Don't Blame Me! - How Not to Friend Zone Yourself

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Fill out our survey! https://www.dontblameme.show/survey This week Meghan and Melisa give advice on: Uncomfortable with partner drinking Inexperienced dating Telling your boss that you're going to grad school Don't Blame Them Yeast Infections Asking Boyfriend if He Would Sleep With my Friends 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

hey everybody party party party party welcome to another episode of don't blame me hi melissa hello megan hi as y'all just heard from the ad that played before this which i believe was our voices as it should be uh please take the survey that the survey we were just talking about the link is in the show notes I'm gonna tell you right now I I took the survey I didn't submit it but I just like wanted to answer the fun questions about me because I love I love like a little quiz I love talking about myself I love the attention and I'm telling you right now if you're if you're someone who loves a little quiz like that you love to feel special and important this is gonna this is gonna scratch that itch for you yeah i had to qc it so i took it

and there was a mistake so it went back and fixed it good that's good at your job crushing it killing it amazing so we appreciate everyone who has also already done it thank you thank you so much all right so welcome to a brand new episode of don't blame me a show where y'all call in and then we give you advice is it wonderful advice yeah is it amazing of course is it is it life-changing potentially but is it something that you could hold against us in a court of law absolutely not we did our due diligence we planned don't blame us you can blame yourself or pick pick someone else to blame there's so many go for it yeah ron desantis go for it good good ones good ones those are like ones that i feel like

solid constantly will always be at fault for something mm-hmm you know who a big one is right now clarence thomas yeah because honestly some things that might you might have an issue with might be actually his fault no legitimately like personal attack yeah so much time on their hands and so much chaos and destruction to to commit yeah just evil evil it feels like it's being directed by michael bay yeah and i don't even like michael bay but i don't think he would be that evil no but like michael bay's like unnecessarily stressful and loud and like in like the sense of like there's just you're like oh my god too much going on

sensory overload like can we dial it back and it's like no did you ever see that uh victoria's secret commercial that michael bay shot no but there's one that is immediately popping into my head going probably that one's gonna be shot when they're like jumping out of planes and they're exploding and stuff yes that is a michael bay production melissa that is so funny because i forgot that even existed until you said it and who else could have directed that exactly who else could have made that that was not an annie lebowitz production no one was in grayscale i go to the movies sometimes and when i go there's commercials before and they'll be like one where it's just

somebody driving a car down the street and they'll be like directed by Guy Ritchie and I said yeah it feels like it what the fuck you know what they're getting paid I would just love to get to a point where like I do the bare minimum

and something that is like literally so off brand for like what I'm supposed to be doing but i'm like bringing my essence to it and they're paying an exorbitant amount of money and it's not going to translate well at all but like who cares i get the fucking paycheck like who cares if guy richie directed this but literally nobody paid and so much more than they would have had to spend for anyone else doing the same thing yeah like it's bringing a sort of gravitas to this lincoln commercial with matthew i can't stand this like i literally like get out disproportionately irate at those fucking commercials i don't and you want to know why and

you're gonna be like yell at me why because matthew mcconaughey's voice is so sexy no it's like the exact opposite for me no it's so sexy i just can't i'm like speak up like it's like that that tweet of being like men in los angeles stop trying to be influencers we need gaffers these movies are these tv shows are too goddamn dark that's how i feel and i'm like someone turn up the fucking volume i cannot hear you like it's like this very low register where i'm like get this man a cough drop and a microphone no that's just like the southern drawl well adhd i don't know anybody in the south can function with a like i bless your heart no but like the the the cadence of things talking so i would i would become violent like i can't when someone's

talking too slow i will literally be like matthew you have to speed it up like you have to i can't keep following but there's also like you talk so fast sometimes and i have to be like megan slow the fuck down so it's tough well i'm happy that you know he's for you i will never encroach on i mean i don't want him as a person but his voice is sexy i did i would say like how to lose a guy that was peak hotness for matthew mcconaughey fool's gold fool's gold was way i think that one was a little too dirty for me oh yeah that's my part yeah i like you like the diamonds and i'm like no the bare feet in the sand go frost yourself unwashed hair yeah no i well you know i love a treasure hunt yeah you do and i love diamonds so and i yeah

and i love a tiny titty representation moment and she's got tiny titties in that movie so does oh they're it's both of us no i know but they're giving her some no they're patting kate hudson and how do they know i was gonna say i was gonna say kate hudson also has but i was like it's the same person yeah yeah yeah but she had like they were patting her in some of those dresses they're like you know they're trying to give you no they threw her in a full-on fucking bikini nobody gave her some chicken cutlets and she was just around with her tiny titties and i was like i love to see it i finally watched knives out this weekend what do you think spectacular chris hudson oh no no the new one the new one i've seen the other one

oh yeah yeah many i've seen that like three times for me yeah um but uh kate hudson glass onion glass onion kate hudson being kate hudson that's my favorite version of her like when she was on glee kate hudson being kate hudson like love her adore her after watching glass onion she shot up to the top of my top five nepo babies like she's she's she a nepo baby doing what a nepo baby does the outfits just like oh my gosh posing whole thing it was so funny i really did you how do you feel at the beginning of the movie because i really fucking hated the weird covid zoom thing yeah i mean i just i thought it was this was one of the things that i thought was like funny but it was still you know like it was still a because the whole

