Speaker 1: Hey, this is any and Samantha.
Speaker 2: And welcome to stuff I've never told you production. iHeart radio,
Speaker 2: and today we are so thrilled to be joined by
Speaker 2: a guest. Despite technology coming in their way, trying to
Speaker 2: stop us at every turn, it won't stop us. We
Speaker 2: are so happy to be joined by author, journalists podcaster
Speaker 2: Meredith Goldstein. Welcome so much, Welcome so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me
Speaker 3: reboot my computer fifty times before we started.
Speaker 2: If that doesn't happen, then it's not a podcast.
Speaker 4: So all right, true, you know it's gonna be a
Speaker 4: good episode when it has so many delays.
Speaker 1: We're just building it up now.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: The anticipation is just, yeah.
Speaker 2: It's palpable. It's palpable.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, we're so happy to have you. Can you introduce
Speaker 2: yourself to the audience.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 3: I have been the advice columnist at the Boston Globe
Speaker 3: for about fifteen years, which is wild, and I've also
Speaker 3: written some books. One is about that, and some fiction books.
Speaker 3: But I am originally basically from Maryland and moved to
Speaker 3: Boston and have been in Boston so long that I
Speaker 3: am starting to think like a Boston person, whatever that means.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and that is my background. And I also
Speaker 3: host a podcast based on the advice column.
Speaker 2: Yes Love Letters, and you cover so many interesting topics
Speaker 2: on there. And I'm very excited to get into this
Speaker 2: because honestly, I find advice columns in the history of
Speaker 2: them fascinating. And you have been doing this for a
Speaker 2: long time. How did you get into being an advice columnist?
Speaker 3: Well, certainly I did not go to journalism school to
Speaker 3: be an advice columnist. I don't know what I really thought.
Speaker 3: I was going to be an arts writer, and my
Speaker 3: parents were musicians, so I thought, oh, well, I can't
Speaker 3: play muse well, but maybe i'll be a rock critic.
Speaker 3: And then I was like, I don't want to go
Speaker 3: to shows, and I don't want to go to shows
Speaker 3: I don't like. Our critic at the time took me
Speaker 3: to like a White Zombie concert and looked at me
Speaker 3: and said, and I was so miserable, and she said,
Speaker 3: if you don't like this, this job is not for you.
Speaker 3: So that was a really good lesson. And I was
Speaker 3: writing a lot of feature stories about the way we live,
Speaker 3: which we would have called like a living story of
Speaker 3: living arts you know, old school media talk, right, And
Speaker 3: at the time, I mean this sounds so dated, but
Speaker 3: Facebook was new, at least new for non college students. Texting,
Speaker 3: I mean, we were still on flip phones. We were
Speaker 3: in BlackBerry mode. I think we were like coming into
Speaker 3: the smartphone era, and texting was much more something that
Speaker 3: you could do without it being rude to do that
Speaker 3: instead of call, whereas like, of course, you know, in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, if somebody calls me, I'm like, what's wrong,
Speaker 3: whereas like at that point, I'd be like, you're just
Speaker 3: going to text me and not call me. So it
Speaker 3: was just a completely different time, and I was writing
Speaker 3: a lot of stories about how technology was changing, how
Speaker 3: we interacted, how the rules had changed, how demographics had changed,
Speaker 3: all from that sort of feature perspective, and that led
Speaker 3: me into thinking, well, the globe is, you know, in
Speaker 3: a city that is deeply obsessed with itself. What if
Speaker 3: Boston had its own advice columnist? And of course at
Speaker 3: that point, the Internet was even newer, so it didn't
Speaker 3: occur to me that people were going to write in
Speaker 3: from all over despite the fact that we were very
Speaker 3: much Boston. And same with the podcast. It's like podcast
Speaker 3: listeners know I'm sitting in Boston, but they come from everywhere,
Speaker 3: and it's like nice to know somebody's based somewhere, but
Speaker 3: we're all having the same discussions. Yes and so so yeah.
Speaker 3: So basically it's just you know, like people say, are
Speaker 3: you qualified to do this? Did you get a degree
Speaker 3: in this? I'm like, no, If I got a degree
Speaker 3: in this, I would be a therapy. I would not
Speaker 3: be telling people what to do. And this is just
Speaker 3: a lot. You know, there's a big historyjournalism of journalists
Speaker 3: on occasion becoming people who give advice, and it is
Speaker 3: a I think it's like a nice snapshot of the
Speaker 3: world we live in. This is always the shtick I
Speaker 3: give to newspaper editors or media company editors who are like,
Speaker 3: why are we spending money on this or why are
Speaker 3: we devoting any resources to this? And I will tell them,
Speaker 3: if you want a time capsule of history, go to
Speaker 3: the advice column in whatever it was at the time,
Speaker 3: and you will get a sense of how people lived,
Speaker 3: not just the news, but how they lived.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we actually not us, but previous hosts did a
Speaker 4: whole episode on Dear Abby, if I remember correctly, and
Speaker 4: just kind of the change and shift there was with
Speaker 4: her work and how significant it really was, especially for
Speaker 4: women and the culture of women and what they were
Speaker 4: trying to figure out and who to ask because there
Speaker 4: was a how much shame and feeling like they may
Speaker 4: have failed in certain things including love or family and
Speaker 4: all that, and being able to ask a stranger with
Speaker 4: a non biased look was a fun penomenon.
Speaker 3: Well, it's also like when you talk about shame and gender,
Speaker 3: I would say only recently have I felt that advice
Speaker 3: columns are getting their due. So this is a thing
Speaker 3: in a media company that will get consistent readers that
Speaker 3: make people feel like they're part of a community. And
Speaker 3: even ten years ago or so, or certainly when I started,
Speaker 3: it was like silly to some people. And I'm not
Speaker 3: saying it's the same as our Spotlight team after, you know,
Speaker 3: for which they made a movie about, right, But I
Speaker 3: am saying, we don't do this with sports, right as
Speaker 3: far as I'm concerned as a non sports person, Every
Speaker 3: year a baseball team plays in Boston, and they might win,
Speaker 3: and they might lose, and they might change their personnel,
Speaker 3: but it's the same and it's a hobby, and that
Speaker 3: there is a financial world behind it that is deeply important,
Speaker 3: and people feel a spiritual loyalty in certain ways, and
Speaker 3: those are the reasons it's interesting. But I can say
Speaker 3: the same of advice columns and the industry of relationships.
Speaker 3: So why someone an editor might I roll advice column
Speaker 3: versus a sports column. There should be down difference, but
Speaker 3: there is, and that's because of gender and who traditionally
Speaker 3: is interested in this topic. But the good news is
Speaker 3: is I feel like in the past five years or so,
Speaker 3: I think that has changed where you know, money talks
Speaker 3: and you know, let's be honest, like a demographic of
Speaker 3: buying people is women of a certain age, and suddenly
Speaker 3: it's like, well, everybody likes to make money and get
Speaker 3: and get audience. So suddenly like it's not the worst thing,
Speaker 3: you know, It's like, oh, well, what if we don't
Speaker 3: belittle this, so we're getting there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one thing that I've found really interesting when
Speaker 2: I was reading up about you in the non creepy
Speaker 2: work way, is that something you spoke to is you know,
Speaker 2: we've struggled with this too. Sometimes you feel like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not qualified to do something, and I know when
Speaker 2: you like pitch the idea you were going through sort
Speaker 2: of a rough time in your life of you know,
Speaker 2: going through breakup yourself, and I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 2: It was a quote from your memoir I believe about
Speaker 2: your friends saying, you know, when people look down on
Speaker 2: the grief you feel when you have a breakup, like
Speaker 2: people don't take that very seriously, but it is a
Speaker 2: real pain. And I thought it was sort of a
Speaker 2: profound thing of someone choosing not to have you in
Speaker 2: their life anymore, and that is really painful. So how
Speaker 2: have people outside given you advice that has maybe shaped
Speaker 2: what you've done, and just how have you come to
Speaker 2: terms with you know, sometimes it's hard to take your
Speaker 2: own advice. Sometimes you might not have the answer.
