Don't Blame Me! - Family Wants Me to Date Someone I Hate w/ Candice King

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

Candice King is back! And for the full episode this time, we promise. They give advice on: Update: Found a sibling Childhood friend wants me to change my wedding date Sister thinks my wedding is an inconvenience Friend going through a depressive episode Avoid a man you don't want Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Follow Us! @meghanrienks www.instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @by.meghan.and.melisa https://www.instagram.com/meghanandmelisa Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): www.tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf Need Advice? www.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

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Don't Blame Me. And we are back with the first guest we've ever had in the last three years for the second time. Candice King is here. Y'all got a little taste last time. You just got to leave them wanting more the first time you gotta tease them a little bit like it's got to be a dramatic entrance and then a very dramatic exit and then just like subject everyone to yourself again that's how I operate in the world that's like pretty much any dating book from like the 90s like that's what they tell you to do like leave them wanting more like say something sexy smile then walk away and do some magic too do some magic yeah yeah were there dating books in magic well I guess in the early aughts yeah

yeah in the early aughts there was like a big trend on like if you do magic tricks at the bar it's a great way to like get a gal so truly there was a period of time i specifically remember going not that like where it wasn't just like me it was just every girl at a bar was like subjected to some dude trying to do magic tricks it was like in how i met your mother how barney would do magic tricks all the time it was that in real life like that was not an exaggeration that was actually happening. Wait, and like, so I wonder how those people

who spent all that time now realize that like one of the biggest red flags of like a no-go is magicians. Like I'm never going to. I think that there was other, so basically it's all based off of a book called The Game.

And it was actually even shaped like the Bible. Like it's very ridiculous, truly. Neil Strauss wrote it with, I forget who actually was like the guy, but he went by Mystery. And he had all of these ways how to like trick women into sleeping with you.

If you, if like, these are like, this is his like methods of like, if you're not like the coolest guy and you don't know how to like be cool and like go up to a girl, here's how you can like trick a girl. One was magic. The other one, which is so screwed up is negging.

Did you ever hear what negging was? Yeah, that's still a thing. Yeah. Where you like, you make them think they're complimenting you with like a slight negative thing. Like, oh my gosh, your teeth are so cute the way they're crooked like that.

like ridiculous stuff. But yeah, that's it. It's like now, like looking back at all of those dating books that I was reading and that also members of the opposite sex that would be interested in me were reading. I realize like it explains so much and what I'm talking about in therapy. You know what I mean? I'm like, all right, I think we can all give ourselves. I can cite this back to the source and I'd like to sue you for damages. Like that's so i mean the negging thing i didn't even know that was in those books but like that's i think all of us in the middle part of millennials had to be subjected to that wow i'm so sorry everybody that is really unfortunate what was i saying before that we were getting a little taste of candace

a little sweetness from candy oh sweet like candy candy tasty tasty tasty oh you know that's me well um to give people the spiel this is an advice podcast where we give wonderful life-changing amazing advice and you might be wondering are we qualified melissa are we of course we are yes you know we're very decorated brain surgeons equestrian and doctors of the heart i mean you are a descendant of a doctor of a heart yes my father is a doctor so by proxy i'm basically yeah an md over here that's how it works nepotism that's how it works it's medical nepotism yeah yes yes yes yes yes i that's a scary thought that's a real scary one yeah and what we lack in actual credentials we make up in opinions and unlike

assholes where we all have one or most people have one they're like pores infinite most i saw a tiktok of someone who had two two assholes but oh two okay gotcha i thought you meant zero your mind went to like you're just fucking you're just you're clogged you're permanently stuck yeah let's not talk about that i haven't pooped today either way okay anyway um if you want to call in for and get our wonderful advice you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 and international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com you have to keep it all under three minutes you will be timed this is a test you can fail and if you pass with flying colors you might receive a figurative figurative is that the word sure a not real imaginary diamond

from melissa diamond herself you might have heard rihanna give a tribute to me at the super bowl she sang your national anthem she did she closed the show with it because she is a supporter of his podcast biggest fan big friend podcast friend of the podcast you have to keep it under three minutes write down everything time it out practice listen to the other episodes and the other calls and then you can you know model by example we're okay with copying if you just like take that inspiration but if you do copy back just someone called in with like the exact same thing wait speaking of this is so fucking random does anyone know nick did you watch you watch the bachelor or have you ever yeah okay yeah I've dropped out of Bachelor Nation like I'm I'm off my game but yes

I've been out a couple years I started watching Love Island and I was like Americans we don't know how to do reality TV for shit like I'm out of this but like Nick Vile's now fiance or something like that oh who's engaged yeah interesting yeah so she like last maybe two years ago or something like that she did like a Instagram post for his birthday or anniversary or something and it's all these pictures and she copied word for word my friend claudia's birthday tribute for her boyfriend who who's famous yes like she's got millions of followers he has millions of followers it's not like she copied this from like a random they don't follow each other she literally like and it was verbatim of like light of my life like it's like very poetic and artsy and she literally just

copied like a full like paragraph two paragraphs and made that her caption and then never addressed it is that the weirdest thing in the entire world weird but you know i respect it if you never address it no i know i was like this is chaotic yeah it's our generation's hallmark yeah yeah regurgitating you know it's like why buy a card that a professional wrote when i can copy and paste you know it's that's saving the environment just copy and paste she's an environmentalist and we should not be shitting on her her digital footprint is smaller is it i'm just saying it's like digital and i'm trying to think of like what the equivalent of like your green we give a carbon footprint and that can happen online and i wonder how long she had to spend looking for that maybe

use a little bit of bandwidth i don't think she did let's get into the show let's get into the show let's play the calls let's give some advice first we have an update oh my gosh this is it melissa will explain if y'all call in we love to get updates we started doing them live during the pandemic because everybody was at home now everybody's not at home so if you'd like to write in instead of talking to us face to face you can and we had someone from the wasn't the only call that we did only call that we did with candace on the previous episode yes oh my gosh i really was wondering how what was going on with that i was so shocked okay i think you were the one you prompted this quick turnaround they don't do this quick return round for us like yeah it's