movie as a commentary and so i think that it added to the commentary i know and then that was not the initial first scene i felt like there was something out like it just felt like it was missing one thing for me and i don't know what it was but it wrapped it back in when they got to the dock and then shot the thing in their throats that was like the cure because that added to like rich people can do whatever they want because they have access to these things yeah and the whole um i mean if anybody it's a spoiler of this this movie's been out for a while um but like the whole commentary of who's wearing a mask and who's not and just be like okay and then she shows up with a lace mask yeah wait i was like oh my god nikita dragon like it was just it was good but she's she's so good

and janelle monae has been my favorite since the moment that i heard one of her songs and since then and then she started acting i was like she's perfect i love her like great wonderful love it and i had such high expectations for her because everyone was saying that she like stole it and she was so fucking good and i was like oh no like when you get all those accolades before everyone's seen it then it's always gonna be disappointment no she was better she was better than everybody said she was yes and i'm and i'm in the camp of like people said like she stole it but i also it's her story so it was like she ran it it wasn't a stolen it was she ran the the thing the production like she was great phenomenal wonderful dynamite my friend avia who i feel like i've now talked

about her on every one of these episodes now avia's becoming like you to my me to my neighbors yeah uh she's like i didn't get it and i was and she's like i didn't like it and then i explained to her and she's like all that went over my fucking head and now i have to watch it again yes and she's like now i get it and i like it yeah it was i yeah i thought she didn't say fucking she's not a cursor like me i just add a little flair i don't want to put that on her name yeah i don't want to put that on her i do that with moms and mom all the time and i'm like okay she didn't actually say that but i'm like yeah it was the essence it was the vibe um wow now i want to watch it again i want them to make a new one every day i need you to watch uh poker face

because it's same vibes oh yeah tv show yeah yeah but you get i think eight episodes of it so and they're over an hour long each one of them so it's like a movie yeah is it over oh okay it's over yeah i'm here for it we uh we're now in our office phase because i don't i told mozzadini to start watching more happy things um but speaking of matthew mcconaughey he always reads like really fucking depressing books and i'm like mozz like stop getting all of your recommendations from like essentially like white men with an existential crisis read this book to like think about how doomed the world is i'm like let's get you some fun light-hearted like i was like do you want to read uh uh like beach i was like do is there like a like a a beach read kind

of like tell me i feel like you would love obama's reading list and it has a mix of things yeah it has a mix of stuff on it because i've directed a couple of the audiobooks that have landed on his list so yeah and so um yeah i think he would like because he releases it at the end of every year so just give him the one from last year i'm gonna comb through it and find all of the happy books actually i think he does one for every season so no you're right the summer one should be coming yeah the summer one should be coming out soon he did a summer playlist and um like the stallion was on it and it was so it was a cultural moment that was very important and um no but so uh i was like looking for like uplifting books or like books like happy

fun books like light-hearted fun books and you know what fucking came up and suggested that i was like matthew mcconaughey's book okay and i was like okay i don't want self-help books and i'm like well it's not a self-help book i'm like well i don't want like a collection of like tweet what is it about it's like a collection of tweets i think oh i think okay is he on twitter no it's like other people's tweets it's like him being a philosopher in like 160 characters or less i think you know what i might be lying what's his name matthew mcconaughey not matthew morrison you said mcconaughey or did you type it i was trying to type it in i couldn't remember i only saw people roasting it online it's called green lights it's a number one new york times

bestseller oh it's a memoir oh yeah so popular highlights in this book we cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows we have to be thrown off balance to find our footing it's better to jump than fall and here i am stepping in shit is inevitable so let's either see it as good luck or figure out how to do it less often i never wrote down things to remember i always say say less it's just like it just gives me pause you know anyways um as you see i i physically paused so um okay welcome to us giving you advice we're gonna give you some advice and if you would like to call in for an upcoming episode you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 international listeners

you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com we do require that you keep both versions audio message or voicemail under three minutes you have to you'll get cut off and you are 18 or over have your parents permission and write everything down read it out loud time it make sure it's under three minutes practice a couple times do a little do a little uh a dress rehearsal well some run-throughs before you get to the opening night the big show and we so appreciate it because the more details you include the best call like the better version of the call that will be and then we can give you the best and most accurate advice because we need all that good info this is true that's my input let's take a break

we're back from our break and this is a perfect time before we get into the uh the meat and potatoes of the episode to let you know that we're on patreon you can watch a video version of the podcast um i fully forgot this whole time that we are recording a video so i cannot be uh held accountable for any of the facial expressions or movements that i've been doing um and you can also support the show that way keep our lights on oh yeah because megan's might shut off during this okay really afraid hi uh me and my boyfriend were both 19 years old we met in college we have been dating for six months so for backstory my mom is an alcoholic and she's been here seeing for as long as i can remember because of that i have decided

to stay sober until I have the ability to emotionally regulate and just grade coping skills. My boyfriend, he doesn't have any alcoholism in his family. However, he doesn't drink often. In the six months we've been dating, I've only known him to drink twice. My issue is, despite the fact he rarely drinks, I still get incredibly uncomfortable knowing he does. I told him to text me before he drinks and then ghost me until he gets sober, efforts

to put up a boundary, but I still get stressed and overwhelm knowing he's about to drink. I know I can't control his actions or anything, and I don't want to. I would advise on what other options of boundaries I have, though. Should I just ignore the fact he drinks and be grateful that it's so rare? Should I keep doing what we're doing and hope it works out? I just don't know. I kind of suck at putting up boundaries. Some other information that I don't know if it's relevant or not, I'm in therapy.

