Don't Blame Me! - DBM: Diversify Your Dating Portfolio

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Content Warning for Don't Blame Them - Sexual Assault This week Meghan and Melisa are giving advice on: Your friends hating my boyfriend for something I told them Bored at work Having a relationship with your dad Being in love with your friend Don't Blame Them: Having sex when blackout drunk Buy Our Merch https://crowdmade.com/collections/sister-sign Call In - 310-694-0976 (3 minutes or less) Write In - [e-mail] (300 words or less) Follow Us! instagram.com/meghanandmelisa @meghanrienks instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/diamondmprint.productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli meat products for always $3.75. And get Life Brand Pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready with a whole world and more. welcome to a brand new episode of dbm aka don't blame me this is a podcast where you can write in call in fill out a form send us dm and you can also watch on patreon where you can see me mime everything and if you're wondering wow you are so good at miming i'm actually a casting director have you had any interest in acting and i would say oh my god of course i have agents can reach out to my rep you can also just dm me i'm available well okay as i was saying um put

your fucking tongue in your mouth oh my god she's lying to you go watch the patreon my tongue is nowhere near outside of my mouth my tongue was so firmly inside my mouth um so uh you participate paint by calling in writing in all the things i said you can also email meganpodcast at gmail.com or give us a little ring-a-ding-ding at 310-6940-976 you're really good i always want to swap the seven and the nine that's the issue you of all people know how long it took me to nail that one hot i will never judge you i can hop in for the last four digits because again if i have to call i've seen the last three the last three i got the zero hey you it used to be the last four a couple weeks ago so i think you're nailing it it is my contribution because if i'm in an emergency

i've it is the only number i can call yeah yeah yeah so um give us your fake name your age always your pronouns if you'd like to and share the predicament that you're on that you're in in your life you you do have limitations though if it is written whether a dm or an email you have to keep it under 300 words and if it is a voicemail or a voice memo for you international listeners or watchers you have to keep it under three minutes uh and you'd be aging over parents or have your parents permission and don't lie to us about them don't lie don't lie lie about your like your name not your age my niece has started listening the oldest one i didn't feel like we needed to clarify i would have been terrified if it was any other one she's 18 now and she's also

doing the graphics on my on the business instagram i thought she was she was like yeah i was listening in class y'all got all the tea and i said don't listen and we can't stop her now she's 18 i know fuck people who are related to us shouldn't listen no i would never listen to a podcast from someone i'm related to monson his brother had a podcast for five seconds and i was like i'm not listening you talked about golf for two and a half hours so interesting why isn't it going anymore oh great question the only person who listened was um my brother-in-law's in-laws so my sister-in-law's parents so shall we change some hearts some minds some lives and if the title of the podcast the name of the podcast don't blame me it didn't give you any indication

uh we are not responsible for it unless it goes well and then we would like to claim responsibility but if it does go poorly not so much here we go 26 she her i have a great boyfriend let's call him ron 27 he him ron and i have been together for three years we have lived together for over a year about six months ago we were in a rough spot but we've worked it we've worked through it now. During the rough spot I discovered Ron was talking to girls on Hinge. He never actually met up with anyone but he said he was doing it for attention. I of course confided in my friends about it. They told me to break up with him because this was a form of cheating. I don't see it that way since when I needed a little extra attention I put it with other guys

all the time. Anyway like I said we worked it out. Now my friends not only hate Ron but they have stop talking to me as well now i'm lonely and only have ron to lean on how do i get them to see that if i've forgiven ron they should too you're not gonna like my advice i don't think you're gonna like our advice at all if you don't want your friends to have opinions don't tell them and you can't have any control over just because they you forgave him doesn't mean that they can and will or are okay with you still being with him yeah I think that like you saying that they've stopped talking to you as well that to me is like very telling because like people tell like we tell our friends things about our relationships or our friends will tell us things about their their

relationships that yeah we keep score you shouldn't keep scoring your own relationship we're friends we're keeping score yep and your friends are also entitled and allowed to not like your partner. Like that's totally allowed and they don't have to forgive them. And I think that like you also don't need them to forgive him. And that shouldn't affect if you're happy with your decision. It doesn't matter what other people think about your decision. You don't care about their input. You don't need like you'd made your call. This is what you feel comfortable with or whatever. But I think in general, like when you're seeking friends to validate you or back you up or drop however they feel about a person a he needs to prove it to the other people in your life like

