Don't Blame Me! - DBM: One-Upping Trauma

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

This week Meghan and Melisa are giving advice on: Update: Karaoke Stalker Find a hobby Friend is constantly lying Parent try to set you up Letting your kids go to sleepovers Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Follow Us! @meghanrienks instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @meghanandmelisa https://www.instagram.com/meghanandmelisa Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf Need Advice? dontblameme.show Domestic Listeners Call: [phone] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. welcome back to another episode of don't blame me where we megan and melissa give you wonderful amazing life-changing advice that has been told to change your lives okay for better or for worse and if it's for worse can't blame us hey well welcome back we're going to give some advice and it's going to be a wonderful great time but if you're brand new here and you don't know us we're Megan and Melissa and we're about to become

in your ear holes or on your screens for four days a week you get to enjoy us a lot of days not just this podcast if you want to watch how Melissa's making that delightful little mouth noise head on over to our Patreon head on over to our Patreon

where you can watch the video versions of the podcast but yeah we've got a whole slate of shows so if you you know maybe you're someone who listened to a show that released episodes daily and you realize like damn they're incredibly problematic are you one of those people no no but i was gonna say how'd it take you so long i went on google deep dive about 10 episodes in i said i got questions where's the birkin money coming from And then I figured it out. But you still listen.

But, oh wait, because I was doing research. And that's when I said, we've got to make more episodes a week because people are saying that they can't stop listening to this podcast because it's a part of their routine. And I said, we've got to get in these bitches' ears and in their routines. We've got to get in their cars. We've got to get in their commutes multiple days a week. And so that's what we did.

We saw a need in the market and we appeared for you. Ta-da! Yay! so you might be wondering how we're qualified to give this advice and what we lack in credentials we make up for in opinions i have a question for the listeners and i'm gonna ask it on see you next tuesday but i'm gonna write it down right now so i don't forget so tune in to see you next tuesday here's a little teaser that's all the teaser um now i'm on the edge of my seat waiting to tune in till see you next Tuesday well you've got about an hour to get there yeah

I get to beat you all I get that first anyways so if you want to call in for this podcast you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 tell us about your problem your predicament we will do our very best to solve it but if you don't want to call in or you are international you would prefer and it would be easier because you can't you can't leave a voicemail with a google number you can always send us a voice memo to meganpodcast at gmail.com and if none of those things appeal to you you can also send us a dm or just write it out in the same email address meganpodcast gmail.com for the audio versions you have to keep it under three minutes and for that we also suggest require beg of you to write everything down ahead of time practice reading

aloud a couple times time it out make this under three minutes you have all the relevant info in there and then just read it when you record it because we don't do like multiple like oh i'm gonna pick this up in the next one like you just have those three minutes and then for the requirements for the writing ones 300 words or less but then for all of them include your age you can include your pronouns if you would like but if other people are involved in the story or what's going on give them like a fake name let us know their ages as well and it's about a relationship how long you've been together friendship how long you've been friends or any relevant information that can help us give you the best advice possible and tell us you're

sensitive because despite being ruthless cunts we we take that into we take that into consideration we do and most of the time when people ask us they don't need it no it's it's always like the most like hey like someone slapped me across my face and then called me a fucking like dirty bitch whore and like spit in my mouth because like i asked if like i could get guacamole with like my chipotle bowl and depends on what's going on i know i was like i had to make sure it wasn't what you wanted yeah and that's like not what i ordered with my chipotle boido bowl and but you can like you can tell me like i'm tentative but like i can handle it i'm just like what in what world are you anyways anything else nah shall we embark we shall but we've got an

update so this is from the karaoke stalker episode it wasn't that long ago i think maybe two karaoke stalker yeah remember the uh person that wrote in they work somewhere and yes i can only think of the tiktok i just sent you of the girl singing karaoke at the nail salon and so i was just like what happened with that okay no you're right you're right you're right the co-worker who kept inviting themselves along yes yeah all right and so then they wrote in and said uh thanks for answering another one of my questions so fast sorry if any if that was confusing i had to cut some stuff out to make it shorter but you both did a fabulous job giving me things to think about from all different angles anyway like i feel like i didn't give enough for y'all to get it but you

did because you rock also um they responded quickly after also so you don't think i'm a terrible person i've tried to be friends with ron for like a year now and the stalking is the last straw on a long list of otherwise pretty meh things he's done to make me not like him like he's not a bad person i'm sure there's a friend out there somewhere for him that would love that that person is just not me and i and i do in fact think he's a weirdo even though i know he's not a bad person and then there's like a little like yoga emoji google changes things weird so i don't even know what that is also today at lunch i was talking about a movie i like and he really loudly in the work break room i put that in all caps said that's the movie about teens trying anal