He's kind of been working on it, but there's a lot to work on. uh the times he does drink he drinks very little like the first time so like half a shot so not a big issue clearly but it still causes a lot of anxiety oh and i don't have anxiety so yeah thanks for any help wait does she doesn't have anxiety i think she means in like an anxiety disorder but she but she's anxious when he drinks okay okay okay i think that's what she meant okay um this is very stressful i like feel for you like this is this is hard um that so the thing with boundaries is like i think you're like on the right track where it's like you cannot just only control the situations that you're in not that other people are in so

if someone who's drinking is it's like you're allowed to have different deal breakers so like a pretty clear deal breaker for you and would like is someone who is like has a problem with alcohol or is like a heavy drinker but you can also you're bad like uh you can also want to date someone who's sober and who doesn't drink at all and like has no interest in that like that's also like a lot that's a thing you can want it doesn't just have to be like well they don't have a problem without like you're allowed to like want to date someone who doesn't drink at all um the thing that can be hard with that is that like that can also change at some point and then it has to be something that like it's not a moral failure if someone decides to change like it is a personal

choice that someone has and you're allowed it's your personal choice to be in a relationship with someone if preferring to be like wanting to be with someone who doesn't drink but um i think like I don't know that there's any additional boundaries that you can put up there if these boundaries don't make you feel okay or good about it I don't think you should just ignore those feelings because I think that that's how problems continue to fester and I don't want to use a term like rebelling because like you're not like his parent but sometimes it can feel when you are respecting your partner's boundaries but they're still upset about it and like that isn't good enough that can lead to like a lot of resentment there so I think just it's been six months

do any of your friends drink because I would wonder if like do you have a similar feeling with that or is it just with romantic interest is it just with him like have you felt that way with like other people that you've been friends with or dated um and i don't like being around people who are really drunk i don't like being around people who are on like drugs at all and i like for a bit thought like oh well you know i'm like out at a party or something i'm like this makes me like a really like bad friend or whatever but i was like oh no i'm gonna be an asshole because like i'm gonna hate you and i'm gonna resent you and like this actually has nothing to do with me and so like I then am the worst friend if I stay in a situation where I'm

uncomfortable and it builds up resentment to somebody who like this has nothing to do with them and it's better for me to remove myself from that situation and those instances like I have friends who like suck when they're fucking drunk or high like they're just really fucking annoying and I just don't hang out with them when they're like that and I think that's already what you're doing but it's like the anxiety of the unknown so I think as long as there's like communication there with him I think you just have to gauge is this something that is the boundary you're going to be most comfortable with is that like you want to be with someone who also does not drink when I'll speak for on it from my my um my own experience when um I have alcoholism that runs

and my family on both sides. And, um, so like when I got to college, I kind of like rebelled in like, I'm going to drink as much as I can because I can. And I'm not, and like, I didn't say this to myself, but my thing is like, I can control if I'm an alcoholic or not, which is not the truth. Um, but when I got like out of college, I was like, okay, like I was out of that phase and um I was done with it like I don't really drink that much anymore um and so like I'm not comfortable being around people that drink a lot because of the way that like some of my family members act while they drink and so I understand what you're going through but I have like kind of like a different perspective on it um and so I understand like the boundaries you have because

now I wouldn't be with anybody that drinks a lot but like how what Megan says things change and when I was in college it was a completely different story so if it makes you uncomfortable like you're doing what you need to do if it makes you uncomfortable which it does and you've expressed this to him and you've told him what your boundaries are there's really not much else you can do like he can either respect their boundaries and follow them and if that's enough for you then cool and if he if it's not enough for you then this may not be the right partner for you yeah but yeah it's a tough thing to kind of navigate um and i just think that the

you're doing everything right in terms when it comes to boundaries and I think you know they're doing everything thing right and you're wondering why it doesn't feel good like it doesn't feel like it's quelling any of that kind of anxieties and things like that and boundaries are like a coping mechanism and something that like gets us through things that we have to get through but sometimes like those boundaries there it's an indicator of like oh if this isn't working like there's no no amount of boundaries will make something work that's not going to work point blank so okay all right next call hi megan and melissa i love the podcast i am a long-time listener and first-time caller i am doing this over again because i messed up the first time but

I wrote everything down, so I'm good. I am a 22-year-old queer female using she, her pronouns, calling in for dating advice. I've never really dated anyone seriously, and my first girlfriend was my best friend, and that kind of just happened accidentally, a.k.a. my gay awakening. It did end traumatically due to my religious mom at that time finding out and making me end it all. That was several years ago. Since then, I've done a lot of healing regarding my queerness and have dealt through that built-in religious trauma. I'm really proud of my queerness now and even have a great queer friend group I love and feel safe in.