Speaker 3: I think the readers and the letter writers themselves have
Speaker 3: taught me so much because we're not supposed to know
Speaker 3: the answers all the time, and we're also not supposed
Speaker 3: to tell people what to do, which is I think
Speaker 3: really important to say, because even though I'm in advice
Speaker 3: and I am more likely to give a definitive what
Speaker 3: if you tried this, when we give advice in our
Speaker 3: real lives, we don't Actually we should not say do
Speaker 3: this if you are saying that to a friend or
Speaker 3: family member, a loved one, do this, you are doing
Speaker 3: it wrong. And it's so much about listening and asking
Speaker 3: questions and helping someone get to a conclusion and telling
Speaker 3: them what you might notice in them and how they're
Speaker 3: prioritizing sharing information or not sharing information. And you're never
Speaker 3: going to escape that process when you're making a difficult
Speaker 3: decision for dealing with change. So I think it's it's
Speaker 3: you know, I had to accept pretty quickly in this
Speaker 3: that I've never been married, i have been dumped, I've
Speaker 3: never been a parent. That does not mean I can't
Speaker 3: help people who are going through things that I've never
Speaker 3: been through, and vice versa. You're talking about dear Abby.
Speaker 3: You know Anne Landers to her sister, which they notoriously
Speaker 3: did not get along. And I'm an Anne Landers girl
Speaker 3: for a number of reasons, one of which is that
Speaker 3: I'm friends with her daughter, who also became an advice calumnist.
Speaker 3: But she was married like four times, and so you
Speaker 3: could say, well, you kept getting a divorce, what do
Speaker 3: you know? What do you know about? But her experiences
Speaker 3: shape her how she sees the world, and I've always
Speaker 3: seen that as this is a person who knew when
Speaker 3: to leave. And this is a person you know. I
Speaker 3: think when you're younger, or when you haven't thought about
Speaker 3: it a lot, you're sort of thinking, oh, well, success
Speaker 3: looks like this. Failure looks like this, And that's just
Speaker 3: something I had to take out of the equation that
Speaker 3: there is no relationship failure. There's no I mean, certainly
Speaker 3: you can fail someone, but there's no one doing it
Speaker 3: right and doing it wrong. And there's absolutely no one
Speaker 3: who doesn't have to ask a lot of questions. So
Speaker 3: I think the readers in asking their questions, even when
Speaker 3: they're so smart and know exactly what to do the
Speaker 3: processing of it, I'm like, oh, well, I'm allowed to
Speaker 3: process it too, And they have made me much have
Speaker 3: a lot more confidence about, well, I'm going to try
Speaker 3: this in my own life and if it doesn't work,
Speaker 3: that's okay, Like we'll all be okay, hopefully hopefully.
Speaker 2: Well, you were talking earlier about like texting and the
Speaker 2: internet when you first started. I saw recently you wrote
Speaker 2: a piece on AI and like, what's going on there? So,
Speaker 2: how over the length of time you've been doing this,
Speaker 2: how have you seen the landscape change?
Speaker 3: It's so radical in terms of the difference. First of all,
Speaker 3: back in the day, it would have been rude to
Speaker 3: ask somebody out by text fifteen years ago, like that
Speaker 3: would have been weird and you wouldn't even be sure
Speaker 3: that the text got there. But like ten years ago
Speaker 3: it might have been rude once again, Like now it
Speaker 3: seems invasive to make phone calls unless that's something scheduled
Speaker 3: ahead of time. There's almost like a consent neated of
Speaker 3: like what if I called you know, and certainly FaceTime.
Speaker 3: And remember the first letter I received from someone who
Speaker 3: had met someone by sliding into their DMS on Instagram.
Speaker 3: We did not call it that. Then they were like
Speaker 3: they messaged me on Instagram, and I was like, what
Speaker 3: a weird stockery thing to do? Like I was just
Speaker 3: like floored by the idea that some stranger would enter
Speaker 3: your direct messages in your social media account. Now that's
Speaker 3: like obviously right, like this is a thing that happens.
Speaker 3: I am often asked when I talk to people, is
Speaker 3: all of this technology good or bad? Like there's this
Speaker 3: black and white wave thinking about has it improved our
Speaker 3: lives or made our lives terrible? And of course it's
Speaker 3: middle right, Like you know, when My late mother was
Speaker 3: younger and single after her divorce, she could have used internet,
Speaker 3: like in the world to find people outside of her
Speaker 3: own community. She didn't have that. We didn't have that.
Speaker 3: So the minute there were online dating websites, her world
Speaker 3: got so much bigger and so much less lonelier, you know,
Speaker 3: just to know what else was out there. On the
Speaker 3: other hand, sometimes I'm sitting in a bar and everybody's
Speaker 3: on their phones and I'm like super bummed about the
Speaker 3: lack of like paying attention that we do. So it's both,
Speaker 3: but it is. I would never say it's bad, and
Speaker 3: I would also say that I would take the bigger
Speaker 3: world even despite all the catfishing, despite all the nonsense.
Speaker 3: It's like nonsense in a different place. Dating is hard,
Speaker 3: It's going to be nonsense wherever you go. But you're
Speaker 3: kind of looking for those great experiences, whether it's at
Speaker 3: a crowded bar party, on a website, on an app.
Speaker 3: It's like kind of all just looking for needles in haystacks.
Speaker 3: So we might as well have different options.
Speaker 4: Right, Like, the methods have changed, but the results are similar.
Speaker 3: The results kind of are similar, and I think the
Speaker 3: perception is similar to like people romanticize these organic meat cutes,
Speaker 3: right you see in movies of running into and like
Speaker 3: I will always say to people like, what are the
Speaker 3: what are the odds that you're going to meet someone
Speaker 3: on an app that you like? If you do, that
Speaker 3: is the romantic the most romantic thing I've ever heard
Speaker 3: in my life. The happenstance of that is incredible, And
Speaker 3: it is basically the equivalent of an Ane Hathaway character
Speaker 3: getting into a cab and somebody getting in from the
Speaker 3: other Meg Ryan character like getting in from the other side,
Speaker 3: and you're like, ooh, we're sharing a cab now, Like
Speaker 3: that is the same, the same level of I can't
Speaker 3: believe this happened, whereas like meeting somebody through a friend
Speaker 3: is actually like kind of obvious to me, like it
Speaker 3: might happen, it might not. But when people get worried
Speaker 3: about the narratives of how they met, I'm like, updating
Speaker 3: is like so complicated that if something comes from that,
Speaker 3: that's amazing, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I always think about how people don't understand the greater
Speaker 4: uh not risk, but you're taking a little more of
Speaker 4: a gamble when you do put yourself out there with
Speaker 4: an intention versus just happenstance of like, oh okay, this
Speaker 4: might work, like we have a few things in common. Okay, hey,
Speaker 4: my I'm so and so your friends and so, you know,
Speaker 4: like it's it's a little different. But with all of that,
Speaker 4: obviously you have a plethora of questions and stories and
Speaker 4: so many things I'm sure under your belt and in
Speaker 4: your mind.
Speaker 1: Are there any stories that stand out to you?
Speaker 3: The stories that stand out tend to be for the podcast,
Speaker 3: because unlike the letters, where it's a letter and I
Speaker 3: kind of can't see the person and that's probably for
Speaker 3: the best, and they're anonymous, these people in the podcast
Speaker 3: tell these entire stories from start to finish. And I
Speaker 3: love the breakup stories because often the breakup story is
Speaker 3: the greatest story ever told to me. I think that's
Speaker 3: supposed to be the Bible, and they're probably breakup stories
Speaker 3: of the Bible. But i'mounna say any breakup story is,
Speaker 3: because often it is lost and then rising like a phoenix.