he's proven it to you and in general in relationships like that's how it works like it's the same thing when you like talk to like a older sibling or a parent about like a shitty friend situation and most of the time they'll remember because you have the repertoire between the two of you and so they can earn your trust back and like win you back they have more opportunities they don't have those as many of those opportunities with friends so I think in general you have to be confident with the decisions that you make and know that other people even if the decisions don't directly affect them they cannot like those decisions and they can also make decisions on their life based on that and that's like a tough part but I don't think it's

about trying to get them to see anything I think it's about finding other friends and finding people who you care about and all of that and I think if it becomes a reoccurring issue then I think yeah examine the relationship but I think if you're confident in the relationship then you have to act confident in the relationship yeah yeah if you were talking to them just to vent it still doesn't matter like even like you can't just think that people are going to have an opinion about what you have like they're still human and at the end of the day you probably you were pissed at him or else you wouldn't have said anything to them so like you knew that they you wanted them to back you up in your feelings and they did and now that you've gotten over

whatever it was that y'all were going through then that doesn't mean that they have to you're right they had the exact reaction you were looking for the first time and you want them to backtrack on it and they're not and i mean i don't want to come across like insensitive but like i'm actually impressed with these former friends of yours for like putting their foot down and like not continuing a relationship with you because a lot of the time in these instances they would probably just pull back and be shitty friends and not like cut you off and so I think like as not to sound toxic positivity but like looking at that as like a blessing like you're not wondering what happened you know exactly what happened they didn't breadcrumb you along they didn't just like

we're being shitty friends and then you had to end it like they kind of and this is it's pretty cut and dry and so I think it's it's unfortunately like a tough lesson to learn but I also view it in the sense that like I I might not have like directly ended friendships because of it but I've ended friendships or changed my perception of the friendship and factored in how like friends of former friends of mine how they would talk about their other friends that I didn't know and like not negatively but like I knew someone who it clicked for me one day that I I felt uncomfortable when they were telling me like an update with their friend's life who I had never met. And I was like, this is so personal. I should not, I shouldn't know this. Like, and then I realized,

wow, if I was asked to write down everything I know about this person, who's a friend of a friend who again, I have never met the only five things or not the first, at least five things that I could write, probably even 10 are incredibly heavy, traumatic things that this person has gone through that I've never met that they wouldn't tell me the first time they met me. And so if you think about it in the sense of like, it's not just about, oh, they don't like my boyfriend. So therefore, they're not going to be friends with me anymore. How can I like, and this I don't want to sound harsh, but it's also like we also are affected by how we see other people react to things and what they put up with in their life or what they normalize or what they're okay with or how they treat people or how they talk about people or whatever. and like sometimes it's just like it just doesn't align with their views and it doesn't really matter the reason why but the reasons can also be like they have gone through something similar and like that was betrayal and for you to not say it like oh i don't really view it as cheating

if that's if that happened to one of them and they viewed it as cheating that sounds like you don't think i was actually cheated on and you think that i should have stayed with this person and that's not maybe how you feel but everybody has their own hard line boundaries so i don't think it's about winning these friends back i think it's about making new friends agree agree you want friends there's different types of friends and there's some friends you can tell things to and there's some friends that you can't there's some people that you can talk about or do things that and there's other people you can't you have to realize like what kind of friends you have and what kind of things you can and can't tell them and if you are somebody that needs to tell your

friends everything and you're not in therapy might suggest you get a therapist and also even if like you can narrow down what friends you can say what to you have to be okay with whatever decision you make and however they feel about it there'll be like i'll tell melissa like every i'll tell you i tell i tell megan everything but there's other friends that i won't tell goddamn things yeah and there's it's like i know that neither one of work we're both like very candid with each other but like we also trust each other's judgment of like whatever but also at the same time with love if i wasn't looking for advice melissa wouldn't tell wouldn't give me advice but even if she did i wouldn't care and i wouldn't like i wouldn't be like oh that was

really or like i wouldn't think anything of it because i go it would just the decision i'm making is the decision that i'm making and like i'm confident enough in that that like even the people i care about the most and like my closest friends they could say something it's not going to make me annoyed with them or think differently of them or change my mind on my decision if i'm looking for feedback i'll ask for that but in general you should be so confident in your decisions that other people aren't swaying you and wavering you but if you're looking for input and then you make the opposite decision that also feels like annoying as a friend because you're like why did i give you all this advice with this whatever all that is yeah but like there are some people in my