a special okay so i said oh uh omg thanks for airing my call you all were so kind with your advice i'm still in shock that i got to hear your advice but also from candace i feel so lucky three queens in one call all of you are absolute gems i'm so lucky to have your advice and opinions and you really helped sort my thoughts out i took your advice and i talked to my mom with a lot of words and phrasing that you all suggested she confessed that it was real and gave some details as to what was going on in her life which led her down that path i absolutely respect your choices and i'm not going to pry into her reasoning much more. She did leave the door open if I wanted to reach out and connect with my half-sister, but I'm on the fence if I should or how I would even approach

that. Y'all are amazing and thank you for all that you do. You're really out here changing lives. Without your advice, I'm confident the conversation wouldn't have gone as well as it did. So kind. Thank you. That went well. Wow. Change in the world. Yeah. But it is crazy how much, like the root of the call was essentially someone found out by doing a 23 and me yeah or like one of those ancestry tests that they had a half sibling that matched essentially would have been from their their mom there and so that's that is uh i feel like that happens all the time and it is crazy how this like this thing that just seemed like a really fun thing all of a sudden is you know creating new families tearing some apart like blowing up like secrets and and just making

everyone like throwing them on the table and making everyone look at that and be like oh crap now we have to deal with this information right it's wild so it sounds like that you know it's like the most positive outcome of a really intense situation that she could have I think that they've got messaging features on there right yeah yeah I think that's like the greatest thing about this it's like you know original caller if you want to reach out like I think you just I think the best thing to do in those situations is send a message through the platform and then no no to the no no but to like if you say you want to if I want if you want to connect so follow up through like wanting to connect even if you decide that you like don't want to later down the road it's not

like on your social media where then you like check your Instagram there's like a message there or like you can kind of keep those things separate until you decide how it goes in that way but wow that's wild and a good good outcome very good let's get into the calls Hi, Megan, Melissa, and Candice. I am new to the pod, but I have a feeling I'm going to be sticking around. I think I found you through a random reel on Instagram, if that helps you with marketing or whatever. Anyway, in the last six months or so, I rewatched all of the Vampire Diaries. So when I saw that Candice would be coming on, I was very motivated to go in. But let me tell you a little bit about what I'm dealing with. I guess the main question, although there are a couple, the main question is, what is your take on maintaining childhood friendship? So recently, my childhood best friend, we'll call her Bindi, and I had a really big falling out. It's a long story, but basically she was supposed to come visit me at a time when I was really struggling with my mental health.

And then she backed out at the last minute. And then within a couple hours of backing out, she asked me if me and my fiance, who we got engaged in May of last year. She asked me if we were sure about getting married in June of 2024, heavily implying that she wanted us to change our wedding date. One we decided on months after getting engaged because it was going to conflict with her hypothetical wedding date. And for context, our wedding will be in my parents' backyard, which does suggest some flexibility, but we had this decided long before her. She got engaged in September and is looking to rent a villa for her wedding. So her location is not very flexible. To describe how hurt I was requires a lot more context than we have time for.

And this is heavily one-sided. Her take on the situation is likely very different. But for me, in that moment, it was a huge realization. We had been friends since we were 12 and now we're 28. I've moved multiple times, including across the country twice, and always found a way to see her while her visits to me are much less reliable. we've been through some shit together so this this story in my head that we are closer than maybe we really are and my good friends from college have told me that they don't think she's

that good of a friend to me anyway when we had our falling out she made the point of saying that she has other friends she doesn't visit that much or talk to that much and the friendship is fine and i guess that made me realize that our definition of what our friendship is very different so we agree to take some space but because of this realization i'm thinking about making that space permanent 28 with a fiance and getting my career off the ground saving for a house wanting kids i just don't see a world in which life is going to get easy enough to facilitate a friendship that we're not sharing the same definitions of so am i the asshole for wanting to call an end to a 16 year old friendship i'm hurt and i have resentment but it's not really

her fault that she had different expectations and a different definition of her friendship I didn't have childhood friends. Well, I mean, I had friends while I was a child, but I moved around a lot. So I don't have any friends from childhood. So I'm probably not a good input on this one. I mean, I understand this. And like, I think my point of view for things are like, and I've even like said this, like to Melissa before, not in regards to like our friendship, but I have a really hard time with people that I can't put into a category or I feel like they're in the wrong category I'm in the wrong category like I just need to know where I stand with people and where they stand with me because the effort I put

into a friendship and like relationship like if it's not being reciprocated then I'm not okay with that maintain like staying how it is like I don't want to like try and get back to how things were but I'm like okay if your feelings have changed just let me know so I can have different expectations of that so like for me like it sounds so bad but like I'm someone who's like very okay with like demoting friends and like there's some people who I will totally ghost and I'm like done too much like we're very done with but then there are other times where it's like you know oh okay this is not a huge priority for you at this moment and like I'm being more hurt if I make you a priority and you're not making me one but if I know we're both just like you know coasting along and like we're

gonna be like friends when we see each other and it's gonna be a little bit more low stakes then I'm fine with that but there's also times when that doesn't meet the needs you need in a friendship so like it then becomes like a supplemental thing that you need other people to kind of fill those other roles for but it's hard when it's someone you've been friends with for like a very very long time and you're the amount of time and energy you want to put into maintaining relationships is is different yeah I don't it's impossible not to change when you move or even start a new job, or if you have a new partner, get married, have kids, like your priorities are going to shift and it can't always be based around just friendship and fun and

planning things. And so I moved around, Melissa, I'm like you, I moved around a lot when I was young. I actually don't keep in touch with anyone that I went to high school with. People who like are some of my closest girlfriends now, I met when I was around like 16, 17. But there's been periods, periods of time where we wouldn't see each other for a year, not because we're mad at one another, but we had different lives. Or maybe we'd only like text a couple times a year because we had stuff going on. And then the following year, we'd plan like multiple trips, we'd see each other all the time. And there's just like an ease and a flow to that. And that doesn't always work for everyone, you know, and I think that when as you get older, you start to realize when you