for the first time right no what the fuck this is just the first time he's making me out to be the weirdo at work when he is the true weirdo he told everyone an event i was planning was not safe for work. He literally said the acronym NSFW. Bitch, this is work. Why the fuck would I make it not safe for work? Like go live your best weirdo life, but please don't include me in it at work. Anywho, this is no hate to anal movies. I'm sure that's a lovely genre, but please don't talk about that at work. And please don't slander my events. And please don't stalk me because what the fuck see i don't know how i would have included this all because the karaoke sake seemed to be the most pressing matter it had just happened that week no you should have started with

this you could have left the karaoke out and just put this in and that would have gave us a better picture what movie is about teens have like first of all you're saying that's like oh that's the one with the deer where the mom dies like we all know bambi but like if you put that into connections like okay now pair together which of these movies are about teens and I'm not going to google that because it's not going to be whatever he was thinking of it actually might be

it's not a common reference to the point where I go you're talking to two movie girls and I don't know what that is and so therefore why does he know what that is this is just this yuck also I don't know who wrote in this but I feel

like I could pick a friend for them based on how they write With someone who's in our Patreon. Mm-hmm. Who do you think? Eric. I was going to say Nicole. Yeah.

You know? I would think if, like, if you did a screenshot of this person, if, like, you were friends with Nicole and your screenshots of your texts between each other, like, those are the kinds of ones that go viral.

Like, you both seem like the same kind of people who would have started that viral trend of, like, writing to my roommates, like, Democratic National Convention begging for donations. Like, it's just, like, you tell a story very well.

Like, I can hear your personality in that. And Mary, too. Yeah. And everyone, I would implore you, when you're getting these text messages from your representatives, I've been doing this. I just respond back. What are your thoughts on genocide? Because rumor has it, and as far as I can tell, you're a big, big fan. And that's a deal breaker for me. yeah and so the ones that are against it are responding back right their constituents are responding back right away with the information that i like to see and the ones that haven't said one word or like are more for it they just don't respond back so it's very telling it is i had a

dream that i signed up to do a brand deal with the dnc but specifically with current present day obama and like barack and okay no no but like i like i woke up or no in my dream i went to sleep in my dream and then i woke up in my dream and i was like it was they just decided wait wait wait wait wait so in your dream you fell asleep and then woke up inception i know listen when i tell you my dreams like it's it's too realistic and too fucking vivid and then um it I woke up and it was you know the U.S. co-signing yeah drop those bombs all of this kind of stuff but I was like I have to get out of this brand deal and they're like Barack is a little worried as well and I was like I just need I need to cancel this and everyone's like well what is what is Barack

gonna think of you and I go I hope he he agreed he I I think it's fine and also like they're like well what he's not gonna be able to like get re-elected and I was like he's not running and they're like yeah but like what if and i was like what you were having a what if the marvel universe type thing yes it was basically being like we know joe biden's on the ballot but like what what if obama and he was like i don't think so and i was like i'm gonna head out and they were disappointed in me and they were like very upset and i was like okay it was very weird disappointed in y'all so yeah exactly join the fucking club great it's been a long time coming anyways we'll take a quick break and then we will get into the

rest of the episode we're back from our break and getting into our first submission i'm going to hop right into it. I need a hobby. I feel like everyone has that one or several thing that they're interested in and I'm just not. My new year's resolution was to find a hobby and be great at it. Well, we're almost three months in and I haven't found it. I tried the easiest reading. I even bought a Kindle. I never finished a book. Do you have ADHD? I tried multiple genres and nothing held my attention. I do believe I have untied most ADHD. If any listeners have any books to recommend, I'd be grateful. I tried scrapbooking. Nope. And now you confirmed have ADHD. I tried scrapbooking for some of my favorite times in my life. Went on Pinterest,

got all the supplies and basically wasted a bunch of money because I didn't get past the shopping cart. Maybe I'm a shopaholic. Who knows? Please recommend hobbies that are very low maintenance so I can actually stick to it. So you have met all diagnostic criteria for ADHD, specifically scrapbooking. Anyone who has attempted scrapbooking, the amount of materials and money I have spent and the shit I have bought, this is going to be crazy to suggest because I also am constantly looking for hobbies that are fun and that I can accomplish and that I can finish. And if you're an undiagnosed ADHD person, or even if you don't have ADHD, you can have similar ADHD tendencies. And to that, I would say, do not pick one hobby to stick to. Pick a couple

to rotate between. So I bought a bunch of beads and have made bracelets and necklaces and stuff over the summer. And then I just stopped and I got bored of it. And then I had knit before and then I stopped and I got bored of it but then I picked back the beads back up and then I picked the knitting back up and like I have an iPad that I'll draw on uh or whatever and like reading is one that I have not been able to get back into the same way but I do think a good gateway to hobbies I don't know there will be someone out there going no no mobile gaming like I do think playing games on your phone is a great way to get into the habit of like like just doing something that's fun, that is not work-related,

that's not necessarily productive. And then to me, I have a hard time deciding hobbies, differentiating between what is a hobby and what is a next business venture. How can I monetize this? How can I do... You can't do that with like...