life that are so judgmental and i don't tell them anything that's going on in my life yeah and then they get mad when they realize oh you told megan yeah because that's my best friend you're not and i'm sorry but you're just not like you're i'm i'm not as close to you as you think we are that part is always wild to me because i'm like you know what give me like cite the examples in which you thought we were best friends not you were my best friend or i was your best like because i'm like what an odd best friend relationship when you talk at me and i don't share anything yep peculiar and i'll also say things about them to megan i'll never talk about megan to them oh because why perfect and lovely right yeah i i think that those kinds of people where everything's so cut and dry

they tend to have the only sort of interpersonal conflict they've ever had is watching reality shows and i'm like you don't have the bandwidth to understand nuance exactly exactly you don't have the range no that cuts all right we're gonna take a break and we're back we're back and it's time for the next hi megan and melissa i've been listening since the beginning and love you both oh i was waiting until you said your age you're saying that later i get nervous when you say i've been listening from the beginning sometimes people say that and it turns out they're only just turning 18 i've worked a few internships at small non-profits but i just got my first full-time permanent job with benefits at a pretty well

funded non-profit. Here's my dilemma. I, 24, she, her, am one month in and I'm getting all of my work done in the first two hours of my eight-hour day at the office. Don't tell anybody that. I am bored out of my mind. I do crosswords, I've listened to some audiobooks, and I've of course listened to all of your new episodes and re-listened to the classics. That still leaves me a lot of free time. I feel guilty, but I've asked for more work and haven't gotten it yet. My supervisor is amazing. Oh my god. Shut the fuck up. Imagine if Michael B. Jordan was a white French-Canadian woman i'm just fucking with you i love that thank you so much for real though she tells me i'm doing a great job and just to take it easy do you have any tips for productive or just have fun ways to

kill time in the office thank you you are in by the way this in non-profit is like insanity like this is in any work like in any workplace like this is an amazing problem to have in the non-profit sector is fucking crazy don't do things where it looks like you're not working so don't do crossword puzzles don't like you can listen to music listen to podcasts but i need you to always look busy because what could either one of two things can happen you're gonna you're obviously doing the work that you were paid for which is great then they'll start giving you more work without additional pay we don't want that or they're going to cut your hours and then you lose your benefits we also don't want that so you just need to look busy at all times listen to your

podcast listen to music listen to audiobooks but i need you to be click click click in tap tap tap reading email scrolling looking at the the work messenger work slower too that's what i was work so much slower take breaks go talk to your co-workers do never look like you're not doing something that's work related yeah that was gonna be my whole advice is that you need to break up your day because it seems like you're aware of your tasks like you're getting all of your work done the first two hours of an eight-hour day at the office that I have a really hard time believing is two hours worth of work I think you're probably going a little too hard like I if you set the precedent that you go above and beyond or you work really fast you will like I said you'll get

other people's tasks put on you for zero no extra pay and also if you are you're 23 so you're like pretty fresh out of college I actually don't know when you end college you're 24 but like it is not assist you're not going to be able to work most people's eight hour work day in two hours for a sustain like a long substantial period of time so going out of your way to pace yourself now even if it feels like silly will benefit you beyond just this job so i think like like section your day to the hours uh like before lunch then do or like more like morning through late morning and then the lunch times like an hour before lunch the hour lunch or whatever the little time after lunch and then the other half of the day so like three sectors so it's

not just like two because you don't want you you want to have it be enough like usually for the last one you can kind of just be like tip tapping on the phone and so break those up and like you know get the emails done get the things done that have to be done timely and make a lot of lists like do a lot of lists like that make sure you're on the computer opening things you've got like different windows on open at the time motz always has his like if he's like what does he call it modeling and i always i'm always like the work baby but he works in finance but he'll have like his ipad and he'll have just like a movie on in the background as he's like tap tap tapping on that so i think if you're trying to do anything additional that doesn't look like work it has to