aren't like in a classroom together and doing sleepovers or on a sports team, and you're in real life that you kind of figure out that because friendships aren't just friendships, they are relationships. And just as you grow in like romantic relationships and figure out like what serves you and what doesn't, I think that that starts to evolve and happen in friendships as well. And that's okay. You know, sometimes you do grow apart and become different people. I don't necessarily think, especially if you live in different areas and you're not like close to one another physically and have the same exact group of friends, you don't necessarily have like break up with this friend. You know, you can still see each other. I also just want to say

because, you know, caller, you mentioned that you both got engaged kind of around the same time you're both getting married or planning weddings. Weddings make people crazy. They just do. Myself, every one of my friends. That's why I'm not having one. It doesn't matter. Even people who have had this tiny little like we're just gonna have a few people and it's not gonna be a thing everyone at one point loses their goddamn minds and freaks out because of like a peony or like a lady oh my god whatever i'll fill you in on that later it's a wild one but everett you just lose i don't know why. I don't know why. But we all have this weird, bizarre freaking breaking point. And it really like I can't imagine having two very close friends that already have a long history of like a push

in a pool to also be going through weddings at the same time. So if you were to remove that, I'm sure that the like stuff that's going on between you actually isn't like wouldn't feel as heated and exacerbate, exacerbate, whatever word. We both struggle with that. Yeah, we help each other out we ask that's one of the words that we we're constantly being like is that how i pronounce it but it does it just it it heightens everything like you know in it not to generalize women but it just freaking does it just does yeah you know give yourself some grace if you need to like like breaking up a friendship just you know is just it can happen on its own it doesn't have to be like we are no longer friends as of today like if you want it to talk it out talk it out

and if you don't want to talk it out it's okay and if you want to maybe just like be peaceful for a little while and then like run into each other and then hang out and have a good night together that's fine too you know like I know I heard it on the housewives and other people have said it too but it really stuck with me sometimes people are in your life for a reason a season or a lifetime oh yeah oh yeah we say that one a lot too like it's just the also my theory by the way for why women get like that with weddings, which I talked about on our other podcast. But it's like the one time that like women

are allowed to be the center of attention and just like praised constantly and said that you're so important. Like all of your ideas are amazing. Like you're just, everything is great. And it's amazing. Like you're not being shut down at all. And then we build the monster.

And then we're like, oh my God, you're being a bridezilla. And it goes, but you created this. You told me this was the most important day of my life. And like, this was like my peak and all of this shit. Like it's, I have so many thoughts on it. But yeah, I think like, and especially in terms of like you said that that she canceled and like it was like you know she was coming and like you were having a really poor mental health thing as someone who also

struggles with my mental health i do have to also recognize that sometimes i put expectations on people and i don't tell them that like that's why i want them to visit or that's what i'm going through and i expect them to know and if we were in person they probably would know but because we're not it's just a little bit harder and especially i think the worse your mental health gets, the harder it is to be honest with yourself and other people, especially those that you consider your closest friends. Yeah. And like I always do the thing of like if I'm really feeling really shitty, like I build something up to look forward to. And so then like I don't even necessarily feel like I need to say that I'm feeling really shitty because like I have this

thing to look forward to. So I'm feeling better towards this thing. But then if that thing doesn't work out, like I'm crashed even harder than I was before. And so I think like if if you were really explicit with this and like and she like knew all of that and then her response to that was like move your wedding then like i think that is really callous and really fucking bitchy because she doesn't even have a date set no yeah and so like that her hypothetical wedding that part of it is like i would just be like okay yeah that's where i'm like don't even have the conversation and tell her you don't want to talk to her because it's going to be really emotional from your point of view i'm like just take a couple months and just like don't talk to her and like have that

space but if it is like an air of communication and just like oh we've grown apart and misread where we stand in each other's lives look at what she does and reciprocate that and don't put that much and you'll probably realize a lot of your mental energy is like freed up to then start other hobbies or spend time with like other friends and all of that like you can slowly drift apart and just because it's inevitable you will drift apart as time goes on doesn't mean that you need to like rip the band-aid off like it's not going to make it feel any better because like you said, like, as you get older, you're going to have to grapple with that in all relationships. So just ending this relationship doesn't mean that then every other relationship you have from

now on is going to be there forever. It's just about the intention and knowing where both of you stand, which is a hard thing. I think you hit the nail on the head to like, no, that is another big lesson that we I think all start to learn as we get older. No one can read your mind. And most of the time if you it's not about you, like if someone doesn't show up and someone's not there and someone doesn't have the right response, it's taking a beat to go, oh, what might they be going through as well? Like not everyone can just show up

for your best friend all the time because we all have like, you know, it's like more money, more problems. Like the older you get, the bigger commitments you have. You know, it's not just like, oh, what are we going to do this weekend? It's like, crap, how am I going to plan a wedding

and have a mortgage and like figure out the rest of my life and stay, you know, work on my relationship with my partner, but then also figure out who I am and what I would like, right, it just gets there's more to focus, there's just more. And so communicating like what you need and being clear in that, like, that's something I have a lot of friends talk to me about, because I don't keep in constant communication with people. I just don't. I'm trying to get better at it. But it's like very exhausting to me. But I'm much better at when someone goes like 911. If someone just like says, I need to talk to you right now, I will show

up. But I'm very bad at like the day to day. And there's some people in my life who I love dearly who are just like, hey, I need the day to day. And I'm like, great, let's I can make that work. Now that I know that that's important to you, I will be aware of that. And that's OK, too. But I wouldn't have known that unless I'm told that. Right. Yeah. And I'm the same way. And so I've started well but we have scheduled time that we're together so it's good yeah but I do I with other friends I schedule things out like weeks in advance and it's on the calendar I know we're doing something this day even phone calls like friends that don't live close where we you know we can't hang out in person then we schedule phone calls like we're gonna talk on Sunday at this time

if it doesn't work let me know and it's good we show up and that's it you know yeah I think we need expectations in romantic relationships and in our friendships and I don't think we view friendships in that same way usually and we end up getting disappointed because it feels I don't know it feels like it I think it's more painful when a friend hurts us on purpose or on accident because a we feel like they owe us for some reason I think we feel like they owe us a lot more than our romantic partners especially when it's been a long-term long-term friendship right and that's not always the case, but best of luck and congratulations on your wedding. Take a deep breath. Don't spend too much money. Realize that you want to save money for a house. I'm going to

