Don't Blame Me! - Feeling Misled on a Date

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

TW: Fat phobia (Call 3) and Ableism (Call 4) Meghan and Melisa give advice on: Braiding a student's hair Co-Workers "joking" about gender Identity Deconstructing Fat Phobia Date not disclosing their disability Don't Blame Them: Writing off a gun owner 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] International Listeners Send a Voice Memo To: [e-mail] … with as much detail as possible under 3 minutes! WeI'll do our best to share our wonderful words of wisdom. If you're under 18, please get your parent's permission. Advice is for entertainment purposes only, so you can't blame us if we screw up your life. I kid! Our advice IS AMAZING. Want to WATCH this episode as well? Become a patron! https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Join the Facebook Group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/dbmsecretgroup Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/join/dontblameme Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi. Welcome to our podcast. One of our podcasts. Don't blame me. An advice podcast starring us. What's your name? Megan. What's your name? Melissa. And together we make up M&M, the Candy coated chocolate is that what's called candy coated chocolate or i'm the one that has nuts in it i'm not what is your favorite kind of m&m peanut it's the best one i don't know why you're making that face i don't like everyone's favorite i don't like peanuts i also like the one that has hazelnut in it too don't like i know you weren't asking me but chocolate hazelnut you don't like nutella not really you don't like sweets anyway no that is also true so your opinion is irrelevant in this

subject i like i like regular chocolate i like i think i have unpopular chocolate opinions i don't love like peanut butter is like sometimes okay but it's not my jam and chocolate mixed together i can do a peanut and chocolate mixed together but not peanut butter and chocolate oh i'm the exact opposite i would always prefer like peanut butter over peanuts but i also don't love peanut butter but if it's peanut butter and chocolate like sometimes i'm like okay cool no thank you but i prefer almond butter and chocolate and what candy just has almond butter and chocolate in it that you're not getting candy i'm getting like you're not getting from fucking whole food well i actually specifically do get it from whole food so i don't have an answer to your question exactly

um and i prefer chocolate with like a caramel or i like i like a chocolate and fruit i love a fruit dessert um cadbury makes a chocolate bar that has nuts and fruit in it it has almonds it's not okay and it's so good cadbury there was an m&m that was like a dark chocolate raspberry m&m i liked those ones they were fine i enjoyed them i like c's candy i miss all i want in life two things hawaiian rolls to make food gluten-free and for c's candy to make things dairy-free like that's all i want and i don't want any of the fucking like i want like the actual goods like i don't want like c's when they're like here you go exactly here's a jelly bean here's a gummy lozenge and i'm like no i i want a scotch mollo fuck i could really go for that i want to work

at C's I wish I want the try guys to work at C's I should tell them that as if my request will like be made but it's here don't you think they could do it yes anyways welcome to a podcast where we give wonderful amazing advice and my free advice to the try guys is do an episode of you guys trying to become C's employees C's employees you might be wondering how we're qualified to give amazing wonderful advice and the reason is classified i hope you're watching the video because melissa is just is the the longest open mouth eye closed tongue out shimmy i think it was a rock it was this is shimmy oh this is a rock okay a sway well a sway is more fluid yeah this i'm rocking you're a rock rock the rock made me so mad i was gonna make one of my thirst trap

uh tiktoks glad you didn't well i was waiting till like i had put on some makeup because i was rough when i first that's like first wake up in the morning rough i was gonna make a tiktok because he made a little jokey joke he was doing an interview for entertainment tonight i think i don't know tonight weekly one of them yeah press for something for the movie he just had come out and the interviewer asked what was the first film that you did and he said porn like just you know off the cuff and was he serious serious but he didn't it was like a joke and they just cut it off there like that was the end of it that's funny and when i initially looked at it you could stitch it and then once i was prepared for the day and went back to stitch it they had turned the stitches

off they knew i was angry it probably happened quite quickly yeah they were like oh rewind back it up back it up back it up well for all of our sakes thank you was it his team or was it entertaining like who's the entertainment people thank you entertainment tonight or weekly i i don't we appreciate it thank you for your service yeah if you want to see melissa's thirst traps go follow her on tiktok it's not my thirst traps it's me thirsting after other people no i feel but i feel trapped like i watch something and i go first of all also the lectures i've gotten from melissa being like you need to write like incoming stitch or something because i'm skipping your fucking videos because i don't know what you're stitching the specific thing that you do

is stuff that's like problematic yeah okay it isn't problematic no but just know that like it takes me a couple the same seconds it took you to look down and see my name i have the same moment where i go what is this and i look down and see it's you and i hope to god you've given me enough time to swipe away before because i don't even want to see the completed video that you're stitching because i can fill in the blanks i know what you're gonna do like do you usually like usually thought that i was gonna pop up as a baby not after no no that was the one where i was like i need to be on higher alert i need to know what's coming because i was i was i paused because i was shocked this is a tiktok that's on her tiktok account right now and you see a man walking

in his uh pectoral muscle his titty his titty is jiggling and he's doing it in a way that he's he's looking for your attention he's looking for the response that you gave him i don't ever go after people that aren't looking for a response no no people are sexualizing themselves and are asking the world to sexualize them and you as an audience member are like call to action delivered here you go and melissa did this fucking tiktok where she's using a baby filter and it goes on for so long of you just like pretending to like suck a fucking bottle and i was like i'm not sucking a bottle i just have a pacifier in my same thing like but one of those like and i was so taken aback by the initial video that i was like oh my whoa that is that is

up close and personal and then my eyes did not know how much more disgusted i was about to be and then i saw that so now i literally if i see your name i scroll by so fast and then i'm like when i'm in the right headspace i'll go back and watch the other ones but i can't watch it in a timely manner i get you know mixed reviews on it either people think it's hilarious or they're disgusted by it and i like both of them i know that's why you do it that's why i do it i mean i do them more for myself and then any other extra reactions it's just you know icing on the cake exactly this is like if ava from avid elementary had a tiktok i mean she does have a tiktok account show i was gonna say but like she's mostly selling things and dude are having that whole