be a second screen and it has to be a smaller screen you can't be doing work on your ipad or on your phone and then have something on your big computer it has to be the other way around and i think like one of the one of the i'm not gonna say few benefits of working a non-profit and i can say this because my you come from i come from family i come from this i'm it's think of a netbook maybe for non-profits yep there's no money involved there you go hey hey hey um the workaholic ism with none of the financial benefits the one of the benefits of few of them is networking and like meeting people from like totally different areas and especially like donors and like people who work within that who are like you would never come across in general

so i think like i would recommend you don't want to be out of the office too much because people do think even if you're taking a lot of out of the office meetings, it's like they're not working at all. But like even doing stuff like that, where it's like if you want to do a little bit farther of a lunch and then be like, oh, I'm going to meet up with this donor, have a conversation about X, Y, like we're going to have a work lunch. I'm going to work through whatever that is. And then it's farther and you're in a car in the commute or whatever, you're on a train or something. So I think finding ways that you can utilize the benefits of your job that's not creating new work but like maintaining relationships or building relationships with

people um i think is a really good thing to do and then i think this is a can be very tricky and it depends on who you're if you're friends with someone or you're not but i think i always appreciate and it's obviously different in school because you're not getting paid and being you can be taken advantage of in that instance um but like if you know somebody is gearing up to go on maternity leave or whatever and like being like hey like i know you're going on maternity leave like let me know if you want to send some stuff my way and i can help finish this for whatever or someone's sick or whatever so like i think like don't be so in your own world that you're like shut off from your you're pretending to work so hard while you're having fun that

you're completely numb to the rest of the office in the world but i think it can be a good opportunity to like get to know co-workers who you might like but also who might be leaving soon who might have a job opening coming up that you might be able to get promoted yeah if even if like the job that the next step that you want being like hey i've got like an hour free can i just come sit with you while you're but don't do this this needs to be like a once a week not something every day vet who you're doing that with so much especially if it's someone who works above you and it's kind of like a offering something like hey i saw you've got this thing let me get like if i like let me clear this off your plate and i can do this would love to sit down i can shadow

you for a moment but make sure you're doing that in a very selective way but i think you should yes pretend to be more busy than you are but don't do that so isolated by yourself all the time yeah and then what other things can you do you could learn a new language duolingo's dead but you can help resurrect them and also depending on what your non-profit does that might be like beneficial and they might be fine with you like straight up doing that not hiding it hide it i say always i am i i kind of am in that camp too just because unfortunately people can say they're okay with something for 364 days out of the year and then suddenly they're not okay with it and suddenly it's like terms for grounds for

dismissal and like it can just be tricky in that sense but foster relationships especially if uh they're wealthy because they will be all right next one hi megan melissa um i am 28 years old she her and i have some like i need some advice on my relationship with my dad um there's a really awkward moment that happened on Christmas. But with some backstory first, I've just never been super close with my dad. Up until age 10 or 11, I went to his house every other weekend and on Christmas. But once he got married, when I was 12, that really stopped. And I would kind of see him once or twice a year. I would call him as a kid and like say, hi, how are you? And he wouldn't call me back. Like it would go to voicemail, all that. And I've kind of gotten very indifferent

about my relationship. Like, I really am okay, at least for me, seeing him once or twice a year. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty, but I mean, I have tried in the past. It's just hard. He has a new girlfriend now, and he has been with her for about two years, and she is nice. I've met her about like three or four times, and I saw her just before Christmas. I messaged both of them Merry Christmas on Christmas, just to kind of break the ice, because I hadn't heard from him that day and he was going to be with her family and then she mentioned like Merry Christmas and how she wanted to get together this year so I can meet like her family and stuff and get together and I was like sure you know that would be fun and then I don't know if they just don't realize

how group messages work but she messaged so excited glad she seems interested maybe she wants to be more involved in your life now and it just really caught me off guard and they started having like our own conversation in this group message like about I don't know their plans for the week and I just didn't respond and I didn't need to call him sooner it's just a very weird situation that I've had with him and it's hard to deal with just knowing how to communicate with him and I don't know I have been debating on if I should message him separately and ask like what they meant by that like we asked if he's even interested in having like a stronger relationship with me because it really has never seemed like he's wanted to like for example like he came to

my high school and college graduation but never like he didn't stay to say hi to me or give me a hug or take pictures or anything it just seems like he shows up for show sometimes because he feels like that's what he has to not that he's interested in actually being a dad to me I don't know i feel like you're been rambling but i just need advice and if you think it's even worth sending that text message or if i should wait for them to reach out to me again yeah anything would be helpful thank you i have a lot of thoughts um i understand you deeply uh you your instincts are spot on he is doing this for show there is no point in asking what he meant by it because i will tell you what he meant by it and what he meant by it is he has told his girlfriend

