot that their partner is
Speaker 1: not a space for them to act those out that
Speaker 1: they kind of prefer to act it out with like
Speaker 1: a sex worker. Obviously it's discussed between both partners before
Speaker 1: that happens. I don't know if that's necessarily something that fault,
Speaker 1: like your personal desire falls under this category. But if
Speaker 1: you're going to have a conversation about it, which I
Speaker 1: think you should after you've like really kind of get
Speaker 1: to known the person and you feel like there might
Speaker 1: be a spark there, talk about the emotional impact that
Speaker 1: this activity has on you and the satisfaction it brings
Speaker 1: you first before you talk about what it actually is.
Speaker 3: And I think that's a great way of easing in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think when you talk about how your you state,
Speaker 1: like as you've gotten older, this has been harder to
Speaker 1: find partners open to this, Like, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: it made me laugh because you're only twenty seven, So
Speaker 1: what do you mean as you've gotten older? Like what
Speaker 1: bracket of time are we talking about here? But anyway,
Speaker 1: I think that the only issue is if you are
Speaker 1: leading with the lactation, because then to me, that's where
Speaker 1: the fetishistic mentality comes in and where women, especially like
Speaker 1: modern women, will start to question what their role is
Speaker 1: in your life, Like am iusting like a vessel for lactation?
Speaker 1: Or am I primarily a person who you writer is
Speaker 1: interested in? And then secondarily, this is a person who
Speaker 1: is sexually interested in, you know, and in from an
Speaker 1: intimacy's perspective, interested in lactation. And that is something I
Speaker 1: am willing to do with him because of our deep
Speaker 1: connection and how kind he is and how he gets
Speaker 1: me on other levels. So like, yeah, I agree with Christina,
Speaker 1: like you definitely have to have to have a conversation
Speaker 1: with it. But I also agree that, like I don't
Speaker 1: think this is something that we're talking about on dates
Speaker 1: one or two. You know, you you voice concern that
Speaker 1: you think this is going to stop you from being
Speaker 1: able to have a long term relation, serious relationships, which
Speaker 1: to me just put sent off a little alarm that
Speaker 1: says you're it seems like you might be prioritizing the
Speaker 1: lactation in a way that feels like you're fiending for it.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's only a.
Speaker 1: Question that you can answer for yourself, Like is this
Speaker 1: at the forefront of your mind at all times? Is
Speaker 1: this the main thing you're thinking about on a date,
Speaker 1: Like when can I get.
Speaker 3: To that lactation? That titty?
Speaker 1: Because then to me, it is something that has to
Speaker 1: be discussed with a therapist. This should not be overtaking
Speaker 1: your mind, nor should this be the primary Like if
Speaker 1: the primary thing you are looking for with a partner,
Speaker 1: when you're seeking a relationationship with a partner, then you're
Speaker 1: not it is like a sexual thing, then you're not
Speaker 1: seeking a relationship, You're seeking a sexual uh interaction, And
Speaker 1: women can sense that, right, we don't want.
Speaker 3: To be used. It is a kink to be.
Speaker 1: Used as a less being used toy, which sometimes we do,
Speaker 1: but we'll make that clear, okay, right, Or and then
Speaker 1: you're gonna go on a different kind of website. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna go on Hinge to use someone like a
Speaker 1: fuck toy. You're gonna go on fields or or something,
Speaker 1: you know, something a little bit less traditional, right, And
Speaker 1: so those are the things that those are. Some of
Speaker 1: these questions are questions that you only know the answer
Speaker 1: to yourself. Like I think, like it's a good thing
Speaker 1: to bring up in therapy if you're already in therapy.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, if this is like as as a
Speaker 1: main concern in your life as maybe it seems from
Speaker 1: this email, then yeah, you need to go to therapy
Speaker 1: to learn how to use this as a part of
Speaker 1: your relationship and a part of connecting with someone.
Speaker 3: Not your whole life is about lactation.
Speaker 4: Yea.
Speaker 1: Your whole life shouldn't be nobody about anything sexual.
Speaker 3: Even a baby's life isn't about lactatia. Yeah, just the
Speaker 3: first couple of years.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Because I think like once you form a
Speaker 1: bond with someone, especially like for women, like once you
Speaker 1: form form an emotional bond with us, I think you'd
Speaker 1: be surprised at how much fucking weird in quote shit
Speaker 1: we're willing to do uh uh huh. You know that's
Speaker 1: just a little alone we feel safe, a little winking
Speaker 1: from me to you, when we feel safe with you,
Speaker 1: when we feel safe, loved and adored. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: ship you want us to you want us to get
Speaker 1: us to do something that you don't know if we
Speaker 1: would do. You can put on that diaper neck like
Speaker 1: a baby. Well, we're gonna be down, yeah for real.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I heard a comic talking about that interestingly enough about
Speaker 1: that he has that kink, And I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: bet like your wife is.
Speaker 3: Going to do that with you because she loves you.
Speaker 1: She loves you, and she does feel safe and it
Speaker 1: seems like you have been a good partner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she's like, that's why it wasn't weird when
Speaker 3: you brought it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when and when you love your partner, it's
Speaker 1: exciting to do something that turns then I'm on. Even
Speaker 1: if it doesn't turn you on, right, it doesn't turn
Speaker 1: you off exactly.
Speaker 3: It's an exploration.
Speaker 1: Speaking of explorations, well, real quick, we can go through.
Speaker 1: We have other shows in addition to February firm show
Speaker 1: in New York City in February fourteenth in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this the week it comes out,
Speaker 1: that means you're luminary subscriber.
Speaker 3: Thank you, love you. And also if you're in New
Speaker 3: York City.
Speaker 1: This Saturday, January twenty, at the live premiere of my
Speaker 1: new show Wait What Is Happening at eight thirty PM,
Speaker 1: we got special guests John Ronson, who wrote The Menosteric Ghots,
Speaker 1: which dives into government programs where they trained soldiers to
Speaker 1: walk through walls and kill goats with their eyes. We
Speaker 1: got an mpath named David that's going to come on
Speaker 1: and give a live reading to myself and another audience
Speaker 1: member we have. And then we have Jay Christopher King
Speaker 1: as our third guest for the show, who fucking runs
Speaker 1: a thing called the Experience or Group, and it's a
Speaker 1: place where anybody who's experienced psychic phenomena and interaction with
Speaker 1: an alien or a UAP, an identified aero fun or
Speaker 1: anything that's kind of like otherworldly, this is a place
Speaker 1: for you to talk about it and be okay and
Speaker 1: feel kind of safe, and no one's gonna think you're
Speaker 1: fucking weird, which is basically why I created the show. Wait, well,
Speaker 1: because I've not had a lot many of these experiences.
Speaker 1: I want them, but I also want to hear about yours.
Speaker 1: So Jay is going to tell us about the three
Speaker 1: of the most exciting things that people have disclosed in
Speaker 1: this group.
Speaker 3: My point is, come to the show.
Speaker 1: It's going to be so fun and I'm very excited
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a good time. And then
Speaker 1: on Thursday, January twenty fifth, also for you luminary subscribers,
Speaker 1: because you're the only ones who are going to be
Speaker 1: hearing us in time, I am doing a big funny
Speaker 1: for Fido charity event with Justin Silver at the Cutting
Speaker 1: Room in New York City.
Speaker 3: It's a big show.
Speaker 1: The tickets are a bit expensive, but that's all charity shows,
Speaker 1: so totally understand if you can't afford it.
Speaker 3: But for those of you who can, I think it'll
Speaker 3: be well worth your money.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent of the profits go to helping rescue dogs,
Speaker 1: especially these more different breeds like pitbulls. Difficult society, not
Speaker 1: difficult emotionally and uh and it's going to be me
Speaker 1: Colin Quinn, Bobby Kelly, Yamanica Saunders, Caitlin cook Sami Sadika,
Speaker 1: and Justin Silver on this show. And it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a great night. And we're going to bring our rescue dogs,
Speaker 1: Alfred to be there. Justin's dog, Brutus is going to
Speaker 1: be there, who's delight. So it's going to be a really, really,
Speaker 1: really fun night. And if you again, if you have
Speaker 1: the money, and I understand it's not an accessible ticket
Speaker 1: price for everyone, but if you have the money, it
Speaker 1: is a good place to have a fun night and
Speaker 1: have your money go towards something.
Speaker 3: Is it a right? Is your ticket price right off?
Speaker 3: Seventy five percent of your ticket price right off? There
Speaker 3: you go. I don't have to pay taxes on it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And then of course we want to go in an order,
Speaker 1: I guess, so you can go that.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: February ninth and tenth, I'm headlining Bananas in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: right across the river from New York City, and then
Speaker 1: yours is and then February twenty ninth through March second,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be in washing To d C at
Speaker 1: the DC Comedy Loft with Chloe L. Branch That those
Speaker 1: tickets have been on cl for a while so those
Speaker 1: are kind of going quickly, and if you want to
Speaker 1: get a ticket, I would you know, now's the time
Speaker 1: to really pull the trigger on that. And March twenty
Speaker 1: seconds through the twenty third, I'm going to be headlining
Speaker 1: the Blue Room in Springfield, Missouri.
Speaker 3: Never been heard that's a great club.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I heard it's a great club too, by a couple
Speaker 3: of other comics. I don't know if we ever been
Speaker 3: in Missouri. I ever been there. Yeah, we've been to
Speaker 3: Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: Oh right, that is a Missouri Show me your coastal leaders,
Speaker 1: Well show me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we went to I mean, I've been there at
Speaker 3: Lee one time.
Speaker 1: I might have been by myself, but I've definitely I've
Speaker 1: been there at least twice.
Speaker 3: I fuck once, was definitely with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because yeah, I remember Saint Louis in
Speaker 1: the arch.
Speaker 3: Somebody farted on the ride up. Yes, awful. I'll never
Speaker 3: forget that smell. Fuck you, sir. It was really bad.
Speaker 3: But I love tiny towns. I just love them.
Speaker 1: When I did Utah with the fund, where was I
Speaker 1: in Utah? I flew into Salt Lake, but I went
Speaker 1: to some other by the provost schools. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was awesome. I love a small town. They're so
Speaker 1: fascinating and honestly, you guys deserve comedy more and it's
Speaker 1: more fun to do comedy for you guys, So please
Speaker 1: come out.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: There's an article kind of in the spirit of helping
Speaker 1: people and giving them knowledge and a heads up before
Speaker 1: they find themselves in terrible situations.
Speaker 3: I came across this article that uh peaked my curiosities.