I mean, you can if you want to fucking stream on Twitch, which there was one point where I texted Arden and I said, should I stream on Twitch? And she goes, it's hard, but I'll help you. And I said, never mind. So I think that's a good way to kind of get into it. I don't think that anyone... yeah you're on the right track like it's very hard to like pick a hobby one singular hobby

stick to it and know that you're gonna like it and love it so I think like hobbies that are not high overhead costs like start with free hobbies and then ones that like don't cost as much money or aren't as like labor intensive or like as much of a time suck because like the amount of times I've almost bought a cricket machine and I'm like do I need this and I'm like oh my god you don't need this like there are so many things I'm like should I get into sewing should I buy a sewing machine and it's too expensive too big of a learning curve so do the things that you that are free and that automatically you're like i can get the hang of this i can get like better at this i can get good at this and then work your way up to things that are a little more like niche

interesting yeah i would say my hobbies are doing algebra problems playing marvel strike force now playing monopoly goal and then if i venture outside the home an occasional ride on a horse they're like things i can't buy things because i just look at it and don't do anything i have to like get out the house and do something i think about a lot of things and i also don't think you need to be good at a hobby like the writer mentioned that they wanted to get good at one thing it's a hobby you don't need to be good at it you just need to be interested in it and if you are only interested in it that one time you do it then great now move on to something else reading i don't particularly like to read i uh do it to get paid it is not a hobby it is a job for

me but i do like if audiobooks might be better for you if you can't like you've tried reading um but people write in share what books you like we don't even know what your interests are so yeah i'm always like evelyn hugo because i've never read to me i downloaded it years ago i still not read it but i think like i'm right in brie has all the books in the world oh yeah brie loves evelyn hugo that's a good one that brie recommended that to me brie's also the one who told me bitch you don't need a cricket brie has a cricket um but i'm someone who like i do need to be good at something to like enjoy it so like i abandon a crossword if i like run into like one complication i go i've actually like if it's too hard i go no no i'm out a dip i'm trying something

x moving on to the next one so i would say like be comfortable with it can't be a money pit because that the only way then you feel guilty so like if you don't make them a high overhead expense you can do it and then suck at it and then be like fuck this i'm getting rid of it and like i'm not gonna do this let me find another one there so like don't be so i don't want to say don't be so intentional about what you pick because you're not going to know until you try it so just be ready to try anything and everything and then also go through like seasons of multiple different hobbies and you like switch back and forth and do all that kind of stuff and yeah i also think seasonal hobbies are a great place to start so like i love making christmas decorations

or making like a holiday decoration you can make something for summer make something for whatever that is and it helps you like figure out what you're good at and like what you like and there's like an end date so like there's feels a little bit more of an accomplishment but i would love if we could have stores like this one that my future mother-in-law went to that i think it was in like sebastopol or something but it was somewhere in like the northern sebastopol it's like northern california area that's where i used to get christmas treats as a kid it's cute it's cute but that it is literally an entire shop full of half finished or partially started hobby projects that people have started that they abandoned and they donate them there and then

you can buy them so she bought like a half done like meal point for like five dollars and all of these things that are like either almost done or partially done and then you just buy them In the city, it's called Sadableville. What did you say? Sabatoville. Sebastapool. Sebastapool. Kind of like the beginning of Sebastian.

Like Sebastapool. Apool. Okay. I don't know if that's even where she was. I might be fully making this up. I remember you telling me about it, though. Well, I've been to Sebastapool a bunch of times, and I just know that they had driven from,

they did like a Northern California all the way to LA. So I just picked a place that's in Sonoma County. Okay. Yeah, but. just try stuff if you don't like it move on yeah and also like the longer that if there are other hobbies that you're like oh i really want to do but i don't know if i'm gonna like waste all this money doing it just like keep it in the back of your head like i for years have been saying i want to make a dollhouse one day i will i haven't done it yet and like sometimes i just keep those

little flames alive but just saying that like i'm gonna do that one day and that that's satisfying i've been saying i'm gonna pick up tennis i took the steps to get an inhaler i was gonna look into starting it but then i had to leave yeah swimming that's on the list too i don't even think i was gonna say it's really not a hobby it's more of like survival i'm not looking forward to that well it's gonna be hard yeah well well well next one hi eminem i'm 17 parent permission granted don't worry she heard needing advice about how to handle a situation with my friend group. Here's a breakdown of our relationship to each other. We are all in our junior year. Ben, Chris, and Tom, all he and him, have been friends since eighth grade. Me and Ben have been