I'm finally in a place where I feel ready to start dating but don't have very much experience and I'm nervous. Trigger warning as well with body image issues, I know, and with the religious trauma as well. I am a plus-size girl who has also struggled to be confident in my body and feel desirable most of my life. So that's definitely something that has me nervous going into dating as well. as much as I know and tell myself that I'm worthy of being loved and desired exactly as I am that that funny friend mentality always looms in the back of my mind I'm tired of treating myself as the comedic relief in other people's lives and I want to take myself seriously I'm trying to build that confidence by telling myself that despite the fears I have I am desirable and

worthy of really being liked and you know I'm trying to worry more about if I like someone rather than if they like me you know but yeah there are just a lot of fears and during this new chapter of life. And I am really trying to be brave and challenge myself to get out of my head, which is honestly really hard for me. So yeah, if you guys have any wisdom or tips of really just, you know, how to really get out there and really tips for new and inexperienced, inexperienced dater, I am really great at making friends and feeling confident in that department. But when it comes to flirting, I'm out of my element. Any tips to even transfer what I know about making friends into dating how do i not friend zone myself i am on dating apps and have

a variety of unedited pictures to show me accurately and i'm already talking to some girls but haven't met up with anyone because i am really scared so yeah please help also i am a capricorn sun leo moon cancer rising thank you guys uh you're the best and i love you um bye i would watch a movie of this this is a movie i want to watch yeah i can hear from your voice that you are hot so like main character energy like on that yeah no like you're the star of this this show like this is a movie starring you that i want to watch like you have you have it like you know it sounds like you have modeling casting you have the it factor it factor um you have it tyra would say the same fucking thing like you have it she said a lot of things in her life

she sometimes she said too much so i just want to preface this by saying this advice is coming from two straight girls so you know anybody else please write in because people tell us that are straight showing when we're going a little too hetero are we gonna do my best to not go too hetero because you know you're on dating apps and we did learn the last time yeah you could be on a dating app for a friend or dating but it's clear that you're on this to be dating for dating and you're putting it out there but you don't want to get friend zoned and before i would have said well how are you gonna get friends on as a dating app you know i my i've i'm course correcting my straightness there to say we have learned

through this podcast that you know you can meet people on dating apps for as purely just friends from the get-go um so first of all i would say like there's i don't think there's a massively huge difference between using that same kind of charisma that you have making friends that you have with dating like the difference between friends and dating in my personal experience and in a sort of like an opposite of like a romantic romantic and asexual like in like or asexual just sexual sexual or romantic you're right you're right you're right when you say it it's literally in the word your face right because a just means no not negative away from it that's from me medical terminology okay okay when i took that back in high school

wow i can't believe i had a i took a whole class called medical terminology and it was just and you know what that brought you to be a big gray's anatomy yeah code blue got it got it got it got it got it it's not even stuff like that it's like what i just said yeah but you talk about what hemo means and what globin means and then like you take those because you can mix because their prefixes are the suffix and then you take those and you can come up with what the different thing is like hyper or hypo tension is the other words you add to whichever one it goes to when i tell you that is my personal hell i took grammar in um college you had to take it and it was like that and i was looking at them like they had

grown 15 heads i'm like my brain legitimately cannot follow any of that it's impressive though and i'm glad for other people can and they have this whole language and i just can look and be like wow you are speaking a completely different language i mean most of it is latin anyway so if you speak latin you're good i'll work on my i gotta brush up here i do a lingo brush up my latin um so in terms of like a sexual relationship in like my mind like a romantic relationship for me is like a sexual relationship and so the only difference for me between a friend and a romantic partner is like do i want to have sex with this person like especially if you pride yourself on like having a really great group of friends and specifically because it's a group of friends and

you've been very intentional making them I'm gonna assume that these friends like you all have a lot of similar morals interests values and that is a huge core basis in dating and relationships like there really isn't a huge difference for some people there is because they're kind of like collector friends and they have like friends in all different areas and all different like aspects of their life and those friends serve different purposes and like they're kind of more of a chameleon and they're different with their friends and they're not holding all of their friends the same standard or needing them to feel the same way about moral or political issues but I'm not getting that vibe from you especially if it's a group there tends to be more of like a

hive mind we all have we've got we're all in a similar wavelength kind of thing and that's really not different from romantic like that's just well if you fuck them that's a little less friend a little more sexual so i think like the fear of getting friend zoned at the worst case scenario you end up with a friend and like that's a cool like that's fun but i wonder if that's part of the problem because she maybe there's friends in her friend group that she has wanted to be more than with and then she got friend zoned and so now she's a little trepidatious because of it that's a very good point yeah um so i mean megan actually gave this advice to somebody that's in our patreon oh which i was really good and it worked yeah so uh if you

want to know what we're talking about join our patreon um but but specifically like what megan said was like because this person had a crush on their friend and so um Megan told them to give a hypothetical situation what was it so they had like kind of like soft like like softballed their feelings and said like a while ago said that they had kind of like you know had a crush but then like took it back and that was like a while ago so like the seeds had kind of implanted and so they were at a party and i said this is what you have to say it's hypothetically what would you say if i told you that that crutch might not have fully gone away and their response was like and it also like here's how i feel about hypotheticals