Speaker 1: It's written by this private uh oh, it's about hiring
Speaker 1: a private investigator. But the article is called is my
Speaker 1: Partner Living a Double Life? Five Warning signs. I just
Speaker 1: want to share these with you guys, just in case.
Speaker 3: Wait to see the emails. What does living a double
Speaker 3: life mean?
Speaker 1: If someone's living a double life, it means they are
Speaker 1: leading two very distinct lives and keeping one hitten from
Speaker 1: the other. The secret life may include an extramarital affair,
Speaker 1: a second spouse or family, an addiction, shopping, stealing, or gambling,
Speaker 1: sometimes resulting in debt or legal trouble.
Speaker 3: Well, I know a lot of people that I've had.
Speaker 1: Partners like that, illegal activities such as drug dealings, a
Speaker 1: secret job i e.
Speaker 3: Working as an escort.
Speaker 1: And then these are the fut How can you tell
Speaker 1: if someone lives a double life?
Speaker 3: Well, here are some five signs, boys and girls and
Speaker 3: nays and them. Let me know if you're.
Speaker 1: In the market for some matrimonial surveillance. Often they're away
Speaker 1: from home. If your partner spends a long day away
Speaker 1: from home. This is because this can be caused for suspicion.
Speaker 1: For example, they can take regular weekends away for work
Speaker 1: or family reasons and never invite you along too. They
Speaker 1: have unusual boundaries refusing Oh, it's healthy to have boundaries
Speaker 1: in relationships, but does your partner set limits that seem
Speaker 1: extreme or unreasonable? For example, refusing to add you on
Speaker 1: social media. That always struck me as weird because I
Speaker 1: still know people that are in relationships that they don't
Speaker 1: follow each other. But it's not They don't live a
Speaker 1: career where they have to be on social media, so
Speaker 1: it's not like a separate thing, right, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's so weird.
Speaker 3: It's weird. It's weird.
Speaker 1: Not allowing you to meet their family, friends, or college
Speaker 1: that's a big one. Being unwilling to discuss certain topics
Speaker 1: such as their past or finances. Number three, their stories
Speaker 1: don't add up. People living a double life. We've complex
Speaker 1: webs of flies and sometimes forget that they've what they've
Speaker 1: said to whom they share many details about their past
Speaker 1: that differ from what they've told you previously. Maybe they've
Speaker 1: changed their story about where they were last week, or
Speaker 1: perhaps their spending habits don't match the job and salary
Speaker 1: they claim to have for They're extremely protective of their devices,
Speaker 1: that's very true. Insist on privacy when using their phone
Speaker 1: or computer. They turn off the screen when you enter
Speaker 1: the room.
Speaker 3: I've had that happen.
Speaker 1: Then you know, that's all I'm thinking about all day
Speaker 1: and night and week and the rest of our relationship.
Speaker 1: Regularly delete their emails, text messages in browsing history, and
Speaker 1: I've also had that happen. Refuse to let you they
Speaker 1: weren't living with a double life, they were poloised cheating,
Speaker 1: which I guess is double life come according into this.
Speaker 3: Refuse to let you use their phone for any reason.
Speaker 1: I always use that as a test when I start
Speaker 1: dating somebody, I'm like, hey, can I see your phone?
Speaker 3: To put on this song real quick, just to see
Speaker 3: if they I'm not gonna look, but just to see
Speaker 3: if they freak out. That's weird.
Speaker 1: I like fucking hate when people use my phone. But
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not hiding anything. I just hate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, Like like if we're both.
Speaker 1: Driving and I want to change the song, because I
Speaker 1: had one time I was in the car. Who was
Speaker 1: I dating at the time, somebody somebody older. We were
Speaker 1: in the car, he was driving. I remember, fuck who
Speaker 1: was it? And I wanted to change the song and
Speaker 1: I just went up and he goes, I'll change it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Tod was this like in recent years?
Speaker 1: And this was like four years ago, maybe like in
Speaker 1: between Steven and Colin. But it made me go I
Speaker 1: didn't It wasn't even invested in this person that much.
Speaker 1: So I remember going, I don't want to date you anymore,
Speaker 1: Like this is that's good enough for me?
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't even know what you're doing, but
Speaker 3: I'm fine, right? And then five They avoid simple questions.
Speaker 1: Often, someone living a double life will avoid basic questions
Speaker 1: such as a.
Speaker 3: Kind of allergies, is it I here?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: Such as where they've been or what they've been doing,
Speaker 3: which you know, uh.
Speaker 1: Use all of these points with a great assault because
Speaker 1: it's certain situations I'd be like, don't fucking ask me
Speaker 1: where I was, and I was not leading a double life.
Speaker 1: They may give you a vague answers, change the subject,
Speaker 1: or may make you feel guilty for asking. That's the
Speaker 1: one that I agree with. If they make you feel
Speaker 1: guilty for asking. M I don't know unless you're truly
Speaker 1: you know, unless you're just fucking nagging bitch. Yeah, don't
Speaker 1: be a nagging cunt. Don't be a fucking that's any gender.
Speaker 3: Any gender could be a nagging bitch.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, guys be fucked. Don't be a nagging bitch, all right?
Speaker 1: And that brings us to another article that we wanted
Speaker 1: to share on the show today.
Speaker 3: This has to do with our guest.
Speaker 1: Our guest uh wrote a book about being single at Heart,
Speaker 1: and we're going to get into that in a second.
Speaker 1: But in her book, which is right here, bay Single
Speaker 1: at Heart, she references this Washington Post article that said,
Speaker 1: called normal marital hatred is real. Here's what to do
Speaker 1: about it that came out in September of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two by Tara Parker Pope.
Speaker 3: And so I was like, oh, I bad.
Speaker 1: I can pull up this article today and share it
Speaker 1: with you guys, Because the author of Single at Heart
Speaker 1: was just pointing out how strange she thought it was
Speaker 1: to write an article about marriage in which one of
Speaker 1: the tips was that it's okay to hate your spouse.
Speaker 3: So she said, I think I thought that was a
Speaker 3: little weird. Yes, that is fucking weird.
Speaker 1: So anyway, it says normal marital hatred is real. Here's
Speaker 1: what to do about it. No relationship is perfect. Try
Speaker 1: to start thinking of yours as an ecosystem that you
Speaker 1: share with someone else, or don't get married. Do you
Speaker 1: know what normal marital hatred is? If you've been married
Speaker 1: or in a long term relationship, then you probably do.
Speaker 3: No, I've been You didn't experience this with Stephen at
Speaker 3: the end. That's why dumped them. Yes, I was like, wait,
Speaker 3: I hate you so we broke up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been talking about this around the country for decades,
Speaker 1: said Terrence Real, a best selling author and family therapist
Speaker 1: who offers couples workshops. Not one person has ever come
Speaker 1: backstage and said, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: Everybody knows what it is marriage name damn.
Speaker 1: Even so, the idea that hating your romantic partner is
Speaker 1: normal may come as a bit of a shock to
Speaker 1: those who have idealized romantic relationships. Yeah, I feel this
Speaker 1: most times in a relationship, and that's when I also
Speaker 1: end it. Yeah, and I know that, like seemingly, society
Speaker 1: is telling us that for a relationship to go to
Speaker 1: the distance, you need to like.
Speaker 3: Get work for that's that part. Yeah you don't, but
Speaker 3: I can't, and nor should you.
Speaker 1: I hate that you shouldn't work, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to be around them that ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do know. Oh
Speaker 3: it's called how I know I need to break it off?
Speaker 3: Article should be called when just like.
Speaker 1: The sound of their before hitting the plate, makes you
Speaker 1: want to end their life totally. I hope this car
Speaker 1: ride you're about to go on as your last.
Speaker 3: What I didn't say that right?
Speaker 1: One conversation with real and you will be cured of
Speaker 1: any notion that real life looks like a rom com.
Speaker 3: No one acknowledges the single.
Speaker 1: No one acknowledges the underbelly of relationships, the real author
Speaker 1: of us getting past you and me to build a
Speaker 1: more loving relationship. Nobody acknowledges the darkness. Damn girls, this
Speaker 1: is rough.
Speaker 3: Relationship.
Speaker 1: Experts have tried for years to unlock the mystery of
Speaker 1: how couples resolve conflict and learn to stay together. John Gottman,
Speaker 1: a University of Washington marriage researcher, pioneered the study of
Speaker 1: relationships by recording couples during conflict and monitoring positive and
Speaker 1: negative words, facial expressions, and body language. He calculated that
Speaker 1: strong relationships have a five to one rate ratio of
Speaker 1: positive to negative interactions. Another researcher, retired University of Virginia
Speaker 1: professor Mavis Heatherington, who studied fourteen hundred heterosexual couples over
Speaker 1: three decades and found a type of marriage most prone
Speaker 1: to divorce. She called it the pursuer distancer marriage, in
Speaker 1: which one person typically presses to solve problems, but the
Speaker 1: other dismisses the concerns. Reel said he thinks the real
Speaker 1: problem is that many couples, if I was writing about
Speaker 1: someone with the last name Real, I would have tried
Speaker 1: to avoid using real correct very more often just you know, hey,
Speaker 1: who am I? But just point that out there? You know,
Speaker 1: you're right, like you could have easily said real. The
Speaker 1: main problem is the underlying problem is anyway, whatever is
Speaker 1: that many couples turn conflict into a power struggle, and
Speaker 1: nobody wins in normal circumstances. If you're unhappy with me,
Speaker 1: that is not the time for me to talk to
Speaker 1: you about how unhappy I am with you.
Speaker 3: He said, everybody that's wrong good to me. It's so
Speaker 3: hard not you bring that up.
Speaker 1: It's so hard not to because when someone brings up
Speaker 1: something wrong with you, you.
Speaker 3: Go, I've been sitting on this ship for years. I've
Speaker 3: just been sitting. You're tolerating your behavior.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that I could simply present it to
Speaker 1: you as a laundry list. The moment I felt a
Speaker 1: tinge of unhappiness.
Speaker 3: Oh love anyway.
Speaker 1: So here's what you should know about normal marital hatred
Speaker 1: and what you can do about it.
Speaker 3: In bold, it's okay to hate your partner.
Speaker 1: There are going to be moments when you look at
Speaker 1: your partner and at that moment there is a part
Speaker 1: of you that just hates their guts. Real said, you're
Speaker 1: trapped with this horrible human being? How did you wind
Speaker 1: up here?
Speaker 2: Fuck?
Speaker 3: What I want to say is welcome to marriage, Welcome
Speaker 3: to long term relationships? Are where was this published? The
Speaker 3: Washington Post? Yeah, but don't despair he said, The question
Speaker 3: is now, what divorce? How do I deal with it?
Speaker 3: Just get divorced, dude.