tell you right now on solicited advice, tour some houses, look at getting pre-approved, find out how much things are going to cost before you spend what you're spending on a wedding. Keep it in perspective. This shit's expensive. Couldn't be me. No shot. All right, let's go to the next one. Hi, Megan and Melissa. I'm calling about a situation to see if I'm in the wrong. I'm not sensitive. So please tell me if I am. I'm currently planning my wedding and doing all of the wedding planning stuff. And two of my bridesmaids live close to me, my sister and my sister-in-law. I'm wanting to call to see if I'm wrong about the situation and just ask for like any advice on what I should do. So a few months back, I booked my venue and my date. And when I told my sister, she asked me if it was possible to change the date because there's a concert she wants to go to three days after the wedding. And the way she stated this made me feel like me getting married was just a big inconvenience to her. This comment made me really upset, but I knew she didn't mean it in that way, so I just didn't bring it up and kind of let it go.

So later this week, I'm trying on my dress for the first time and invited my sister and sister-in-law and my mom to go with me. Tonight, my sister made a comment and said, Now, I don't care if any of them came, but that comment just rubbed me the wrong way because I feel like she has continually been making my wedding about her. I feel like I'm a very considerate person and very considerate of other people's feelings. And to, like, show that I don't have a maid of honor because it would be my sister-in-law and I didn't want to hurt my sister's feelings. so I guess I'm asking if this is something I should bring up with her about the comments and

other ones she's made and tell her that they hurt my feelings and that they're very inconsiderate she's made me feel very self-conscious about the details of planning my wedding and I haven't really been excited to plan more because of the comments she makes I don't feel like I'm a bride in any way but if I bring this up is that me being one am I just like more sensitive than I thought I was another thing is I want to make my sister-in-law my maid of honor and should I even though I already asked them to be bridesmaids i'm tired of my sister making the day i should be so excited to celebrate with my fiance about her uh any advice would help thank you so much and i love the podcast she also called back to just let us know that both of the sister and sister-in-law

are older than her is the sister married i don't know that i'm okay i'm gonna say no yeah or she hates whoever she's married to just like eloped and she's like weddings oh yeah but here's one those things we have like inside words and out like inside thoughts and outside thoughts like these are very fine thoughts to have inside your head like it's totally valid to like not want to fucking sit there and watch someone try on wedding dresses like it is your wedding day like it is it has really nothing to do with her like she's not going to be as excited to you she doesn't have to be excited she doesn't have to really care it can just be any other day to her but that's an inside thought right and you can say things with tact and she doesn't have any and she knows that she

i mean she grew up with you so she knows like like if somebody said that to me i wouldn't be that upset but like you don't have to tell me like it wasn't important to you i would just know i mean it's my wedding why would it be important to you but if you know that your sister has like a certain sensibility and reacts to things a certain way or you yourself you internalize the the caller might internalize things and not vocalize how they're actually feeling but still like a sibling knows you yeah they know how you feel about things and as a sibling you also know the things that are gonna hurt your siblings intentionally yes like if i want to have a little jab at one of my siblings i know how to exactly give it to them but i also know that like certain

things they my delivery for them i have to go about in a certain way because they'll take it each sister will take it a different way. Yeah. I'm going to repeat myself. Weddings make people crazy. And if it's not your sister and if it wasn't your sister, it would be someone else.

There is no wedding in which someone doesn't like become a thorn in the side. It just happens. I don't know what it is. So I'm just going to go worst case scenario. This isn't going to change. A talk with your sister isn't going to make anything change.

She's going to continue this. Like there's even if you want to like make your sister-in-law the maid of honor and then have that whole big fight. I mean, she can still be an acting maid of honor without being named a maid of honor. Like when you really think of it back in the day, you're not going to, she's not going to be like, man, I didn't get that maid of honor badge. Like it's really about the experiences and being together. As someone who was a psycho bridezilla when I got married, I got married in New Orleans and I remember getting there and I was literally like in a Costco parking lot with my wedding planner picking up like all

the, you know, being like, I need you to drive me because I need to get little water bottles to put in the welcome bags and we're all going to make them tonight. And I just was like, what wedding is something that like everything went wrong? Like what is the craziest day where like everything went wrong? And she was like, yeah, mine. She was like, it rained, it rained and ruined our whole second line. My husband got stuck in an elevator and no one could find him. Like she just started rattling off all these things. And I was like, oh my gosh, that sounds awful. She was like, no, was great. She was like, because even though everything ended up different than what I thought it was going to be, like the whole goal of the day is to get married. And guess what we did? We got

married. And so like, that's the part that I think gets lost in the Pinterest of it all. And that I always try to say and like, I took that to heart and had like, I had the best freaking day on my way. I had the best time. I'm like, you're gonna have the best day ever. The reason that little moniker of like best day ever is everywhere is because it will be your best day ever. Your sister's probably going to be annoying, but you have to go into it deciding if that's okay or not okay. What I would say is have a person, if it's not a planner, have someone in your family or have a friend who becomes like your bodyguard from your sister, who basically babysits your sister, keeps her entertained, and you have like a secret code where they go and like take care of

your sister so that you can enjoy your time. Your whole goal that day is just to get married. It could rain. The altar could fall down. The food could not show up. The flowers could be falling apart. But if you get married, that's the whole part of the day. And if you can find joy in all the like chaos and just sneak away with your partner and go be by yourself for like a few minutes, like every hour and just have moments together, like that's the magical stuff about a wedding. So like don't let your sister's temper tantrum. It's like when your toddler is throwing a temper tantrum, you can't just like feed into it. They have to like realize that they're being ridiculous a little bit i know everyone parents differently but that's part of like what i think

so let her throw a temper tantrum but like it's not a bit like you're now going to be so consumed by wanting her to be someone that she's just not and wanting her to be someone she's not going to be so your whole goal right now is just to like be excited have the best day ever get married and go like bone your husband that night and have a great time we're at the reception oh yeah Or at the reception. You sneak away and the locks are for. Exactly. That is what bathroom locks are for.

