Don't Blame Me! - I Want To Hook Up With Other People

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

This week we're sharing advice on:  Update: Breaking up with a FWB Dating with social anxiety Seeing someone who is emotionally unavailable Telling your main FWB you want to be in a relationship with them Bringing up non-monogamy to your partner Don't Blame Them: Masturbating in a relationship Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me    Subscribe to our new show: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/but-am-i-wrong/id1591757891    Follow Us! @meghanrienks  www.instagram.com/meghanrienks  https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa  www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @dontblamemepod   https://www.instagram.com/dontblamemepod/   Listen to ad-free on Stitcher Premium! For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com and use promo code 'BLAME.”   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 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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i have a ball on my face i love that that was the first thing that was said when this hit zero so there's no context i love a ball on my face they don't need context nope choose your own adventure yes that's gonna be our thing for this week on the comments what do you think we were talking about prior to the starting perfect i cannot wait to see the responses and we'll be able to tell who's definitely like a creative writing major or who used to write fanfic okay hello everybody welcome back to another episode of don't blame me starring melissa diamond motts and me megan rinks your dynamic duo your terrible twosome your the ain't no the not angel and devil the two devils on your shoulder

with my little pitchfork welcome back welcome back welcome back to liberal women who are pro-vaccine pro-mask pro-women's rights yep and remember you are here by choice yeah surprisingly some people i guess need the reminder and if someone is holding a gun to your head i would love to get their information like i would just love to know the point of it like is this like new age torture for like conservative millennials and gen zers like is this what it is this is like the baby crying this is waterboarding but for like republicans on tiktok yeah well welcome we are don't blame me we're an advice podcast where we give wonderful life-changing, amazing advice. And you call in, you leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976. Then

we listen to it and we give you advice. But in order for us to give you advice, your call must be under three minutes. And the same thing goes with voice memos. If you don't want a college number or international, it's a Google voice number. So that won't work. Then send us just a voice recording, a voice memo to our email, meganpod at gmail.com. We ask that you write down what you're going to say before you record the voicemail just so you have all the details let us know your age your pronouns as well as the people in the story of people that you're talking about keep it all anonymous no names and if you're going to use pseudonyms please have them be full names don't number them don't letter them if you're younger than 18 you have to have your

parents permission if you're over 18 you don't have to have your parents permission welcome and also vote well what's new with you i started going to therapy again oh that's exciting yeah did we already talk about this i don't know if we shared it with the people uh i don't remember but i had my first like real session yesterday so that's all that's new with me how was it it went great that's exciting i mean i was you know i had a mild panic attack in it but i mean if you don't have one in therapy even why are you going why are you there i've never in my life like had even like an introduction like i have made it through one like phone call like with a therapist the only one where i didn't cry but i've never made it through a single like a first

session where i'm not like yeah yeah it does it to you they design it for that what about you Your hair is different. Oh, my hair is different. I went blonder. Very happy about it. Very cute. But did I say the last time that Mots and I watched Only Writers in the building? No, I started watching an episode at nighttime. When I say nighttime was probably three o'clock in the morning. And I was like, this is the bad time to start watching this. And then I went to sleep. So it seemed interesting from the first two minutes that I watched. Everyone needs to watch it i am obsessed like it's so good i knew i was going to love it i got recommended it so many times that i wanted to wait till all the episodes are out i am not good as a week tweak

kind of person i didn't know it was a week to week type thing anyway so i'm glad i stopped a lot of the streaming shows they will do that and i think that's great but i don't have the attention span or memory for that so it's so good we loved it like i just think it's such a great smart concept if you've like heard on our other podcasts but am i wrong my rants about i've done them here too but about like true crime specifically the true crime like podcast community it is literally like the premise of that and i think that it does a good job of that nobody is the hero in this like the true crime podcasters are not the hero and then the police also isn't the hero and like everybody is kind of fucking up and everybody is failing and then they're also

succeeding but half of that is also just kind of luck and circumstance and i think it does a good job of not putting either one of those highly problematic things on a pedestal so it's so good but because we finished that and we needed a new show to watch mott's agreed to watch gilmore girls with me i saw that i am so excited he told me before that he was like i'll watch it if you have like a major surgery because he knew it was long but then we started watching it and like he didn't know how long seven seasons like 20 22 to 25 episodes a season it's a hefty show yeah one episode's real hefty he is um liking it and it's been so nice like i just love it and for anyone any gilmore girls fans out there of course his favorite characters are luke and richard

i'm just like okay but it's exciting well i'm glad that he's doing this because last year actually around this time he told me next time i watch gilmore girls and you have to watch it with me and guess what now you don't have to watch it see there you go and it feels like mods did it like early in anticipation because i have my endometriosis surgery scheduled for a little less than a month from now and so we will be in the thick of Gilmore Girls at that time and I'm like I wonder if he like thought that through that like it wouldn't be like a brand new starting of it like it would be something to look forward to because we'd already started it so we will see well I'm glad you have him me too I like him a lot I keep seeing all these TikToks of people