depop story i was laughing so zara i think it was zara actually oh yeah i'm on depop i was like oh my god the depop girlies i love who's ever writing that show i mean you know the writers but like love those writers anyways we're giving you advice and i feel like i gave you a lead up of like how do you know that we're um qualified you don't and you have to trust us like oh i said it's classified information it's classified just trust us yeah this will only hurt a little just take our hand count down from ten and close your eyes and you'll be transformed there in just a few seconds i thought you're about to go into the uh willie wonka song that was a couple extra notes world of imagination anyways how many

fucking times can i say this podcast to give advice i should tell them give it the phone number phone number email address yeah so this is how this works we talk you listen and you call us you leave voicemails and then we play your voicemails and give you advice so if you want to call in you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 also thank you last time for cutting out the pause before i could remember the phone number that was probably coco thank you coco for cutting that pause out it was seamless no one would have known that i just sat there for like 15 seconds going. And then I finally remembered the number. But it's not just exclusive to people who live in the United States. If you're an international listener, you can send us an

audio message at Megan podcast at gmail.com. Just record it on your phone. For both of those instances, you'd be 18 or over have your parents permission. Let us know your ages. If it's about a relationship, how long have you been dating? If you want to let us know your pronouns, go for it. It is all completely anonymous. But you do need to write it down and practice because you only have three minutes so write it down then time it on your phone see if you if you like are going over three minutes what you can cut out see if you're way under and there's more information that you haven't included because the more information that we have the more relevant information we have correct the better advice we can give you uh-huh so and if you give a wonderful voice memo or a

call you might receive a blowjob no you might not for not for that potentially not for that you're gonna have to have a lot of other things going for you depends on how good that call is no there's no call and then i you know put in a pool and then i look not a swimming pool like a you know like you need to be less literal with me because i don't know what you're saying and then i look in and you know i examine it that's the first step uh-huh what's the second step the second step is then me reviewing maybe social media presence who you are yeah so it's not an isolated thing yeah it's just the first step yeah melissa's gonna use it as potentially like a hookup pool but she's not using it how many straight men do we have calling here one

in all of the years that we've been doing this were they straight there was one man that was street oh i thought he dated women but i don't know if he oh okay well maybe you're right maybe you're right that a a man no you're right because i'm thinking of someone who like the call was about some i think someone who was like bi and it wasn't about yeah heterosexual yeah but i'm just saying even if we include are there people with two people penises vaginas yeah i think i think we're getting smaller yeah so yeah the chances of me giving a blow job very slim very very slim very very slim very slim but what she actually will give you is a diamond not a real one it's hypothetical as if this entire conversation about getting a blow job also was

not hypothetical that would you know we'll probably get more listeners if that was on the that was our reward yeah we just need to create like an how do we turn our podcast into an mlm how do we turn this to a pyramid scheme hmm see that's not an ethical scam though no it's not unless we're scamming men well maybe that is why my brain jumped to how do we turn this to an mlm because it was like how do we attract men to this podcast i mean we've been talking about the only fans yeah and i mean you know it is remarkable what people can get off to because yeah i get i get messages all the time shoulder out yeah that could be well i mean like even the content of what we're saying i get messages all the time people are like oh my god jacked up not

all the time i don't want to over promise if i talk in my no no no no what are you saying we're gonna get into the call because i know i didn't even finish what i was gonna say okay i didn't finish would you like to continue with your voice no that's the the sentence i didn't finish just think about it i know i didn't have the chance to finish so don't look at me while you say i did i was looking at the camera you started looking at me and then i looked away and then i burned my eyes thank you my brain short circuit did i take my adderall today yes did i almost forget my adderall when i was on my way here you would have had to turn around but thankfully i almost it was with my water bottle and my laptop so i did should be pack up the entire bag and was um leaving the

door when i realized felt a little too light and i realized i left everything i need oh i was gonna say he felt the adderall was busy i'm not hearing that maraca sound in my bag that little no it was the laptop that i was like this feels you know yeah it's okay though if you didn't have your laptop you don't necessarily need it you need it for your tickets yeah i needed it to be in line the virtual line for taylor swift pre-sale tickets i'm so excited i'm about to spend i'm i mean i'm excited for all my money's concert so i get it i've been to like every have you seen the tweets of people being like Beyonce fans and Taylor Swift fans when it's time for like to buy concert tickets oh yeah and it's just like I see you like we're in this together we got this also did you

know so like they're Beyonce Taylor Swift are friends that her and Jay-z skipped Kanye's wedding for a house party at Taylor Swift's house yeah I just love it they've been trying to tell people about kanye for a minute oh yeah but also i don't know how people who are you really have to rank like you can love beyonce and you can love taylor swift but like unless you are rolling in money like how the fuck are people have they done this before like towards the same year i don't i couldn't tell you when taylor swift has toured so i don't know i actually don't think that they have anyways should we get into the episode yeah why not roll the tapes play the calls hey megan melissa maybe guest so here's my situation i am 25 years old i live in texas

and i'm a teacher so this year has been hard for me because i have a lot of really conservative parents who don't like that I'm not conservative so I have a student he's a boy and I don't think he's in the queer community but I don't I've never asked you know so today in class he wanted his hair to be french braided because I just french braided another girl's hair and I totally did it and he loved it he even asked me to fix it before he went home and I got a scathing message from his mother. So my question to you guys was, am I wrong? Was I wrong for braiding his hair in the first place

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With a whole world and more. If he's only in fourth grade, Or should I continue to go with just what the parent wishes? I know it's hard because he's underage, but I feel like fourth and fifth and those middle school ages are really important times for them to figure out themselves. If I'm wrong, please let me know. But I just wanted someone else's opinion. Thank you. Bye.