Speaker 3: It always there's this hopeful other side of it that
Speaker 3: should be there, and if it isn't there, we will
Speaker 3: find it.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: And so those are the stories that stick with me
Speaker 3: about someone telling their story of letting go and then
Speaker 3: finding something else. I am particularly interested right now, and
Speaker 3: I think everybody's interested in it in a conversation about
Speaker 3: polyamory that everybody's having. I think in the media of like, oh,
Speaker 3: here's this thing, which, by the way, has existed for
Speaker 3: a really long time and has been practiced for a
Speaker 3: really long time, and according to all of these media companies,
Speaker 3: you know, you would think that everyone is in a
Speaker 3: polyamous relationship and that it's new. But I've had people
Speaker 3: on the podcast talk about, well, what does that experience
Speaker 3: look like? And that's really important to me because it
Speaker 3: can be really confusing and ambiguous for others, but there
Speaker 3: are lessons from it that can help us navigate our
Speaker 3: our boring monogamous are basic monogamous relationships like and I
Speaker 3: think that's important. So I think for me right now,
Speaker 3: it's like the stories on the podcast of like, I'm
Speaker 3: not even answering the question these people are answering the
Speaker 3: questions for me, where I'm like, how are you doing
Speaker 3: this and what have you learned from it? Actually, we've
Speaker 3: got an episode of the podcast coming up unrelated to
Speaker 3: bali Emory that is about sports significant others. The wives
Speaker 3: of famous athletes, and this is something living in Boston
Speaker 3: where I'm like, where athletes are truly celebrities. And and
Speaker 3: we'll talk about the Red Sox Wives. The Red Sox
Speaker 3: Wives attended a fashion show, like they're like like this
Speaker 3: group that moves around in one pack. And I've always thought, like,
Speaker 3: how do you keep your identity?
Speaker 1: Like do you like that?
Speaker 3: Do you like people call that? I don't know, maybe
Speaker 3: you know. And talking to some of these people. We
Speaker 3: talked to someone who is a basketball wife and someone
Speaker 3: who is a baseball wife, and the story they actually
Speaker 3: tell is about how to find your own spotlight, how
Speaker 3: your partner can help you do that, and how to
Speaker 3: let your partner have the spotlight and how you share
Speaker 3: and anybody can learn from that. So I was surprised
Speaker 3: at how much I related to these experiences that are
Speaker 3: nothing like my own.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is true. We've had that on here
Speaker 2: so many times. I remember we did an episode two
Speaker 2: parter on BDSM and I left like, oh gosh, I
Speaker 2: can learn so much.
Speaker 4: Right in this community, Like oh, okay, you're doing this right.
Speaker 4: We need to learn this be not.
Speaker 3: A part of the BDSO right, My god, one of
Speaker 3: my first stories at the Globe, and maybe this led
Speaker 3: me into the work that I do too. Was that
Speaker 3: people in a smallish town city in southern Massachusetts had
Speaker 3: been arrested at a BDSM party for assault. Basically, from
Speaker 3: my memory, law enforcement went in there, saw people looking
Speaker 3: aggressive with each other and thought bad stuff was going on.
Speaker 3: Of course, this was all consensual and part of a community.
Speaker 3: And then of course it was this public shaming of well,
Speaker 3: who was there, who got arrested, who was assaulting? I
Speaker 3: put that in air quotes other people and I met
Speaker 3: with this group after and they told me all about
Speaker 3: their lifestyle. I remember one of the things they did
Speaker 3: was they were showing me sex toys versus things they
Speaker 3: bought at home depot, and I could absolutely not tell
Speaker 3: the difference. It was just really you know, I was
Speaker 3: probably a twenty five year old reporter at the time,
Speaker 3: and it was or maybe you know, this might have
Speaker 3: I might have even been younger. This might have even
Speaker 3: been when I was still working in Providence. But all
Speaker 3: these stories led me to be really interested in different
Speaker 3: lifestyles and how people how people like to live.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: Do you have a general idea of how general topics
Speaker 2: like shake out in terms of frequency, Like I think
Speaker 2: I read somewhere that you At one time, snooping was
Speaker 2: the big thing. People were like writing it about do
Speaker 2: you have an idea about what's going on?
Speaker 3: So yeah, in the beginning when I started the column,
Speaker 3: everybody was snooping. Everybody who wrote in was like, I
Speaker 3: checked my significant others texts or email.
Speaker 1: That definition like what snooping?
Speaker 3: Like they would like like get the code, did their
Speaker 3: partner's phone and read text? They would you know, this
Speaker 3: is less frequent.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: There are a few reasons I think for this. My
Speaker 3: guess one is that we have better security, So there's
Speaker 3: like a two you know factor authenticate, Like it's just
Speaker 3: harder to break into people's stuff. And you know, I
Speaker 3: am absolutely someone who's cell phone, uh like code to
Speaker 3: get it is my birthday, so everybody, you know, it's
Speaker 3: just amazing to me where I'm like, oh, like this
Speaker 3: is this dummy like has a birth and that's that's
Speaker 3: exactly what I chose. But I kind of have nothing
Speaker 3: to hide.
Speaker 1: But one exactly kind of.
Speaker 3: But for me, it's like one one one. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I think it's harder to do. But the other thing
Speaker 3: I think is that we are able to track each
Speaker 3: other in other ways that we weren't before, So like
Speaker 3: there's too much information. There's like, okay, there are certain
Speaker 3: people on social media who might make note of where
Speaker 3: they are, what they're eating, and who they're with throughout
Speaker 3: a day. So I think there's this thought of well,
Speaker 3: I'm probably gonna know anyway, or maybe it's the absence
Speaker 3: of information that is making me not trust this person.
Speaker 3: Not information. It's like, well, where were you from seven
Speaker 3: to nine? There was no like Instagram story then, there
Speaker 3: was no real then, So I think it's just like
Speaker 3: and I think people are exhausted and snooping is hard.
Speaker 3: I mean, it still happens, but it's not with the frequency.
Speaker 3: Like I felt like every letter writer back then was
Speaker 3: like I did this, and then it became this conversation
Speaker 3: of like, which is worse right, the fact that you
Speaker 3: snooped finding whatever you found. I'm assuming there were so
Speaker 3: many people who did snoop and found nothing that never
Speaker 3: wrote to me. So I just feel like it was
Speaker 3: probably pretty like a systemic problem in society at the time. Now,
Speaker 3: I think, you know, dating fatigue was happening before COVID,
Speaker 3: so like right before COVID, everybody was like, I can't
Speaker 3: keep doing this. I can't keep doing like I am
Speaker 3: doing this. It feels like work. It feels like a job.
Speaker 3: I feel like when I'm not I'm missing my soulmates,
Speaker 3: but when I am swiping, I'm not seeing my soulmates.
Speaker 3: And I it is this labor and it's exhausting and that,
Speaker 3: and then COVID happened, and it was obviously this like
Speaker 3: tragedy around the world. And yet I would hear from
Speaker 3: people who'd be like, well, at least I am given
Speaker 3: permission to just sit with this. And everybody who's single
Speaker 3: is just gonna be single right now, and everybody who's
Speaker 3: not is not. And I also think it gave single
Speaker 3: people a chance to really think about what it would
Speaker 3: feel like to be coupled or have partners at all.
Speaker 3: In that moment. I mean, I was somebody who in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty was single and living alone was like, oh
Speaker 3: my god. Like people would call and be like, are
Speaker 3: you okay? You're alone, and I'm like, yeah, I'm alone.
Speaker 3: It's so hard with my TV and my kettle coren
Speaker 3: that got delivered to me and my I mean, I
Speaker 3: was very lucky. I remained employed. I was doing work,
Speaker 3: but I was not lonely, and I felt bad for
Speaker 3: everyone else. It also felt like the safest thing that
Speaker 3: I you know, I felt incredibly privileged to live alone
Speaker 3: and not have to, you know, worry about anybody coming.
Speaker 3: So then it was the COVID era of I know,
Speaker 3: my husband's going to the grocery store without a mask.
Speaker 3: I know it. And like those letters where it was
Speaker 3: just negotiating safety, negotiating you know, who, do we allow
Speaker 3: someone to come over who's not vaccinated? Do we like?