Speaker 1: Then, in bold again, stop idealizing relationships and get divorced.
Speaker 1: Real notes that we wrongly celebrate an idealized version of commitment,
Speaker 1: like that cute couple we see at a party who
Speaker 1: seem to have a perfect relationship.
Speaker 3: Never seen that.
Speaker 1: Where they're either toxically all over each other or they're
Speaker 1: talking to other people.
Speaker 3: What is this a party you saw on TV?
Speaker 4: Like what?
Speaker 1: I've never been to a real party where I saw
Speaker 1: this just once at a cocktail party. I wish someone
Speaker 1: would say, there's Harry and Shirley. For the first twenty
Speaker 1: years they fought like cats and dogs. He actually left
Speaker 1: her for a year and took up with another woman. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean at comics parties, this happens all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is reality.
Speaker 1: Then they managed to work on it and settle down,
Speaker 1: and now they're pretty okay?
Speaker 3: Are they adorable? That sounds like the worst description.
Speaker 1: And if I knew all the backstory for Harry and
Speaker 1: surely I would never respect a word out of either
Speaker 1: of those fuck losers mouths, you know, I would go,
Speaker 1: oh wow, they both love getting abused. Yeah, and now
Speaker 1: in bold, it says normal marriages are are long term
Speaker 1: partnerships or long term partnerships are not happy all the time.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1: After four decades of counseling couples, Real has seen that
Speaker 1: all relationships follow a consistent cycle harmony and closeness, disruption
Speaker 1: and repair, and a return to closeness. This pattern of closeness, disruption,
Speaker 1: and returning to closeness can play out at the micro
Speaker 1: level twenty times in the course of one dinner conversation.
Speaker 3: Oh god, that sounds exhausting. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: It can also play out over the macro level over decades,
Speaker 1: he said, Your relations self esteem, Yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is for people with low self esteem.
Speaker 3: This is for people who they're trying to fill the
Speaker 3: hole in their heart with another person.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why they hate their spouse, like just
Speaker 1: seemingly these people can't think outside the box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, your relationships is an ecosystem. Real said.
Speaker 1: Traditional therapy, which can teach us to assert ourselves, set
Speaker 1: the record straight, set boundaries, and pushback, can actually add.
Speaker 3: To this dysfunction of marriages. Setting boundaries, Yeah, because then
Speaker 3: you're gonna.
Speaker 1: Be distant from me, Christian and I love you, come
Speaker 1: close so I can hit you. He knows people don't
Speaker 1: always like to hear it. But it's healthier to start
Speaker 1: thinking of your relationship as an ecosystem where any disruption
Speaker 1: hurts you just as much or worse than it affects
Speaker 1: your partner worse.
Speaker 3: That's codependent. I mean, that's co dependent. I understand this.
Speaker 1: Like, for instance, like if someone like, because I date
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the public eye, so like
Speaker 1: if someone in the is hurting my partner in the
Speaker 1: public eye, like, yeah, I'll say even if I don't
Speaker 1: even if I agree with the trolls, why you know,
Speaker 1: I will always have my partners back. But and many
Speaker 1: times I do feel like maybe that, yeah, that watching
Speaker 1: someone get hurt in that way can hurt me more
Speaker 1: than perhaps it even hurts them. Yeah, I understand that,
Speaker 1: like and the protectiveness, but not like you know, like
Speaker 1: if they lose their.
Speaker 3: Job, I mean, you're probably gonna hurt that much. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm you. Yeah, I mean I don't know.
Speaker 1: I got that paper to then I would say, I mean,
Speaker 1: were you acting at work the way you act at home,
Speaker 1: because then put maybe more of your all into it you.
Speaker 3: Know, or did you get laid off? Yeah, it's all circumstantial.
Speaker 1: Yeah, stop thinking like to individuals and start thinking ecologically. See,
Speaker 1: this is where you're This is where you always lose
Speaker 1: me with relationships society. Uh, your relationship is your biosphere.
Speaker 1: You're not above it, You're in it. You breathe it.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that sounds terrible. I've actually lost oxygen.
Speaker 1: I need the mask to drop.
Speaker 3: It's so important for you.
Speaker 1: If you guys have different opinions, it's so important to
Speaker 1: express them and then that you can figure out like
Speaker 1: how do you which one?
Speaker 3: Like do we compromise or do we not? Like it's right.
Speaker 1: Wow, And we get into this in the interview with
Speaker 1: our guest today. But this biosphere that we're talking about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, we were talking about the concept of unmarried
Speaker 1: and childless people women being so often called selfish by society.
Speaker 1: But to me, if you are describing your home life
Speaker 1: as a biosphere, what is that happy fucking selfish than
Speaker 1: that Your family is your biosphere. I mean that is
Speaker 1: like you're you're existing completely on your own and like
Speaker 1: the rest of society doesn't matter because you found your tribe.
Speaker 1: Oh you're saying, I see what you're saying. Once you
Speaker 1: realize that it's in your self interest to help your
Speaker 1: partner feel better, it's easier to de escalate conflict. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm always doing. I go, oh, I guess
Speaker 1: I got to make sure he feels good to my day.
Speaker 3: Isn't Merlin.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Every woman's been there, every heterosexual woman's been there.
Speaker 1: We all know what this is like. Save the constructive
Speaker 1: conversation for later. It's my old last relationship when you're
Speaker 1: both open to listening instead of.
Speaker 6: In the middle of it.
Speaker 3: I already don't like him. My god, make sure he's
Speaker 3: lost cranky yep, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: This is not the time to say, well, let me
Speaker 1: tell you about all my issues with you. Everybody gets
Speaker 1: that wrong, Reel said, put objective reality aside.
Speaker 3: Seems like we're putting all reality aside this article.
Speaker 1: If you want to get married, put all reality aside. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Enter into your partner's subject subjective experience with compassion and curiosity.
Speaker 1: Say I'm sorry you feel that. Is there anything I
Speaker 1: could say or do that would help you feel better?
Speaker 3: So now I got to tell you how to make
Speaker 3: me feel better. It's so annoying. I just want you
Speaker 3: to do something that's helpful. Boy boy boy, I hate
Speaker 3: if my partner asked me that. Yeah, real said.
Speaker 1: It can be a tough pill to swallow, especially when
Speaker 1: you think your partner is in the wrong, but helping
Speaker 1: your partner get to an emotionally better place is the
Speaker 1: best way to protect the ecosystem.
Speaker 3: See, yeah, a fundamental level.
Speaker 1: Because I've had so many partners who are are in
Speaker 1: a bad mood because they are fucking in another realm
Speaker 1: and not in the cool spiritual way, in a way
Speaker 1: where they think they are much like more talented than
Speaker 1: they are, that they are much harder worker than they are.
Speaker 1: And listen, I'm not saying my approach where I tell them,
Speaker 1: where I ask them questions like what makes you think
Speaker 1: you deserve that what the amount of work you've done
Speaker 1: is a good way.
Speaker 3: I might want to be a little more gentile.
Speaker 1: I don't think that was good, But I certainly don't
Speaker 1: think like contributing to their fantastical view of themselves and
Speaker 1: the world in which they're not really participating is helpful. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's called enabling them your less reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's like how like so many people
Speaker 1: see that as a good wife, one who just like
Speaker 1: cause plays the world that you have created for yourself
Speaker 1: where you're really talented, oh god, like or you're fucking
Speaker 1: killing it, or you've put in, you know, twenty years
Speaker 1: of work towards stand up comedy or whatever you're pursuing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when you haven't, which is also a slap in
Speaker 1: the face to me who has is in the same industry.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of a
Speaker 1: lot of men that I've know all throughout my child
Speaker 1: like just men, like family friend men and that whole
Speaker 1: happy I've always heard the phrase happy wife, happy life,
Speaker 1: and I always knew that was fucked up.
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, because the.
Speaker 1: Guys that eyewitness personally say that were miserable and their wives,
Speaker 1: some of their wives were just just they were so
Speaker 1: miserable and they like got off on making their husband
Speaker 1: miserable or something about that, and like all the poor
Speaker 1: husband was just going on trying to make sure the
Speaker 1: wife was okay so that he could have a kind
Speaker 1: of good.
Speaker 3: Time, which in reality was probably a terrible time.
Speaker 1: He would have been way happier single, And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we got to undo these tropes well. And also when
Speaker 1: it's happy wife, Happy Life, that's me saying you're just
Speaker 1: doing anything to appease your way you none of your yeah,
Speaker 1: none of your real feelings or needs are being expressed
Speaker 1: in their relationship. I also always had a problem with
Speaker 1: happy wife, Happy Life. I remember so bad growing up.
Speaker 1: My neighbor across the street kind of said that. I
Speaker 1: don't think he said it to me. I think again,
Speaker 1: I heard the adults talking, because I always used to be.
Speaker 3: Like, what's going on up there? Yes, way more interesting.
Speaker 1: And and I just remember thinking to myself as like,
Speaker 1: I don't know a nine year old, is this.
Speaker 3: What's going on in that house for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: My dad certainly never said anything like that, nor did
Speaker 1: my mom. Real cautions that this advice is helpful for
Speaker 1: managing the normal arguments and disruptions that occur in every
Speaker 1: relationship is that it does not apply to abusive situations
Speaker 1: well thank god, or relationships in which there is a
Speaker 1: power imbalance, major psychiatric disorder. Okay, well, I think I've
Speaker 1: had that, addiction or another issue that may require putting
Speaker 1: your own safety first and seeking professional help learn how
Speaker 1: to repair real said successful couples learn how to talk
Speaker 1: to each other during and after conflict. Instead of saying,
Speaker 1: don't talk to me like that, real suggests something closer
Speaker 1: to I want to hear what you have to say,
Speaker 1: So could you speak to me differently so I can
Speaker 1: hear it? Can you imagine trying but can you imagine
Speaker 1: trying to screen that I hear you have to say?
Speaker 1: But if you could speak to me a little bit
Speaker 1: different of a tone so I could process.
Speaker 3: It and not get triggered.
Speaker 1: Right, thank you very much. Yeah, sometimes it's just word economy.
Speaker 1: Don't talk to me like that is so much better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've said that before. I said the other day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I said, don't tell me what to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I want to rage out on this car, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me be an idiot.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, I got it.
Speaker 3: I mean I guess I guess you could.
Speaker 1: Like I I've definitely said to someone like when they're
Speaker 1: like screaming or having like some kind of a meltdown,
Speaker 1: I've been like I've said, like, I'm on your side.