Feels like a great opportunity to promote our other podcast, But Am I Wrong? And we'll give you advice here. but if you're ever curious what we think if people are wrong in situations we have that podcast on Thursday as well I'm curious what you think what do you think okay here's my thing I don't think you should have been touching either of their hair that's my opinion but I'm gonna just take a step back from that but like I don't see how this is like conservative gay issue I feel like i don't know i don't know these people like in the black community and indigenous community and other people of colors community like having braids is not seen as yeah something that's

feminine and so so i just like but i just don't think you should have been touching their hair period i yeah i think that like before i would like fight back on this with her which i don't even think i would i would probably just be like noted and whatever i would definitely say in growing up with mostly white kids it would it would have looked it would have been considered more feminine even like boys who had long hair i was considered feminine just like as a whole so i mean him having long enough hair to like french like braid so to me like i don't know yeah i guess if this kid is white like i it would be a little bit of confusing to me because the people who would view braided hair as feminine also usually viewed long hair as feminine so those would have

been a crossover but i also don't don't there's also like been in texas quote unquote like manly men that ride motorcycles that that's what i was gonna say so like hair like that i grew up in a very like liberal like progressive kind of community which like you know there's still homophobia and that but like in terms of like very it was like the granola long hair but i also know that like you know mullets are considered more like like conservative I guess even if that's not the origin of them but like there is longer hair especially now but yeah I mean I definitely had teachers who like you know would braid our hair like give us a hug if we asked or whatever and wouldn't like shut down appropriate physical touch if we instigated it and like asked for it

so I think like if you know what like your school district's policy is on that like and if it is you know if a student asks for a hug or if a student like asks like but you're not like rubbing a student on a back without their consent or their explicit like request or the same thing with like braiding hair or doing anything like that then I think I would you know I would like just ignore it because i do think that if ignore what ignore the i would ignore like what the mom said and if like the kid at another point like asks for their like hair braided or like something like if that kid is like i mean it also depends if that kid is safe in that household with that but i think like if this is something that like whether it's like your school ethics handbook or

like your school district would disapprove of i don't mean this in a negative way but like i don't think that it's i think it would be better to just stop doing it all together versus being like i'm just gonna stop doing this to this boy's hair or to only the boy's hair in general i don't think you should be doing anything unless you have the parents consent period i don't think like you shouldn't be touching no but but that does get tricky because parents like like when it's like pronouns and stuff and parents are like oh you don't have the consent to like get used my child's preferred pronoun touch i'm talking about physical yeah yeah yeah i don't think you should be putting your hands on a child unless the parent has given consent to it because the issue is with that is

that like kids can have like autonomy in that but because that is like what melissa said is like legitimately just what it boils down to i think a parent has a stronger argument than you do But also specifically, I don't think that this is going to do a lot. I don't think this is going to like change hearts and minds of like this kid or this parent. Like, I don't think that if this is like where you put your foot down being a progressive teacher in a very conservative area, I don't think this is something that carries a lot of weight.

And I don't think it's worth risking your job for or worth risking like the respect for. Like, there's not too much of an explicit gender norms, like lesson kind of going on here. It's just, it's, I understand where you're coming from. And I, but I just don't think this should be your precedent for specifically adjusting and changing your behavior to fit like the gender norms and expectations of parents. i just think you should eliminate the braiding of people's hair because i think if you don't then it becomes a gender thing right so i think the mom is in the wrong for like what it's worth like i don't think that like we don't we don't did the moms explicitly say that it was because oh that's true we don't know what her reasoning was what the mom's reasoning was my assumption which could be very incorrect i feel like that's the well that's what i was wondering if you had

a history with this parent and this was something that was like oh okay this is this or if like the content of the message said you know that it was implied that it was that but i just think that it's it's just not worth it you know like it's a fun thing and i'm sure it's like really nice and bonding for those kids but taking it away too that's not gonna that won't negatively impact them but like if you aren't able to be their teacher anymore i think that is a much the stakes are much higher there this is something that i would as someone who doesn't like to concede i would like fully concede on this because i also don't like to go up to bat for an argument where i know the other person has like really strong footing against what i'm saying do you

know what i mean like it feels against what you want to teach and like gender norms and stuff that's trumped by bad word choice that is like overpowered by physical touch consent right yeah right so tricky anyways shall we do the next hi my name is melissa as of right now i'm 18 years old my pronouns are they them and i'm non-binary and i'm in my last year of school i live in a small town in germany and since august i've been working a part-time job in a cafe in the inner city which i really enjoy as it helps me a lot to take my mind off of stressful things that bother me throughout the day at first i felt like it got along really well with the other people who work there. FYI they're either my age or in their 20s or I would guess early 30s and the owner is

24 years old herself and we're just 14 people in total. But during my latest shift some of my co-workers have been saying some things that make me really uncomfortable. For one the owner and some others used the German version of the Arsler but I've also heard her and another co-worker of my age joke around about listening to an extremely misogynistic song that has caused a lot of discourse in german media this summer however the worst thing i've heard two of my co-workers who are both female and my age do is mock genderqueer people i guess it's important to mention that i am not publicly outed and i am very female passing so they don't know about my identity one of the girls was bringing dishes into the kitchen and said something along the lines of

hey girls to which the other one jokingly responded hey boy and then the first one said something along the lines of oh yeah i actually don't identify as a girl anymore i'm genderqueer now as a joke and the other one said omg i'm genderqueer too now i'm open for anything as a queer feminist my beliefs and moral values are very important to me and i know that if i don't say anything about their behavior i silently tolerate it but i'm fairly new there and they all have known each other for a while and i fear that if i do say something they're not actually going to understand it and I'll become the annoying co-worker. Since almost everybody there talks like this I have a feeling that I wouldn't be able to encourage them to think about what they say

because they all just kind of marinate in their own beliefs and therefore I never challenge to reconsider them. I don't work there that much, during school it's just two to four times a month but I don't want to silently tolerate behavior like this that is hurtful to marginalized communities and also hurtful to me. I'm also very scared of conflict and becoming an outsider in my workplace and as I said I really really enjoy working. It helps a lot with my mental health and keeping myself busy especially on the weekends when I'm not in school as I'm recovering from depression and it gives me a reason to get out of the house and be active. I guess since I have taken the job I've had to realize that not everybody outside my friend group shares the same beliefs as we do.