full disclosure mutts fucking hates hypotheticals but not these ones if you ever heard him talk about hating hypotheticals on when he's a guest on this podcast it wasn't this he hates when i'm like if i was a worm would you still love me he's like i fucking like stop like i am that person who's like okay if i like if i dyed my eyebrows blue and i like walked if i like wore a furry suit all the time like would you still love me and i'd be like okay like hate says but in like the hypothetical sense and like the flirting thing it not only is able to like kind of protect your feelings in a way because you can tell yourself like what was the hypothetical it wasn't real so it doesn't really wreck the friendship quote-unquote wreck I don't think it has to

wreck a friendship but it doesn't feel like a boombox on the shoulder kind of moment where it's like this grand act of romance that has a really high if you're being rejected it's a really big fall like it's kind of just like a little bit of a hint and a suggestion you can always take it back and I think when you're on the receiving end of something like that you're not thinking like wow that was like a big love confession like you can also kind of have that same sort of mindset towards it and the person like replied that they you know they like that like made them happy and they like that but like they're not at the point where they're wanting to date right now but like they still want to like be in each other's lives and it's very clear it's like i see where it kind

of goes in that sense but there's something flirty about it i think i think like just getting back into flirting and practicing flirting makes a lot of it a whole lot easier because the flirting aspect of a friend like if you're gonna get quote-unquote friend zone from someone who you're like actively flirting with and they're flirting back with you that I'm just like snip snip like that's just like you're wasting your time and that's not fun because you don't want a flirty friend at least for me unless you're fucking don't need the flirty friend so I think like the dating apps is a good place to like practice those kinds of like fun flirty things and like you can like try on different styles of like how you flirt like you don't have to be married to

like one thing like you can just test it out and see what feels like the most like you I think also on the dating apps you have to say what you're interested in and not like figuring it out or whatever like the prompts are where it's just like I'm here to hook up or make friends if you want to be in a relationship put that you want to be in a relationship not just like I don't know or you know what you don't or like don't put anything like because some people just do that so then they're forced to ask because some people are scared and then also if you have the option which usually if this is an option you may have to pay like premium for put like make it so that the people that you're matching with are only looking for relationships as well i didn't know

that that was like a feature you could pay for yeah yep so that's all that that's all that shows up in your feed yeah i i think like there's a really uh a lot of the time like we think of not wanting to come on too strong so a lot of people won't say they're looking for a relationship because like well no i'm not like desperate for a relationship but like ultimately like that's where i'd like it to end up and that's like what everyone means when they said that say that they're looking for a relationship like no one's like i'm looking to cast my next significant other right now like do you have a pulse like you're in great amazing like i'm so desperate like that's not what that means but a lot of people think that saying that they want a relationship comes across as

desperate and being like well you know like we'll just like figure it out that doesn't mean you're looking for a relationship figure it out means i'm actively not looking to be in a relationship like we have to prescribe the same amount of value to if we're saying that looking for a relationship sounds desperate like okay so on the flip side then not looking for a relationship is like adamantly and actively like repelling any sort of relationship there like it's it's not there's nothing desperate about it and there are so many people who have the same thing listed and it's the same thing that they want and then being up front like right off the bat i think that's helpful and also maybe i would also say i don't know what

your like social situation's like if you have like you have experience of like like melissa like that you maybe have had feelings for someone in the group and they kind of got friend zoned I even if you have because you have such like a close circle of friends it can be really exciting and like kind of want to like make it feel a little bit easier or a little less nerve-wracking and invite them on like a big group thing I would keep them separate for a bit like I wouldn't bring invite them to lots of things with your friends there until you've established that you're not just friends because that can be confusing from for you from your end that you might think that you're bringing someone who you've been on a date with who you think is like really cool and you're

interested in and then you bring them around all of your friends they might be like oh okay i'm getting friend zoned so making sure that you're also not doing anything that could be interpreted as like oh friend vibes and the best thing compliments something as simple as that like letting someone like know that they look nice you're like you like something about them like my go-to automatic like favorite kind of compliment to give someone because it's my favorite kind of compliment to receive is when someone gives you a compliment about something that you can control because like you can compliment me on my eyes and I'm like okay cool genetics compliment me on whatever but when someone like compliments you your style or it's like wow I love like that like

that shirt with those shoes like that's like that's something that you chose that's like a thing that you intended to do you didn't just it's not genetic lottery it's something that's like oh how you styled your hair that day like those certain things i think is a real marker of like someone who's paying attention and i think that's i think it's a lot more romantic than someone complimenting you on like your your looks like i feel more seen in that way i get that but i wonder if in a non-hetero relationship if that feels friend zoning yeah but feels friend zoning i wonder let us know i don't know i'm just curious every every fucking week we're learning constantly trying to learn you should hear some of our old episodes i had no clue absolutely no clue um but

if you're a part of our facebook group i would also like you know definitely recommend getting some input from anyone else if i want don't blame them people want to call in um but there's a lot of people who are very helpful in um the areas that we don't have like personal experience in hi eminem i'm a 24 year old and i use they them pronouns um i have a two-part question i graduated from undergrad in 2021 with a bachelor of fine arts in painting and i have known since middle school that i wanted to pursue a master's degree in painting as well when i was in undergrad i was dissuaded from going to the same school for my msa saying it's such a small program with few teachers. I should learn from new people in a new place, and I agreed. I have been applying to

schools since I graduated and have either been rejected outright or I wasn't offered enough financial assistance to make moving out of state worth it. I can only speak for art programs, but I was told to not go to a school unless they offer a stipend, full tuition, and a paid student teacher position. I've begun considering going back to the school I got my undergrad from. I've been told the program has been overhauled with new classes, teachers, and was told by multiple teachers and current students that I would easily get in, and I believe that. The evil part of my brain keeps saying that I'm giving up on trying to move out of state, that I'm settling, that I'm taking the easiest route so I can be back in my comfort zone, which is academia. But I know that I would never feel that way about someone else if they came to me with this dilemma, and I don't really have a dream school or place to move regardless, and a master's degree is a master's degree, right? I would love your input.