just talking about like how incompetent their partners are and I'm just like can't relate no cannot relate get you a man who like goes to therapy like you can't be dating these untherapized men like no no especially if you're a person who's been to therapy because you know what happens you become their therapist okay well anything else that's it but we have a all international call episode wow welcome to our international episode yes our foreign friend episode wow this is very exciting but before we get into our calls we do have an update for you all and um they explain what call what episode they're originally from and everything just a little disclaimer before we get into it we don't know how it's going to sound for all of you

but if it sounds like maybe melissa or i or any of us on the call seem a little like distance not caring it's not that we had so many like technical issues with like the lagging so like we would say something and we would have to wait like a minute and a half before they could hear it and then they would talk and we were speaking over each other but we have like separate audios recorded so edited together it will be cohesive and clear for you but if you notice yeah do you notice our tone seems yeah disinterested or just really out of it that is not us it's technology it is okay so my original call was in season nine episode two and I was calling to ask basically how to end things with my long distance friend with benefits I just didn't know how to do it nicely

i guess and the biggest thing for me is that he had come to visit me he lives in the pacific northwest and i'm down in southeast us so he made like a week-long trip around my schedule spent a whole bunch of money to come see me and like i had kind of had like feelings like developed before that because after we had left being in person together i think it was one of those like well we're not actually gonna date so i don't have to like worry about it so it's a lot more fun and like easier to get attached to like someone that wasn't like really there and then he came down here and I confirmed that I did not want to date him which I knew the whole time we were together and I've always been very communicative with him about that and like making sure we were both on

the same page but I knew that he liked me a lot more than I liked him and especially after he came out to visit me I just felt like bad so what ended up happening was it kind of happened in two phases all of your guys's advice was like exactly what I needed to hear but I was like still kind of not ready to like fully cut things off yet as much as I wanted to so I like took it in two phases and the first time I did facetime him I did call him I did it over the phone and I was just like hey like just checking in with how we both are and like I basically was just like I don't really have like feelings for you anymore and he was like oh yeah no totally totally like we're not even like we're not going to see each other for like who knows how long like totally absolutely and I was

like oh oh okay great that went very well so yeah he did not take any of that and didn't absorb any of it um and continued to just keep talking to me and keep texting me the like exact same way he had them it was really reaching a point where I was like I have to say something because like I'm gonna say something really mean if I don't say something soon and something that you guys have said I don't know if he said it to my call specifically but you said it in like other episodes is like sending like one text that like the other person doesn't have to reply to so that's what I ended up doing I was just like hey listen you say you want to be friends and like if we are going to be friends it has to be like just friends like you can't be texting me

all this like flirty stuff like I'm okay with being friends but like we have to there has to be that that boundary that line because I just like don't feel really like any sort of way anymore and he just said oh okay and we haven't talked since i was gonna say i was literally like you have not spoken to him since i just know it nope actually no that's we said merry christmas to each other okay and that's it that's the same thing as not speaking like that's still flirty if you text me merry christmas and like we've previously had a thing like i know what this is you know when you are like someone of the uh genitalia that i am attracted to and like we've had a thing at some point or other if you text merry christmas that's flirty right i feel like

this is so relatable of the not understanding phase one and then needing that kind of phase two and then also ultimately being like okay you don't really want to be friends and i was picking up on the fact that like this was definitely still flirty and that was your intention like this was not how the friendship goes but yeah i'm glad that you know it it has all since worked out and the friends who are going to be around and like actually maintain those friendships like right not worth it to be friends with those people when they clearly didn't really want to be friends to begin with yeah well and like the thing is i didn't want to be friends to begin with because like i'm not even gonna lie to you guys this was one of those like i couldn't fuck him

so i fucked his best friend he was the best friend yeah like it was like for the bit but overall do what you know you need to do is what i learned from it and you just gotta rip the band date off and you can't try to coddle them because it's just gonna make you more mad yeah and they're not that bright so coddling them doesn't usually work no no they're like oh they still want me they're just not sure right now but they'll be sure in two weeks exactly well thank you for giving us the update and we're glad that you're feeling better and um yeah hope you have a great rest of your day yeah yeah thanks for the advice of course we're here for and that was the call we hope it went well we have no idea i'm sure if it didn't

you'll probably let us know or you don't have to if it didn't go well don't tell us yeah this was very much as a men will be men men menning doing their men thing like i could have predicted this complete outcome. Yep. All right. Should we get into the calls? Let's do it. I'm Megan and Melissa. I won't say my name, but I am 25 years old, female, she, her pronouns, and I have really bad social anxiety. It's something now I know that I've had since I was a child, but I've only started getting therapy for it in the past few months. And it affects me in all different aspects in the workplace, social life, et cetera. And my boyfriend's super supportive of me going to therapy. He really encouraged it. And I think he tries to understand it as best as he can.