I would really appreciate some advice and you do not have to go easy on me at all I want an honest opinion and I can take it I love the podcast I've been listening since the pandemic hit in 2020 and I'm really excited to hear what you both have to say bye first I want to say that if you're part of a marginalized community it's not silently tolerating it's protecting yourself

when you know that you're in a place that doesn't respect the community that you're part of it's protection so i understand like where you're coming from and like i don't want you to feel bad about yourself and how you're handling this because this is this is how like you're going through this in a way to i can't think of the word in a way to it's not protect but like self-preservation yeah in a way for self-preservation yeah when you're a part of a community you don't have to advocate for that community like you're just a part of it like you just just by existing like you're a part of it and there are different risks when you are whether it's like an ally or just like an outsider to correcting someone or calling someone out like

there is a safety in that when you are not a part of the targeted group and it's also not your responsibility to stand up for like you're you you recognize that you're a part of this group but you're like but you know for like all these other people all that like that's that isn't your responsibility like your responsibility is your own safety and your own protection physical safety also your mental safety and you've expressed that this job has been really great for your mental health and you know that it would you you would probably see from what you're saying it sounds like you would be surprised if this was taken well and based on how casually they're saying this kind of thing and like also not this would be better if it was like actually funny

but there's no part of it that's like i can even hear what the punch line is and for me you have people talk about like that in like a haha way that like puts like the hairs in the back of my neck up a little bit because it's not like you're reciting a comedy something you heard in a comedy special honestly what i think it is is that they might know that you're part of the community and they're mocking you so my fear is that like the way that they're saying it is like there's nothing funny about it it sounds it just sounds like you could you could have switched around and said they're saying this to me like there's no difference between this to me and it being targeted at you like they don't even have to change what they're saying you don't have to

change and it also feels like since you don't participate then they know on some level yeah i yeah and i i think that like if there's passively doing this that this is like the least egregious thing that they will say and sure there's some belief system that it's like well i might say something offensive but i would never say this like in front of somebody who like this would offend. But again, like there's no punchline to this joke. There's no like there's no joke about it. It just feels like a dig. And I think that if this is what the dig that they're doing now without knowing this is personally like attacking you, I think that like once this is turned on you, I think it'll be a lot worse. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with you

not saying anything. Yeah. Like if you feel empowered to say something at some point, it might not be today it might be a year from now two years from now then you know say it if you never feel empowered to say it don't say it but I would like weigh my if this job is good for like if this job is good I I'm like when I was working when I wasn't working for myself I was able to separate you know my job from the people I was working with so if you're able to do that great But if you're not, then, you know, preserve your mental health as much as you can. Yeah. I also think that like calling out people who are like, you basically said that you're

like, they're really set in their ways. They're in like this like echo chamber and they're not looking to be educated or to change anything about that. So calling those people out, the process of calling them out, that should be cathartic because I wouldn't waste your mental and physical energy trying to educate people who have no desire to be educated right and that there's a lot more emotion in there when you're trying to educate someone it's because you want to see them on the other side and like you see good in them and you want to change them for the benefit of that for everyone around them including you

and this doesn't seem like those these don't seem like the kinds of people who are ready for that and you don't think they are and they're not hiding that like you would know like you can really tell the difference unless the moment of calling them out and like i'm with melissa like if it takes if it's a couple years or again never but like in two years you aren't at this job anymore and you feel empowered and you want to fucking send them like a scathing fucking email go for it but like that needs to be the cathartic moment is just sending that and typing that out it's not their response because i don't i don't like the kind of power that they hold in like the you're the only part like even the owner and all of that stuff there that it's

just whether it will affect your job or your physical safety or not I just think it will really really hurt your mental health you know so decide yeah and it doesn't have to be a decision now just and especially if you're only working there you said four times a month yeah two to four times a month yeah is it worth it yeah it's like even I was telling Megan this offline I told her this a couple weeks ago I was gonna send a scathing email to a teacher that I had in 10th grade and it's been years and I like finally felt empowered to say something that she was dead you know you talked about how your friend circles like you know oh not everybody thinks the same way that I do but I would also if your friend circles are a lot of people who are very like vocally

calling people out who are not being inclusive and are being offensive and bigots and all of that stuff i would seek out some content whether video or written stuff from people who have gone through similar things and you'll know that like not everybody like everybody has a moment where they multiple times where they didn't say anything and i've had those that like and then the times where it's like you look back on things and the way that I look back on them when I was a when I wasn't someone who was like when it wasn't for self-preservation and I didn't say anything that's like the god fucking damn it like I'm so mad at myself but the times that it was where I was like well that was for my safety like I wasn't I wasn't gonna call out this guy because I didn't

feel safe there I don't look back on that years later and go like wow I'm a really bad feminist no like there's a very large difference there but sometimes there can be an echo chamber and like I'm definitely I'm guilty of like calling people out and I think a lot of people wouldn't because I'll post certain things but I'm like I ignore but like 99% of the shit and like I'll call out 1% that it's like oh you look like someone who could be educated on this or this look like we'd have a conversation or whatever it is someone who maybe has like a ton of power in a situation but like there is also no harm in recognizing like what deserves your energy you know so i'm sorry though that's just like really i mean just again not funny and poorly constructed

attempts at humor that like i am with melissa i don't even know if they're trying to be funny or if they're just like the inside joke is that they're just being mean and hoping that someone who's personally offended by this hears right but i'm glad that you found something that's really helped your mental health and if these people don't get in the way of that that's great you know and if they do you can like find another job like there's you don't have to tolerate this if you can't tolerate it and if you can tolerate it that doesn't make you a bad person is it a Break time! And break. We'll be back. Okay, we're back. And it's time to get into the rest of the calls.