Speaker 1: Oh that's nice. That's a nice thing to say, because
Speaker 1: I don't melt them honestly. Pretty quick, like this was
Speaker 1: happening to me, like not that long ago, Like someone
Speaker 1: call and they were like having like just like a
Speaker 1: big and I was just like like I was like,
Speaker 1: you call me because I'm on your side, Like I'm
Speaker 1: on your side.
Speaker 3: And that's a reminder, like that's why you called me.
Speaker 3: You know that, right?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I want both partners like in life, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: on your I'm on your side in life. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean just because someone's on your side in life doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they're going to agree with every ridiculous choice
Speaker 1: that you make or thing that you do. And like,
Speaker 1: I mean, if that's kind of love that you want,
Speaker 1: and I mean that's depends, don't come to Corona. I
Speaker 1: think we all learned that over the past ten years.
Speaker 3: I want both partners.
Speaker 2: Where we got everything and everything.
Speaker 3: You want here at the Guys we market. He a little
Speaker 3: bit of this, a little bit.
Speaker 1: I want both partners to be fully voiced, but you
Speaker 1: have to do it skillfully, he said. People have to
Speaker 1: learn to speak up for themselves and be loving at
Speaker 1: the same time.
Speaker 3: Nobody knows how to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it says discover real intimacy, real set like
Speaker 1: with all this talking, I just don't know how they're
Speaker 1: still fucking.
Speaker 3: And that's like the main thing I'm grappling with in this.
Speaker 1: I just don't know, Like, oh, Okaytie, I have time
Speaker 1: to fuck, not even time.
Speaker 3: How do you have the want to?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're mostly depleted I imagine by all these conversations,
Speaker 1: right yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh man, sometimes you just gotta shut up and fuck.
Speaker 1: Real said, we all long for a perfect relationship, but
Speaker 1: real intimacy actually happens when it's like she went out
Speaker 1: of her.
Speaker 3: She's the word real. I'm just go woman of this. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she went out of.
Speaker 1: Her way to use real, and like I don't know media,
Speaker 1: like there's no accent mark because I'm like, maybe the
Speaker 1: last thing is like real, but there's no accent market.
Speaker 1: Just I don't see any other way that you can
Speaker 1: pronounce it other than real anyway. So Real said, we
Speaker 1: all long for a perfect relationship, but real intimacy actually
Speaker 1: happens when we learn to accept the imperfections of our partner.
Speaker 1: That's the character of couplehood, he said. You're clear about
Speaker 1: your partner's imperfections, and you feel the pain and frustration
Speaker 1: of it, but you choose to lose Sorry, that was Freudian.
Speaker 1: You choose to divorce them, I mean, Mary.
Speaker 3: But you choose to lose them anyway.
Speaker 1: But the line in the article says, but you choose
Speaker 1: to love them anyway.
Speaker 3: That's matua love, that's mature love. Guys. Yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 3: You know some of the parts I don't disagree with,
Speaker 3: right then, No, I okay, So I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1: You're clear on your partner's imperfections and you feel the
Speaker 1: pain and frustration of it, but you choose to love
Speaker 1: them anyway. I agree with that. It's not I wouldn't
Speaker 1: even have put the anyway in there. That anyway is
Speaker 1: kind of cunty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know. Yeah, and and not you know,
Speaker 3: love them any like? You love them.
Speaker 1: Despite all those So I said earlier with my last relationship,
Speaker 1: like I left because I hated him.
Speaker 3: I did, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I do want to be clear, because I do want
Speaker 1: to be more considerate with my words.
Speaker 3: I never hated them, But.
Speaker 1: I when I, when I like, did all the things,
Speaker 1: like most of the things that this author is talking
Speaker 1: about in the article, I found myself having to do
Speaker 1: those things, and I was like, this isn't the relationship
Speaker 1: I want at all.
Speaker 3: This person isn't good for me. This is we're not
Speaker 3: a matching, We're not compatible.
Speaker 1: We're not a matching where we were a match for
Speaker 1: a long time and now we're not a match and
Speaker 1: that's okay.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but I I I do agree.
Speaker 1: Like I'm trying to think about imperfect like you're accepting
Speaker 1: your partners imperfections and like loving them despite of it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what is an imperfection that's so bad like
Speaker 3: that you can't.
Speaker 1: Well? I mean, but also it's in the work in
Speaker 1: the course of our lifetime. We're not going to fix
Speaker 1: all the imperfections that we have.
Speaker 3: No, it's true, and I got it. Yeah, And I.
Speaker 1: Think some imperfections in our partners are ones that bother
Speaker 1: us as the partner more than they bother the person themselves.
Speaker 1: And it's I think it's it's I mean, it's really
Speaker 1: loving to try and work on something about yourself that
Speaker 1: like really doesn't bother you at all and bother someone else.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but if someone if someone expressed that too.
Speaker 1: I feel like if it was like the way I
Speaker 1: did something, even if it was not sexual, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: all right, if that bugs you, I don't really care
Speaker 1: about it, like i'dly see it, but like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there is a I don't know.
Speaker 3: This is a really good conversation that we have. I'm
Speaker 3: excited for. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the author is great And yeah, I just thought
Speaker 1: this was because I could tell that the woman that
Speaker 1: we interviewed today from how she wrote about this article,
Speaker 1: this article really really bothered her. Yeah, and I can
Speaker 1: see I can see why, you know, and you're about
Speaker 1: to see why when you your help gloriously joyful as
Speaker 1: person is. Okay, So, she has a PhD from Harvard University.
Speaker 1: She's the author of Single at Heart, The Power of
Speaker 1: Freedom and heartfeeling Joy of Single Life. Her ted talk
Speaker 1: What No One Ever Told You About People who Are
Speaker 1: Single has been viewed almost two million times, and The
Speaker 1: Atlantic calls this woman America's foremost thinker and writer on
Speaker 1: the single experience.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to guys. We fucked doctor
Speaker 3: Bella de pollo.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, we are here with doctor Bella de' pallo.
Speaker 1: You are the author of Single at Heart, The Power
Speaker 1: Freedom and heart filling Joy of Single Life, and I
Speaker 1: must say you're the happiest person i've talked to in
Speaker 1: about a year, Like, yeah, we've only talked for about
Speaker 1: one minute.
Speaker 3: So, yes, you are radiating joy.
Speaker 7: Yes, thank you. I do love being single. It makes
Speaker 7: me very happy. Yeah, we can tell this is incredible.
Speaker 3: You're going to change a lot of lives with this interview, Bella.
Speaker 2: I hope, so, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yes, I guess let's start like, when did you first
Speaker 1: learn that you were a person who is single at heart?
Speaker 3: How did you have that realization? No, for the.
Speaker 2: Longest time, I thought that maybe things would change, So
Speaker 2: I always liked being single. I never wanted to, you know,
Speaker 2: be married. I never looked longingly at other people who
Speaker 2: were coupled, but it seemed like so much a part
Speaker 2: of our expectations that everybody eventually wants to get married
Speaker 2: or get coupled at least, So for a long time,
Speaker 2: I just thought, well, being married is like getting bitten
Speaker 2: by a bunk, and I haven't gotten bitten yet. And
Speaker 2: I don't know when I realized that, no, that's never
Speaker 2: gonna happen. I'm always gonna love being single. I think
Speaker 2: it was probably sometime in my thirties. It wasn't like
Speaker 2: one a moment, but it was a gradual realization and
Speaker 2: what I didn't know for sure this is who I am.
Speaker 2: It was wonderful because then I got to fully invest
Speaker 2: in my in my single life. You know, I wasn't thinking, well,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe some guy will come along and then
Speaker 2: I want to live with someone, with anyone. I love
Speaker 2: living alone. It's such a joy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like no.
Speaker 1: And when you had this realization that was not you know,
Speaker 1: as you said, one aha moment, but kind of it
Speaker 1: happened in your thirties. Was it like realizing you're gay
Speaker 1: and like, did you have to come out to your family?
Speaker 2: Well? No, I never did, And in fact, you know,
Speaker 2: the idea of being single at heart is something that
Speaker 2: I came up with a few decades ago. So when
Speaker 2: I was first coming to realize that single is who
Speaker 2: I really am, I didn't know there was such a
Speaker 2: thing as being single and happy and wanting to stay single.
Speaker 2: So there was no coming out in the sense that
Speaker 2: there wasn't a category, a known category that I fit into.
Speaker 2: But I think I at least I hoped that people
Speaker 2: realized who I was, because I never you know, swooned
Speaker 2: about some cute guy I saw or you know, said
Speaker 2: that I felt badly because I didn't have anyone, which
Speaker 2: is so so I think that it should have been
Speaker 2: evident to the people around me that I wasn't interested
Speaker 2: in this dating game.
Speaker 1: And now and like leading up to this, had you
Speaker 1: what was the longest romantic relationship that you had been
Speaker 1: a part of.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, probably months, definitely not years. Interesting
Speaker 2: and yeah, and you know it was fine. I have
Speaker 2: no dating chre stories. When I think back to the
Speaker 2: guys I dated, and there weren't that many. We think
Speaker 2: about them fondly. But what was really my most positiveness
Speaker 2: pay from those times is how I felt when the
Speaker 2: relationship ended.
Speaker 3: You felt so good, right, I mean I even go.
Speaker 2: Back to my single life. That's what I loved, what
Speaker 2: I felt comfortable, And yeah, yeah I was.
Speaker 1: There was an article that I was reading from Time
Speaker 1: magazine was called nine ways being single can improve your life,
Speaker 1: and one of one of the points was that your
Speaker 1: mind is uncluttered, and it called being in a relationship
Speaker 1: mentally expensive.
Speaker 3: And I couldn't agree more with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you had to, even if you lovingly every time,
Speaker 1: Like a small example is I want to eat dinner,
Speaker 1: I live with my partner, I got to ask what
Speaker 1: he asked, like, what are we doing for dinner?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You break that, you break up and then you just
Speaker 1: eat dinner whenever you want.
Speaker 3: You're like, right, it's like there's day off. You're like, oh,
Speaker 3: we could do whatever we watched.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's about really big things too. So for example,
Speaker 2: in the year two thousand, I had a possibility of
Speaker 2: a sabbath go out here in California. I was at
Speaker 2: the University of Virginia in Charlotte of Virginia at the time,
Speaker 2: and so it was supposed to be for one year,
Speaker 2: but I just loved it out there, and so I
Speaker 2: just stayed. So I went from one coast to the other.
Speaker 2: I had a tenured job which I gave up. I
Speaker 2: had a whole you know, friends and family that I
Speaker 2: had built up this circle there, and I just said,
Speaker 2: this is what I love. And there was no negotiating
Speaker 2: with a partner or feeling guilty about wanting to do
Speaker 2: something if a partner didn't want to do it. And
Speaker 2: it was like the ultimate freedom to pursue my best life,
Speaker 2: my most meaningful and fulfilling life, which is out here
Speaker 2: in sunny California, which I absolutely loved.