We've been together for about seven months and I've been invited to several family gatherings and he has a pretty large family and I don't know any of them particularly well. I did say yes to going to one a few months ago and it didn't go well for me. It was super anxiety inducing and it was kind of a traumatizing experience for me. And since then I've said no. And it's, I explained to him that it is something I'm working towards in therapy. I'm doing CBT and I talked about this with my therapist and we, you know, made goals. And that's one of my goals is to feel comfortable going to his family events, but I'm not there yet. And I think he does understand that, but every time he has a family event, he'll ask me to go two, three, four times

leading up to it. And I'll give him the same answer every time. And I don't think he means to make me feel bad, but it kind of makes me feel like shit because I know I'm disappointing him when I say no. And I even recently learned that he lies to his family and tells them that I'm somewhere else like he'll say that I'm in my hometown and that's why I can't come which I mean I don't want him to tell them I have anxiety but it just feels like he has to explain away my shortcomings to them like he couldn't just say no she can't come and I don't know if I'm wrong for feeling like shit about that like I don't know how else to address it with him like I've explained it's a goal I want to do things with his family but I'm not there yet and I want to know like am

I wrong for feeling that way or feeling like he's kind of making me feel worse about something that I'm already struggling with please let me know what you think and please be gentle because I'm very sensitive thank you bye it's a great time to promote our other podcasts but am I wrong I was gonna say that too very fitting I mean I completely understand I think that like all of this seems really new like you've only been dating for seven months you just started therapy a couple months ago and you had a really like traumatic and like horrible experience like meeting his family for the first time a couple months ago so like it feels like everything has kind of happened like pretty quickly but i would say i would probably feel worse about this kind of stuff especially

if he's asking like i understand like asking one time so it doesn't feel like you're no longer being invited just to like show as a gesture but like if he like keeps asking about the same events inviting you like four times like for the same thing that you have to say no to over and over and over again I think like what I would say is like write down what he could do that would make you feel better because right now what he's doing is making you feel worse but what could he do and his responses could be that would make you feel better because I don't think that the way you've communicated it to him he is being receptive to and I think if you let him know exactly what you need and what he's doing now is not being helpful. And this is exactly what you would want. And if

he can't do that, I think that's a lost cause for him, you know? Yeah. Cause he can just tell you, Hey, just so you know, I'm going to be hanging out with my family and not like a invitation thing, but just giving you a heads up. And he could, I'm just giving you an example of what Megan just said, but you can, he can just come to you and say, I'm going to this thing. And then if there's a point where you're like, I do want to go, then you can just say, oh, I feel like I'll be comfortable going to this or I want to go to this. Yeah. So you're not wrong. You shouldn't feel bad. You know that you have anxiety. You're going to therapy. You're doing what you need to do for yourself. And if he can't respect that and can't respect your boundaries that you're putting up,

then that's a different conversation i do wonder why there are so many family events in the span of i guess like the holidays but like assuming he's around your age like 25 like if it is a monthly weekly constant kind of thing i could understand if that kind of feels um like a really big hill to climb because it's not like a one-time family dinner thing it's something that's like a regular thing that's like very hard i also would like sit with yourself and figure out what you would want him to say when people ask where you are if you decide not to come because him not telling you that he was kind of like making excuses and stuff i personally think that i would want to kind of just be like will you just tell them this instead so like i can kind of like know and control

what is being said so then like you know if it comes up later there's like a consistency with that but I would say that I think it would be pretty impossible for him just to say like oh she couldn't come without any explanation like there's usually a follow-up question that happens there so I think figuring out what you would be comfortable with him saying to that question and then convey that to him because it sucks and I think too if you find that like if there's not anything he could like explicitly be doing differently that would make you feel better and it's just the overwhelmingness of everything and just the situation that's being really hard,

I would also maybe consider, I don't know if your CBT therapist also does talk therapy, but if that might be something that would be helpful for you too in processing the emotions that come with all of it, like finally getting treatment for your social anxiety at the same time that you're dating someone new and having all of these social obligations with his family,

like that is a lot like that would be a lot for anyone who didn't even have social anxiety so I think the the more that you can have support from people through all of that who are not him I don't mean that in like a callous way or whatever but like someone who's not an invested party like you or him who can just kind of like be there for you and like listening through that kind of stuff because it's hard yeah and it seems like a lot of family time maybe they have family dinners every week. Do you want to date someone who has family dinners every week? It might be a thing for them. Yeah. I mean, I'm watching Gilmore Girls. And so the family dinners in my mind go to Richard and Emily's family dinners. And as a Lorelei, I feel attacked because she's

constantly being attacked. I will say that like, if there's also a way that you said that you like don't really know these like big family functions and you don't know them, like most of the people there, I would obviously talk about this with your therapist and like go based on like your comfort level but i think um meeting and spending time with like people like two on two or like smaller groups of people before so you feel like you kind of have more support and more people that you know in those big group things and also maybe we deter his family from having large group events that too you know that too doing my best to not constantly bring that up on our podcast i know let's go to the next call hi guys um i'm gonna be talking about my most recent breakup i am a