dating since freshman year. Me and Ann, she, her, have been best friends since first grade. Me, Ann, and April, she, her, have been best friends since March of last year. The six of us became a friend group in May of last year. Ann and Chris began dating a few weeks ago after talking since June. The problem is several habits April has that range from annoying to harmful. After talking to my therapist about it, she said her behavior sounds like borderline personality disorder. With all the symptoms, nearly everything applies to April. April has body dysmorphia and is recovering from eating disorders. She constantly says she looks fat, whether she wishes she was skinnier in the end. Anne also struggles with disordered eating, so this is harmful to her,

and I have debilitating chronic illnesses that makes it impossible to gain weight. She'll send me pictures of herself when she was thick and skinny, saying she wishes she still looked like that. She's triggering, since I look like that and my body feels me even more and they're already dead because of it. Me and Anne have both asked her not to say these things to us, and it hasn't stopped. April also has extreme insecurities about everyone's relationship with her. She claims she's fifth wheeling in her group,

or that we don't want her there, or that she's intruding. Tom says he's never felt like a fifth wheel, and we've all made conscious efforts to make her feel included, even though she was never excluded. Recently, April has been strangely possessive and sordid towards Chris, making comments that make both him and Anne uncomfortable, and that everyone has noticed. However, she also keeps picking fights with him and saying that he's a bully.

Eva also lies to the point that none of us knows what is true about her in her life. Recently, she's lied to Anne, saying things designed to make her upset with me and Chris. One especially annoying lie is her claims that her family is struggling financially, how poor to the point that she has to buy family groceries. However, there are many obvious reasons that this isn't the case. Her dad is a Harvard graduate lawyer. They have many cars, hers is a vintage one. She always buys lunch or carbs for herself or others.

They are clearly among the low class. Lastly, and to do with the money stuff, April always needs to be having the hardest time of anyone. Me and Anne have boyfriends. We can't complain we're skinny, so we don't know, or we have money, so we don't understand. Again, her family clearly has considerably more money than us. However, if I say try to vent about my illness, she will say something like, oh yeah, like how, and will give an example of something she's gone through that's worse.

And so she understands. She is not chronically ill at all. All of these things have culminated into high tensions in our group, particularly between Chris and April. All of us feel we have to wash our words around her and all of us want behaviors to stop. Thank you for any advice and much love, moi. Oy. First and foremost, severely inappropriate for your therapist to speculate on a diagnosis. So I don't know if that's how you took it or she said like, oh, she probably has BPD.

that's just like not appropriate because the the diagnostic label is not appropriate for you it's the behaviors that affect you and those behaviors are not exclusive to someone with bpd and there's a whole lot of stigma about that and also i'm assuming she's also 17 and i don't think you can get diagnosed with bpd at 17 that is absolutely correct i had a friend just like this in high school yeah like exactly like this their father was also a lawyer like it was the exact same situation and this is how i ended it we graduated you're 17 um i don't know but you might be a junior i don't think you said oh you're a junior um so you still have another year older me would just drop them but when you're in high school it's it's different there's a lot of feelings

and you have to see these people every day yeah i i think that like regardless of like looking at like her life and being like she doesn't have chronic illnesses she her family has money and like it feels like she's like lying about things to like so everything for her is always like a lot worse people who are doing well don't do that like it is it is not an indicator of someone who is like thriving and very happy it's like pathologically consistently lying about stuff So I would say regardless of the reason there that why she's doing it, if it's truthful or not, she's doing it. Regardless of the fact that even if her life was harder and it was worse, responding to someone who's going through something and talking about their chronic illness, be like, my life is so much worse than yours. even if it was worse is not an appropriate response to that and like that's also not fair to you all uh as like friends to participate and i had a like friendship growing up with someone

who like had a like tough life they had like a they had tough stuff going on and because like we were young they didn't have it was really hard for them to kind of process and in part of that they kind of like lashed out at other people. And they were like, just like really mean spirited and cruel because like they were going through a lot. And I remember like adults in my life just kept being like, they're going through a lot. They're going through a lot. And I was like, so I'm supposed to like pretend to maintain a friendship with this person who is like not being a friend to me anymore. And like, I can't even show up and be a good friend to them because like they're treating me super poorly. And I'm just supposed to like take that because I know that at the end

of the day, I'm being the bigger person. I was like, that feels like, A, I'm pitying this person and I'm pretending to be their, to be like an active friend in their life when I'm not. And I think like knowing what someone is going through is, I think it's important, but I don't think it should change the outcome of what's best for you. Because again, like the reason why doesn't change the actions that are happening. And sometimes when you learn about why someone's doing something, it can change your feelings about it. And it can change the behavior because you can have a conversation with them about it. But if there is no like realization

or reflection on their end, then at a certain point, like you also need to protect your mental health. And like, for the sake of you, it's not, you don't sacrifice that for somebody else because then you just have two people who are going through some bad shit and you can't help her out.