Speaker 3: Letters about really really complicated negotiations. And I remember asking
Speaker 3: a sex writer about this, because the negotiation of polyamory
Speaker 3: and open relationships and just consent in general could could
Speaker 3: be useful all of a sudden in conversations about who
Speaker 3: do we let in the house, what do we tell
Speaker 3: each other? What is the protection we need? Like it
Speaker 3: felt parallel in these weird ways. Now, I think people
Speaker 3: are just tired and confused, and sometimes they're really happy,
Speaker 3: but they're like, I don't have to do anything any
Speaker 3: particular way. Not everybody feels that way, but a lot
Speaker 3: of people do, so like that's amazing, but it also
Speaker 3: brings up well, then what do I want to do?
Speaker 3: You know, like do I want do I want to
Speaker 3: get married? Do I want to be looking to it?
Speaker 3: I think we're not going to know for a long
Speaker 3: time what this pandemic did to us emotionally, but I
Speaker 3: think for a lot of people that reset their obligations.
Speaker 3: I mean, certainly we saw that with people quitting jobs,
Speaker 3: with people moving, but I think in relationships it was like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, this was following a path for a reason,
Speaker 3: and what if everything just got like put into an
Speaker 3: edge of sketch and like shake it up?
Speaker 4: I mean yeah, I think the pandemic really chilled a
Speaker 4: lot of people that either you're really great at being
Speaker 4: alone and this is fine, or you're really suffering and
Speaker 4: you have to fix things immediately when you can. So
Speaker 4: I feel like it's definitely like highlighted what is something
Speaker 4: that you can and can't do?
Speaker 1: For me, I figured out I really like being alone.
Speaker 1: We don't need the gas.
Speaker 3: I mean, like I started seeing someone after that after
Speaker 3: realizing I like to be alone. You know, you've got
Speaker 3: to mess things up?
Speaker 1: What do I have to be? Let's try this right?
Speaker 4: Which I like, you know, and I think it's really
Speaker 4: interesting because if you've as you've been doing this for
Speaker 4: a while now, and you've changed even yourself your medium
Speaker 4: a little bit. I know you're doing both still, but
Speaker 4: like coming from writing and printing to podcasting and having
Speaker 4: conversations with people and getting a bigger view and a
Speaker 4: bigger like stories, I guess do you feel like I'll say, like,
Speaker 4: as a podcaster, I came from like one field to
Speaker 4: this field and feeling like I'm learning so many different
Speaker 4: things that I'm like, oh, this is a different perspective. Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna learn it this way. I'm gonna take this in.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like some of these things have helped
Speaker 4: you personally or I changed your perspectives?
Speaker 3: My perspective is like in a yes, especially you know
Speaker 3: with the podcast, like yeah, yeah, I mean my like,
Speaker 3: I don't even know. I think when I started the column,
Speaker 3: I had a pretty big chip on my shoulder about
Speaker 3: being single, like I I chose it. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: not like bazillion people were asking to be my significant other,
Speaker 3: but it felt like I also knew I wasn't trying,
Speaker 3: but it felt like a lifestyle choice and it felt
Speaker 3: like one And I think this is a common thing
Speaker 3: to feel when other people are coupling up all around you,
Speaker 3: where I was like, I'm doing it on my own.
Speaker 3: I went to Ikia by myself. I pay for it,
Speaker 3: but like, I'm figuring out a way to do this
Speaker 3: and it feels important. And it was and it was,
Speaker 3: but there was a level of bravery I attached to it,
Speaker 3: and it is real, but I was discounting the bravery
Speaker 3: of my friends who were coupled or in whatever relationship
Speaker 3: they were in. As I got older and talked to
Speaker 3: more people and did more of the column and then
Speaker 3: with the podcast, I saw how much negotiation that took,
Speaker 3: and how much self awareness it took, and how much
Speaker 3: accountability took when you're really kind of only accountable to
Speaker 3: yourself and to the people around you when you see
Speaker 3: them and not in a partnered relationship. It's fine and
Speaker 3: it's great, and it does take bravery to do that,
Speaker 3: but after a while you get really good at it.
Speaker 3: And I took no bravery at all. It was like
Speaker 3: it felt again. Covid told me that I was like,
Speaker 3: this is so deeply easy that maybe I could challenge myself.
Speaker 3: And I think I would not have that perspective if
Speaker 3: it weren't for the column and in the podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of the podcast, let's talk about that for
Speaker 2: a second. You've also been doing that for a while.
Speaker 2: What made you decide to take this these letters and
Speaker 2: try doing it in a podcast form?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 3: This was interesting, so I would say I did not
Speaker 3: I did not want The owner of the Globe was like,
Speaker 3: can you make this a podcast too? That seems to be.
Speaker 1: A thing I want to right.
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, but I did not listen to
Speaker 3: podcasts really, and I did not want to do just
Speaker 3: let's talk about a letter, because I you know, Cheryl
Speaker 3: Strade was doing that, and I was like, she's famous.
Speaker 3: Like I didn't want to do a thing that somebody
Speaker 3: else was doing in a way that already existed and
Speaker 3: existed well. And also I didn't know that I had
Speaker 3: that much more to say about the letters in particular
Speaker 3: than what I had answered. But I did miss as
Speaker 3: a journalist interviewing people, and I remember saying, as somebody
Speaker 3: who was not listening to podcasts, had never listened to Cereal,
Speaker 3: saying to the people at the Globe, I want to
Speaker 3: be the Ceial of breakups And they said, what does
Speaker 3: that mean? And I said, I don't even know because
Speaker 3: I had not listened. I knew, I knew what it was.
Speaker 3: But what I said to them was I want to
Speaker 3: have people tell their own stories that can help other people.
Speaker 3: And every season I want to have a theme, and
Speaker 3: that is what we've done so far, and they're short
Speaker 3: seasons with one thing. So the first season was breakups,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I want people to be able
Speaker 3: to listen to eight episodes and have it as a
Speaker 3: handy guide that they can tune into whenever they get
Speaker 3: dumped or break up with somebody. And that whole season
Speaker 3: it was people telling stories. You know. We had one
Speaker 3: story I loved about a woman whose ex boyfriend was
Speaker 3: following her, still connect to her, to her on Venmo
Speaker 3: and talk about technology and had driven himself into a
Speaker 3: panic watching what she was paying people for shows up
Speaker 3: at her doorstep. But is like, I know you have
Speaker 3: a new boyfriend. I can't deal with it, and she's like,
Speaker 3: I don't. And long story short, she's in a running
Speaker 3: club and was paying somebody every Sunday for like the
Speaker 3: excent which she had after the run, the guy who
Speaker 3: brought the credit card.
Speaker 6: But it was like that.
Speaker 3: In that episode, it was the lesson about like, well,
Speaker 3: let's be careful of the stories we tell and the
Speaker 3: narratives we tell as we try to get over this,
Speaker 3: because we can get to a place where we're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I know everything's falling apart and like this person has
Speaker 3: already moved on and I was never important to them,
Speaker 3: and that wasn't the case obviously, but through these stories, yeah,
Speaker 3: like I feel like it's a pretty good It goes
Speaker 3: from well do you have to get under someone to
Speaker 3: get over someone? Like that's episode one to I believe
Speaker 3: what our finale was about, like can you be friends
Speaker 3: with some How can you be friends with someone after
Speaker 3: a breakup? When is it appropriate? When is it not appropriate?
Speaker 3: And the next season was about how to meet someone?
Speaker 3: And the next season was about how do you know
Speaker 3: some of these bigger questions? And we had a season
Speaker 3: about money, so where you know. One of my favorite
Speaker 3: episodes is someone talking about their husband's secret thirty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars of credit card debt and how they survived that.