Hi, Megan and Melissa. Before I begin, I'd like to just go ahead and give a content warning for fat phobia and eating disorders in general. So I have struggled with my eating for a long time, and this isn't anything to – I'm not asking any questions medically, but I'm just wondering how did you two deconstruct your internalized fat phobia? because that's something that i've been struggling with oh i'm 21 years old she her and i'm a cis woman and i just i i've been having a hard time figuring out how to deconstruct that and i go to therapy and we talk about it some but it's still really hard for me to even talk about and like when we talk about deconstructing that phobia with me it always comes with other conversations that are really hard for me to have so I just wanted to see what you two would say and in my

journey and deconstructing my internalized fat phobia right now I would say that I'm very much fat phobic against myself and thoughts pop up about other people but I shut them down really quickly and say no that's not okay so my fat phobia is um directed at myself a lot but i know that fat phobia is fat phobia and it's not if you have internalized fat phobia you're fat phobic against everyone it's not a one or the other so thanks so much also this is a really sensitive topic for me so if you guys could be a little nicer but yeah that's all thanks so much i love you both bye the only time we'd be mean about this is when two seconds in this call we first thought you said thought phobia yeah and we just want to acknowledge that if they're if you're

watching the video and you saw a smile i looked at melissa and i go did she say thought phobia and mostly goes i literally thought that's what she said and then it was very abundantly clear after that that that's not what you said um so our apologies for that it's always like the people who are like you can be as mean as you want or like please don't be mean to me like those specific people who say that i'm like we're so not going to come for you at all so don't worry about that i want to clarify that like like we can talk about unpacking fat phobia but having internalized fat phobia i'm not i'm not fat and so i am not a part of an oppressed group who is then internalizing that there. So I think that distinction is really important. And if you're specifically

looking for people to talk about unpacking internalized fat phobia, that's I don't want to even like somewhat claim that we can come at it from that perspective. But I first want to say, I think it's like really fantastic for you to acknowledge this at 21. I did not acknowledge this at 21 and for you to recognize that fat phobia that you pertain to yourself is not isolated but it does seep into like how we consume other things and I a lot of people think that it's like well no I'm only like fat phobic against myself like I have no issue with other people and whether it's as like cut and dry and clear as this is that you recognize you have those thoughts about other people it can literally be something as simple as like comic book characters like as

like animated things like just just things that you don't think that like there's a specific person on the receiving end it's there so I mean my advice like I say over and over and over again that like the best thing I ever ever fucking did for my like own issues and my body image and on learning fat phobia is like the podcast maintenance phase because there's something really fucking insidious when you realize that something that you know exists and you know that you've partaked in partaken in and you know that it has affected you and shaped you that like you realize that that's just like the tip of the iceberg and it's so much deeper like the amount of knowledge there i don't want to say it's like where you're like so shocked that it's like oh my

gosh like i'm like cured of this it's not that it's just so much of fat phobia was taught to us in a way that like we think it's our brains and we think it's like oh i'm thinking this because i'm a bad person or and i think that's like once you start recognizing what fat phobia is and like wanting to unlearn it you're like wow i'm a horrible person i'm a horrible person and that's a really uncomfortable thing to unpack because it feels like you're disappointing yourself and like you've like inadvertently hurt other people and all of this stuff but like i found it really empowering and just like really eye-opening and helpful to like realize like i've never had an original thought in my life like all of this shit that i thought came from like the dark

recesses of my brain was put there by somebody else exactly and that's like i that's liberating Like that's really liberating. And until I got to that point, there was too much self-loathing. Because when you go from like, whether it's eating issues, body image issues, eating disorders, whatever it is, there's so much self-loathing there. And a key component in recovery is unlearning fat phobia. like when that just turns into more shame that doesn't feel productive and it's because shame isn't productive but learning the origins of all of this shit made me realize like just as much as i was like guilty of participating in this i didn't consent to this i didn't consent to consuming this media i didn't seek this media out like my brain i i didn't develop my brain like this other this was done by the world you know yeah I'm not fat but up until recently I've been just very very small um it wasn't like in my like it was just like that's just my body type

and then there was a point where I got really really small um but when I was growing up it was very of the norm of just like dieting like as part of like snack wells was a whole thing where it was like here's a cookie that's only this many calories and there's no sugar and or like the slim fast diet was drink two slim fast a day and then a sensible meal and it was just like you said it's just been so ingrained in me and then I was working when I was at like as an adult at the smallest of my life I was working at a it's very problematic as I look I actually knew it when I was there but it was like they they came at it from a scientific standpoint of saying like this is a research center that yeah like they call it a research center they hired people that

had degrees in science and it was like the things that they coached us to say to these women was just disgusting because they they came from it like as like i said the science standpoint standpoint but also like you know we're helping these women become like the healthier versions of themselves and saying things like that but then having us say things to them like nothing tastes as good as what thin feels yep and having just like a a mound of fat at the front of the uh place and and while I worked there I got even though I I mean I was working out more than I ever worked out before and I was the smallest as an adult that I ever was and there were so much many compliments that came from that and there was like a high but again

that was because those things were put into my head even though I was saying this to other people they got in my head too and like Megan said like once you realize it's because of external media then I think that's a good way to start shutting those things out like when you look at other people's I think like for me like going to and I don't mean this in like a perverted way at all but like going to like a spa where it's a naked spa and just seeing all the different body types that women have like that is like empowering to me yeah like that helped me become more comfortable in my own body and right now I feel like the hottest that I've felt yeah and like forever like probably in my life and I'm just like I like the way I look and so like just just um like

exposing yourself so that you're not looking at people that have unattainable or even body types that you don't want but you think that you should have because other people are telling you to or moving yourself from that then that helps with that yeah there's a like bodies that are designed when the kind of media that we're seeing of bodies it's for consumption it's for sexual consumption or it's for like pro thin anti-fat consumption and there's something about like recognizing that like yes the bodies that you see in magazines and on like certain tiktoks or on tv shows and things are designed to make you feel one of two ways they're designed to make you feel bad about yourself or they're designed to like make you turn you on and there's so many more uses of

the female body than that that like that is something that is like i also think it's like a very crucial thing when you're like looking at bodies and they're not being sexualized and they're also not being romanticized for being thin they're just people fucking existing in their bodies and they're not there for your consumption they're just there right that's like a really helpful thing because i do think people can then go into even things that like there's really no sounds really bad. But like, there's kind of very few safe places from fat phobia, like even in like, fitness settings and stuff where it's like, Oh, I'm gonna get healthy, and I'm going to like, quote, unquote, healthy. And I'm gonna like do a bodybuilding competition.