She can't help you out. So I honestly would just say like, hey, we've talked about this before. I'm really not comfortable when you say X, Y, and Z. And I really need that to be something that is eliminated from our day-to-day friendship because I would love to maintain a friendship with you, but it's not working when this is happening. So I don't know if you want to take a week break from this and we'll hang out again next week or if we just want to move forward without this aspect of the friendship. And I would address it in like a one-on-one thing. I would not address it as a group. I would not

address other people who, other people in the group who have X, Y, and Z issues. Like everybody needs to do, have a conversation with her. If they have an issue about a certain specific thing in their life, don't talk about what she does with other people or whatever that is, only the stuff that includes you. And if it doesn't happen, it's just like, Hey, like I said before, this isn't changing. And, um, I've, I've given this time and I have told you this before. So I need to take some space from our relationship like i wish you nothing but the best i hope we can pick this back up at a later date but like i can't it's not good for me right now and i would never want you to stay in a friendship that was not serving you or was actively harming you and so i also need to

step out because i need to like i need to prioritize myself in this and that's that like that's it like i i just think that the biggest thing i would say is because i oh my god i've done that when i was like when we were like in middle school we didn't want to hang out with someone anymore it was like group of my friends we just like all as a group together like we really don't want to hang out with you anymore and i'm like that's so awful and so cruel so the thing i would say is that like it's going to suck no matter what but don't view every every way that you get to the end of this at this end of this friendship as like all being the same means to an end like there's a way to do this that it's always going to suck it's always going to be painful but there are certain ways

to do that that are going to be like far crueler than the others so i would keep it really insular and focus on your friendship with her because other people might not even want to bring it up and then if they don't want to bring it up to her their friendship with her is like not i know you think about like friendship groups but like you have to treat it as individuals because like what she does that's not your problem yeah i agree i agree with everything you said um i just want to add in with the money thing you never actually know what people are going through just because it appears on the outside that they have a lot of like material things and her dad's a lawyer he might have got sued by somebody for doing something or mishandled the money or

any number of things so you you actually never know what people are going through so um i wouldn't judge her based upon that maybe she does have to actually like buy groceries for her family and that is a struggle that she's going through and that and then that's something that she's struggling with and so it is you know stressing her out and then that's adding to the stress of your friendships so don't ever judge anybody's pockets yeah and also like it could just be that like her parents are like very absent it's easier to say that they can't then they won't like that's a much easier kind of thing and you're still i don't ever want to say like oh my gosh you're like still so young but everyone is still figuring everything out so like

you're she's you're figuring out who you are you're figuring out how what friendships you want what friendships serve you serve you she's doing the same thing but anything that i also think involves like you said like yes don't check anyone's pockets but like you're only privy to what the adults in your life will let you be privy to and so i do think that it might seem like she's totally lying about that but like the reality that she might have is the one that she might have been given by her parents or she doesn't like what that one is and so she's rewriting all of that and that can be incredibly annoying and it sure can be a symptom of mental illness could be a symptom of like neglect or whatever it is but there's not like a justification for the reason

why if that behavior is like not aligned with helping you grow up and helping you move forward and become a better person so yeah i i do think even your initial advice of like you've only got a year left don't like go out of your way to make sure that you uh will not feel embarrassed by the way you handled this when you're older like just take a lot of time and patience and care before you act because like there's a lot of shit that i said and did when i was younger that i'm like oh god i wish i didn't do that yeah and i didn't have therapy as a resource or an accident and like you have that like you you have the ability to like take the time um to say it in a way that if you were on the receiving end of it what's the best possible outcome good luck good luck yeah

all right we're gonna take a break when we get back we'll get into the rest of the submissions and we're back next up hi megan and melissa i'm having a problem with my parents they keep trying to set me up on blind dates they're acting like i need a man to make me happy I'm only 30 and I still have so much time to figure it out. Meanwhile, my mom brings up freezing my eggs more times than I can count. She even scheduled me an appointment, which I conveniently had to work during, and that they don't have another opening for four months. They keep trying to set me up with guys that are not my type.