Speaker 3: And what was amazing was I said, oh, it's only
Speaker 3: thirty thousand dollars and the person said, that tells me
Speaker 3: a lot about you, which is not that I have,
Speaker 3: there's thirty thousand dollars to pay up a credit card debt,
Speaker 3: but the fact that I wasn't. My thought was at
Speaker 3: least it's not one hundred thousand dollars. And they were like,
Speaker 3: how much credit card debt do you have? But it's
Speaker 3: so interant you tell on yourself right where I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: thirty thousand dollars you could probably get at over the
Speaker 3: course of your life, whereas like there were two hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. Maybe I don't know it was it was
Speaker 3: really it exposed doing that season, like even our producers
Speaker 3: like what we how we felt about money? By the
Speaker 3: way that the person it is the first episode of
Speaker 3: that season, and part of the thirty thousand dollars of
Speaker 3: credit card debt was LARPing paraphernalia purchased, So it's never
Speaker 3: it's never what you think right where it was like
Speaker 3: is it? What was it?
Speaker 5: Was it?
Speaker 3: And and then it was like, well a sword, an
Speaker 3: elf costume, it's like But another episode from that season
Speaker 3: was about a woman tells us two people tell a
Speaker 3: story about why getting a prenup was the most romantic
Speaker 3: thing they ever did, and they talk about their courtship
Speaker 3: and just like now they have. They both come from
Speaker 3: you know, pasts where there was trust broken and now
Speaker 3: they basically can show up every day saying we could
Speaker 3: leave at any moment and be okay. We would be okay,
Speaker 3: which means that when we show up every day, it's
Speaker 3: because we want to, it's not because we have to.
Speaker 3: And they really get into that. And so like I
Speaker 3: have found that the best advice does not come for
Speaker 3: me at all. It's just like me asking these people
Speaker 3: how they got there to whatever conclusion they got to.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so that with the podcast, like I would
Speaker 3: have never thought, you know, in twenty eighteen when we
Speaker 3: started it, it would become like my precious gem of
Speaker 3: like the work I do, and you would probably not
Speaker 3: be surprised, but then you're like, oh, you get to
Speaker 3: hear people and they tell you these things and then
Speaker 3: you get to apply those things to your life. So
Speaker 3: I'm really grateful that, you know, the owner said go
Speaker 3: do this thing, because then I got to go do that.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Are you an extrovert?
Speaker 4: Because I feel like I don't know, Meredith, because you
Speaker 4: sound like me, but then also not me.
Speaker 3: I don't I'm not an extrovert. I am an extroverted introvert.
Speaker 2: Thing like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I I bet I need to power down
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: You're an ambil art, Is that what that is?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I when I'm on, I'm on, and I have
Speaker 3: a friend who says, you've always got two hours in you,
Speaker 3: and then it's just it's the button is Then they
Speaker 3: were done. They were And actually that's actually probably a
Speaker 3: great for recording podcasts, where the lead up and the
Speaker 3: coming down with that and then we're done.
Speaker 4: So you got about thirty more and more minutes if
Speaker 4: you want. I'm just gonna try. We're gonna use it
Speaker 4: up before your next one. We're like, yeah, we did it.
Speaker 2: Sorry, you can't have it.
Speaker 4: I asked this because it sounds like me as well
Speaker 4: as like I love being alone, but these conversations are amazing,
Speaker 4: and I want to have these conversations.
Speaker 1: Because they do teach you so much.
Speaker 4: I joked when I first started podcasting about how I'm
Speaker 4: just here to make friends because I'm alone. This is
Speaker 4: like I'm gonna make friends, like make them be my
Speaker 4: friend by talking to me for an hour about all
Speaker 4: of their knowledge.
Speaker 1: Like that's the way. That's the way I feel like it, and.
Speaker 4: You know, it sounds like again we have a similar
Speaker 4: you and any more so than me because I've made
Speaker 4: a four myself onto a podcast. That's where she was
Speaker 4: told to do a podcast as well. But how has
Speaker 4: this podcasting world been treating you so far?
Speaker 3: I mean I doing the podcast and having to do
Speaker 3: some navigating about like what that world is has also
Speaker 3: been wonderful, and it's interesting. I don't listen to podcasts generally,
Speaker 3: they're a lot like mine. I'm a big rewatcher of
Speaker 3: shows with the shows I love, and so this idea
Speaker 3: that there are podcasts out there that are and I
Speaker 3: tend not to love the ones with the stars of
Speaker 3: the show rewatching, I'm not really interested in that. What
Speaker 3: I want to know is, like I listened to a
Speaker 3: Vampire Diaries podcast called the Empire Diaries AMP and that
Speaker 3: was like my parasocial relationship like during twenty twenty, where
Speaker 3: you know, it's like women who are a lot younger
Speaker 3: than me experiencing a show I experienced when I was
Speaker 3: older than them, and like or I listened to a
Speaker 3: Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast Sligher Fast ninety where they're
Speaker 3: just like going and now they're going through the magicians, right,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, okay, Like, so I have found the
Speaker 3: world as a listener to it's like, what a what
Speaker 3: a cure for loneliness to just hear people who could
Speaker 3: be your friends talking. I mean, I know there's some
Speaker 3: parasocial weirdness with that too, but whatever, it's fine. And
Speaker 3: I'm sure people have that with my podcast, and people
Speaker 3: have it with your podcast certainly, right of like these
Speaker 3: are my friends and now and and I know them
Speaker 3: and and and in some ways they're right and but
Speaker 3: that's the part of it I really like of just
Speaker 3: I think you don't get that necessarily always with a
Speaker 3: column or with something you read, but there's no matter
Speaker 3: the format. Like so it's it's been nice to be
Speaker 3: on both sides of that as both the listener of
Speaker 3: podcasts and a maker.
Speaker 4: Now I have to ask, and I feel like this
Speaker 4: is going to be an obvious question, so please don't
Speaker 4: hate me. Because there was an article that popped up
Speaker 4: about you being the actual Carrie Bradshaw and we have
Speaker 4: done a full on rewatch of Sex in the City
Speaker 4: and we also did laugh about the fact that she
Speaker 4: jumped from the newspaper to podcasting world herself. Of course
Speaker 4: her podcasting world's like, that's not that's that's really so.
Speaker 3: My my biggest professional sin is that I have not
Speaker 3: watched the reboot and I will one day. I was
Speaker 3: waiting for a really big snowstorm at Boston and then
Speaker 3: it never happened. So there's It's funny because if you,
Speaker 3: I think, if you google my name and Cary Bradshaw,
Speaker 3: there's one headline that's like, she's the Carrie Bradshaw Boston,
Speaker 3: and the next headline is She's no Carrie Bradshaw. And
Speaker 3: of the two, I think number two is I'm no
Speaker 3: Carrie Bradshaw. I rewatched that show and I'm like, what
Speaker 3: a selfish.
Speaker 6: Weird person and a villain.
Speaker 3: She is a villain. And I remember they sent me
Speaker 3: to do a preview of the movie the first Game,
Speaker 3: so I got to interview all of these stars, right,
Speaker 3: and I remember Sarah Jessica Parker saying, I would be
Speaker 3: scared to death of this part. Like she said to me,
Speaker 3: like I would not. I am not this person, And
Speaker 3: she actually said that of all of them, Christian Davis,
Speaker 3: her lifestyle was the most most like Carry Bradshaw in
Speaker 3: that I think at that point she was single. She's like, listen,
Speaker 3: I'm married to Matthew Brogbrick and I have kids. And
Speaker 3: I like, like, I am not. This is a person
Speaker 3: I can't access and I might be frightened of her.
Speaker 3: And that made me feel a little better. And that
Speaker 3: was actually I think I did that story, maybe even
Speaker 3: before I was reading to column. But yeah, no, that's
Speaker 3: not it, I hope. But but but I think, you know,
Speaker 3: media comes back around again, right, you love it and
Speaker 3: then you're like cringed, like it's super cringey, and then
Speaker 3: you come back to it and you say, you know what.
Speaker 3: The episode where she registers for shoes is pretty great
Speaker 3: because I remember being in that moment of I can't
Speaker 3: keep celebrating everybody else all the time. I and I
Speaker 3: have heard right that her of course she goes to
Speaker 3: a podcast, right, which is great, which.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, yeah, of course they jumped into this,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, but look, I guess it happens after listen.