Speaker 3: Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also think that speaks to something you have, you know,
Speaker 1: have talked about over the years, like where you have
Speaker 1: more room to grow mentally, like you have that, and
Speaker 1: I even feel that, so like you know, being you know,
Speaker 1: I've had boyfriends and stuff for longer periods of time,
Speaker 1: but I've never been married. And I'm thirty eight now,
Speaker 1: and I sit and think a lot about how had
Speaker 1: I gotten married to that boyfriend ten years ago or
Speaker 1: five years ago, Like, I just don't think I would
Speaker 1: have experienced the growth, realization, the aha moments that I
Speaker 1: have in the past five ten years.
Speaker 3: And so my question is, like, do you think those.
Speaker 1: Things can't happen, They just are happening at a way
Speaker 1: slower pace.
Speaker 3: How much slower is that pace in your opinion, pace of.
Speaker 1: The of the change, like of the developments that you
Speaker 1: go through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean sure.
Speaker 2: I mean people who are coupled are married can experience
Speaker 2: personal growth, but I think those single people are especially
Speaker 2: likely to do so, especially if they're single at heart
Speaker 2: and they embrace their single lives and they invest in
Speaker 2: them because they have, you know, constrained by opportunities and
Speaker 2: resources and so forth. Single people have more freedom than
Speaker 2: a couple people do, and so they get to create
Speaker 2: a life that is most authentic, most consistent with who
Speaker 2: they really are. And that is an opportunity for personal girls.
Speaker 2: And so is something else that defies all our stereotypes
Speaker 2: of what it means to be single. So people use
Speaker 2: the word alone. There's a synonym for single, like, oh,
Speaker 2: poor things, she's alone. Well, in fact, national surveys show
Speaker 2: that single people, on average are more connected to more
Speaker 2: different people. And other studies that follow people over the
Speaker 2: course of their lives as they go from being single
Speaker 2: to a couple too, moving in together, to getting married. Well,
Speaker 2: as those couples move in together or get married, they
Speaker 2: become more insular. So they see their friends, but they
Speaker 2: contact their parents less often. It's like they have their
Speaker 2: own little world. So who's really low?
Speaker 3: Yeah, very good points. Oh I love that.
Speaker 1: And you talk a lot about the story that we've
Speaker 1: been sold, and it's mostly women. Women have been sold
Speaker 1: the story that marriage will buia us happiness. I think
Speaker 1: that a married man, I would guess that a married man,
Speaker 1: actually a married straight man, I should specify, is happier
Speaker 1: married because they have somebody to listen to all their shit.
Speaker 3: Whoops, something fell. That was probably a man that was
Speaker 3: realizing I was right, but like with women.
Speaker 1: And so I think of when I was watching her
Speaker 1: Ted Talk and I was just thinking about how I
Speaker 1: grew up obsessed with Disney movies nineties. Disney movies always
Speaker 1: focused on the princess who was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: the thing with the prince and really sold this narrative
Speaker 1: from a young age with our pop culture that we're
Speaker 1: taking in and then you know when we're playing pretend
Speaker 1: as a little girl with the babies and getting married
Speaker 1: and all this stuff.
Speaker 3: So how you undo that conditioning for yourself?
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like you had to do that for
Speaker 1: you because you were just We unfortunately live in a
Speaker 1: society where it's very brave to be yourself, especially when
Speaker 1: yourself is the green.
Speaker 3: But what would you say.
Speaker 1: To people that are kind of scared but they know
Speaker 1: in their hearts that maybe single is definitely a way
Speaker 1: better life choice for them, but they're scared because they're
Speaker 1: too wrapped up in what everybody else thinks.
Speaker 2: I find your people. So in twenty fifteen, I started
Speaker 2: this online Facebook group called the Community of Single People,
Speaker 2: and it's mostly for single people who like being single.
Speaker 2: So we talk about everything except what other people think
Speaker 2: singles are obsessed with, but just dating or trying to
Speaker 2: find a way to unsingle yourself, we don't talk about
Speaker 2: any of that, but we talk about, you know, the
Speaker 2: joys and the challenges and our achievements and post pictures
Speaker 2: of where we've been and it's and so I finding
Speaker 2: other people who see the world the way you do
Speaker 2: is important. And of course I would be remiss in
Speaker 2: my love of my own book Single Heart if I
Speaker 2: didn't say read that, because I think if you read
Speaker 2: Single Heart, the power, freedom and heart feeling joy of
Speaker 2: single life, you will get a lot of reassurance. And
Speaker 2: this is this is really important that people understand what
Speaker 2: I did not understand when I was young, that there
Speaker 2: is a thing called being happily single, wanting to stay single,
Speaker 2: and even more than that, being happy because you are
Speaker 2: single and not in spite of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Right, that's a very important point.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there's like a big part of me and
Speaker 1: kind of probably what helped me find you or what
Speaker 1: serendipitous thing has happened that I found you online, is
Speaker 1: because like there is a big part of me that
Speaker 1: thinks I am single at heart.
Speaker 3: But the main problem for me.
Speaker 1: Bella, is I love sex and I like to have
Speaker 1: a lot of sex. So, quite honestly, like, how have
Speaker 1: you tackled that? Or what is your relationship with sex?
Speaker 1: And how has that?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, how have you gotten throughout your life without I'm
Speaker 1: feeling like a constantly challenge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let me tell you about some of the
Speaker 2: single hard people I interviewed and how they how they
Speaker 2: get sex and their life. So Alyssa, who's twenty seven,
Speaker 2: told me she'd love sex, she loves emotional closeness, but
Speaker 2: she doesn't want to what we call ride the relationship
Speaker 2: escalator or you keep going up. You know. You know
Speaker 2: now we're dating. Now we're dating steadily if people even
Speaker 2: use that term anymore. Now we're moving in together, we're
Speaker 2: merging our finances. She doesn't want to do that. She
Speaker 2: lets her partners know right from the beginning. Evan who's forty,
Speaker 2: is the same way. He's gay and he likes going
Speaker 2: on dates. He likes meeting new people, but he tells
Speaker 2: them right from the beginning, you know this is he's
Speaker 2: not looking for along a committed long term relationship. Jessica,
Speaker 2: who's thirty eight, calls herself sexually open minded, and she
Speaker 2: likes to engage in sexual practices that other people might
Speaker 2: look down on, and she feels very happy to be
Speaker 2: single because she can pursue what she likes without the
Speaker 2: judgment of a partner who might not like that. Another person,
Speaker 2: Andrea called me that she's twenty nine, that she actually loves.
Speaker 2: When she was in college, she liked a hookup thing
Speaker 2: because it allowed her to compartmentalize. So she said she
Speaker 2: would spend time with guys and they might even have
Speaker 2: very intimate conversations, but then it was over and she
Speaker 2: got to go back to the other parts of her
Speaker 2: life that she loved, like her classes and her interests
Speaker 2: in her friends. And so I think in lots of
Speaker 2: ways it's actually it works out well.
Speaker 3: It depends on your personal preference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And of course people some people just aren't interested,
Speaker 2: so that's another thing too. And if you're not interested,
Speaker 2: it's much easier to be single because you don't have anyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, being like a very sexual person is exhausting, is
Speaker 1: time consuming, and.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of work to like constantly be kind
Speaker 1: of taking your care of Vera in that way also too,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the people that I know in long
Speaker 1: term relationships or marriage that are the happiest, And it's
Speaker 1: the marriages or relationships that have the most autonomy in them,
Speaker 1: where they have separate bedrooms, separate home, separate thing where
Speaker 1: they live on other Like I know one couple who's married.
Speaker 1: They live on opposite coasts and they see each other
Speaker 1: for like six months out of the year, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's weird.
Speaker 3: And then when you see each other, you're so.
Speaker 1: Excited, But then the rest of the year you have
Speaker 1: you're kind of like single. So it's like interesting and
Speaker 1: the happiest relationships that I know, there's some level of
Speaker 1: in the relationship that there makes them more autonomous than
Speaker 1: the typical Mary couple.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you know, I've had people who are coupled
Speaker 2: even married tell them insist that they're single at heart,
Speaker 2: and I have a little skeptical at first. Well, I
Speaker 2: did believe there would be people who are single at
Speaker 2: heart and married and stay married because they want to
Speaker 2: honor their wiles, but they really, you know, they would
Speaker 2: have been better off single. But other people who were
Speaker 2: coupled or even Mary told me, no, I am single
Speaker 2: at heart. And when I looked more closely at their lives,
Speaker 2: it was just like what you described. They have a
Speaker 2: lot of they a lot of independence. They're not these
Speaker 2: enmessed couples. Instead, they have their own space physically, they
Speaker 2: have their own emotional space. They give each other freedom to,
Speaker 2: you know, spend time with their friends separately from their partners.
Speaker 2: So they really are kind of you know, they persuaded me.
Speaker 2: I mean, they don't score as high in the Single
Speaker 2: at Heart Quiz as people who are single, but they're yeah,
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 3: What are what are some questions from the Single at
Speaker 3: Heart Quiz?
Speaker 1: Could you or because my next question is going to
Speaker 1: be like, how do you how do you figure out
Speaker 1: if you are truly single at heart?
Speaker 3: And that's not just a story you're telling yourself. You're like, no, guys,
Speaker 3: I don't know that, sure, right.
Speaker 2: Right? I think so this is actually one of the
Speaker 2: most important ones. And it's like, when you think about
Speaker 2: spending time alone, what thought comes to mind first? Is it, ah,
Speaker 2: sweet solitude or oh no, I might be lonely? Well,
Speaker 2: the single at Heart Almost every single one of them
Speaker 2: says sweet solitude and if you are a person who
Speaker 2: loves your solitude, you know that alone doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: you're single at heart. But it's a good it's a
Speaker 2: good first step. That's like a superpower because if you
Speaker 2: can be by yourself and find that time relaxing or
Speaker 2: rejuvenating or good for your mental health or your or
Speaker 2: your thoughts of your creativity or your spirituality, wow, you
Speaker 2: are largely protected from feeling lonely. So it's just the
Speaker 2: opposite of what people think it's like for people who
Speaker 2: are single. So if you are single at heart, you're
Speaker 2: not going to be the stereotypical lonely person. And as
Speaker 2: you get older, you're not gonna be the caricature of
Speaker 2: a single person who's isolated and lonely. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: seventy years old now, I'm not isolated and lonely at all.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're both single at Hardcren. Yeah, was
Speaker 1: that that when the pandemic happened? And I don't think
Speaker 1: you didn't have a boyfriend either, did you?