Now it's not about being thin, it's about as much muscle as it can happen. It's the same part of your brain. It's the same part of control part of your brain. But like, there's an ego thing there, at least for me, when I realized that, like, not only like, was I a victim of something I had no idea i was a victim for but that like it's not my fault that i fell for it but when i know that information i'm like you bet your fucking ass i'm never gonna fall for this shit again it's not even like falling for it that's what i mean like but now that i know now that i know like fuck you and i'm going to like and it tracks through so many other things that like once you have built this foundation and you've heard enough stories about different companies that have come to light

and like the origins of them or whatever it is you are able to then spot that in everyday life and i like can see now for like products that are nothing i've encountered before but the marketing just the word the verbiage around it or whatever they're claiming or how they speak about it all of my red flags go up and that's something that like this work requires education and i think that like we're so fucking far behind on education about fat phobia and unlearning fat phobia specifically for women that like there's not a lot of content out there and so a lot of the times like i don't i'm not saying that like therapy is a bad thing at all but this is a problem that is like a worldwide problem that like we have to know and educate ourselves before we can try and fix it

it's not an emotional thing it's not like a psychological it's to the point where like I don't know my brain I didn't know my brain without fat phobia and like it's still something that like I check myself on and I don't beat myself up on for checking it because like I haven't been uh like thinking walking talking human being without those influences in my life like so there isn't this end goal because I don't know her like I've never met her I've never seen her and I'm doing like my very best to get to a place where like I'm not recognizing the worst version of myself I'm not recognizing that part like I'm applauding and encouraging the process that I'm making but I don't even think that like people like 20 years older than us like I don't

I hope that there are kids now who are being raised that they're they have memories like before or never having dealt with fat phobia but like I don't want to use it like we're pioneering but like there's people born in the 80s born in the 40s born in the 60s like there's never been a time that like nobody was dealing with like fat folk there's no one alive right now like that's why you think like parents who like imprinted their like eating issue like the 80s fad diet culture all of that so like there's this concept that we like to think of like looking at people like looking at our elders through all of the situation this shit is still so new and this is like there's a lot of like a lot of fucking people learned their fat phobia from their parents who learned

it from their parents who learned it from their parents and also a change in culture where it was like you know like if you were eating then like like people used to revere bigger bodies because that meant that it was a classist thing because that meant that you were like you could eat and you didn't have to be in the fields working yeah and like those people aren't alive now like the people who are alive now that's it's fad diets it's crash dieting it's diet culture it's like weight loss drugs it's all of this stuff and so like if you can look at this like a history lesson versus like a psychology lesson like history our environment that affects our brain and our psyche this isn't like my brain needs to heal my own brain by my thoughts because these aren't your

thoughts and the only way to get rid of the thoughts that aren't your own that are like masquerading as your own is learning that they're not yours and like learning where they came from and I can't again I can't stress how great that podcast is and they also have so many references that they will like be like oh this is a great book like I learned this from this and this and this and this and so many things that like like my my jaw drops open every fucking episode at some point like I'm never not learning and in like I don't know how long this is like two years maybe a little bit less than that done more for me than literally any therapy like didn't like in conjunction with therapy and stuff but like has done so much more for me there than anything else

because it's not a me problem like if I choose to willfully ignore all of this I'm not just like hurting other people I'm like genuinely hurting myself and so the more that you can learn about that it's just it's a lot less work after that because like like for me like I don't need to think about it exactly and like there might be moments or times or things especially if it's reflecting on yourself or there's something or if you haven't you know done some inventory self inventory in a while but like when you learn about fat phobia it becomes like that it becomes a louder voice in the fat phobia in your head you know like because you weren't taught about fat phobia like to be fat phobic in an educational way with all of these resources like you were just it

was just what it was and so unlearning that i think like if you look at it the same way of like you know sexism like racism like all these other things like it becomes very obvious and it's not like a oh obviously like it's it's i mean it's not like a oh well i don't know about that i'm gonna like argue with myself with that it just becomes like these are the facts and like this has affected me and now this has affected me more and now this is getting better but this is like amazing at 21 years old so just like massive kudos to you because that was not me anyways one more call hi megan and melissa um i am a 24 year old female i use she her pronoun so So I'm new to the dating game, and I had matched with somebody on Hinge that I had really enjoyed talking to.

I could tell that maybe, like, there was something where he may have, I don't know how to phrase it politely or politically correct, but that he may have some sort of, like, disability, which I was totally fine with. He never mentioned anything to me, and I was never going to bring it up because it didn't really matter to me. But when we met in person, we met up, and he then disclosed to me in person that he was autistic and he had a few other mental disabilities that he suffered with or had. And for me, that was something that it kind of caught me off guard, not in the fact that I have an issue with it, but more in the fact that that was something that was not disclosed to me before we went on a date. We had a good time on the date, but it didn't end up working out. It just, he lived far away, and it just ended up not being something that worked out for us.

But I guess my question or what I'm asking for is, is it wrong of me to feel misled in the fact that he didn't disclose that to me before we met? Or do you think that's something that is justified for him to disclose at his pace or when he's ready? For me, I already have a child with some disabilities, and it's hard for me as a mom to understand what to encourage him to do in the future. And I don't want to come off in a bad way. but I was just curious and he was really upset with me after we had been talking for a few more weeks after our date that it wasn't going to work out and I just I guess I'm just interested where your guys's heads are at about this topic love the podcast thanks our heads are in a non-ableist

space yeah which yours is not yeah especially when you have a child I can't remember the last time that I listened to a call on this podcast where I was like please don't say what I think you're about to say and you did uh to start off I know you didn't you wanted to word this politely and be politically correct you failed immensely and there are certain things that it really doesn't matter how you word them when the nature and the content of them is an issue and if you can't figure out how to word something without it being offensive that is when we do a check-in with ourselves and go then i should if i can't vocalize this without being offensive i should not vocalize this and why do i feel the need to do that oh shit i can't i can't spin this in a way

that is politically correct so therefore this is a moment for me to realize that i need to check in with myself and undo this and educate myself because i just partook in problematic behavior behavior and you said that you it wasn't an issue for you but it clearly is an issue and he was upset and he was upset so he knew whether whatever you're not telling us or whatever you thought that you were also withholding from him you didn't do this this really upsets me too from a broad stance you know i'm broad as a woman broad perspective broad perspective stance i get i'm like literally like goosebumps angry. Disclosure is about the safety of the person who's disclosing, regardless of what they're disclosing. It's not about you. It's not about the other person. It's