Speaker 3: I've been shown I have been shown clips of her
Speaker 3: reading like ads and I I have read and ads
Speaker 3: ads before, which is like a luxury to read an
Speaker 3: ad right in some ways, But it is that I
Speaker 3: have enjoyed that clip. I hope I am a Nanne
Speaker 3: Landers of Boston and new media. You think about how
Speaker 3: old and not carry Brutch although it is amazing. On
Speaker 3: some episodes, I will say I can't help, but wonder,
Speaker 3: and you know, we'll say, oh, I couldn't help, but wonder.
Speaker 3: Or I have an ex boyfriend who used to do
Speaker 3: impressions of that show and he would just say, meanwhile,
Speaker 3: mid Downtown, that was it, that was all over. But
Speaker 3: he had only heard it in the background and he'd say, meanwhile,
Speaker 3: see this amount that was going to get.
Speaker 2: Up to yees.
Speaker 4: And this is why I'm like, I feel like we
Speaker 4: need to have you back on, because that's what we do.
Speaker 4: Part of what we do is to do and we
Speaker 4: watch and sometimes we have guests. I'm like, I want
Speaker 4: to have you on as a guest because I need
Speaker 4: you to know that, like I would need the like
Speaker 4: what the hell is this?
Speaker 3: Like what I have read romance novels about advice columnists,
Speaker 3: which I love because they're always like some weird thing
Speaker 3: of oh, like you fall in love with your letter
Speaker 3: writer and like that's it's never that's never happened. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: there was. I will try to find it, but I
Speaker 3: always want to know, like, what are the depictions of
Speaker 3: advice columnists? I rewatched Original Charms not long ago, and
Speaker 3: you know, Phoebe becomes an advice columnist.
Speaker 6: And then dates and then dates the publisher of her newspaper,
Speaker 6: who is Eric Dane or whoever. It's like, it doesn't
Speaker 6: make any sense, but I love that too, right, And
Speaker 6: I love that she's doing it on a show that
Speaker 6: I adore but makes no sense, but because she's an EmPATH,
Speaker 6: because she has like a magical empathic ability to sense
Speaker 6: what people need to hear. So I love fictional depictions
Speaker 6: of advice givers. They are hilarious.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for us, it's like watching podcasters and were like,
Speaker 4: that's not how.
Speaker 2: You so, because we don't get to criticize stuff like
Speaker 2: that often. But I like it when I'm finally able
Speaker 2: to be the one that's that's not how it works.
Speaker 3: I mean, I do, I have not I'm not caught
Speaker 3: up with only murders in the building, but I do
Speaker 3: remember something in that first season of Somebody in a
Speaker 3: Closet and I was like, well, at least they're in
Speaker 3: the closet. At least they're like, like we know this
Speaker 3: to be the case, right, especially of that era of
Speaker 3: like we're just gonna be surrounded by our suits and shirts,
Speaker 3: and so I like it when they show.
Speaker 4: That coss played behind any But yes, literally that's what
Speaker 4: I was thinking about only murdered in the buildings. Because
Speaker 4: they do that and then they come out to the stage,
Speaker 4: I'm like, wait, what they had it right?
Speaker 1: And then they just left perform.
Speaker 4: I guess a lot, and I think podcasting has changed
Speaker 4: because we're still in the closet, but I've seen a
Speaker 4: lot of the like other podcasts are being all out
Speaker 4: in couches, being comfiyed, and I was like, how can
Speaker 4: I get there?
Speaker 3: Well, it is you know these I have a friend
Speaker 3: who is much more into visual podcasts where there's like
Speaker 3: a set and they are watching this on YouTube, and
Speaker 3: I think a lot about that. She would always talk
Speaker 3: to me about my basement and say, like we could
Speaker 3: renovate it to be the set, Like the set what right?
Speaker 3: Like I never thought that I could be like lying
Speaker 3: back in a couch and being like, let me tell
Speaker 3: you because because it's not the format of what I do,
Speaker 3: so edit it right. So it's but I get it.
Speaker 3: But yes, the closet feels I am still we are.
Speaker 4: All still in the closet, right, But with all of that,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry I had to go in too, Ti, right,
Speaker 4: because there's so many good things. But did you have
Speaker 4: a learning curve from switching over to print to this
Speaker 4: digital media?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, yeah. The biggest thing what you have both
Speaker 3: experienced intimately now maybe the listener will not know, is
Speaker 3: that I have really bad allergies and I blow my
Speaker 3: nose a lot. So really, what I I mean, this
Speaker 3: is not something that can be helped. But I suppose
Speaker 3: maybe with the right medication it could. But I think
Speaker 3: even just treating my voice better, you know, like I
Speaker 3: am not adele, and I am not like, oh my
Speaker 3: voice is an instrument and I need to hydrate. But actually,
Speaker 3: as it turns out, you do need to take care
Speaker 3: of yourself. And I would record something and the producer
Speaker 3: would say this sounds terrible, and I'd be like, well,
Speaker 3: like stayed up really late and I had a glass
Speaker 3: of wine and I didn't drink water, and so really,
Speaker 3: just also to start with realizing that it does matter.
Speaker 3: Even if you're not, you know, doing a Vegas show,
Speaker 3: you are going to be listened to you know, it
Speaker 3: is really being present with interviews despite a lot of
Speaker 3: other stuff. I am much more likely to notice that
Speaker 3: a refrigerator is buzzing. I am not a big sound
Speaker 3: person now I think about it. In fact, I highly recommend.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've seen the documentary The Greatest
Speaker 3: Night and Pop on Netflix. It's about the making of
Speaker 3: We Are the World, We Are the Children, and it's wild.
Speaker 3: It is a wild documentary about how they put this
Speaker 3: together and how you have all these egos in a room,
Speaker 3: how do you keep them not fighting? And it's like
Speaker 3: over the night their bo gets and they start to
Speaker 3: like go a little biserk. It's it's a very funny,
Speaker 3: great documentary. But my favorite part is when Cyndi Lauper
Speaker 3: is like, are people laughing at me? And what she's
Speaker 3: hearing is her bracelets and a mic. She's hearing like
Speaker 3: a so and of course, now is somebody who does
Speaker 3: a podcast? I'm like, oh, like, I'm very aware of
Speaker 3: does somebody have is somebody? If you can't see right now,
Speaker 3: I am hitting my Some people talk with their hands
Speaker 3: and they hit their legs. So that's really where I'm
Speaker 3: just thinking. More like a like a producer. But but
Speaker 3: these are not something. But it's the same thing, right
Speaker 3: of Like we used to not have to worry about
Speaker 3: social media. We just like wrote a column and somebody
Speaker 3: hit published. But now it's like, well, who's going to
Speaker 3: see it and how are they going to say and
Speaker 3: who's going to respond to it?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Oh well, I have to say, as someone
Speaker 2: who has listened to Cereal, you did. You did what
Speaker 2: you wanted to do. You've accomplished being aerial of.
Speaker 3: Get somebody out of jail. I didn't get like a
Speaker 3: trial for somebody.
Speaker 2: But but you know, yeah, you know, it's just it
Speaker 2: sounds great. I love it. The theme. It sounds like
Speaker 2: the theme this season is focusing kind of on like
Speaker 2: supporting characters almost like friends or exes or therapists. Do
Speaker 2: you take about that and why that was important to you?
Speaker 3: I wanted to do a season about help. I mean,
Speaker 3: the whole thing is about help, right, the whole podcast.
Speaker 3: But I wanted to talk about where we get help,
Speaker 3: so that we know where to look for it, you know,
Speaker 3: learning from other people about like obviously a therapist might
Speaker 3: be able to help or but I want to know
Speaker 3: how and I want and I also want to know
Speaker 3: when it's not helpful. And so I did a call
Speaker 3: up for people like what what are your stories of
Speaker 3: help and who helped you or what helped you? And
Speaker 3: you know, the answers I got were some of them
Speaker 3: were expected, some of them were unexpected. You know, we
Speaker 3: just did most of our episodes, but probably about more
Speaker 3: than half are not locally. They're more national. But I
Speaker 3: did ask the governor of Massachusetts if she would be
Speaker 3: on because she is our first elected woman governor. But
Speaker 3: she's also the first lesbian governor in the country and
Speaker 3: she has a very public like romance for that reason,
Speaker 3: her partner people are interested. People are mean about it.