No, but that's exactly what I was going to say. It's like your sister, you can't make her be anyone she isn't. And so like at this point, like she's not going to come with you when you go try on dresses. And like she's not someone you ask for the opinion on like what color scheme and flowers. Like she's a guest at your wedding who happens to probably wear a dress that might be coordinating with your color scheme and stands at front and is there for the rehearsal dinner. Like just don't. If she shows up. She might be bored for that.

Don't include her in the sense of like trying to make this like a big day for everybody else involved. Like this is your big day and other people's reactions and their excitement levels. They're never going to match yours and you're not going to be able to be excited because you're just gauging how everybody else is feeling and you're gauging all of this shit. Like let her not come then. I will also say everyone takes over the day. Yeah. I could give you a laundry list of things which I'm not going to do of just like things where it's just like seriously. seriously? Everyone makes the day about them. They just do. They just do. It either becomes

about family stuff or it becomes about other bridesmaids wanting to have the best freaking time of their life or who's going to bring a date or who's going to... Everyone makes it about them. Let them. And you unfortunately have to just have the wherewithal to just make it about yourself and your partner. And you guys get to have the secret love language about making it about each other. But inevitably, that's the that's the big lesson in planning a wedding is you go, oh, shit, we don't want this to be about other people. This is about us. And then you go, fuck, it's now just about everyone else. But we're just going to show up and have the best time anyway, because we just planned a hell of a party. Yeah. And like a wedding is a party and a

party is about guests. A marriage is about the couple. And like when you choose to have a wedding, I think I'm like, you have to recognize that there you've added in 50 to 100 personalities into something and so like it's just going to be a lot harder and so like embrace it if that's what you're gonna do which is what you're gonna do embrace it for what it is instead of trying to make it something that it's not and know that nobody's ever going to be as excited for your wedding as you are and that's no knock on you your relationship your marriage like truly people I love more than anything in the world I'm like you get great happy for you like true it really doesn't matter to me like I genuinely don't give a shit and not in a bitchy way I'm just like it's

has nothing to do with me like I'm there to clap and I'm there to cheer but like it's not my day and I also can recognize that like it's supposed to be your day but you're also having to orchestrate a lot of things so I'm wondering if one of them is married you could make one the matron of honor and one the maid of honor if you wanted to get around and if and then your sister's just kind of like in name only but do you think her sister would even care I think that it might be to a point where she's like that's not your sister i'm your sister like if she's acting like this i think that the sister could hold anything over i don't have sisters so i wouldn't know oh i do i know and we did fight at one of their one of them we did fight at their wedding well at the before the

rehearsal dinner this is a weddings get intense they do with family and friend stuff like i've never it's like i love just being a random like yes random guest at a wedding nothing better i get to put on some heels i get to like dance to bruno mars i get to be judgy about the food and just like drink all the free booze that's all i want to do i constantly reference bruno mars but i reference bruno mars's constant wedding music right what i love i've seen the concert three times i love him okay we have to go to a bruno mars concert together yes he's so like it makes you feel things like i'm getting a little rosy cheek to just think when he is on stage I mean the way that he just moves his body

and then just like seduces you with his silky voice and like the horn section then they're all dancing it's a party do you like Justin Timberlake too? I've also seen Justin Timberlake a whole bunch of times

I love Justin Timberlake in the sense of like I've grown up with his music forever like the evolution yes yeah not him in the Britney world but yeah Bruno Mars makes me feel things

another random one that made me feel a lot of things who I've actually seen in concert a few times is um Billy Idol okay I was not like you guys could not have guessed where you were going I was like Billy Eilish okay dark Billy Idol like dude still got it I'm just gonna say it's been a minute since I've seen him like now yeah I'm about to pull up a fucking picture but I saw him like less than a decade ago and there was like a period of time where a couple years in a row like I ended up

like seeing him perform and I was just like yeah you love look at that bleached hair I know and he doesn't wear a shirt and he wears leather pants

he's just like and he's just like sweaty with his fake tan and I'm like yeah wow let me he kind of looks like

Gordon Ramsay's brother oh I didn't I thought he was looking a little different than that and we're also talking about like when he's on stage and his full like

Billy Idol vibe I can see I can see that yeah all right Well, let's take a break. All right. We are back from our break and we'll get into the next call.

Hi, Megan and Melissa. I love the podcast and listening since day one. I'm looking for some advice with how to help my friend. We're both 33, she, her. She is struggling with something, maybe depression and or anxiety. I think depression at least because her house is nearly identical to what my own home looked like when I was going through a depressed episode. She has a job that does not allow her to be on any new medications. She won't go to therapy because I'm assuming either a policy and or the culture.

The reason I assume she won't go is because she has made comments in the past to myself and other friends when we've talked about therapy. She said things like, oh, I wish I could do that too. Her house is piled with stuff everywhere. And I know this because she goes out of town fairly frequently for work and or an extracurricular hobby. She asked me and a couple other friends to watch her animals while she is gone. So we are seeing firsthand what the state of her living situation is. I'm talking piles of clothes in multiple rooms, fast food containers on top of the clothes, empty containers scattered about, laundry stuffed into her kitchen cabinets.

bags of garbage stuffed into closets and all over her garage. I am very familiar with this same type of situation because I did it myself when I was in a very depressed episode. I was very much ashamed of it and I hid it from people and I didn't like to talk about it then. It took me a while to climb out of that. I've tried to subtly hinder her to stop spreading herself so thin, be home more, try to focus on just relaxing and being with herself more often, not running around all the time doing the most and trying to have a little bit more self-care. I'm not just badgering her to do those things i'm saying stuff like oh my god i've been so exhausted lately from work and all the things that i'm taking a day off from work where i don't have any appointments or

anything else that i have to do and i'm just going to be at home relax and maybe do some very much needed laundry etc and he has taken that a little bit here and there to heart and maybe not gone away for two weekends in a row and try to refocus all of her energy from external to maybe internal But it seems every time that she maybe is doing a little bit better, she gives up or backsplies or whatever it might be. Most recently, she's mentioned how tired she is because she's regularly going to this other city over an hour away multiple times a week for the hobby. So this is a lot, and I do want general advice. But also, would it be so bad if next time that I'm watching her animals, if I just take some of the trash and throw it away myself? I'm talking the actual bags of trash or the empty boxes.