So part two, I just started, like I'm one week into a new job in my field. I told my boss at my interview right after I got rejected from the most recent two schools that I'm looking at grad school, but it wouldn't be for another year at least. And at that time, I wasn't considering my old school, but now I am. The deadline to apply to this program is July. Should I tell my boss now that I'm thinking of applying or just wait until I get in? I have pretty flexible hours. and when i was an undergrad i took eight classes while working full-time so i think i could

definitely work while in school again but i don't know if i'm being shitty if i just wait uh let me see how much time i have okay great um i'm a gemini thank you you had a whole minute left i love your energy yeah uh apply you wanted to go to that school at first and other people dissuaded you from going so like apply to the school a degree is a degree you're going to go to the place that like you said it's been overhauled so you don't run into the same problems where they were saying it was small and it would be the same teachers to learn from uh the same teachers again but you're going to be learning from new people um go for it and good luck i know you'll get in yay as far as the stuff with the boss don't tell them don't tell them

telling any and i'm saying this as someone who has people that works for them like telling your boss that you're quitting is a courtesy and even you say you could do both anyway and if that's what you decide to do cool if you decide next week that you don't even like this job and it has nothing to do with the school quit like unless you know like if you're in a financial place to quit but like it's any type giving a two weeks notice you know like that is a courtesy to them um unless it's and like if you know you feel like you're gonna have a bad track record then don't put them down as a reference but if you're going to school you don't really need it anyway um so you know uh they're they don't can unless they're gonna

some jobs they'll like pay for school um that would be the only reason why i would tell them But unless it's like actually interfering with your job, then tell them if it's not interfering, then whatever. And if it does interfere and you still want to work there, talk to them and figure it out later when it happens. You don't need to do it now. Yeah, I agree with all of that. Like telling your boss. So much shit can go wrong and like, you know, with anything like something can fall through, blah, blah, whatever it is. And the courtesy going out of your way to do that, that's not going to be your paid deal.

like it's just it's the likelihood it's not and so they can feel take it as a personal attack feel slighted something falls through and then you're like well i was so kind i let them know ahead of time so they're definitely gonna let me keep my job no you're gone like it's there there's just no they have so much more power there's no reason to give them more um and i agree with everyone who's telling you that like you can't go to a school that's not um essentially free or it's not like covering the cost of all of it the difficulty with like art and i say this because um i know somebody closely who uh works in art and she's like said over and over again that like it's so fucking hard and it's one of the hardest things is like the level of

privilege is kind of uh a prerequisite because you have to have a master's to enter in and pretty much any of the job fields but you're not going to get paid like anything and no matter how much you get promoted you're never going to be making a huge amount of money like it's going to be relatively modest income that's a lot of people's starter salaries like you're it's just there's not a lot of money in it and you can't do that with student loan debt like you just like genuinely can't unless you come from a ton of money and you can cover it totally fine but you said that you feel most comfortable in academia and that is like your happy place so this to me doesn't sound like you're just going through the motions that you have to to land a job in this field so yeah you

shouldn't be paying all this money for it and you should enjoy it and like Melissa said like you until everybody else was kind of giving you these doubts there you wanted to go there and there is right now you don't really have another option and you don't have something that you could do instead and the other options might be like oh you're going to spend a lot of money to do this move out of whatever it is and I don't know specifically where you want to get into after like what you want to do after the school but my friend who works in like the art world it would be harder for her to like guarantee to get a promotion or a new job in the state that she lives in because it's oh this person has died in this position in Missouri does anyone want to fill

it like people are in like lifers in like these individual singular jobs and so getting jobs from that there's not really you can try and get it in a certain state but like that might not be the luxury there so i don't think that school is the only chance you would have to move out of state and i also don't think that going to school where you're at now means that you're going to stay where you're at now forever i think that like you have to get this degree and this is the means of doing it right now and i don't think it's giving up or settling for anything like this is this is what you want to do this is the this is how this is what you want to do in a big picture this is how you're going to do it and then who knows where you'll go from

there but i i wouldn't pigeonhole yourself especially in your mindset with that and like not to get all like woo wooey but like if you treat this as like oh i'm settling i'm going to stay here forever like you probably will get complacent and you probably will but i don't think that's a product of like the consequence of it i think that would just be from losing momentum and losing motivation but if you want to stay there forever like you end up just loving and stay don't i don't other people's opinions fuck them yeah and a lot of it comes to i've learned um when people are trying to tell you what you should be doing and the the means of what they're saying is like things that feel impossible or really expensive or like a huge hassle or a

headache a lot of the time people need other people to do the same things that they did so they feel justified in doing it or they think that they're giving advice to do better than them because it's things that they wish that they did yeah and it's when it's not the case here's a struggle that i struggled with or here's a struggle that i feel like i wish i did and i didn't do that struggle and i would like it's it has so much less to do with you and so much more to do with them that kind of advice is not it's not universal that's all the advice i have for that what about you megan that's all the advice i have i just want to say i love your vibe and i just think like I don't know, masters in art.