Speaker 3: I was single.
Speaker 1: I was seeing a guy a little bit in the beginning,
Speaker 1: but we broke up quickly and he was like living
Speaker 1: in Denver.
Speaker 3: Right, Bella. It was blissful.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Every day, I was so excited to wake up and go,
Speaker 1: what am I I'm gonna do a craft today? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll got worry by I'll got worry about no man
Speaker 1: being like you're doing a craft for a five year old?
Speaker 3: Fuck you, Yes, I am.
Speaker 1: And I like I have like a zany, wacky, like
Speaker 1: childlike kind of sense of wonderment and just to not
Speaker 1: have anybody comment on how you do things, which is
Speaker 1: the no matter how perfect your partner is, they're gonna
Speaker 1: give some type of commentary, even if.
Speaker 3: It's a look.
Speaker 1: To not have that is so beautiful and important, right Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean even yesterday, like I ate for dinner.
Speaker 1: I chose to ate to eat a bag of like
Speaker 1: cheese mixed mun cheese, which is when they put Doritos
Speaker 1: and cheesy son chips and pretzels in a bag, and
Speaker 1: I eat the whole thing bal and it was like
Speaker 1: twelve hundred calories and that was my dinner. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I was just thinking of like the nasty
Speaker 1: judgment that a boyfriend would have had if I was
Speaker 1: doing that in front of me, and all of me
Speaker 1: and my dog did it together. And I gave him
Speaker 1: some of the chips and we had a night and
Speaker 1: I feel, you know what, I feel fantastic. My stomach
Speaker 1: doesn't hurt at all.
Speaker 2: I felt great, good for real. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also, it is such a joy. It's such a joy
Speaker 3: realizing too.
Speaker 1: We had a discussion on the podcast a couple months
Speaker 1: ago about unconditional love, and I think that romantic love
Speaker 1: is perhaps the most conditional love that there is, and
Speaker 1: that is not good for your soul to experience conditional love.
Speaker 3: Like so, if you're married from age nineteen to.
Speaker 1: Eighty, and that's especially I'm imagining if you're married from
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty you probably were born in a decade where
Speaker 1: that happened often. But like, my God, to have like
Speaker 1: that much, that much love in your life, that is that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is conditional, it's got to be not me that.
Speaker 2: But it's also in a way restricting because you feel
Speaker 2: less free to develop intimacy in your other relationships. And
Speaker 2: I don't mean necessarily sexual intimacy, but you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: if you wanted to spend a lot of time with
Speaker 2: a particular friend or several friends or dear relatives, now
Speaker 2: there's the risk that you're partner would feel like that
Speaker 2: time belonged to them.
Speaker 1: The possessiveness of partnership is yeavery interesting. Well, that's an
Speaker 1: interesting point because the reason I broke up with my
Speaker 1: last boyfriend was because we started dating a couple months
Speaker 1: after my father had passed away, and he was significantly
Speaker 1: younger than me, so that also played into it.
Speaker 3: But he just like I could tell that, like.
Speaker 1: I wasn't being a girlfriend enough to him and it
Speaker 1: was hurting him and I but I honestly just didn't
Speaker 1: have the capacity to deal with that on top of
Speaker 1: the grief of losing my father, because it's like I
Speaker 1: love that guy, the boyfriend, very much, but no offense,
Speaker 1: like I love my dad more obviously.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I mean for things like that in your life,
Speaker 1: like you know, the sadder milestones, how how have you
Speaker 1: how how has how has that been without a partner?
Speaker 1: And how did your friends or your other people in
Speaker 1: your life help you through things like that?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I can tell you about when my father died.
Speaker 2: I was in Virginia. He and my mother were in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: so hundreds of miles away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: My mother, oh, two of my friends before she called
Speaker 2: to tell me because she thought I would want to
Speaker 2: have someone there with me when I heard the news,
Speaker 2: And that was thoughtful of her, But it was exactly wrong.
Speaker 2: When I hear important news, and that even includes good news,
Speaker 2: I like to process it myself.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, me too.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's different, you process it differently, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: And then afterwards I was very very much comforted and
Speaker 2: appreciated and welcomed the support of my friends and relatives.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was something quirky about me. But
Speaker 2: Carol Kan did this dissertation where she interviewed fourteen women
Speaker 2: who had who had been single for a long time
Speaker 2: and asked them what they like to do when they
Speaker 2: first heard something important, and eight of them said the
Speaker 2: same thing. They want to process it on their own.
Speaker 1: Well, and I can't imagine that another person being in
Speaker 1: the room when you get important information, good or bad.
Speaker 1: Like you said, it's almost impossible to not be affected
Speaker 1: by their energy in terms, and I can't imagine that
Speaker 1: doesn't affect your processing, because, like one of my greatest
Speaker 1: things about being in a relationship versus being single, a
Speaker 1: lot of times, no matter how great the boyfriend is,
Speaker 1: I have to be the only person in my entire
Speaker 1: apartment for at least one day out of the week,
Speaker 1: and if not, I'll go Absolutely. You could be in
Speaker 1: the room and I'll never see you, but I know
Speaker 1: you're there and your energy and I can't.
Speaker 3: So so with that in mind, like the.
Speaker 2: Greek a piece of your mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, without trying, probably without even trying, without trying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, sure, of course, it doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: conscious at all. It's just you know they're there. And
Speaker 2: you know what I love about you telling me that story,
Speaker 2: And I've heard things like that from so many other people.
Speaker 2: Is it counters this insistence that if you are alone,
Speaker 2: you know, spending time alone, there's something wrong with you,
Speaker 2: Like you're some loner that's going to go shoot up
Speaker 2: a school right now. No.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's a difference.
Speaker 2: Between being alone because you want to be and you
Speaker 2: enjoy that time and it makes you feel rejuvenated and
Speaker 2: happy and healthy, as opposed to your alone because everybody
Speaker 2: rejected you. I mean, that's that's a whole different story.
Speaker 1: I think there's more people in the world that are
Speaker 1: married because they felt pressure too, like and there's I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be married. So married is the most lonely feeling
Speaker 1: in the world. Being with somebody you don't actually do with.
Speaker 3: But I think that, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: Like I think we do conflate these two types of
Speaker 1: a loaneless like we conflate people who have chosen to
Speaker 1: be alone and people who, as you say, the world
Speaker 1: has rejected. And unfortunately, the people who who the world
Speaker 1: has rejected are our louder group of people, because they
Speaker 1: are the ones who go and shoot up a school
Speaker 1: and so and so. Then we associate as a society
Speaker 1: being alone is a bad thing. But like, one of
Speaker 1: the first thoughts I had when my dad died was
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I'm not married, so I don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with a husband on top of this shit
Speaker 1: and his family.
Speaker 3: He's got a whole ass family.
Speaker 1: I was so And now you know, it's we're at
Speaker 1: the time where more people's parents are dying as we
Speaker 1: get into, you know, approach our forties. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: see my friends who have to like navigate having a
Speaker 1: partner and also going through the death of parent. I
Speaker 1: actually know a couple who basically got divorced because her
Speaker 1: father died, and like I could just tell from having
Speaker 1: been through it myself, the husband, the husband was not
Speaker 1: doing a good job of supporting, and she was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be honest anymore. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of our a lot of people in maybe America
Speaker 1: especially are kind of emotionally they're not attuned to their
Speaker 1: own emotions as much like their emotional intelligence is not
Speaker 1: because we don't encourage it in school. We don't encourage
Speaker 1: it like where I think we're just starting to encourage
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence and introspection, like in a much bigger way.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's almost impossible to get if you're being
Speaker 1: with somebody for so long.
Speaker 3: It's like, what are your own thoughts? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Another thing about the death of father. Carla one
Speaker 2: of the people who one of the single at Hard
Speaker 2: people in my Single at Heart but told me that
Speaker 2: when her father was dying and she was very close
Speaker 2: to him, she felt so relieved not to have a
Speaker 2: romantic partner because she wanted to spend as much time
Speaker 2: with him as possible, and that would have been harder
Speaker 2: thing to do if she were partnering.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Do you think we'll start having movies soon, maybe in
Speaker 1: our lifetime for kids, like Disney movies where they're just
Speaker 1: celebrating a person man or a woman or in between.
Speaker 3: Who's just happy being alone?
Speaker 2: Yeah? A while back, there's a movie called Braige. Oh yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: she was great Mara maybe with her name.
Speaker 1: Oh, she's alone Okay, I didn't see it though. It's
Speaker 1: the curly Redhead Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: But you know it's about a little girl. We need
Speaker 2: grown ups to want to be saying on, stay sing
Speaker 2: on and love it. And it's just appalling. Oh, that's
Speaker 2: just not out there. And it's especially appalling because there
Speaker 2: are so many people who would relate to that. And
Speaker 2: you know, there have been hints that people who write
Speaker 2: movies and come up with ideas for TV shows should
Speaker 2: have taken A long time ago. Sex and the City
Speaker 2: had this scene that was so popular. It was when
Speaker 2: the four women were at a wedding at the bouquet
Speaker 2: toss and the flowers come toward them and it's right
Speaker 2: toward them, and they all stand there and let it
Speaker 2: drop in front of them, and then they look at
Speaker 2: each other and they make plans for where they're going next.
Speaker 2: And you know, why didn't people tune in the creative community,
Speaker 2: Why didn't they tune into that and realize there's something there,
Speaker 2: There's something appealing about literally turning your back on the
Speaker 2: whole fantasy land of marriage.
Speaker 1: And on that same note, it's so unappealing to hear
Speaker 1: female characters because most of that show was them kind
Speaker 1: of bitching about the men in their lives and not
Speaker 1: really doing a lot about it. And so like a
Speaker 1: moment like that, you feel like different cellularly taking that
Speaker 1: in in a in artistic house, and then it's just
Speaker 1: like this whole trope of there. I was thinking a
Speaker 1: lot when I was reading. I was skimming over your
Speaker 1: book about how many people are in marriages and they
Speaker 1: don't like their husband or wife. I'm like, why, And
Speaker 1: I'm realizing now as we're talking to you, why we
Speaker 1: give we we're so quick. People write us emails all
Speaker 1: the time. We're so quick to tell them to break up.
Speaker 1: But it's because but it's because, like maybe it because
Speaker 1: we're both single at heart, because we know how precious
Speaker 1: and amazing your alone time is.
Speaker 3: Blissful. It's blissful.
Speaker 1: And I have a boyfriend that I love so much,
Speaker 1: but I will never not love my lifetime like that
Speaker 1: will stay with me through rest of my life.