i went just to send stuff a strap when this was me to have a growing pile of stuff that just needed to be thrown out was a massive hurdle that felt like i could never make a dent in and i would wish to be able to snap my fingers and have advantage i'm wondering if i could be that finger snap for her in a small way well that's tough yeah i mean my mind automatically goes to like the two outcomes are like i would love if someone did that for me that's like so nice so kind but the like the trash and like the keeping of things I do wonder if it's like a little bit of hoarding tendencies because if it is a hoarding tendency throwing that stuff away is not gonna help it's gonna create a huge issue in your relationship and it might just be like a

straight up cut off and then you no longer have a connection or a way to communicate with your friend who you know is going through a hard time mentally and like we all cope with things differently like she might not even if she is hoarding she might not even realize that she's doing that it can be a brand new coping mechanism like our brains do things to like help us and aid us through situations that we're not totally aware of all the time so i think like asking first i understand like i would feel shame and i would feel embarrassment but like my gratefulness would surpass those feelings and the fact that like someone who cared about me enough was not coming at judgment was just I'm here like would you mind if I did this and then also was able to like ask

me first and not feel like I'm being infantilized and being taken care of like a baby and that I can't do something for myself like it doesn't feel like overstepping when you've asked and if that's like not the case or even saying something like doing something as simple of like hey I just want to give you like a heads up I'm running some of my laundry it wasn't a full load I threw in a couple of your things I'm like is it cool if I just put them back in your drawers like something where you're not throwing things away but you're like doing laundry you're tidying up like you know cleaning the floors washing some dishes but I do think without her approval getting rid of anything is just might open it up to being really tough but maybe she says like

that would be like really great like go for it and then yeah like feel free go all the way for that but I I don't know I just get nervous with like the the hoarding is that's like the most recent subreddit I've fallen down is people who are working on I mean a bunch of like decluttering subreddits and cleaning ones and like ADHD cleaning ones because like I have a really hard time with like letting things pile up and I have to like see a lot before I'm like oh shit this is messy. I need to clean this. And there's just a lot of emotion that people can tie to things that are literally like garbage and trash. And we can't equate the value that other people have with those things. So I would just tread lightly. Yeah, I'm going to punt the ball here because I've

experienced this with people I've known in my life and a couple different ways in which it's gone positively and then other times where it's gone terribly. So like, obviously what I will say is it's obvious that you really care about your friend. And so that's good to know that she is loved and cared about and noticed and seen in the world. And I think that that in itself is such a beautiful thing. So I would share, you know, some of the things you've shared with us. I would share that with her and from like that lens, because that is obviously it's very obvious. It's the root of where, you know, your concern is coming from. Yeah. I think, you know, you are vocalized some like concern about how much time she's spending with this hobby, but you also spoke

about how it's kind of frowned upon for her to go to therapy in her profession. So I, this hobby might be part of her therapy, like a way that she's therapizing herself where she can leave her space because of it's so decluttered and whatnot and she goes to somewhere somewhere else where she can clear her mind for a little bit and then comes back yeah i agree with megan like and and candace here like you know tread lightly but i would have a conversation just to see where she is with everything or maybe just ask some questions that can direct you kind of with how she's feeling towards everything in her home and you know like maybe just asking like do you need help taking any of this out or you know uh i got this great cleaning service um they have a

free thing it might not be free this is this is a time where see i'm always the one saying normalize lying and liz is like no no no but look who's about to lie for this situation you know there's you know exceptions sometimes say like they've got a free thing that um you know you can use where you actually like pay like you know i give a referral and it's free for my friend where you actually pay for it if she's like open to it then it might be something where she's like oh yeah that would be great you know and if she's not then she can say like no i don't need it yeah i would i would also just like know her reactions and like how she prefers to have conversations like so for me I would feel really uncomfortable no matter how much I love the person

I feel really uncomfortable having this conversation in person so like I would really prefer if they texted me that and like if you know that like she would be really like it would be hard for her to kind of move on with like her weekend or week hobby that she's doing then I would do it like at the end and like not and you're not going to see her you're going to like you know leave the house the key under the mat or whatever so like she's there's some like space and some time so she doesn't have to like face that. But I also think like the subtle things that you're saying when you're like, you're putting yourself in your experience first and then kind of giving her an opportunity to like know that you've been through it and that it's a safe space for her to say

something. I think you've laid that groundwork so nicely for so long. And like Candace said, like you're coming at this from like so much love, like we don't know you and it's evident how much you care about your friend. And I think at this point, it's very much okay to say what you've said before of like hey when like i get really depressed like i have a really hard time cleaning and it's so fucking hard and i know that like that happens for a lot of people i also know it doesn't happen for everyone and i just i know you've been going through some stuff and i just wanted to know like would it be okay if i like did a big clean like and you can even and this is where i'll say encourage lying you can say like you could say that you what you told us where

you've never had someone do that for you but that would mean a lot or you could say like i had someone do that for me and it like really helped me and like I would love to be able to do that and be a little bit more like straightforward with that aspect of this so it's less of you've put the crumbs down she can pick them up but it's a little bit more like you know you can answer this question I'm laying it out explicitly there also like you said but like going away for a hobby that can be how you therapize yourself and no matter how clean someone's apartment is or whatever like some people's home is not their safe spot ever regardless of what it looks like And especially if that's the home that she's going back to after work every day,

it can kind of feel like that life by proxy. And so having some separation from it can be the best thing for your mental health. And even if the place is so clean, she might not spend a ton of time there. But my other question, what job doesn't let you take like antidepressants? I don't know. That feels illegal. And we don't know like where this person is located to. Yeah.