Speaker 3: People are nice about it, but they're like nosy about it.
Speaker 3: And in a way that is totally understandable in a
Speaker 3: way like I can't tell you very much about the
Speaker 3: past partners of governors in my state, maybe like one
Speaker 3: or two, but like, this is something I think about.
Speaker 3: Also because I am aging into her age group, like
Speaker 3: she's in her fifties. I'm in my forties, right, So
Speaker 3: I was like, I want to know what it's like
Speaker 3: to be like the first lesbian Massachusetts governor, you know what,
Speaker 3: and her, so who helps them. Her answer was music.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a person, it wasn't a thing. They go
Speaker 3: to a lot of shows. They're big Brandy Carlisle fans.
Speaker 3: They do like the Indigo Girls. They did joke about that.
Speaker 3: But I you know, for one person or second episode
Speaker 3: of the season, who is a guy who was supposed
Speaker 3: to have an arranged marriage and the help was his
Speaker 3: dad being like, oh, you're probably not going to do that,
Speaker 3: I guess, and it like changed the course of his life,
Speaker 3: his dad sort of giving him casual permission to not
Speaker 3: assume that had to happen. And now what like now
Speaker 3: he can do Now his whole life is different. So
Speaker 3: one person talks about getting help from an ex, and
Speaker 3: so I really wanted to say, well, like there's so
Speaker 3: much negativity, right, like all the people who make life
Speaker 3: difficult for us, and all the things, the institutions, the
Speaker 3: financial issues that make life difficult for us, who's helping?
Speaker 3: What is helping? And I've learned a ton So in
Speaker 3: the case of this episode, these episodes with the athletes wives,
Speaker 3: I wanted to know who helps them and I got
Speaker 3: some interesting answers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that, And I think something we've been
Speaker 2: to talking about throughout this, as you said your column,
Speaker 2: your podcast, it's people all over who are reading it
Speaker 2: or listening to it, who are commenting and writing in,
Speaker 2: and that can be like a really lovely thing. I
Speaker 2: know you've talked about after your mom died you kind
Speaker 2: of reached out and getting these answers from them. My
Speaker 2: dad died during the podcast and I talked about it
Speaker 2: and I got these amazing answers, and it's incredibly lovely.
Speaker 2: There's also the dark side of trolls, which I know
Speaker 2: you've talked about as well. So what has been your
Speaker 2: experience was sort of this like beautiful part and this
Speaker 2: ugly part.
Speaker 3: It's weird, right, and it's changed so much. I think
Speaker 3: I had less troll issues in the beginning, or people
Speaker 3: who even when they were being trolley, they didn't think
Speaker 3: they weren't trying to be trolley again. It's sort of
Speaker 3: like that question of is online dating is apup date
Speaker 3: and good or bad. I'm like, it's it's everything right,
Speaker 3: and so you're going to get people who are truly
Speaker 3: using this connection. We all have to be miserable, and
Speaker 3: sometimes it is because they truly believe they have something
Speaker 3: to say and that the world has gone wrong for them,
Speaker 3: and then you have other people who want to use
Speaker 3: it to connect and like, and then now we have
Speaker 3: this issue where they might not even be be real people,
Speaker 3: so like that that's something new, where like the troll
Speaker 3: might be like a bot coming from some other place,
Speaker 3: you know, And so it's really hard. And all I
Speaker 3: would tell people is like, you may need to limit,
Speaker 3: Like you have to make that choice, right do. I
Speaker 3: read the comments today and every now and then I
Speaker 3: am delighted by the comments, not just on my column
Speaker 3: but on stories recently are probably our most famous sports
Speaker 3: columnist had to have heart surgery and he's on medical
Speaker 3: leave and we had to report about it because then
Speaker 3: we had to say, like, why is this person suddenly absent?
Speaker 3: And he's very controversial in Boston because he'll say mean
Speaker 3: things about sports teams or whatever. He you know, I'm
Speaker 3: not a sports person.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I love the guy, don't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 3: But I was so afraid when I clicked on the comments,
Speaker 3: and I did click on the comments, and then some
Speaker 3: people were like, I can't stand him. I hope he's
Speaker 3: feeling okay.
Speaker 1: Like I always the way I thought was going to go.
Speaker 3: No, it was like I hate him and I miss reading,
Speaker 3: I miss hating everything he said, and then it would
Speaker 3: be like I love him, you know, And it was
Speaker 3: it was this moment of hate love this guy. He
Speaker 3: is a part of my ritual, and for his sake
Speaker 3: and my sake, I can only wish this person the best.
Speaker 3: And I think also like when you deal with health,
Speaker 3: that's like, no, most people don't wish that on each other.
Speaker 3: And and but it was a moment where I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: look at the world not being terrible and so but
Speaker 3: but but it was a choice I knew clicking on
Speaker 3: that thing. I was like, why am I doing this?
Speaker 3: Do I want to do this? I don't know, And
Speaker 3: I was delighted. So I think it's just this self
Speaker 3: regulation and self protection of like when do you want
Speaker 3: to risk it if you're not seeing what you want
Speaker 3: to see, letting you don't have to keep looking and
Speaker 3: you can move on to the next thing.
Speaker 2: It's difficult. We've had our struggles for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well you also are an author. Yes, you've done a
Speaker 2: diverse so you've done like a memoir, you have young
Speaker 2: adult books, So can you talk about that your works
Speaker 2: and how that has been doing all these different things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've written two young adult books, and I think
Speaker 3: that's because, like I think, when you're dealing with relationship issues,
Speaker 3: you think about like a lot of the topics of
Speaker 3: young adult books. And it's like, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: young adult books about death of parents and big relationships
Speaker 3: ending and illness. Right, you think about the era of
Speaker 3: the fault in our Stars and and I remember doing
Speaker 3: a story for the Globe about like, well, like you know,
Speaker 3: what is this, what is this about? And it's like, well,
Speaker 3: if the authors, if a lot of the authors are
Speaker 3: approaching middle age or our middle age, like this is
Speaker 3: the stuff they're dealing with in their lives, sick parents,
Speaker 3: life changes, and like you're not allowed, at like forty
Speaker 3: whatever to do like a primal scream that often at
Speaker 3: least not publicly right, because you're a grown up and
Speaker 3: you deal. But as a teenager you can, and you
Speaker 3: forget that as an adult you still have first you
Speaker 3: have your first loss of a loved one, perhaps if
Speaker 3: you haven't already. And I think for me writing two
Speaker 3: stories about breakups and grief, you know, losing a loved
Speaker 3: one because they died, and also losing relationships or finding relationships.
Speaker 3: Like the voice seemed really fun to be able to say, like, well,
Speaker 3: at seventeen, I could really scream this out in a
Speaker 3: way that I am doing now, but just no one
Speaker 3: is seeing it. So and so those are that you know,
Speaker 3: and and the last one is Things that Grow, which
Speaker 3: was really you know, my first young adult book pretends
Speaker 3: to be a book about love that is really about
Speaker 3: the death of a parent. And my second book pretends
Speaker 3: to be about the death of a grandparent, but it's
Speaker 3: really about love and romance. So Things that Grow is
Speaker 3: not a bummer despite being about a grandparent dying. But
Speaker 3: but the memoir was also like the globes Idea. They
Speaker 3: wanted it in the same way they wanted a podcast.
Speaker 3: They wanted a love letters book, and the publisher said,
Speaker 3: we don't want a compilation that everything's fringing online, so
Speaker 3: we want a memoir. And I was like, yeah, but
Speaker 3: I'm not that again, nothing to say, But then of
Speaker 3: course you sit down and you do and and so
Speaker 3: it was gave me the chance to talk about, well,
Speaker 3: here's what I was doing while I was pretending I
Speaker 3: had answers for people. You know, my mom was dying.