not about all it is, is are you a safe person for this person to disclose to emotionally and physically? Nobody should be asked to disclose before they're ready. And nobody should feel that they have to disclose in order to not mislead somebody else because how are you misleading anybody to begin with that's what but like she was like i felt like misled but also like so your assumption is everybody is able-bodied and neurotypical yep because that's a problem that's ableist like you're if you if that is what you're assuming that's already a problem someone doesn't need to be like oh i'm not that because you're viewing one thing as universal and normal and everything else as not and this also doesn't make any sense to me because you're like i could

kind of tell from our messages that it was somewhat he was like kind of implying that he was disabled you liked him up until that point and you knew the distance from the beginning so and like you said that you went into this date feeling like in your his messages he implied that and like he disclosed then if you felt it then he that's what i mean it's like so this just feels like it feels like he can't fucking win because like you're like well i felt misled and i wanted him disclosed and it's like well you said that it was implied and then he disclosed more explicitly in person so like you just don't create it you made him feel safe enough to to do and then you and probably because you you also said that your your child has you didn't specify but you said

that your child has some type of i think you said just disabilities i think they said yeah so like he probably thought he was in a safe place to tell you and then you made and i'm and if i'm making an assumption but it seems like you made it up an excuse for why this wouldn't work because of your physical distance but did you not know how distant you were to begin with it says on the app how far away people are would you dare to say that maybe he was misled yep yeah this just like makes me really really really upset and the second part of what you said like everything you did with him was like so fucking wrong and and then your second part was like well i want to know like how to like encourage my son you need to unpack this and you need to like learn about ableism and

regardless of whatever communities your son belongs to that does not mean that like you're a part of them by proxy you will have any sort of deep understanding and therefore can like judge or have like a say or an opinion on those things or like what is like good and bad right and wrong as a part of those two people who are within them like you you need to make sure that like any assistance that you are getting for your son is done and from like disability advocates and has been done and endorsed by said community not the community a community who is trying to quote called fix them right and if your support for your son is surrounded by a bunch of non-disabled neurotypical people that's an issue yeah you need to be you should be seeking out not like in your

everyday life yeah you should be around people that are different from you but especially in this case and i'm assuming that your child is small because i think we heard yeah crying in the background like you should expose him to people that you know are like similar to him yeah you can't advocate for him without knowing like what yes there are certain things are going to be better best for each individual but like when you you need to be taking recommendations and knowledge from whatever disabled communities that he's a part of because like you're going to face ableism in the health care system in the school system and all of that shit and like if your your personal support system and your education especially when your kid is young and

like can't really they don't have like the words to explain how things make them feel or whatever like you need to be coming from it with like disability forward in mind and like for his adult life with his disability like you're gonna you're gonna have to fight against ableism all the fucking time and there's so much ableism in like the disability adjacent community that like you will have a very fucking long road ahead of you with a child who will probably go no contact with you if you fuck this up at this point and like the damage that is done especially to young kids like at this time is it's fucking huge like it's so fucking huge and like you should hope that your son never encounters what you did on that date ever and you want to be like well

what should I be encouraging like him to do in the future like that's up to him what he wants to do and he's probably going to be getting that advice from people who are also a part of his community and like you're his mom you love him you're a part of his family but you can't actually be there to offer him advice on how he's going to go about with his disability you can empower him and you can celebrate him you can celebrate his disability you can celebrate him for who he is and the things that make him him and you can stand up when people are being ableist against him but like you can't tell him how to be disabled what to do how to do how to act how his response should be like these are all things for him like you'll never know you'll never know

what he's going through you'll never know that and like no matter hard how hard you try you won't and so you need to not try and you need to make sure that he is surrounded by people who do have the same lived experience as him because they will actually be the resource for him and you can be the sounding board there you can be the support there you can be the chauffeur you can be the driver to go into these things like you can be the like oh let's call up this person they'll probably have some great advice let's go take them to coffee like you can be the one to facilitate that growth that education that empowerment but like you can't be the driving force behind that because you're not a part of that and i really hope this is like a massive wake-up call to you

and i think you should send a written apology don't fucking call the guy you went on a date with like don't waste his time but I think you should send a very nice written apology that you'll probably never hear anything back from but I think you should learn a fuck ton before that and then I mean if I was gonna say don't no apologize without you learning and realizing why what you did is wrong like you need to take time figure out and then come through with a sincere apology and if you don't feel the need to apologize you need to do more work like until you get to the point where you're like i'm mortified and i know why specifically and i know like deep and intrinsically how much i fucked up here that's a really good place to start right like this

shouldn't just be embarrassment and guilt this should be like wow i perpetuated like a really horrible thing and like these are all the reasons why like think about if your son went out on a date when he's older if he goes out on a date with somebody and it was the same type of experience and then he comes back and tells you and then what are you going to say to him well that was your fault for not telling her up front or him or whoever he may decide today at the time like how messed up is that and again like disclosures about safety and so then how would you feel about like oh i'm like in encouraging your kid to disclose and your kid gets killed right because they disclosed to wait too soon and to someone they weren't confident and comfortable in

disclosing to like this like they feel like that they were tricked yeah i mean there's a lot of crossover in different marginalized communities but like there's i mean there's a huge like transgender disabled community who talks a lot about like the intersectionality of disclosure and safety in both of those and like that's not different like they are different things that you are disclosing but like again the reason for disclosure there is safety and you should want your kid to be safe right how would you feel if like this guy you went on a date with was like now i need to like really like fully disclose like this was my fault blah blah blah then discloses too early to someone like explicitly over messages and gets killed like how again how are you going

to feel knowing that like what you said not only is really like and what you did was not only like really offensive if what you said and did changed how these other how people go about their lives you are literally putting their lives in danger because you felt misled like it's i don't know maybe this is like the whole thing of like being selfish in love and whatever that like this narrative gets too far that it's like this is like not about you like what you're going to is find out if you connection with somebody and if like you have stipulations of like oh i'm not gonna i can't date anybody who is disabled i can't do blah blah blah blah blah i would prefer you to be the fucking bigot in your bio with that shit i say ableist yeah like first thing