I just didn't I like I know that there are like you can't operate machinery on like certain medications but I wasn't sure if antidepressants was what I was thinking it's something that you have to operate or like be in a control that rely like it's yeah there are yeah because I was the anti-anxiety like a specific list of medications yeah this it's tough it's hard to watch like your friend go through something but also even if this doesn't work out and like she doesn't want you to clean like you're doing more than enough like as someone who's had friends who I could like name a bunch of like inconsequential things like on paper that seem like whatever that friends have done like when I'm going through shit and I'm like no no I remember like that's

even just being a constant or just being there being available to like you know house it whatever it is like that is something that like does not go unnoticed and it might feel like you want to be doing more but sometimes like that's as the as much as the other person can can can take and can handle and is able to like outsource that and that's like good you're doing more than enough tough everyone needs a friend like this so kind very much all right let's get into the last call hi megan and melissa i'm a 25 year old female she heard a cryo sin and i'm calling in about a problem i think having with my family especially my mom little backstory around two years ago, I hooked up with one of my brother's best friends. My brother knows and he's cool.

But basically, our fling went badly, we both hurt each other a lot and the guy was quite offensive towards me. Months later, he starts begging one of my friends for me to go back to talking to him and block him and text him. So I do that and he answers with a bunch of very offensive, sexist and disrespectful text messages that I showed my therapist and she said he needed help because no 25 year old would act like that. Basically around three months ago we bumped into each other in a wedding, he was the best man, I was the bridesmaid and basically the guy looked at me all the time, he asked the groom to enter if he could enter with me, the groom said no because he knows we both

hate each other, or at least I hate him, because basically the guy stared at me all the time during the party his mom approached my mom and said asked for me to give him a second chance said he was immature but I should give him a second chance and basically for the past two months that the guy he's been trying to spend as much time as possible with my brother and according to my brother and my sister-in-law the only thing he talks about is me and that he's clearly still in love with me and the problem is I hate the guy I have no intention on giving him a second chance because he was very disrespectful with me and he hurt me a lot but my mom and my whole family especially my mom they keep asking me to give him a second chance if I'm ready to

give him a second chance if we are ready or I'm ready to be friends with him again but I'm not and I have no intention on doing so because he seriously, seriously offended and disrespectful and hurt me and my family knows about it because I showed them the messages he sent me. Also, I asked him already multiple times to stop bringing this up.

I don't care if he likes me. I don't care if he loves me. I don't care if he moved on or tried to move on and it didn't work out because I just don't like them and I don't want to hear about it. So basically, what do I do? Because I no longer know how to deal with the situation.

I'm tired of asking my family, especially my mom, to stop bringing him up. And also already, since I'm already calling, do you have some tips to get more boys or find a new boyfriend? So maybe this way my family gives me a break and stop talking about this annoying guy. Oh my gosh.

i want to watch this rom-com no this is like a single white female but the male like he's obsessed this is this is a little sketchy oh my god part of me immediately went to like well maybe he was just negging you oh god my mind went to i think he's a stalker i was gonna say i was gonna say i think that you should take out a billboard and put all his text messages on them but then she said she already showed everybody the text messages i know like what is wrong with everyone my question is like is your family like 20 said you're 25 right like is your family like i don't know how you said your brother and your sister-in-law so like did they get married young like what's the is this like a we want you to get married we want you this person's in love with you

just marry them yeah and like you're saying like well how do i find like another guy i'm like so is this is the goal like for them do you think that it's just kind of the spot that he's actively filling. Because if that's the case, then I've said this before, lie, make up a fake boyfriend, my boyfriend from camp, I had my first kid, the guy from camp, like, come on, you can something like that while you you set the seeds, like find someone else. But the biggest thing I always say with like boundaries about like certain things is like, you have to uphold your boundaries, like other people don't have to do anything. So it's your boundaries, like I'm not talking about this anymore. Like, that's your boundary. It doesn't mean that they're not going to,

but it means if they start talking about it, you're on the phone, you're like, I'm hanging up now and you hang up or you're talking about, they're bringing him up in person and you're saying like, I'm told you I'm not talking about this anymore.

Like walk into the other room. Like that's the separation from those conversations, but they know all this shit about him. And so like, I would say, maybe you pick up a couple romance books. You take some character traits from each of the different characters

and you create someone who's wonderful and great. And then that's the rom-com. You go to the bookstore door and you're like doing research about your fake boyfriend and you meet your real boyfriend there i would hold a press conference on zoom on zoom invite everyone have a powerpoint presentation yes he i'm including him like when you make the zoom you move him up so he's like next to you in the top window question and you make the one you use you know how i sometimes set the scene in a

zoom yeah yeah with the classroom so they have little scenes that you can do in zoom one with the classroom and i like the caller and him to be like the people in the front yeah and then have the auditorium where everybody else their heads are on little things have a powerpoint presentation they also have a whiteboard feature in zoom that i use often as well have a powerpoint presentation play it about why this man is terrible show all the screenshots and then i will go around to each person and roast them for something and say if you keep bringing this up i will tell everyone about but you don't tell the full story yeah so they just have some a little dirt on them and then make little videos of you with these little confessionals and one by one if somebody

like is like no i think you should do it play the video oh that'd be so good or you can out creep the creeper become the stalker oh yeah but i mean here's the thing i genuinely get really sus vibes from this so like that doesn't work so like don't do that i was mostly kidding i do think the issue is is i think if he truly is this weird um i think you're right i think He'd be into it. Yeah. Look, obviously, trust your gut. You've already seen red flags.

No one, no person in a relationship should ever be spoken to in like some sort of like a derogatory lashing out. Like, especially when you're not even in like a fully formed relationship and commit. Like, if this is how he's treating you at the beginning of like anything or nothing, like it does not,

like when someone shows you who they are, believe them. don't believe them. I am also, again, just to return to like where we started, I am of this like early aughts generation where I'm just like, oh no, he didn't know what he was saying that night. And he just like was already in love with you and wanted to like self-sabotage and like, like didn't know. And then someone else took his phone and wrote all that stuff. And now he's just trying to correct it. And then you're going to have this imaginary boyfriend and then he's going to be so jealous of the imaginary boyfriend. Then you're going to fall in love with him.