she her female sag 23 years old and my ex is a 20 year old he him guy libra i recently broke up with my first ever boyfriend of three months to keep things short um the relationship was everything i wanted i've previously dealt with people who are mainly emotionally unavailable hookup type guys and i am really relationship focused i've worked a lot on my communication and I have anxious attachment. So this was a big deal for me. And he was a relationship person. He was a gentleman and was reassuring. He wanted to be with me and he wanted me to be around all the time. We were kind of long distance though, as he lived an hour away and would come to the city to either see me or go to work. He told me early on that his mom had a terminal illness and during

our time together, she went to hospice sadly and then passed away. This prevented me from seeing him as much. And he let me know that this was going to be the situation because he wanted to spend time with her. I was totally supportive of this and told him to please prioritize her and we would work on ourselves, you know, later. However, as time went on, we became distant as we were only seeing each other once a week. We weren't really like having fulfilling time together. And when I told him I was feeling unfulfilled, he said that he had become emotionally unavailable and he kind of felt the same way due to his situation, but he cared about me and didn't want to give up on things. He just needed time and patience. I said that would be fine, but I required more communication

as we were only seeing each other once a week and we were only communicating over text, basically. To which he said, I'm not good at texting, but I'll try my best. I broke up with him a few weeks later and immediately regretted it because it was devastating for me to do. I did not want to break up with him.

I was just so sick of pushing my boundaries for him. And yeah, he ghosted me and only said something five days later after I'd posted a picture of myself on Halloween. And he said this big blurb about like, he didn't know what to say, but he wished things were different. we hooked up twice after that and talked a lot about our relationship note i discovered he had

gotten back on hinge two days after i'd broken up with him and when i brought it up he said he needed someone to talk to and was mad at that time and he shouldn't have to explain why he was mad after we had talked a little bit more he said this wasn't the right time but i was for us to be together because of our we didn't have enough time to spend together basically but he said i was so special i was the reason he liked sex now and a bunch of other stuff later i got hinged back and when he discovered this he got so cold via text and he said he saw me he didn't like me back and on the app and wanted to block me I told him this was extremely immature he didn't understand and eventually apologized I was basically just like why would you tell me that and he said I

didn't think you'd take it like that recently I had asked him if he would ever want to hang out not in my bedroom and maybe get a drink to which he replied yeah I'd be open to that maybe at this point I'm mad I let myself get taken advantage of by a person who is both clearly hurt by their situation and also just very immature about their emotions. What do you guys think of this situation and how do I get over the urge to yell at him over text all the time? For reference, I text him and he'll respond, but he doesn't reach out to me. Also early on in our relationship, I told one of my friends I felt like we'd break up and get back together. So I feel like I predicted this. Yeah, love you guys. Let me know what you think. Bye. Quick clarification. Did she say they broke up

three months ago or they dated for three months? They dated for three months. But I also think they broke up three months ago because if it was in october it's the same so they dated for three months and broke up three months ago okay i would like to dispute that this guy is wildly different than the people you have been interested in prior you say you usually are into and go after emotionally unavailable guys and this he is emotionally unavailable yes i mean he just went through a very traumatic experience with losing his mother, but it seemed like he was emotionally available before that even happened. I mean, if she went into hospice, that meant she'd probably been going through something for a while anyway, but it's probably not the best time to be getting

into a relationship when your mother is going into hospice. Yeah. I think that like with this kind of thing like I understand like we all have needs and all of our needs are valuable but he can't meet your needs and even if he says that he can which he hasn't he said like he's not really great at texting like and he's saying that he'll try and it hasn't worked you're only the one texting him and this isn't an opportunity when it's like okay this isn't gonna work and like it is no like knock to him at all but like he's trying to meet your needs and he's been unable to meet your needs and the solution is not to settle for less or to fight for that or to try and get him to do what you need it is just to walk away from the situation because yeah it's not right

and I will also say that like I think dating three months that's like pretty quick to to get to know person just in general and like when something this traumatic happens like really early on at the beginning stages of a relationship you don't have much to hold on to you know I mean like you're just at that early stages of starting to date that like it kind of really is make or break it and it really entirely depends on the person who's grieving how they grieve and if they're grieving as something that is like independent and solo and kind of more reserved and pulled back that is naturally like the relationships in their life i think he's probably pulling back from almost all of his relationships but when you have such a fragile and brand new foundation when you pull

back it's kind of just disappearing you know like there's not much left there to like tether you to that and so i don't think the solution is yelling at him at all i think like both of you kind of knew when this started to happen that you were taking a chance and it might not have ended up in that way. And it's totally valid that this is not what you need or what you want. But I think you just you already asked for it. It didn't happen. And I think it's time to like peace out. Yeah, you want some someone that is emotionally available and able to be there and talk to you and give you support. He wants someone that he can have sex with. He said that he said you were the one that made him like having sex yeah i don't know what that means i don't know