that he has put this effort in and you have not and he's been waiting whether he has said whether she whether she's like was born yesterday and has he could have done two things he could have said that you he has been trying and you are not meeting him there at all or you have explicitly said that you're not looking for a relationship whatever or he could have quite literally said she never reaches out whatever and then not even implied that it is his responsibility as an adult and the parent who will always be more of the adult in situation to reach out more as the that is his job so i don't know whichever one he changed he whichever one he said he said based on which one she'd believe so if she has kids i'm gonna say it's the first one if she

doesn't have kids he might have been able to get away with the second one but that is what he meant buy it. And what she meant is that she believes that. And to me, that is like a twofold kind of issue because the way you described your relationship with your dad and the way you described your dad, this happening in this text message conversation, I just learned about him today. I wasn't surprised by that at all. For her, she is newer to you. So someone believing that to me i also when that's happened in my life i kind of like look even more down upon those people because i'm like what do you mean like i knew to expect that out of this person but like what do you mean you believe that like what do you mean that's the narrative you believe and sure you

if you're going to like reach out i think you'd probably be more effective reaching out to her not to him and just to be like hey and this is like if you want to be if you want to be really straightforward and be like, hey, not sure if you knew, but that was a group message. So I saw that. And what I've drawn from this conclusion is it sounds like my dad has told you that I have not been interested in a relationship with him. I have. I have tried this since I was a kid. I say everything you said to us. And it's like, he does not reach out. He has never shown really any interest in a relationship. Our relationship that we have to this point is really only from me. I am the one having to pursue that. And like, it might not be a lot, but yeah, because I'm not getting

anything there's no reciprocation there I it all lands on me so I just want to let you know that that's what's going on she might respond she might not it might blow up their relationship it might not you sound indifferent in a and I don't know if indifference like a negative connotation in this instance but like I I understand how you feel like this is this is your normal it's like truthfully not a big deal to you at this point anymore and you haven't come to expect this but i'm also of the belief that if a relationship that has already caused you so much strife as a kid that you've gotten to the point as an adult where you are fine with and expect and are okay with behavior that people who have like very normal relationships with their parents would be like

appalled by or devastated by you've already gone through all of the pain of that relationship so as an adult if you're gonna add more of that onto me no like i we either you either like i'm I'm meeting you where you are. You can't add any more onto this. You can't make this a bigger issue because I've already gotten past my issues with you. And if you want to start new ones here, like I've already paid my dues in terms of that.

So I don't think that, I don't think anybody's entitled to have a relationship with us, let alone a parent who is, I agree with you. I think he is doing it for show and don't take this the wrong way. You also might be doing a little bit for show and that's fine.

It might be like, I feel like I have to go through the motions because I don't know how I'll feel in X amount of years or whatever. So I think if you're fine seeing him twice a year, that's totally fine. And if you're fine seeing him once a year, that's also totally fine. But I think if getting into the weeds of this is going to cause more harm or cause more issues or make you feel any type of way about it, I don't know that it's really worth your time,

especially because I think he's proven time and time again that he's probably just going to disappoint you. And my belief is I give people who regularly disappoint me, I give them less opportunities to disappoint me. They'll still disappoint me. I'm just not going to let you do it all the time. I'm going to walk into it knowing I'm going to get disappointed. So I'm going to act accordingly. And I'm only going to give you so much so I can control that. and it's unfortunate but i don't think spreading yourself even so like thin and like just bending over backwards it's never going to get the result that it deserves like you're never it's never going to be met with the same effort that you've put in unfortunately yeah earlier this week i accidentally sent some people a text message that was meant for my sisters thankfully it was jamila mecca thankfully holy shit and i was telling them about what it wasn't me because sometimes you mix up

which Megan yeah I miss up Megan's but like no no no sister group chat that's that's a terrifying thing to be on the ether when you realize it's the wrong recipient uh-huh and the way I realized it was Jamila literally wrote back wait what thank god it was them holy shit I know but it was uh well they've heard it by now I was telling them I was telling my sisters about what happened it at the uh spa but it was complete we had already been talking about the spot so it was completely like combo mid-convo out of context and they're like what the fuck is this so funny and then i had to like explain everything that happened but it could have been worse depending on who i had accidentally sent it to but i know how embarrassing it is to accidentally because i