Speaker 3: I was going through a breakup. I was feeling really
Speaker 3: grateful for my friends. I was watching them date. I
Speaker 3: was evaluating my mom's life a different way, and and
Speaker 3: then matching that with the letters that corresponded to those experiences,
Speaker 3: which I think, you know, I hadn't even realized how
Speaker 3: much they were linked.
Speaker 2: I have to say, I'm connecting so much to you
Speaker 2: right now. We also wrote a book that was not
Speaker 2: our idea. It was great.
Speaker 3: I love what things are in your idea because then
Speaker 3: for somebody else's idea, you're like, well, if it doesn't work,
Speaker 3: it was their idea.
Speaker 1: This is on them, this is what they wanted. Moving on.
Speaker 3: Their idea. Yeah, but you know, therapeutic.
Speaker 2: To do for sure? Absolutely absolutely, Well again, we would
Speaker 2: love to have you back. Clearly, there's so much we
Speaker 2: could talk about because we're just we could talk so
Speaker 2: much about pop culture. But before you come back, I
Speaker 2: did want to end with a question because we're about
Speaker 2: to watch Twilight.
Speaker 1: Twilight, how dare you watch the second one?
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've got we've got someone who knows about
Speaker 2: it and someone who never has. I don't know anything
Speaker 2: about it. I'm so I'd just like, give me some
Speaker 2: advice some thoughts.
Speaker 3: So years ago I took a class or I shadowed
Speaker 3: a class at Harvard about vampires, and there was a
Speaker 3: scholar who linked the portrayal of vampires at different eras
Speaker 3: to the political landscape, the financial landscape, Like, if vampires
Speaker 3: were portrayed as hot and sexy, this was going on
Speaker 3: in the world. If they weren't, this was going on
Speaker 3: in the world. All very smart stuff. Here's what I know.
Speaker 3: I did really fall for Twilight during the last recession
Speaker 3: in two thousand and whatever, right in what it was,
Speaker 3: seventy eight, whenever it started to come out, So maybe
Speaker 3: there is something about that. But I also just think
Speaker 3: that Robert Pattson is a really attractive man. And I
Speaker 3: think that New Moon, which you were going into is
Speaker 3: also a testament to the movie is just being entertaining
Speaker 3: because he's not in a lot of it for reasons,
Speaker 3: and then he is. It is a movie that made
Speaker 3: me want to go to Italy, and I had never
Speaker 3: really thought about it. It is a movie. It is
Speaker 3: just a It is a beautiful piece of film. Criterion collection.
Speaker 3: Pick up the phone, and I just think you're really
Speaker 3: going to enjoy yourself. I think you should let yourself
Speaker 3: have that.
Speaker 1: See this.
Speaker 2: This is FASc movie because it goes back to what
Speaker 2: you were talking about before, where things like come back
Speaker 2: around you know, yes, because oh yes, because.
Speaker 3: We were remembering one other thing which I want to
Speaker 3: tell you, which is that in that era, I would
Speaker 3: watch all the director's commentaries for these movies, and I
Speaker 3: remember the director of New Moon saying that Robert Pattinson
Speaker 3: looked bad when he was kissing, so they shot any
Speaker 3: kissing from Christian Stewart's like her face would be face
Speaker 3: to the camera. And so I'm very conscious now of
Speaker 3: that when I watch any film with Robert Pattinson, where
Speaker 3: I'll be like it does he look weird? Are the
Speaker 3: kids like? It was just such an interesting director thing
Speaker 3: to say, where he was like, it looked better. It's
Speaker 3: it's actually a delightful director's commentary too, just about music
Speaker 3: and yeah, yeah, well you.
Speaker 2: Wrote about the gender swapped one too, right, which the
Speaker 2: Twilight gender swap.
Speaker 3: So that would be do we still have that was
Speaker 3: for I think we still have the original.
Speaker 2: I don't know in that. Yeah, I'm learning. I'm excited
Speaker 2: to learn.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes. Popped up on my TikTok V the
Speaker 1: gender swap version. I was like, what is this?
Speaker 4: Because I I was also two thousand and seven, I
Speaker 4: think right around the same time you were you were
Speaker 4: reading it. I was being through and I was like,
Speaker 4: what is this? I thought this was a kids book?
Speaker 4: And now I'm in love, Like I want to read
Speaker 4: all these books? Yeah, and then watch all the movies.
Speaker 4: And then the movie I was like, oh, okay, wasn't
Speaker 4: it as good as I thought? Like, especially the last one.
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I mean we get to like when
Speaker 3: we get to like CGI baby, it's you don't really
Speaker 3: just have to go in it.
Speaker 1: But like you're invested, but you can't like comment on it.
Speaker 3: It was never surprising to me that middle aged woman
Speaker 3: fell for it at the time in such a big way,
Speaker 3: because the first book is just a like a person
Speaker 3: asking a woman a lot of questions. So much of
Speaker 3: the book as him being like, what do you like?
Speaker 3: What's your favorite?
Speaker 4: This?
Speaker 3: What do you And it's like, God forbid, somebody listen
Speaker 3: to me for five minutes. It was really like the
Speaker 3: pornography of somebody being present and interested in And it
Speaker 3: was no surprise to me at the time when I
Speaker 3: was in my thirties that every woman I knew from
Speaker 3: like forty five to fifty five was like, this is
Speaker 3: the perfect man. He's just interested.
Speaker 1: Is he five hundred years old? Yes, one hundred years old.
Speaker 1: Is that a problem, But he's but.
Speaker 3: He's paying attention and he's like listening to the answers
Speaker 3: I give as opposed to it. So yeah, but anyway
Speaker 3: you will. Yeah, I'm jealous. You get to do it
Speaker 3: all over again for the first time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for the first time.
Speaker 4: And then we have our producer, Christina was a super fan,
Speaker 4: Like I was in it, but she was in it
Speaker 4: in it and she was about she's about ten five
Speaker 4: to ten years she's ten years younger than me. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so she was really caught up in it. So it's really, really,
Speaker 4: really a delight to have these different perspectives. And I
Speaker 4: love that you understand where we're coming from.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you're so right. It goes back
Speaker 2: to the thing you were saying about middle aged people
Speaker 2: writing young adult novels. It's true, like when you're younger,
Speaker 2: you can do these things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, but when.
Speaker 2: You're older, we have to keep yes. Yeah, yes, Well,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for taking the time before we
Speaker 2: let you go is there anything you want to shout out?
Speaker 2: Any projects? Where can the listeners find you?
Speaker 3: They can find the podcast at love Letters and I
Speaker 3: think they'll love this season. And if you've been broken
Speaker 3: up with start with season one. I mean, I'm probably
Speaker 3: not as good at podcasting then, but it's a breakup
Speaker 3: season and of course it goes on from there and
Speaker 3: uh yeah, you can find the column at love Letters, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, awesome. Well, also all the books.
Speaker 3: Yes, you can go to meredithoaldteam dot com and truly
Speaker 3: explore the range of products you can buy, things you
Speaker 3: can see.
Speaker 2: Yes, I always love when we have a guest and
Speaker 2: I'm the one at the end that's like you also
Speaker 2: did this too?
Speaker 1: Sure, I'm busy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: You need to come back sometime or we just have
Speaker 2: pop culser nerd out.
Speaker 3: Okay, excellent.
Speaker 4: Do we want you to back for at least Rewatch,
Speaker 4: maybe the Twilight, maybe the final finale?
Speaker 3: Action? Yeah yeah, a little, a little as a tree.
Speaker 2: I can't wait. If you would like to find us,
Speaker 2: you can. You can emails a stuff and your mom
Speaker 2: stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on
Speaker 2: Twitter at mom Step Podcast or on Instagram and TikTok
Speaker 2: and stuff will never told you. We have a tea
Speaker 2: public store and we have a book. Yes, you can
Speaker 2: get wherever you get your books. Thanks, It's always to
Speaker 2: our super produced with Christina, executive producer My and your
Speaker 2: contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 2: Steffan never told yous a fiction My Heart Radio. For
Speaker 2: more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio ap Apple podcast or where you listen to
Speaker 2: your favorite shows