what that means i don't believe it either i don't yeah and then also he doesn't want to text you he doesn't want to talk to you he doesn't really want to hang out he just wants to have sex with you and then gets mad because you're on hinge but he wouldn't have seen you on hinge unless he was on hinge too yeah so he just needs to go find a fuck buddy to make him feel good while he's mourning his mother yeah I fully fully fully fully agree neither one of your needs are being met so why are you still in this relationship yeah I also think that like instead of actively seeking out like relationship people versus like hookup kind of people I think and you are on to this but it is the emotional maturity kind of thing like yes ask people what they want and what they are

looking for but those things like need to align and I don't mean that in this I think this is like an extenuating like circumstance but i don't think that that necessarily means that he would have been like a really great relationship person for you even if like this like death hadn't happened but i think like moving forward when you go out and date people listen when they say that they are a relationship person and they're looking for a relationship and then see if that matches their emotional maturity and the actions that they are taking because sometimes people just say that kind of shit and then we're taken aback when their actions are something completely different and that really fucks with your head because you're like oh this is how someone who

wants to be in a relationship treats me and you're like oh no it's not so i'm sorry this definitely sucks but i cannot stress enough how much i do not think you should yell at him yes don't yell at him yeah last thing dating for three months and seeing each other once a week like what would your perfect amount of time to like see someone be who lives an hour away that lives an hour away and we're just dating for three months yeah well I mean I feel like that would be typically any since we're in LA an hour are we talking like LA hour away or like an hour away that doesn't change with yeah so just like as if like there's no traffic but it's hour away in miles okay I think once a week is a lot for me for somebody that's an hour away I think every two weeks would

be fine. Personally, that's a lot of time. And I don't have a lot of time. If they're closer, then I would I think once a week is fine. But if I like them, it's probably gonna be more. Yeah, because I'm definitely that kind of person. Like I am hot or cold, all or nothing. So I would totally if I'm like crazy about someone, and we just started dating, like I want to spend all of my time with them. But something that I recognize that in myself that I would do that I would hang out with someone like a ton constantly all of that and it becomes all-encompassing and it's kind of like being on The Bachelor where like it's hyper speeding a relationship that like it's kind of like a false sense of speeding it up when it really isn't and I found once I stopped doing

that and like once I like had time between them and like was only seeing them like you know once a week maybe twice a week if that but like closer by that that relationship I was more confident in it if I wanted to spend a lot more time with someone like constantly all of the time and it felt like i was the one driving that that usually wasn't because i really cared that much about them it was because i felt like i was caring for the both of us you know what i mean so that's just something that i would keep in mind potentially moving forward but do not yell okay we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back and the bitches are back hi megan and melissa i'm 21 years old and use she her pronouns

this school is about two situations but they are related i've been seeing this guy 24 he him for about three months it's nothing serious but we have fun together and go on dates not just he seems to be into me like he's always interested in what i have to say loves at my jokes and is very affectionate outside of sex we never talked about what this is it's implied that we are having fun and enjoying each other's company i'm sure he sleeps with other people and i do as well he's not from my country and might only be here for a year so he's probably not looking for anything and i understand that while i also don't think i want a relationship right now i realize that i have feelings for this guy, which never happens to me. I've never been more into someone than they were

into me, which is probably just control issues. And I think I want to tell him without expecting anything, just because this is new territory for me. And I want to explore this whole thing and know if he's maybe feeling the same way. Should I tell him? Or is it pointless and might ruin things i've never told anyone i like them and i'm a little bit afraid this was would change our relationship but i also want to give it a chance i think it might be good for me to be vulnerable with someone like that the other thing is i have this frog buddy 21 he him we used to hook up in the summer and he expressed wanting to try being exclusive with me and i always insisted that I'm not at that place in my life.

We stopped the whole thing for a while because of his feelings, but restarted it about a month ago, agreeing that this is casual and he's okay with that. But my feelings for this other guy confuse me and I think I want to stop having sex with other people at least for a while.

I like having sex with him, but it just doesn't feel right anymore because I keep thinking about the other guy. How do I tell him that I want a break or maybe even end it eventually without making him feel bad because I was so adamant about never being monogamous with him

but willing to try for this new guy. We have talked about staying friends if this is over but I still feel guilty. We are really close and I'd hate to hurt him with this. So the two questions are should I tell the guy I have feelings

and how do I tell the fuck buddy that I want to break? Thank you for your help. I love the podcast. Bye. that's the most beautiful accent it's like russian light it's like russian italian light yeah like there it's so sexy and i feel like you can cook like do what i need like it's just like where are you from yeah where are you from i'm obsessed this is like so fucking sweet it's a