Speaker 3: And he's a lot older than me, so technically is
Speaker 3: probably gonna die before me.
Speaker 1: And when I think about that, I'm like, all right, cool,
Speaker 1: I'll do the last couple decades solo.
Speaker 3: That's fine.
Speaker 2: And well, you know, one of the reasons I'm so
Speaker 2: passionate about this and I want to, you know, get
Speaker 2: my book out there and my message out there is
Speaker 2: because if you are single at heart and you marry
Speaker 2: because you think it's what you should do, and the
Speaker 2: other person you marry is not single at heart, that's
Speaker 2: not fair to them.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: You It's like, you know what people say, and it's
Speaker 2: mocked for being you know, just a thing they say
Speaker 2: when a relationship ends, it's not you, it's me. Well,
Speaker 2: when the person is single and heart.
Speaker 3: That's actually true.
Speaker 2: Relationship ends, it's not it's often not the partner's fault.
Speaker 2: It's not it's about the person. It's single hard, and
Speaker 2: it's never gonna work. You know. One thing that convinced
Speaker 2: me most powerfully that this is really a thing is
Speaker 2: when I heard from people who found the one people
Speaker 2: they loved, who loved them, who were willing to do
Speaker 2: anything for them, and yet it's just didn't want to
Speaker 2: be coupled. Interesting and yeah, because otherwise people say, oh,
Speaker 2: you just haven't found the right person. You're fooling yourself.
Speaker 2: Blah blah, blah blah blah. You know, the way they
Speaker 2: dismiss single people's emotions and feelings, the way they never
Speaker 2: dismiss the married persons. I mean, nobody would say to
Speaker 2: a married person, oh, you just think you're happy, Yeah,
Speaker 2: fooling yourself?
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, well so deeply Ingreid even the way that
Speaker 1: we like barely like, I don't know if we ever
Speaker 1: or it's very rarely that we elect a president who
Speaker 1: is unmarried, have we ever, because we just don't there's
Speaker 1: something in our society that we go, oh, something must
Speaker 1: be wrong with that person. When I think, like, well,
Speaker 1: if the person's unmarried, well then they've had their whole
Speaker 1: life to devote to the pursuit of social justice and
Speaker 1: politics and causes, and probably would be more well suited
Speaker 1: to be residents.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in fact, there's there's a lot of research
Speaker 2: showing that single people are in many ways more giving
Speaker 2: and caring and and aunctruistic than people who aren't. And
Speaker 2: you can see that also. Of course I'm focused on
Speaker 2: the single couple thing, but also kids, no kids. I
Speaker 2: think that a president who had no kids is more
Speaker 2: likely to care about all the kids and in the
Speaker 2: country and not just their kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1: True, Yeah, because it's it's so often, especially women, childless
Speaker 1: unmarried women are so often called uh selfish. And as
Speaker 1: I see more and more of my friends getting married,
Speaker 1: I actually I agree with your point entirely, where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they care more about their kids. They don't care about,
Speaker 1: as you said, all the kids. And it's not like
Speaker 1: pointing a finger like oh one is better, you know
Speaker 1: than the other, or like married people are selfish. So
Speaker 1: that's not I'm not trying to flip it and say
Speaker 1: that they are selfish, but I do think they're it's
Speaker 1: it's misadvertised when you say, oh, you have kids, you'll
Speaker 1: care more about the world that they grow up, And
Speaker 1: it's like, no, I think you'll care more about the
Speaker 1: how your children specifically grow up in the world, but
Speaker 1: rather than all the kids growing up in the world.
Speaker 3: And some of it is just time. Like part of
Speaker 3: my decision, am I ever changing?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: My process mostly like I don't want to have kids,
Speaker 1: but a big reason is because I think I would
Speaker 1: have to devote so much time to my own children
Speaker 1: to give them the life that I would want to
Speaker 1: that I that I would have to stop doing these
Speaker 1: larger pursuits that I'm really interested in and changing the
Speaker 1: world at large for better, which I do feel like
Speaker 1: I have the power to do.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think more people. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: married people, and a big chunk of them. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you guys are a lovely couple. You're lovely to be around.
Speaker 1: I love getting dinner with you. But most, I gotta
Speaker 1: say most, it's.
Speaker 3: Like they're not there.
Speaker 1: They realized that their sacrifice was too much like sacrificing
Speaker 1: my fifty percent of my mental capacity to now think
Speaker 1: about what you want to do and what your input is.
Speaker 3: It is just where you could be.
Speaker 1: Donating that to learning how to play the drums or
Speaker 1: you know, having two homes or whatever.
Speaker 3: Do you have any recommending No, Oh, go ahead, okay.
Speaker 2: And I even feel happy even when I'm with happy couples,
Speaker 2: couples who seem happy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So for example, if I go out to dinner with
Speaker 2: a group that includes couples and they seem like a
Speaker 2: good pair and everything's fine, and the end, I am
Speaker 2: so happy that I'm not them because they have to
Speaker 2: go home and be with each other and I get
Speaker 2: to go home be.
Speaker 1: A LUCKI totally, totally that's sweet, sweet alone time girls valuable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's mad. Exactly Do you do.
Speaker 1: You have any recommendations besides like making films that portray
Speaker 1: people living single and happy lives, Like adjustments that we
Speaker 1: could make in society from the research that you've done,
Speaker 1: Like how can we start to make this feel like
Speaker 1: a viable option for.
Speaker 3: Young women and young men in the world.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Oh sure. So if you're a teacher at
Speaker 2: any level, you could include the ideas that I'm talking
Speaker 2: about in your teaching. Same thing for role models at
Speaker 2: the government level. Oh my gosh. There's so much that
Speaker 2: can be done, starting with something easy. The way politicians
Speaker 2: and candidates talk about, oh, I'm here for families, for
Speaker 2: working families, Well, well it's so ridiculous because families don't
Speaker 2: get hired and two year olds aren't great workers are off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's.
Speaker 2: Talk about them, and then the policies that could change.
Speaker 2: You know, there are hundreds of laws that benefit and
Speaker 2: protect only people who are legally married, and that has
Speaker 2: got to change, and it's really important. Stuff like family
Speaker 2: and medical leave apps. So if you are in an
Speaker 2: eligible workplace, you can take time off to care for
Speaker 2: a parent child or you're suppose well, a single person
Speaker 2: can take time off to care for a parent a child,
Speaker 2: but there's no one in the place, and so I
Speaker 2: can't take time off to care for a close friend
Speaker 2: or a dear relative or anyone else, and no one
Speaker 2: can take that time off to care for me. So
Speaker 2: those are ways in which we're you know, we're really
Speaker 2: stigmatizing and hurting people who are single at heart and
Speaker 2: are just single, and you know, we should want people
Speaker 2: to be there for each other.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, Yeah, that actually reminds me of one of
Speaker 1: my biggest pet peeves. We're stand up comedians, and I've
Speaker 1: been trying to write a joke about this, but so
Speaker 1: often on the news, when someone is murdered, it will
Speaker 1: somehow increase the horror of them being murdered if they
Speaker 1: have kids, and it just feels so like like she's.
Speaker 4: Better than yeah, like always it so like it's so
Speaker 4: what The message that I get from that constantly is like,
Speaker 4: so if you are murdered or die, especially at.
Speaker 1: A young age, and you didn't have kids, like oh wow, loss.
Speaker 2: Yeah really, well, actually, there's a lot. I'm gonna say
Speaker 2: it's funny, but it's not. It's awful, but it's amusing
Speaker 2: and its awfulness. So if you are married and you die,
Speaker 2: your spouse gets a couple hundred dollars towards final expenses.
Speaker 2: But if you're single and you die, no and gets that,
Speaker 2: it's like throw their body in a ditch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what the hair? Oh my god? Yeah, And it's.
Speaker 1: It goes along with this concept, like you could kind
Speaker 1: of say that a country pushing its people to get
Speaker 1: a citizen to get married, so they're pushing for traditional family.
Speaker 1: Whenever you hear a politician belong to any group that
Speaker 1: has traditional or family, they're usually anti LGBT, anti women's right.
Speaker 1: So there's just all these awful, awful things, but it
Speaker 1: goes kind of hand in hand, Like one of the
Speaker 1: most dangerous types of people to capitalism is somebody who
Speaker 1: self actualized and loves themselves and doesn't feel empty or
Speaker 1: shall or hollow or ugly or.
Speaker 3: Or whatever or less than.
Speaker 1: And it's nice that it's coming kind of we're talking
Speaker 1: about being single at heart at a good time when
Speaker 1: we're also encouraging people to get to know themselves. On
Speaker 1: a much deeper level than they were ever encouraged to
Speaker 1: do so. And so hopefully that means that more people
Speaker 1: can more people can realize this before they feel pressure
Speaker 1: to jump into a marriage, because I feel like some
Speaker 1: people you meet.
Speaker 3: And you're like, wait, you're engaged. You just met? Like
Speaker 3: how often that happens?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Is there great? Yeah? There is a lot of
Speaker 2: pushback from you know, this is what my message is
Speaker 2: threatening to people who want to say who want to
Speaker 2: believe that the traditional way is the one and only
Speaker 2: good and valuable way to live. And so I do
Speaker 2: get pushed back.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting. What's like the what's what are can do?
Speaker 1: You have a comment in your head of something somebody
Speaker 1: said because they were so threatened by this idea, because
Speaker 1: to me, I would, oh, well, they're so miserable being
Speaker 1: married that they want you to also be miserable.
Speaker 2: Well, this is in on page two sixty two of
Speaker 2: my Single Heart book. This is an email I got.
Speaker 2: I got says Hi, Bella just want to let you
Speaker 2: know that single people are inferior in every way. They're worthless, useless, lazy,
Speaker 2: and stupid. There's nothing I hate like single people, anyone
Speaker 2: single it's completely defective, otherwise someone would love them. So
Speaker 2: I know you found some micro macro aggressions there, but
Speaker 2: I want you to use all of your Harvard skills.
Speaker 2: Just understand it's entirely your fault. You're single, Therefore you suck.
Speaker 3: He's talking you suck.
Speaker 2: Because you're single. Say it out loud. You are nothing worthless.
Speaker 1: That was That's that I'm assuming I was a man
Speaker 1: talking to himself, or well it could be a woman
Speaker 1: to that was this person talking to themselves.
Speaker 3: They were talking to themselves. I mean, that's so cool
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's also and it kind of makes me sad
Speaker 1: for the writer because the writer is thinks has it
Speaker 1: ingrained in. Let's just say his mind that it's just
Speaker 1: guessing that you, because you are unmarried and you don't
Speaker 1: have a romantic partner, that no one loves you, when
Speaker 1: I mean it's you're pretty clear from your attitude that
Speaker 1: you're very loved.