i would rather i would rather you fucking like wear that on a fucking t-shirt before you let anybody speak to you like if you're going to be set in your way if you're going to be set in your bigoted ways i would rather you do it loudly because i know where this to stay the fuck away from yep so really hope that this is a learning moment for you i want to be harsh enough that i that i hope that you hear this and this resonates with you but i don't want this to be so harsh that um this turns you off from this and your child has miserable 18 years with an ableist mom who like becomes so set in her ways yeah so wishing the best for your kid okay we're gonna take a break we're back from our break we're having a nice little energy shift i know that you had the

break everybody but like we had like 0.2 seconds um from that last call and for our own sanity we're we're getting in a we're getting in a good mood yeah we're getting a little less angry i'm on my vigilante shit taking a pause on that all right time for don't blame them what is don't blame them don't blame them is where y'all the listeners call in and share either advice or like if you've been through a similar thing to some someone that was a caller on the previous episode and uh you share your insight hell yeah hi megan and melissa i am calling in for don't blame them for the caller that had concerns about writing off her boyfriend, partner, whoever, regarding his ownage of guns. Honestly, I don't think that that was premature write-off

coming from somebody who grew up around guns. I can tell you there's a very big difference between somebody who owns like one gun for protection only or one gun for hunting and that's it and somebody who owns many guns goes to the gun range for sport um because they enjoy them and you don't ever have to compromise what you believe in your in your heart and your mind to be okay and what you want to hear out because you meet somebody and then later find out well did they do something that you were previously very against um i feel like if you had known from the get-go about these guns you might have been like you know what no before i even get to know you this is a deal breaker for me and i feel like maybe now you're just considering

it simply because you already started to like him and saw some sort of a future and then he told you this after the fact if your gut instinct is telling you that this doesn't feel right for your own life and you don't want them in your household for any reason you don't want them around your future children for any reason i don't think anyone is worth second guessing that um you still are very new to this relationship it's really no loss at this point there are people out there that will be able to give you both you know that you'll get that great feeling with that you might get with him right now but also does not go against any of your moral or ethical values so trust your gut girl i don't think you made the wrong move at all good great i never thought about that like the

difference of as someone who i mean not me that that the don't blame them caller saying like as when you grew up in a house with guns like there is a distinct difference between one for a usage and one for like the sport of guns right that's really interesting never thought about that so thank you and that is our episode i don't know what that voice was i don't know either it kind of sounded like nintendo mario and you and you me i love to throw a little mega sparkle on things so that is it we hope you enjoyed if you are still listening head on over to our instagram and comment your least favorite emoji and if you want to be on an upcoming episode you can give us a call at 310-694-0976 international listeners send us an audio message at meganpodcasts at

gmail.com subscribe to our patreon we do the video versions there for a dollar a month you can see all of the videos and then we have other tiers where we do two live streams a month they're very fun and we we chat we get along we have new people like all the time now so also don't be afraid to join as like a first timer like yeah we actually had like a little spike in people joining the patreon as a whole yeah so come on in everybody's so kind and very nice i'm not no but that's just her and you love me for it exactly so tomorrow you can hear the extra extra little bits just just a little more check-in that is our extra episode for this it's not like an overflow but we talked about halloween what we did halloween we talked about what we did on halloween the

weekend and we also talked about a musical artist no you'll met actually that's why we talk about him all the fucking time but it's not we don't say good thing yeah shout out to narusa you'll well you're not watching maybe you're watching i was doing i did a kissy face peace sign so that's just what you should know and then we have a break on wednesday so you can have your hump day in undisturbed then thursday we have but am i wrong where we read submissions uh vr email of people asking about if they were the hero the villain in the situation and we also talk about pop culture our own personal hot takes and then on friday we have this ding friday which i'm devastated that we that name stuck not just for you all it stuck

for us like i like it me too and i don't like that i like it like i don't like that so that is uh where we read the results of all the voting that goes on in but am i wrong because i didn't mention that but you know you vote on who you think was wrong in each situation we read those results we we recap a little bit and then you have your weekend free and then we're back again back back again yeah yeah do you think we'd like eminem if his nickname is shady that's slim shady also do you think that's like kind of like to me like my culture is not your costume as a personal slim shady he's pretty slim when he first came out but is he shady i don't know i just want to know him if he and i just feel like i personally resonate with the

name slim shady like i wonder if him and i feel like kindred spirits i don't think he'd like you i don't think you like me either i need to ask mox because i don't know much about him no he doesn't like a lot of people and i think we would get on his nerves a lot of his early career was making fun of like pop icons so that's what i was gonna say i'm like so the people he doesn't like because like there's some people who i'm like i know you wouldn't like me but like i dislike all the same people you dislike and like i'm just here for the ride but i wonder he dislikes britney okay that's what i was asking i was like okay so no no i would okay don't like him so i do love that song with rihanna though i like a lot of he's very talented he has like a rhyming like the way

that he rhymes things it's like it's like you can hear the rhyme but also there's a way you can see it too like he's a genius yeah when it comes to music and i think a lot of his songs are great but i just don't i mean i don't i don't need to be friends with everybody i enjoy their art no also we would have way too many we already have a long list of friend of the podcast we don't need more we could honestly pare the list down kiki palmer call us best friend we're here whenever her halloween looks rogue which all started from to be that guy on tiktok that made the suggestion that she should be rogue is like and now like she saw it and then made her a halloween costume from it and like a photo shoot he has can you imagine waking up that morning and being him and just

being like his dms are like check it yeah first of all when he when she acknowledged it to begin with and then after that and she'd be good as someone that is now watching um the animated x-men she would be a perfect rogue sugar that's why i call it start calling you sugar inspired by rogue okay here i'll take it i'm happy with it call me whatever it's a southern gal who is you are i am and so is rogue oh okay okay anyways no new reviews we haven't had a new one since september so please please leave a review and if you know kiki palmer okay that's it goodbye bye don't blame me is a production by me executive produced by melissa de monts and diamond imprint productions edited by coco lawrence post-production sound by chris henry

production assistance by melanie d watson music by ryan hunter and giacomo picasso Thank you.