good old-fashioned love triangle just got a crush i know and you can hear her smiling it makes me smile but it's so sweet and I think that like you are so self-aware in the sense that like you want to tell him how you feel no strings attached like not expecting anything in return from him and it's simultaneously because you really like him and I think you're also noticing that because you want to stop sleeping with other people so like it might feel like a personal obligation to tell him because you're being like oh wow this relationship is affecting my relationship with other people so like this is serious enough that like if we're not on the same page I should know that but also that like you can recognize that this would be like a really good exploration for

you in being vulnerable because you haven't done that before so like I'm all for doing it like you've checked all of the boxes off of when I think it's like when you should tell someone how you feel about them I think your worry of is this going to ruin is this going to change things or ruin things it might but that is not the result of you telling him that is a result of you having feelings for him you conveying that and you expressing that is not going to prevent something from occurring that wouldn't have already it just kind of speeds up the process like it either is he's not interested in the same way and like you part ways or you still remain hooking up and your feelings are hurt but like the feelings are already there it's like what you do with them

it does not kind of change those feelings you know what i mean yeah what do you think that she should do about the fuck buddy here's the thing i think you this might be a controversial i think that you should figure out where things are with the other guy and see how things land if he wants to be in a relationship and doesn't want to sleep with other people great and then you worry about breaking up with the other dude if your main guy doesn't want to be exclusive i think you still keep the other one you know there but he has to know that you are sleeping with other people and you don't want to be exclusive i think he does i think the main guy does like i think the side guy does too because she told him i know the side guy does but if the main guy

doesn't want to then i think that's when i have two options if the main guy doesn't want to then that's when you tell the side guy hey i still like sleeping with you but i don't want a relationship because she doesn't want a relationship with him right well but he knows that and so that's yeah the hard part so if he's still open to just hooking up then okay yeah but if the main guy says yes, then I mean, you're going to have to break up with the other guy anyway and just say, hey, I know that you're interested in more and don't even tell him about the other guy because that's you don't need to bring that up at all. Hey, I know that you're interested in more and that's just not something that I can give you. I really, you know, enjoyed

our time together but this is the end of the road as boys to men said well i think the thing is i think he knows that and that's why they stopped hooking up and then a month ago they started hooking up just like friend fuck buddy friends with benefits again and i think it was the under the guise of you being like yeah i'm not looking for monog i'm not looking for monogamy i'm not looking for like a relationship but i think like that is your life yeah not looking for monogamy means i'm not looking for monogamy with you well that's what i mean i was like so you having sex with someone and you explicitly saying like yeah i'm not interested in pursuing a relationship with you if you have sex with someone they are not owed a relationship especially when you've said that so

if you find someone else you want to have a relationship with if he wants to take personal offense to that or like make that about him like that's his bullshit and then he's not someone you want to remain friends with in general because like he's a fully grown adult like he's a fully grown man like if he's choosing to have sex with someone who he has feelings for who he knows that there are no strings attached it's just a fuck buddy thing like you're not in a like an organized or well committed explicit like like polyamory like polyamorous relationship or something like that like a monogamous committed relationship yeah or even like a committed open relationship where like or with multiple partners and all that you don't have any of that so like if he feels

like that is owed to him and he was gonna like kind of wait around like back burner himself and like hope to slip on in there like that's on him like that has but she wants to know how she can let him down without hurting his feelings if he decides his feelings are hurt they're hurt i feel like his feelings are going to be hurt regardless because he has feelings for you so they're going to be hurt but there's nothing really you can do about that so you just you know let them down easy yeah like i've had a really great time like hooking up with you this has been really fun and i yeah i think one of two ways you know i just have like realized like i just don't think that like we're very compatible and this is not something i want to continue pursuing but

like i would love to maintain a friendship if that's something you want or you can like really go all out and being like i've really enjoyed this this has been fun but i did actually end up meeting someone and we're going to try giving monogamy a shot and hope you find someone and like you're a great guy and I will say I personally would want to know I would not want to be like you know I'm just like doing my own thing and then I see on Instagram it doesn't even have to be like I'm doing my own thing it's just like I don't really want a relationship with you what would you would you rather know that there is somebody else you know I wouldn't care yeah I just know that they're not the right person for me well you're more emotionally mature if they don't want

to be with me then that means like it's irrelevant who else they're with yeah yeah that's valid i mean i also have not been single since i was before my brain was fully developed so like in my mind i'm like i would need to know no i wouldn't need to know it's just like if somebody wants to be with you they'll be with you and you can't i mean people can be can swear up and down that they never want to be in a relationship and then they meet that person that they do want to be in a relationship with and things change like I don't think it's relevant to what they have going on yeah I agree well I hope that was helpful and I'm excited for you whatever way this goes it's exciting to have something new for the first time like being really into someone like this having a