Speaker 3: You're you're happy, you're emanating love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah, it just makes me.
Speaker 3: It makes me sad that people think that.
Speaker 1: Where people think like if no one we're a society
Speaker 1: of people waiting to be chosen, and I find that
Speaker 1: to be extremely depressing.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I haven't waited on a small scale to be chosen
Speaker 1: for like a prom or a date or anything, and
Speaker 1: certainly not on a large scale to be chosen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. And you know that goes to another
Speaker 2: one of the big points of my Single heartbook, which
Speaker 2: is that single light if you love it, if you
Speaker 2: embrace it and invest in it, it's a more expansive life.
Speaker 2: So we understand that love is more than just romantic love,
Speaker 2: that intimacy can include sexual intimacy, but it also includes
Speaker 2: emotional intimacy. That relationships aren't just romantic relationships. They can
Speaker 2: include friendships and relationships with colleagues and friends and relatives
Speaker 2: and mentors and confidence and all of those kinds of
Speaker 2: relationships are important. And so in that way, for the
Speaker 2: single at hearsh, the risk is not what they would
Speaker 2: lose if they did not put a romantic partner at
Speaker 2: the center of their lives, of what they would lose
Speaker 2: if they did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, chills say, yeah, that's gorgeous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think to speak speak that like a
Speaker 1: problem that I see as I get older is as
Speaker 1: more and more of my friends.
Speaker 3: Find you know, the one, or get married or have kids.
Speaker 1: Like these people that I have spent my whole life with,
Speaker 1: like they just have less time for me, right, And
Speaker 1: also their interests become different from mine. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that I like them less as people, but we're
Speaker 1: just on different paths. And I know you created this
Speaker 1: Facebook group, but do you have any other recommendations other
Speaker 1: than that, Like, so, how do we find people that
Speaker 1: are on similar journeys because I'm really interested in that,
Speaker 1: in finding people like that.
Speaker 3: I've found a little through wickup, but that's not the normal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, I think we need more ways
Speaker 2: to do this. And I think as the idea the
Speaker 2: concept banksing on heart becomes more widely known, I think
Speaker 2: there will be more people who will who will self
Speaker 2: identify as single at heart and will be open to
Speaker 2: friendship send And what's really great if you do find
Speaker 2: I know, I'm not giving you great suggestions for how
Speaker 2: to find this friend, but you yeah, so why they maybe?
Speaker 2: But they're not saying that they're single at heart because
Speaker 2: it's so stigmatized. People say, oh, you're just fooling yourself.
Speaker 2: You're not really happily single. What's great about having friends
Speaker 2: who are single at heart, is that they are really
Speaker 2: present in the friendship. So they're not looking past you
Speaker 2: for the romantic partner who might be on the horizon,
Speaker 2: or about the partner who might be waiting for you
Speaker 2: at home, and they're not going to do what people
Speaker 2: who get coupled in, which is demote you from you know,
Speaker 2: maybe you used to go to dinner, now you go
Speaker 2: out to lunch, or maybe they saw you a lot,
Speaker 2: now they see you maybe, Yeah, so's it's a whole
Speaker 2: different kind of friendship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I I end up spending a lot of
Speaker 1: time with straight men because I've found that even when
Speaker 1: they are in relationships, they still live like they're single
Speaker 1: at heart.
Speaker 3: So yeah, straight men sing at heart. That's been my
Speaker 3: that's been my fix.
Speaker 1: But you know, like, truthfully, it's not like I because
Speaker 1: we're stand up comedians, I think we actually have the
Speaker 1: luxury of being around a lot more older, single people
Speaker 1: than most people have access to.
Speaker 3: So that's certainly been good.
Speaker 1: But yeah, unfortunately, when you're like these, most women, even
Speaker 1: female comedians, I think, are still distracted, as you're kind
Speaker 1: of saying, by this quest, this quest that society has
Speaker 1: put us on them, where we're looking for the one,
Speaker 1: whereas men, I mean I said it to be joking,
Speaker 1: but like I am serious, Like they live like they're
Speaker 1: single at heart, or they're not on a quest to
Speaker 1: find the one.
Speaker 3: They're just on a quest. They're not even on the quest.
Speaker 3: They just they're just living.
Speaker 1: Found someone in you know, in the vicinity, as we
Speaker 1: say on this one about them, and it's not that
Speaker 1: distracting to them. Yeah, because it's like a partner, lot
Speaker 1: of soulmate, and it just takes so much more headspace.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know, I love that your stand up comedians,
Speaker 2: and I think you should come up with gigs to
Speaker 2: do about this. I mean, take the role of someone
Speaker 2: who's single at heart and what they're really thinking to themselves.
Speaker 2: So imagine, for example, when someone chose their engagement ring
Speaker 2: and everybody around them squeezers, like, oh, make fun of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I mean I try.
Speaker 1: I recently made an observation that men to me are
Speaker 1: like a promotional toe bag, like I'll use this, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know this, and oh my god, on date nights,
Speaker 1: no one will laugh, but on you know, Monday through Thursday,
Speaker 1: cackles because you can't laugh at that in front of
Speaker 1: your when your boyfriend's paying the bill. You know that's
Speaker 1: not good, Okay, And I think we get a lot
Speaker 1: of on this show. We get a lot of pushback
Speaker 1: from people leading more traditional lives. So I think feel,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better word, triggered by our conversations
Speaker 1: on here, like we are somehow hating on area people,
Speaker 1: or that we have some vendette against them, or that
Speaker 1: the whole show is us being bitter, when I've tried
Speaker 1: to express multiple times that we spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time talking about options other than marriage, or perhaps maybe
Speaker 1: the downfalls of marriage and traditional life, because that's not
Speaker 1: something that's been talked about a lot, and there are
Speaker 1: just so many spaces where you can talk about how
Speaker 1: great marriage is, and there's not enough where how you
Speaker 1: have tools to help people feel less triggered, or to
Speaker 1: explain to them that we're not attacking their traditional lifestyle.
Speaker 3: We're just presenting a different option. We're presenting one that's
Speaker 3: more fun.
Speaker 8: Sorry, hater, right, So the way I think of it
Speaker 8: is that single got harsh and having an openness to that.
Speaker 2: It's part of a whole bigger project of people getting
Speaker 2: to live their best most authentic lives. It's part of
Speaker 2: the whole process of when people who weren't heterosexual felt
Speaker 2: digmatized and couldn't couldn't say who they really were, or
Speaker 2: when women were stuck in more of a traditional box.
Speaker 2: I mean, some still are, but it's much less so now.
Speaker 2: And so I think that people who are drawn to
Speaker 2: coupled life, who really do flourish there more than they
Speaker 2: would if they were single, they should get to do that.
Speaker 2: No one needs to say that, just assumes that. So
Speaker 2: the reason that I need to talk about single at
Speaker 2: heart and focus on single people and be a messenger
Speaker 2: for the way single life can be fulfilling and more
Speaker 2: fulfilling than coupled life for people who are single at
Speaker 2: heart is because that message isn't out there. So it's
Speaker 2: not that I want to dump on you married people
Speaker 2: who are coupled or you know, make fun of them,
Speaker 2: But I do want to show that people who are
Speaker 2: single should feel just as proud of their lives. And
Speaker 2: in some ways, you are single at harsh and you
Speaker 2: admit it and you don't try to hide that. That's
Speaker 2: even in a way it's even more admirable because you're
Speaker 2: going against the grain you're taking the risk that people
Speaker 2: will mock you or disbelieve you as I oh, you're
Speaker 2: just fooling yourself. But it's important because you can then
Speaker 2: be a rule model for other people who love being
Speaker 2: single but they don't want to admit it, or they think, oh,
Speaker 2: this really gets to me. Some people who love being single,
Speaker 2: I've written to me and they think there's something wrong
Speaker 2: with them, So you know, they'll go to therapy and
Speaker 2: myself help books and weird Is that that someone who
Speaker 2: loves their life, there's something wrong with you? If you
Speaker 2: love your life. Congratulations, you're doing one of the few.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an amazing, beautiful, blessed position to be in.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, this has been a lovely interview. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is there anything talking to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: We we love it.
Speaker 1: I knew I knew that this was going to be
Speaker 1: great and I can't wait to read the whole book.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you want people to know,
Speaker 1: other things that you've written, or places where people can
Speaker 1: find you and follow you, plug anything you want right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, So my website is Belladipollo dot com. E
Speaker 2: E L L A D E p A U L
Speaker 2: o dot com and I have been writing the Living
Speaker 2: Single blog for a Psychology Today since two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us here today I
Speaker 1: continue living your best single life. This was such a
Speaker 1: great and unique interview and I'm so excited for our
Speaker 1: listeners to hear this.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 1: This is Guys We Fucked, the Anti slutschain podcast. We'll
Speaker 1: talk to you next Friday, Beau. Guys We Fucked is
Speaker 1: presented by Luminary, Created and hosted by Corin Fisher and
Speaker 1: Christina Hutchinson. Editing and music coordination by Mike Coscarelli. Theme
Speaker 1: song by Rob Patterson and Jake.
Speaker 3: Cosen Stuck my wet ass pussy. Christina SAIDs to cut
Speaker 3: that before, but now it's in the air. Yeah, let's keep it.
Speaker 3: Who good.
Speaker 6: Lately, I haven't gone through shift. Other things I love
Speaker 6: seemed to defeed me. I don't want to do ship step, spoke, greed,
Speaker 6: sex and watch TV.
Speaker 9: I haven't feels bit better. It's hard to make great
Speaker 9: things look geasy. I don't want to.
Speaker 6: Do shiit, stup, smoke, greed, sex and watch TV. Tired
Speaker 6: egg being motivated consume Alma.
Speaker 9: I've had cost thirty.
Speaker 6: Jobs and still the minute rights then sometimes to see
Speaker 6: of facing everything is true? What's your point in going?
Speaker 6: And amya whose days up at night waiting for me
Speaker 6: to arrive?
Speaker 2: Waiting for me.
Speaker 4: Too?
Speaker 6: Lately I haven't going through ship. All the things I
Speaker 6: love seemed to defeed me.
Speaker 3: I don't want to do.
Speaker 6: Ship, step spoke, greed, steps and watch TV.
Speaker 9: I haven't fans to fit by decide to make great
Speaker 9: things look easy.
Speaker 6: I don't want to do shit, step spoke, greed, sex
Speaker 6: and watch TV.
Speaker 3: Jolianna doc, I knew what the truth is.
Speaker 6: Don't may go down.
Speaker 4: This Tago was