There's something so like, you know, Greta Gerwig movie, like things like sexy, like, and cool. Yeah, Barbie movie. Exactly. A commentary on feminism. All right. Now we're going to take our final break of the episode. and we're back and it's time for don't blame them mega fist pumping and yawning that's why there was a delayed

woohoo that's who i am to my core i am the embodiment of a yawning fist bump don't blame them is where listeners call in with their own advice pertaining to calls that we have played on previous episodes so maybe they have personal experience they've gone through themselves or they supported someone who went through something very similar to the original caller or they just have some advice or maybe they're an expert in the field we have like someone who's an expert in dating women who comes on is like here's everything that's how we learned about the dating app thing so um they can just offer additional insight that we might have missed and we're playing to this episode hi megan and melissa um i was actually just listening to your replay

um episode with jesse smiles and i was listening to the don't blame them about like the frequent utis and everything and i just wanted to share a little personal knowledge um i am an adult actress so we get you know std tests all the time and um one of the new tests that we've been doing is for mycoplasma and ureoplasma. And basically how that shows up in people with vaginas is frequent UTIs, yeast infections, BV. So if this is something that's happening to any of you vagina havers out there, that might be something you want to look into with your doctor. It's basically a bacteria that exists in you. It can be good, it can be bad. Um, and yeah, I just wanted to share this knowledge with everyone.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. Bye. First of all, I'm honored that you, that someone in your profession listens to this and specifically you. Thank you so much. We just got inside the actor studio. Like there are, there are people with certain professions who I'm taking all your fucking about an expert on the field someone who works in adult film with a vagina is going to talk to

me about my vagina i'm trusting you like my goddamn fucking gynecologist they're like thank you thank you thank you i've never heard of any of that me either this is new to me and probably when this episode originally came out since you said it's something that knew that y'all are being tested for it wouldn't have been same information so kudos you melissa for picking that episode as a replay to give the opportunity for this i was randomly talking to motts about um this in like the other day or something like that oh it was because i was wow i cannot stop talking about brooke and connor make a podcast like not sponsored um but i know fan behavior they're fucking funny um but connor was saying something about ph and he like turns to brooke so connor's

a man brooke is a woman and they're both cis and connor says like oh do you know what ph is and brooke like gives him this look like what like why do you know ph is like are you really asking me and like she's like yeah and he goes really like you actually like and he has like no idea and he's like well what does it stand for and she was like well it's about like alkaline and like acid and he's like oh okay and i showed it to mott's and i go what are your thoughts he goes i don't know like is she like supposed to know and i was like ph is like literally i can't tell you any other context aside from my vagina like that is if you told me like what is the the higher like ph what is it relevant to i'm like vagina vagina vagina um and i was talking about that fact that

like a lot of people will find that they have like chronic utis or yeast infections and the whole thing is like oh my god like people with vaginas like vaginas are dirty and it's like oh no it's usually bacteria from penises that are unclean in vaginas and vaginas are self-cleaning and so they're working hard to get rid of it so y'all never just like did the little test in science class where you just took common things like fruit and stuff and then tested the ph levels on them maybe but i when would i've done that what grade like high junior high high school okay that i should have done it then because it was middle school science we didn't i mean i mean elementary school we didn't do really any science yeah it wasn't elementary school yeah maybe we did

but i don't remember but i just think of it in terms of like how acidic is my vagina today you know so thank you for that hi negative melissa i'm calling in for a don't blame them for the episode posted on april 17th in response to the title call asking my boyfriend if he would sleep with my friends A little background into my relationship to provide context for my response. My fiancé, 31, he, him, and I, 30, she, her, have been together for two years and engaged for once. Prior to my fiancé, my only other real relationship was a guy I dated all through college, and after our breakup, I, like the caller, had a lot of experience with dating guys who didn't want to commit

because they either, quote, didn't want a relationship or who I knew deep down were talking to other girls. I just didn't want to admit it to myself. Many of these guys got into relationships shortly after we settled out, and this made me further question my worth as a partner my fiance and i met on hinge and went on a proper date within three days of matching which is a huge change for me since most of the previous guys i had dated just wanted to quote hang out on our dates i will dinner felt awkward because he let me just blabber on for hours without saying much but it was because he was so attentive and truly wanted to get to know me i mentioned that i'd never received flowers before and a week later

i got home from work to a flower delivery on my porch i too used to make joking comments asking if his other girlfriend would be there when I wasn't present or if I felt he was taking too long to respond because my previous relationship experiences left me feeling down on myself and doubtful of most men's intentions. One day, he brought to my attention how much it truly hurt him when I said these things because he felt that his behavior did not warrant my responses, so he asked if he was doing something to make me feel this way or if it was just due to my past experiences. This made me do some self-reflecting and figure out where my insecurities were really coming from. He never reacted when I made his comments in conversation, and when he presented