crush like you know I mean like it's all it feels very like new and exciting whatever the outcome is like that's a great it's a great thing yeah yeah let us know how it goes last one hi Megan and Melissa I wanted to get your opinion about relationships and boundaries so I'm 21 and my boyfriend is 21 and we've been together for almost four years he's my first everything my first kiss my first sexual encounter everything maybe that's part of the situation I'm about to discuss so recently I've kind of realized that my boundaries are a lot different than most people's and I don't know how I should bring that up to my boyfriend or even if I should. So I'm interested in hooking up with other people. I would really enjoy hooking up with other people, men and women,

everyone in between. The only thing is I'm not acquainted with feelings being involved. So I would feel uncomfortable going, I don't want to date other people basically. And I don't want my boyfriend to date other people, but I'd be fine with him hooking up with other people. So I'm okay with him kissing people i would be okay with him touching people i wouldn't be okay if he slept with someone without a conversation but if we had a conversation about that and there were rules like no friends no going on dates no seeing people over and over again then i would be completely fine with that i kind of feel like i'm a bad person though and i don't know if it's fair for me to bring this up over three years into a relationship and i don't want to bring it up and

then him not be able to trust me or feel worried that I would do something. And it's not anything to do with him. It's not that I'm lacking something from him. It's just that I'm interested in exploring other people in a sexual way. We've talked about threesomes before and he is up for that, but I'm not because I don't want to share him with somebody else at the same time as me. I don't know. I guess my question is like, am I an awful person for this? I don't know. I just want to have fun. And like, for example, I like going out dancing a lot. If I vibe with somebody it'd be nice to be able to like kiss them and maybe go home and sleep with them if i wanted to i wouldn't sleep over but i'm very much a people person i'm very flirty and

i would really enjoy that and i would be okay if he did that too i don't know i don't know what to do and i feel really shitty because if this is not something that he is up for then i don't know if i'm going to like regret not doing something about it i don't know and also he's very special to me I feel very connected to him and I would not want to do anything to jeopardize him I don't think it's it's not something that I would break up with him for I don't know I'm lost help would be great hi I think that like once we got to like the end of like what you were saying was that like well you wouldn't break up with this him over this but also you don't know if this is something that you would always be wondering about I think that like you probably I don't know I think I would do

a little bit more like internal like reflection on your current relationship first of is this something if he's not interested in this am I going to be okay are we going to break up am I going to be okay with that am I going to be okay with never exploring like doing a non-monogamous relationship yeah and you also don't have to decide like immediately in that kind of thing But I think if you are going to bring up ethical non-monogamy with your partner, you also need to know if it's a deal breaker for you or not, because I think that's really important to share with your partner, because I think that will really, I don't want to say dictate their response at all, but like that is something that they deserve to know going into a conversation.

And I think if you don't have that answer, I think I would give it a little bit more time thinking on it yourself and if that answer changes that's totally fine but i think you should have an answer before you have that conversation and then know that you can't really predict how it's going to go and you can't really steer it in one direction the same way that your comfortability and your feelings can change so could his like he could say he's comfortable with like something and then isn't actually but I don't know maybe the way to do it is like just to test the waters like watching a tv show where there's like a couple who's non-monogamous I do think the fact that you've talked about having a threesome is a good my only question is and this is like more

crowdsourcing for people who've been in ethical non-monogamous relationships the rule of like no feelings attached i kind of assume that you can minimize that risk but that is still just kind of a risk that it might happen like there might end up being some feelings involved with a singular partner or something like that but she's saying that she doesn't want them to be friends or like go on dates or anything she just wants them to have sex yeah it says no friends no date no repeating multiple people and then no feelings yeah so i think because it's just sex and there wouldn't be feelings that's what she's you know insinuating it just has to be someone that they're they just hook up with one time yeah i think that like if you've been together for like this long

and if this is something that like you're really interested in i think that someone being interested an ethical non-monogamy should not be a reason to dis for their if you don't end up doing it it should not be a reason for your partner to no longer trust you and i think that like if you both decide that this is not something you're going to do and move forward on i think that potential and desire like idea there affects your relationship and there's no way to communicate through that i think that that's also probably a sign that maybe it's not it yeah but also it's like and i'm not trying to be ageist or anything but you're 21 you've been dating for at the top of the call you said three years the bottom you said four years so in between three and four years

you've been together so you've been together since you were teenagers and so you're wanting to stay with him in an emotional relationship but date other people with a non or not even date just hook up with other people just for fun. So I'll write down exactly what I want so that you can be clear and concise because just by that call, you jumbled up a few things. So I don't think you're exactly sure on everything that you want right now and go to him and say, Hey, and, and is this a deal? If he says no, is it a deal breaker for you? Like, is this something that you want. You want to be with other people. And if he says no, then you need to be prepared for you're still going to have these lasting feelings that you said you don't think there's anything

missing in your relationship, but you do want to see what's it like to be with someone sexually. You don't want to share him. You just want you want the freedom to be able to go have sex with other people. So if he says no, is that something that you're going to be comfortable with in the future and if he says yes then you have to let's say he's like yeah I I'm down for this but I have my own rules too so you have to also be open to the fact that just because you say that it can't be friends what if he's like well I don't feel comfortable having sex with strangers I need to know this that's exactly what I was gonna say that like your terms and conditions for this can be vastly different than his.