What they don't know is that I'm out here having a hoe of a time. I am taking this year and maybe next year to have my hoe phase, no strings attached. I was in a long-term relationship most of my 20s. After some therapy, I am ready to let my hair down. I have multiple apps and I've been having a great time finding my sexual self. Clearly, these are things I cannot tell my parents. So I'm stuck constantly hearing about their friends, quote unquote, eligible sons and how my fertility clock is ticking. Please, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I want to watch this movie. This is kind of the story of my life at a certain point. Someone here might have some insight. for me i just say shut up not shut up but leave me alone ignore it as best as you can it's still annoying it's so annoying but like i don't need to be set up with anybody i'm doing perfectly fine on my own it's just none of y'all's business i would die to see who they'd set you up with there's been plenty there's been a couple professional athletes but like not anybody that i know i was about to say yeah like there's been like a nerdy doctor there's been other like

people they grew up with their sons their kids yeah small town but it wasn't even like they didn't live here they'd be like in because my parents yeah my they're like still like actually they actually like talk to friends on phones and things like that like yeah yeah um that generation yeah forgot about that yeah they don't live here but they're just like you know a few hours away or things like that or like when their kids would come to college up here oh yeah there's been a lot i was doing my own thing literally maybe one out of all of them was actually my type but then i didn't want them to have the glory of trying to set me up yep so i never nope yep had to It was a loss, but hey.

Whatever. Can't let them win. Right. And my dad actually said, somebody, I don't even remember meeting this person, but he said I did. But he said, blah, blah, blah, son just got married. And his dad said, you just missed out. And I was like, first of all, that was like 15 years ago. Second, I didn't want them then.

Why would I want them now? Why would I want them? Why would I be trothed to someone I didn't want to go on a date with? Yep. i don't think i missed out on anything considering i turned down this date let alone the wedding date and i i wish i could tell you it get better it gets better it doesn't i would be curious where you live where you're from and where they live yeah and how close you are to them because i think the distance helps because not for me no well i was gonna say i

think like i was gonna suggest lie but it's like if you live in the same town you're having a ho phase and is it a small town that they also live in like is that gonna get back to them if you create this lie like oh i'm actually dating someone like are you gonna be like bring him over for dinner but if you live like six hours apart i was gonna say just makes up some fake boyfriend when i was close it didn't it's literally on at school on the campus that my mom also works that your mom also was on campus of no yeah when i said distance i now live half the country away oh somebody's son is coming up to visit la i don't know them i'm not going to meet some stranger no thank you pick him up from lax god no

uh somebody did i forgot which one of my parents i just get this random text message this was like October November-ish from somebody hey I'm I gotta find it hey I'm I don't even remember what their name is uh you're my dad because my mom wouldn't have gave out my number your dad gave me your number I'm in LA I don't know who this person is it could be the next big scam wow yeah I mean I don't have personal experience with this one specifically but I i am a firm believer in like if you can't establish um the boundaries because you like are either financially dependent or you like have a good relationship with them and like you don't want this like it's just kind of a blip that like with all that then i would make a joke out of it and

like every time that they bring it up just like huh what i couldn't i didn't hear and then they keep repeating it like oh that's so weird i just hear this like ringing in my ears like that's so odd like charlie brown yeah like have you guys seen this new tv and then just completely like change the subjects like you it can be fun about it it's not like a serious conversation about like we need to establish these boundaries here because i i don't know if you've already had that or that's not going to be receptive i wish it was for everyone but if it's yeah if it's something that like it's not harming your relationship with them uh fundamentally and all every other aspect like i think make a joke out of it in order to not respond jokingly but

like make an ordeal of ignoring them and so then every time they bring it up they're not getting an answer like the the conversation has been switched to something else so that's what i would suggest but i also don't have i don't have personal experience with this yeah i just get annoyed and don't let it like weigh down on me because there's no i've had conversations with them and i'll be fine for like a month and a half and then it just comes back and now i'm at the point where i don't want to waste even waste my breath so i just let it roll in one ear and out the other and fuck it yeah the only ones i ever get are about babies but it's less about your biological clock is ticking and more about go get that endometriosis surgery oh that yeah it's more

that but that is the precursor to the grandchildren yeah she's like i can talk to her because i had endometriosis i said mom this girl is drowning in people with personal experience from this goddamn surgery she just has not done yet no I know that's but that's like that's the one that's the one conversation I get and it obviously it leads into that's like uh uh the kid aspect of it but it's not from like a pressure standpoint it's from like a we see how much you love being an aunt and how good you are with kids but also I know that this is something that you eventually want how about that surgery now yeah I don't have an answer birth control is amazing and so like I don't have to think about it anymore and so like eventually i will have to think about it and so

then i'll have to get off the i'll have to do the surgery and get off the birth control but like right now i get to coast through not having periods and so like i just don't think about it i think about how much pain you used to be in i know like how crazy is that i know i think about that all the time and i'm like i'm honest like i don't know how you survived that i was like baby i was getting dangerously close to not surviving it which is why i've been on birth control like wait it's just it gets to a point like you just can't handle that much pain as a human like all the time but uh if my rheumatologist is like you gotta get this done maybe i will yeah soon good luck if you want to go for shock value just say i'm slutting it up in the streets i'll return home