And then you're going to have to figure out how to get rid of the imaginary boyfriend. And then this is why I'm in therapy. And I blame all of the early odds, movies and books and TV shows on all my problems. But like, that's my dream for this whole scenario. But obviously, that's not real life. That's just a fictional romcom. I think, you know, that I'm sorry that everyone's being really annoying about it. And it sounds like you're being very responsible and having healthy boundaries and you should keep doing that and ignore anything that I have to say yeah I just think he is like he also like someone who treats you poorly um this was a a lesson that I had to learn through therapy but like people who treat you poorly don't do it because they

love you they do it because they don't love you and when we're younger and we have relationships with people were romantic or not and or the relationships modeled in front of us and we see people who like clearly are unhappy or clearly who don't like each other so anybody who can look at his behavior look at his text messages and be like no he really like likes you this is a good this is what it is to me the only thing I would take away from that the only positive I would take away from that is like okay you are not someone who I'm gonna go to for other things like this because you don't have you don't have you're not calibrated for the kind of relationship that I'm looking to have so like I'm not going to ask you to set me up with somebody like that to me

is like anyone who is able to look at everything like all of the evidence here and excuse it away and make it you know a positive or whatever I'm just like that's unfortunate that that's what your relationship has made you feel like this is something and like don't let that wear you down like you know what you deserve and it's clearly not this and this is just like red flag after red like this makes me like icky like nervous i also this is this really has nothing to do with the advice but how did you just like run into each other at a wedding when you were both part of the bridal party yeah were you both like because it's a rom-com guys because it's a rom-com and they're meant to be together forever you guys are not you guys are not just in my head and like the

in the fictional version in my mind of course you guys ran into each other at a wedding and of course he wanted to dance with you and of course you guys probably had to do the tango and you did it really well in front of everybody while you were fighting the whole time but both their parents were at the wedding so it wasn't like a running into thing like well my question i'm like y'all were in the same circle yeah no i'm just family and friends was it like the exact like just like the it was so not a bridezilla so there was like no meeting ahead of time there was no rehearsal So, like, you just did a cold read of a wedding. Like, that's what this was.

Like, we're just going to stumble our way through it. Yeah, it's just, to me, it seems like this is one of those things where, like, parents just want you to get married, want you to settle down, and they get to a point where they've got blinders on where they don't really, they're not sifting through the actual qualities of the candidates. And he is not a quality candidate.

And to answer your last question of how to get hoes, i would say you should start going to events where your family and friends aren't there because that's the problem is that you're still you're in the same circle with the same people you gotta break out of your circle yeah breaking free yeah new territory unexplored yes grounds yes good call good call um and if all else fails make up a boyfriend or just write this all into do a script and then sell it and then go be a movie writer. And then maybe he'll get so creeped out. Then he'll be done.

No, he'll be like, he'll be so flattered. Ask for royalties. He's going to be so flattered. Oh my gosh. I made that much of an impression. He's going to be, can Noah Centineo play? I was going to say the same thing. I was going to say the exact same thing.

I feel like this is the fourth time this week and it's only Tuesday that I've heard his name. No, Melissa and I bring him up all the time because he's always been like i don't know why like he just there's something let me see the pussy squirt have you seen those videos candace candace i'm about to ruin sorry when i tell you i'm not about to it's not even like i'm just gonna ruin your day like i'm gonna ruin the rest of your life he has these videos that leaked from his snapchat where he is sending girls snapchat videos with you know kid is not bright literally his face being like girl like he's in the back of

a cab no i know he's talking out loud he's like he's literally on melrose like literally just walking down the street a girl show me how that pussy squirts he's like talking into it and he's like oh my god and it starts off like slow and then it gets so fucking intense like oh yeah like show me those titties you slut you're like what the fuck like it's so what and there are different girls who are leaking all these messages and i'm like oh my god you cannot unsee it's so funny it's So funny. Does he know that he could just do magic tricks? He gives me the vibe of someone who's like,

I'm too hot for magic. Like, I can't do, I don't know. I don't know. God. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, that is it for our episode. We hope you all enjoyed.

Candice, thank you so much for joining us. You stayed the whole time. Yeah. I know. I made it, guys. Who knows? Maybe I'll just like pop in. We'd love it.

We'd love it. And I'll just like jump from behind your couch for another episode. It would be a great time. I'm sure the audience would also love it. Or I'll just stand outside with the speaker box playing Bruno Mars. Yes, yes. And that's how you know I'm here and I'm ready to be on the episode again.

So you have your own podcast. Would you like to let everyone know it's a new podcast that you started? They're going to love it. I heard about it. Yes, Melissa produces it. It's called A Super Bloom Podcast. It's out every Thursday. I have interviews with a lot of really incredible guests who I'm inspired by.

and and the like shortest nutshell version of um you know the conception of the podcast it's based off of a super bloom and when you have a super bloom it's usually like this botanical phenomenon of flowers that appear in the desert and in order for these flowers to appear you need a heavy season of rain so it's very you know triumphant you know return from a very difficult period of time in life and to come out the other side realizing that you needed those that tough time in order to be a better version of yourself on the other side. So those are the kinds of conversations that I'm very inspired to be having with guests on a weekly basis. And then I also have a fun, you know, extra kind of bonus episode I've been releasing on Mondays. That's just me

getting caffeinated on my cold brew, talking about pop culture events and answering a few listener questions, just giving them over caffeinated advice as I like to do on Monday mornings. So check it out. Yeah, you can find me on Instagram at Candice King. I also have at a super bloom pod is the podcast handle. I'm trying to get better at TikTok, but I think it's all about the same on those. All right. Well, we good? We're good. Amazing. If you like this episode, you can leave us a review on Apple podcast. You can rate us on Spotify anywhere you get it. Watch the video version over on Patreon. And if you want to call for an upcoming episode

or if you have an update, you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976. International listeners and updates, let's just email us, meganpodcasts at gmail.com. And all of the stipulations I said at the beginning apply. Yep. And we'll leave all of our socials down below

and we will see you all next time. Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye. Don't Blame Me is a production by me. Executive produced by Melissa DeMonts and Diamond and Print Productions. Edited by Coco Lawrence. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson.

Music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.