his feelings, he was gentle, respectful, and non-accusatory, which was a big green flag for me. We talked it out, and I found that many of my feelings came from the fact that our love languages didn't align. Therefore, we were showing love in ways that we best received it, not the ways the other person best received it. We are aware of each other's love languages, which are completely opposite of each other, so we work daily to meet each other's needs. This has been a game changer for us. We do still have moments where we don't agree on things, but I feel that's healthy and necessary in a relationship, as long as you can work together to resolve things in a respectful way. And this is coming from someone who prefers to push things under the rug and would rather

please everyone else than rock the boat. So my overall advice would be, if you're both able and willing to work for this relationship, to pay attention to his reactions when you say these things. If he looks genuinely hurt and upset, you don't have anything to worry about. Most people will prove their guilt in their reactions, such as yelling, blowing up, gaslighting, and turning the scenario back on you. Second, like Megan and Melissa said, try to have an open conversation with him if slash when you're comfortable and in a good mental space about your feelings and his, because this may be affecting him and y'all's relationship more than you realize. Third, if you do feel like his actions aren't making you feel as secure as you need,

try taking the love languages quiz. There truly may just be a disconnect there between you two. I hope this helps, and I'm sending you love, clarity, and healing while you navigate the situation bye y'all wonderful advice really great advice and also like really great i love like when people are giving advice and it also is like mirroring like how a partner should respond like a good partner should respond so it's not just oh how i should respond to this but also like what should i be looking for for someone else to respond and not like a fantasy person like this is like a real person and how he genuinely responded to that and yeah self-reflection is wildly important in those things because you end up you can also inadvertently push someone

one away because it goes well if you think i'm going to be cheap if you think i'm already doing all of this i might as well fucking do it which that's not a good or a logical thought process to have but that's uh it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy that like continues the cycle of it i was like well see i was right i was like well when you when someone thinks that you think they're a bad person then sometimes people are like okay then i'll just be a bad person but yeah we'd love to get an update on that one because yeah i would be really because i mean i thought about that more the because of the different kinds of relationships he was having with people yeah well thank you so much we appreciate it and that is it for our episode we hope you all enjoyed if you did

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people are like this is so excessive nobody needs this i go my friend would love to live there by herself like yes by herself 15 000 square feet oh god the dream i know um but just to do some house cleaning things uh please take our survey like once again if you haven't please do you might have been driving to work on the way you know listening to us and now you're there and you're like i need a little uh icebreaker to get my brain going for work take her a little quiz time takes five minutes and then in addition we're switching up but am i wrong for this week and so if you're listening on monday please please if you've watched gilmore girls and you have thoughts about the first episode please send us your hot hot takes or just takes on the show

and we're gonna vote on if you're wrong or not it's gonna be so much fun and this is also an excuse if you haven't watched it or you've been watching in a while watch it on back and send us over your thoughts your feelings hot cold warm takes um and melissa's gonna be watching it for the very first fucking time maybe and i know people are excited about that yeah the first time that i remember all of it yeah i've seen bits and pieces of the show and that's why i call it the show about talking talking the talking show it's one of those talkies so uh please uh send send in your thoughts by monday night and you can just send them to the but am i wrong pod same email gmail.com yep um and then next the following week we'll be

watching the marvelous mrs mazel the other time the the the singing and dancing show i mean there is singing and dancing but it's because like in the second or third season i don't remember that which one but there's a musical act but it's not a musical show wow it took you so long to finally admit that my like this is right like but the things that there's not a musical in it there's she's a stand-up comedian so at one point she goes on tour with somebody that is a singer oh okay i thought you meant that it was like high school musical and like they're putting on a musical at some point no no no no it just it has the vibes but yeah i told you it's just very well directed and they choreograph the movements they're in big

spaces and they move around the space to follow different characters it's very stagey and i think that's part of the reason why stagey but they fall but they're you're following the camp the camera is following the people as opposed when you're on a stage the people are moving you know what i mean yeah it kind of gives me the vibe of um like when like fox presents a christmas story live i did the live stream for that but like when like it's like a like a network show that though that's what i mean but they walk with the yeah but it's not the same i'm a big i'm a big i'm a big fan of when fox does this the grease one great phenomenal i watched it about three times in a row loved it what the fuck yeah in a row big fan yes i literally watched it and then watched it

again and then went to sleep and then the next day i ever watched it again no that's actually of everything you've ever told me that's the craziest thing you've ever said that's so good who does that me i enjoyed it my god wow i've never even seen it once but you've seen enough for the both of us i've seen enough for three people is this why you're big is that what you is that like what you think of when you think of vanessa hudgens no i think of high school musical i don't know if like you saw it three times you were so moved by her performance that suddenly like she became who she was is that who's doing that if you tell me vanessa hutchins i'm gonna think of a high school musical then uh um her talking about coachella and those are the two

things coachella's gonna come first for me i think but i do commend her for doing the performance oh yeah it was the day that her dad died she's she's like a performer through and through she was also she did she was on broadway for a bit and people had like rave reviews about her which like she didn't she wasn't like a theater she wasn't like one of those kids who started on broadway like she but she has that ethic like that work ethic which is not like standard for most people like it's hard yeah she's good at it well all right i think we've talked about vanessa hudgens more than enough i was gonna say maybe the next one we'll have to we'll dive into vanessa hudgens uh filmography and make something else that she's done we'll we'll wait till christmas

to really get into it oh we get to see her in all of her glory she's so good in it so many versions anyways goodbye bye Thank you.