when i feel like it but also if they're offering to pay for you to freeze your eggs and that is something that you'd be interested in i would take them up on that offer yeah you know like i i don't think that i mean it is it's a it's a hormone fertility treatment like so like it's not like painless or without side effects or symptoms but it is very expensive and not accessible to everybody so like if that is something that you would want and they are offering that i would like not consider that a win if you're like yeah like if you want to pay for that to happen for sure yeah unless they're gonna hold it over your head yeah but if it's just like oh i've never thought about it until like they're offering then i would be like okay no like unless it's

something that's like you really wanted separately from all this yeah there's a bunch of influencers who like do brand deals for like getting their eggs frozen yeah specifically the girl who i talked about with the ugly apartment danielle bernstein she's doing it and i saw this on reddit but she keeps talking about like doing like prenatal and postpartum workouts and like you know she's like i have to like you know doing all this stuff like being and she's like just talking about this like for as like a fertility treatment and she's like i'm doing like you know it's like i think like i think she's like prenatal like all of this like terms people are like girl you're not like this is so weird she's like where all my other mom is at and like she's like not

planning on carrying a child anytime soon let alone using like a surrogate like from how she's talking about it's just like for the future to do all this stuff but then is like kind of trying to shift her content to like appeal more to like mommies and they're all like what it's very weird okay she's an odd one yeah anyways should we read the next one hey ladies i'm writing in to ask if you guys went to sleepovers when you were kids i am 28 she her and i have an eight-year-old daughter she is currently at the age where she wants to go to her friend's house to sleep over i am a single mom and not many of my friends have kids this age so i don't know where else to get advice i I am all for playdates, but draw the line at sleepovers because you don't know these days.

At the same time, I feel a bit hypocritical because I went to sleepovers when I was her age, and they were a blast. Am I robbing her from a big part of her childhood by not letting her sleep over her friend's house? I know this will only come up more as she gets older, and I like to have a plan of action. If you're comfortable sharing, did your parents allow sleepovers? Any pros and cons from your experience? please help me make decision here. Thanks. I love the pot. And I've been listening forever. I went to sleepovers, but only if my parents knew the parents like knew knew them. And my mom would come over no matter what for like an hour and just sit and talk to the mom for like when we'd be over

there. So like, if she felt anything weird, she never did. But it was like, I know now that I'm older that it was because she wanted to see like if she felt anything weird or if I felt anything weird then I would then she'd still be there and this was before I would have had a cell phone as well yeah yeah if it was even even if it was like birthday parties where a lot of people were sleeping over my mom would still come over and just like talk to the person's parents for a minute I never even thought about doing that but that's smart like to get a vibe and then also to be able like you said to be able to assess how you're interacting with people because it's like she could totally trust the parents but there might be another kid there who's invited who she goes i

don't like how this is going yeah yeah so even yeah i know that at the time i was embarrassed but now that i'm thinking about it i really appreciate it um and i've never thought about it until right now so don't you socially no not at all not at all so yeah i yeah if i don't know somebody's parents i'm not gonna let my kid go stay with them um but my parents were specifically more so my mom i don't my dad i don't think he cared about sleepovers himself but um very specific about who i could go to and what the vibe was and also she would be more willing to have people come spend the night at our place which and a lot of other people's parents just didn't even care they just dropped their kid off without even knowing one of those kids

yeah just drop them off at the door and be like see ya yeah i think there's a happy medium i was one of those kids like i like and i will say that like i had one of the big things like that is a big fear and part of the reason why a lot of people do not do um sleepovers which is why i think it's really important to not judge as like a parent or whatever like not judge anyone else because a lot of the time like it's because like some sexual abuse has happened in that person's life when they were at a sleepover or that they work in a profession where they're like very aware of that kind of stuff i never had anything that like went like that far but like i had like a sleep i remember a specific sleepover that i went to that i was like uncomfortable with like the closeness

of like the girl who i was sleeping over with like i just didn't feel physically comfortable like there was a lot of boundaries pushed there but because i was like very allowed to like it was like sleepover wherever whenever who cares if i wanted to come home i knew that like i couldn't really call like very rarely the only time that i'm gonna actually get call and get picked up from a sleepover past the age of like five and i would still get like shit when i'm for it is if I'm on the it's the cop saying coming up your fucking kid like we busted this party she can't stay here so I don't think that like I think there's a very much a happy medium and I always really respected my friend's parents who and I didn't even really notice it again like until I