didn't know how i i know i know them but they're not like i just we've only known each other a couple months at this point so it's not like i wasn't exactly sure how they were gonna take what i had said well it's also a crazy fucking story it's a crazy fucking story so any point where you hop in yeah i understand like the embarrassment but if i were you i would i would have and you still have the chance to just respond back in that group message and say hey what what do you mean i and and say exactly what you want like do you actually want a relationship with him or do you not like are you just kind of like yeah at this point we're just going through the motions of being related then yeah but like also you were the child like he is the person he didn't stay

for your graduation like he came to your graduation and didn't stay to take pictures what kind of relationship does he have with your mom to me this also reads like girlfriend is younger girlfriend doesn't have kids because girlfriend wanting you to be incorporated and involved with her family to me is like that's a very sweet very kind gesture but it seems like he has she's believing everything that he's been saying yeah because if she had kids then she would first want you to have a relationship with her kids and she would know if like if he was like oh you haven't talked to my daughter in a while she'd be like call her yeah why aren't you call her like what do you mean like it would be like so easy like that what if you and this is chaotic

of me and i don't know your personality what if she just messages in the group and be like lmao dad there's no way you've been telling her that i am the one who hasn't wanted to have a relationship like ha ha ha ha like but again you're not the one that's supposed to be doing the reaching now it never should have been like do we want to have a relationship calling dad and then waiting for him to call her back yeah it sounds like one of those parents that are like well the phone works two ways i'm a fucking kid and you and you will all and even when you become an adult you are always their kid if it makes you feel any better call it like this is so you could have written this that hundreds of thousands of people could have written this like exact thing like it is

like their mo of this same mentality of well i didn't know you wanted me to like whatever and it's like you were so not present in my childhood and you were so not proactive in being a parent that you don't know how to be a parent this is the fundamentals parenting 101 and you don't know how to be a parent but you want me to treat you like a parent you want all of you want all of that there because it never should have been a question about can i or should i be in your life it would have just been like i am always here there's never any doubt that i want to be in your life and like the fact that having a relationship with him now more than like because i'm gonna bet that you probably you say you saw him every other week for a bit like when you were growing up but

like that didn't even seem like it lasted for an extended period of time he's asking for you to have a drastic or he's not asking it's like you'd be having a drastic shift in your relationship when in reality you've probably spent more years of your life seeing him two to four times a year than seeing him every other week like this is this is the normal and the fact that he has clearly told his girlfriend he clearly knows it's not the normal because he's had to justify it to his girlfriend and to me it's like you know this isn't normal and instead of owning that taking accountability and doing anything to change that and rectify this because like he should be glad that you're not like fully no contact i mean like i'm don't speak to my dad at all instead of doing

that he's blamed you and he's put the onus on you and to me that just screams like he doesn't know how to be a parent and he still doesn't know how to be a parent into adulthood and sometimes people think when their kids get past 18 then it's like everything that happened before that is a what it's whatever and now you could have a relationship like adults but it's you're still a parent it's never going to be just a typical adult and adult relationship so it has to be on your terms and it doesn't seem like you want to see him more than you're seeing him all right uh we're going to take a break when we get back we'll get into the rest and we're back and it's time for another i'm 32 she they i met a girl on bumblebee ff we bonded

over both being horse girls. So we hung out and had a really good time. That was a year ago. Now she's one of my best friends and we hang out all the time. The problem is I now think I'm in love with her. She's gay too. And I took the risk of telling her that I like her. Well, she said that she only sees me as a friend and that's all she was looking for when we met. Hence Bumble BFF. I think we'd be good together since we have the same values and we always have a good time together. She told me that I'm usually her type, but she's just not into me. Ouch. I'm heartbroken, but I don't want to lose my best friend. How do I get over this? Horseback riding. Kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding. Do you have other friends? Right. Is there other

people you can date? Use Bumble. Use the other part. You don't look for somebody to date. I know you weren't looking for somebody to date on Bumble BFF. You just happened to fall in love with the person that you were looking for friends with. So use Bumble, the other part of bumble the dating part to find somebody to date and maybe look for some more friends as well yeah i you might be an all or not like you might be someone who just like pours everything into every like the relationships you're in and like you foster individual relationships one-on-one and so then it can become like it becomes everything but i don't think these sound like good enough reasons to love her and like are you are you sure you have feelings for her because