And I think while you need to write what you want to do, you have to write what you would feel comfortable him doing and then simultaneously write a list of things you would personally not feel comfortable doing and things you would not feel comfortable with him doing. And then he needs to do the same thing. And then you guys kind of come together in an agreement and then making a plan for,

are we going to do this for X amount of months and then check back in and see how we're both doing with all of that stuff. I mean, your sexuality and all that stuff should be a priority. But do you feel like your comfortability with him doing those things is riding on the fact that you want to do those things? Yeah, more or less that you're a jealous person because you don't want to share him with anyone. He also has to check in with you before he has sex with them. So how do you even like, if it's someone he doesn't know, does he just like in that moment just walks away and then

calls and be like, hey, I want to hook up with this person. And then you're like, okay, or no, I think you need to really think this completely through maybe even read the book ethical slut and ask other people that are in non monogamous relationships to get their thoughts, feelings, talk about how they talk to their partner about it. Just do your due diligence and your research before yeah because it felt like and that might have been like me not understanding fully but it felt like the situation you were describing how you would go out dancing and then you want to go home with the guy it felt like what you were describing what you would not be okay with him doing would be that like it would need to be like a conversation ahead of time before having i don't

know if that's like sex is like a whole or like a general kind of thing there are lots of different also levels of like or and not even just like levels but like what people are comfortable with and what people consider like okay in a relationship and not whether that's like dancing and flirting and all of those kinds of things. But yeah, I think you started dating when you were so young that like not to discount anyone who's young who is in a non-monogamous relationship

or wants to be in a non-monogamous relationship and that's what they see for their future. But I think if this is something that you're really interested in, I think pigeonholing yourself to a relationship that you've had for four years when you're 21 years old and you haven't been able to explore this side of you or even just explore sleeping with like other people,

like all of that kind of stuff. If you make a decision right now and six months from now or a year from now, you change your mind, you're not like nailed down to that original decision that you make. And it could even be after your first encounter, you're like, okay, this is gonna be different.

It doesn't even have to be six months. It could be the day that you decide to do this. But yeah, you have to figure out if it's a deal breaker for you or not. And then, like you said, you have to be prepared going into that conversation that this could be a deal breaker for him. You both have equal footing in this relationship.

It's equal rights in all of that. And so I don't think you should like squash who you are or like what you feel or what you want to do and all of that. But just look at the potential outcomes because you can't control them and be ready for it. Let us know how it goes. And that is our last call. We have a don't blame them

where a listener will call in and let us know what their thoughts are on a call from a previous episode. I'm Megan and Melissa. I've got a don't blame them for the episode that aired on December 6th with the girl whose boyfriend isn't comfortable with her masturbating or using sex toys. I talked about this scenario with my boyfriend right after listening and his response was shock. He said, what? Doesn't he know sex toys are there to help him too? And he also said that he loves hearing about me masturbating, that it's really awesome and gets him fired up. Caller, this is how your boyfriend should respond, particularly when he's 30 years old. You deserve to make yourself feel good whether you're single or in a relationship. Don't ever let him make you feel uncomfortable

or like it's wrong or not needed when you're dating someone. He's the one that's so wrong. Find a boyfriend who supports all the sex toys and masturbation. You deserve it. That's all I have love the podcast bye fully agree well on that note that is the end of our episode we hope you all enjoy if you want to leave a review on the podcast app we would very much appreciate it we also have an instagram account go follow us our own personal instagrams everything will be linked down below and if you want to watch the video version or you want to just join our patreon to support the show but also join in on our live streams that we do twice a month they're like Zoom hangouts. We just Zoom together, have fun. We learn about everyone's lives. It's a great way

to socialize during the pandemic, make some friends. And we also have them on replay. So if you want to join, but you're like not sure what it's going to kind of be like, you can watch them and see what they are like. But we have like a really great time. Well, if you would like to go leave a review on the podcast, we would appreciate it. Yeah, five stars. We we love it. Let us know who your like favorite call of the week was maybe your favorite old school episode or the episode that you recommend to your friends the most that's always a good one i love to hear which is the one when you try and get people into the show and you introduce them like which is the episode you play them leave a review on the podcast app and let us know which one that is and if you're listening

this long into the episode what did we say that they're gonna comment on the instagram or is that they're gonna comment what we thought when when we started this episode megan said something what was what were we discussing yes yes what was the context because you had no backstory what was the backstory what was the context let us know get creative what you think it was and follow us on tiktok buy my book buy my presets what would you like to promote follow me on instagram follow me on instagram too that's it we will see you all next time and if you want to pop in on Thursday to our other podcast. But am I wrong?

You should do it. It's a good one. Thank you so much. Goodbye. Bye. Don't Blame Me is a production by me. Executive produced by Melissa DeMonts 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.