was older that they weren't really allowed to sleep over at almost anyone's house like there was like a like two or three people's houses that they're allowed to sleep over at but they would be the house that would host a sleepover and like they would make it so they'd be like so much food in the morning like so much all of this like to make it where it didn't even it wasn't like a I thought less of that friend or I got to spend less time with that friend it was like oh my god no you have the best house for sleepovers this is so much fun but I think there's also an age that um once it gets older I think the importance of sleepovers to like social like lives I think happens middle school on I don't think elementary school sleepovers are like crucial to forming like

social connections and bonds that way kids can also be very mean at sleepovers and like i've people are different at sleepovers i don't know what it is but i'm like you don't act like this at school totally and i think that like when you're younger you might not have like the words to kind of like verbalize that or describe it to parents i mean to your parents and i would say like the first time you do have your kid going to sleep over with someone who you're comfortable with like i think do it once his mom did like show up really watch how your kid interacts with the other kids there and the other adults there find out what other adults are there and then tell your kid hey if you want to come home at any point whether you feel uncomfortable someone's

being mean your stomach hurts you can't sleep someone's snoring like you can like have fun with it like throw in some like suggestions like that like their food that you don't like whatever send me a text and text this word and i'll call you and say something came up and i had to pick you up. So having it take the weight off of them, where it feels like I don't want to make, which I would feel like I don't want to make this person I'm having a sleepover with, I don't want to make them feel bad because I want to go home. And so like, I'm just going to kind of stick it out and I like don't feel comfortable. But I think like the more you can like foster the having your place be a place for like kids to come like have them have a sleepover and all that stuff.

specifically i will say i had some of the most fun sleepovers i ever had at my friends who grew up with single moms like it was just like there was just like an ease to that because most of the time we would know the moms a lot better like we didn't always know the dads as well so i i think like forming connections with the other parents there and the same way that like i think you should make sure you know them before you if and when you let your kids sleep over at their house hopefully that they have the same feelings there so like make sure you want them to know like have them feel so super comfortable with all the other parents and and and that but i do think if you don't feel comfortable having your kid at a sleepover at all like you don't have a good

vibe so like the parents don't have vibes any of that kind of stuff that's okay and i don't know anybody who was not allowed to have sleepovers as a kid who has grown up and become an adult and didn't feel that their parents or their guardians at the time were justified in that I think they can be really important socially, but only if they go well. And there's a chance that they don't go well. And if you can't ensure that you feel like the odds are really stacked in your favor, that you feel really comfortable about it, I don't think it's worth the risk. Yeah. Yep. So I don't think it, for me, I don't think like there are some people, you know, like if they

lived in like a certain neighborhood, like I had this, one of my friends, we lived in the same neighborhood and so we would hang out all the time and then like this other girl in our class was like didn't live in the neighborhood and she didn't understand like why we were so much closer it's like we're not it's not that we're like hanging out with you it's just like I can walk over here yours is a whole thing like yeah you know you're invited anytime but it's just like we're just outside at the same time or you know I can just go over and spend the night but like I don't think it really changes anything on like a big scale as far as like friendship at school. Yeah. And I can know. And I like I knew people who would have like sleepover birthday parties

and like some people just like I don't know what it could have been. There was a different reason, but it was just that like, oh, they don't like sleeping at other people's houses. And so like when we're all getting ready, like we brush teeth laying in bed, I would wake up in the morning. They would be there. Their parents had picked them up and they came back for breakfast. Like and I again I didn't think differently of anyone at all there and I know that I was in much more unsafe positions from like whether it's like you're telling someone you're sleeping over at someone else's house and you're not and you end up like go to a party it gets busted you're sleeping in someone's car like whatever older years that was different yeah but like that's like a I think

like if you can build a system of like trust with your kid there the fun parts of sleepovers which is like the going out to parties or whatever I remember my friends who like their parents were like you can go to a party that's totally fine but like you just want you to sleep here and then we would all sleep there and so like you still have all that fun social stuff so like I think instead of banning it making sure if you're not comfortable with it you have the alternative that still achieves the social aspects of it yeah I was gonna say there's no way I had a sleepover where I stayed the night by eight like I remember my first sleepover Mark and Ben's house they were like my neighbors Mark was my little boyfriend when I was a child which also like that was like

fine nothing bad happened but imagine like your first sleepover that you're cool with is like two boys one older and then one my age i mean i had sleepovers like with my god brothers when i was like younger yeah and i don't i had friends sleepovers i guess that would have started like sixth grade so yeah that's i would have said that mine if it wasn't like everyone is like a party and all the parents were at a party and then the kids, we fell asleep and we all just like slept there

and like we were young. But yeah, I don't think I even like made it through a whole night of a sleepover until middle school probably. Yeah. All right. That's it.

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