you said we have the same values we have a good time together that's a friend and also i have i i have a good time with lots of people i have a good like also it's not mutually exclusive same values having good time together like you this to me is something that like you should you should want for more in a relationship and like a friendship is the basis is like a good base of every relationship you should have the same values you should have a good time together and then there should be there's there's more after that but i agree i think you need to pursue more friendships and then go on dates so do both so you're not putting all your eggs in one basket yeah and this is gonna sound rich coming from me because melissa and i spend we talked all the time

and we spend full days together granted we are working but y'all don't even have hear half of what we're doing it's not at all not at all but i was gonna say that like you at 32 please don't like this the wrong way you should not be talking to your best friend 24 hours a day all day and hanging out with her every day and hanging out with her all weekend because it doesn't even give your brain enough capacity or space to seek other relationships or even to see other people in your life who you might have relationships with but they're so far in the distance that you only have tunnel vision for this like you you need to pace your life so there's room for that there's room for missing that there's room for wanting companionship there's room for wanting more

friends and you know whatever so yeah because we have other friends we you have mods i entertain other gentlemen she never tells me about them and i'll tell you once i'm ready to settle down i know you'll be the first to know and it'll be like been seeing this one for three years and you won't be like i will be the first to know but it will not have been like brand new just met last month it's fine i expect it from you i'm not offended as you shouldn't be i'd be concerned if it was the other way i'd be like are you in a cult like what has happened to you right you gotta like diversify your portfolio yes that's such a good way to put it i need to clear you need to clear your calendar because i think of it like a job search if you are so

swamped with work every single day and it's consuming everything in your life you don't have time to even look for a new job, let alone even wish or want for a new job because you can't even see what else is out there. But I think the same way when it comes to dating and like before Mons and I got together, we would talk all the time. He was like one of my very best friends and like, and we would flirt all the time. And I had a friend be like, because you're doing that with him, you're not going on dates with people. You're not swiping on apps or doing anything like that because he's already ticking this box but he's not officially doing that like you need to remove that part of your life if it's not actually going to fulfill that part of your life so you can

miss it and then seek it out but when you're getting it all without that you don't have to end the friendship but you do need to pull back in a way that makes you seek makes you diversify that portfolio right get some more friends get some more lovers and and i quite literally think it's like a toggle on hinge where you do like right bff and dating it's not two different apps isn't it same app yeah get back on there all right we're gonna take another break when we get back we'll get into don't blame them we're back it's time for don't blame them this is where a listener will call in with their own advice pertaining to a call or write in that we had on a previous episode they might have personal

experience they might have professional experience or they just might have some insight that was different than what we said so this is about the uh caller who was blackout drunk and is getting brief snippets of their memory back of having sex with one of their friends that they're not actually attracted to and during the call um megan and i had said that because you were blackout drunk you actually can't consent so therefore this is sexual assault and then this is someone calling in with their thoughts on that here we go um hi there it's especially my first time calling in i've been listening for a couple years actually for probably a while uh like before the pandemic but anyways i felt like i wanted to call in for specifically

the doubling them for the doubling me by my own Valentine episode, the sports call, which has a lot of offensive content, but I just want to say first of all, Megan and Melissa handled that like really, really well. I just want to add a couple things. I'm an RA at my university. I've been an RA for a few years now, so I have experience in this. We actually get training for a lot of things on the campus, specifically at my campus. I get sexual assault response and prevention training, things like that, and how to handle cases with residents like this. And so a really important thing for us to know is that every RA at every single campus in the United States is a mandated reporter. So anything that they say to their RA,

they will have to check out it is not a like a situation like it depends on if i'm talking if i'm talking to my friend it's different i'm trying to go resident i'm on duty i'm required to tell so that's just important just for like the caller but we can do at university campuses depends on the campus obviously but every school is technically it's like its own jurisdiction they have that's why you have like police force typically that school and they have judicial affairs for every single university and so they can do a campus restraining order and it will include the buildings it can include classes things like that and then technically it doesn't have to go on the records you can take it to court things like that but if this caller approaches

their this guy i'm forgetting their name and he does not handle it in the proper way or keep them and make some advances and things like that, and they feel really uncomfortable, especially in their space where they're supposed to feel comfortable. This is their home, and if they do not feel comfortable in this space, so yeah, like, the RA should sure handle it, and they can also request a female RA if they really want to.

Anyways, so I hope that really helps. Hope you guys have a great day. Perfect. Yeah. I never even crossed my mind, which it should have, because I know that there's legal systems throughout every school, but it's its own, essentially, jurisdiction. i never thought of it in those terms but that makes sense yeah that's why for other things

they've been able to get away with some things because so i as someone who's in a sorority that's immediately what i think of of it's easier to pay things off and yeah yeah or even like i certain things that i remember being like this doesn't feel like this should be allowed and then the repercussions are just we'll take this from here because we can we'll divvy out the like all of that kind of stuff and they just do it themselves and then it's usually a slap on the wrist and whatever so that makes a lot of sense um but yeah i think it's also good to remember uh that like they said and if you're just like make sure that you are intentional with the things you tell someone who's a mandated reporter because even if you say i don't want to

do anything about this that doesn't have to they have to so it's and it's and it's for everyone's benefit it might not feel like that and like a lot of people take issue with that with like therapists or whatever and like some therapists will take use their own judgment to be like you know i think this person's okay or whatever but like legally they are a mandated reporter and even yeah there is no like taking back there is no can i say something off the record there is none of there is none of that they have to do what they're going to do so making sure that you know that going into it and i've been in that situation too where someone told me something and because of my position i had to tell what happened

yeah but just also know that just because they're mandated reporter doesn't mean they can make you press charges at all but they do have to report it yeah and um that in itself i i think like everything they said about like solving it within whatever capacity you want in whatever capacity like whatever you're looking for the problems you're looking for that you're facing finding solutions for those that are your comfort level that is not doing something that you're not comfortable with so i hope that they are listening and uh thank you for calling in with that i think that is this our first ra might be and you should know as an ra that i still follow my ra from college the only year i went and i guess the only year i would have had an ra anyway we are still

mutuals on instagram and and facebook we still comment on each other's things i still love him to death shout out reggie you're the best he got some like nice cool like shoes storage i saw recently and i was like nice reggie got in the always dressed very nice and yeah i always think fondly of i know some people like might not remember but like a good ra you remember you also remember a bad one because i remember mine totally would he wasn't specifically bad he just smelled oh he was like a walk-on football player and wouldn't clean his things so he had like his football pads and stuff in the room i think that should disqualify you yep no that should disqualify you i i have i think i even have memories of people smelling

and reggie being like showering when i'm gonna teach you how to not smell like stop i don't know if the school would have said he was a wonderful RA oh yeah yeah you've told stories about he was to me and he was the best and he actually cared about us and his job is to care about you and that's what I think like fundamentally anytime that like if I thought he was gonna get in trouble I was like I will go to the I'll go to whoever our school the D I'll tell them I was like fine yours was to care about us and you care about us the college might not like the way you care about us but part of the way you care about us is you want to make sure we don't get arrested thank you well that's the end of the episode we hope you all enjoyed as always you can watch the

video version on patreon you can support the show there we also are there ad free and we do live streams twice a month where we hang out we talk we chit chat you can meet us some of the cast and characters we've talked about on the show so many times my twin which has said for your birthday melissa i'm gonna make these graphics from now on for the ones for the forms and i told her to go away also someone else wrote in and talked about how much they like them so there you go she's trolling you as i would too nope she said it was because it reminds her to that she wants to write in but she's shy so she hasn't worked up the courage yet who's shy whoever it was that oh my god i thought you were saying my twin and i said my twin is a lot of things no no that bitch is

not shy no no no no she says she also your twin also says that she enjoyed talking to a brick wall and i said facts i'm not surprised also if you are in the dmv we have friends for you um international people are from all over you're traveling abroad yeah hey you're going on a work trip you need a couch to crash on that's happening people are doing that with each other but it's a great time you're moving moving to a new city you're just trying to make new friends you're trying to go out less spend less money on like dinner and drinks join the patreon yep support women in stem women in business support women just women support women all right goodbye this is a sister sign production hosted by me megan rinks and me melissa d montz plus diamond

imprint productions post-production by coco lorenz production assistance by melanie d watson and music by ryan hunter and giacomo picasso