Don't Blame Me! - Lesbian Dating Survey

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

This week Meghan and Melisa give advice on: Passing a drug test Hooking up singles Bad gift giving Dating after divorce 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

hi hello i just took megan to church amen and not in the what's that man's name don't say that he did not ask to be dragged what was it what's his name no i really don't know his name i know hosier oh i thought you were talking about the person who we were like not our favorite style no no okay no because you said take me to church yeah yeah hosier is it that it hoser or hosier so the more times you said it now i'm unconfident i think it's hosier hosier okay where's he been i think ireland okay i think that's where he's from he's got that you know you know who probably celebrity crush that's probably keely williams celebrity crush

that is the style that is the vibe that was just so nice to her husband because he's like a icon a sex icon please stop oh i thought you meant no that's why i said i'm being very kind i thought you were saying because she has a song

called i mean who else would she have written the song about if they were dating already she was both a oh yeah she's acting i'm sorry i forgot i forgot it was of course you know parenthood was like we are not endorsing this this is not a collaboration sex education you they play it in sex ed classes across the country if you want to know what we're referring to listen to fisting friday from this past friday and even if you don't want to know what we're talking about you should still

listen because melissa did not want to know i didn't and i still don't still but she still knows yeah i feel like i'll forget about it in a month you know i don't know that you ever will it stays with you anyways welcome to another episode or your first episode ever of don't blame me don't blame me so on this podcast oh i am megan and i am melissa and together we are m&m we melt in your mouth not in your hand did that used to be their slogan yeah when do you think they were like let's phase this out so do you think it was paired with when they phased out the sexy m&ms no it was way before as someone who in seventh grade did a whole history project on m&ms because that's also just my initials too it started because the soldiers in world war ii

needed a chocolate snack that because of the candy shell it melts in your mouth not in your hand and so that was where it originated from because it has a candy shell so they'd have a little treat that would melt in your mouth not in your hand so were they advertising it to people in the army like well you know while you're there you know well no but you know how back then the army i mean it's propaganda now but like the army propaganda was so thick in the culture it was just everywhere yeah so everybody was like i may not be on the fields but i'm supporting i'm supporting and and you know what i'm eating the same candy there yeah and it's like okay yeah it's the cosplaying of of war from the sidelines yeah being like yeah that checks out uh-huh did

you write about that in your project yeah yeah i did a whole history thing and i got an a plus on it i had a thick packet because i was really like it got like i got i was so fascinated with it wow and we only had to give like a little short spiel because for some i don't i think the teachers were just tired of teaching that they took and combined and we had this i don't know if you had at your school but this and i didn't have it at most school but this particular school it was a newer school and the wall dividers like you could pull it back to make the rooms bigger and so like they just yeah like they combined our classrooms and then everybody like kind of gave like a spiel on what the thing was and i was like i was prepared to give a whole lesson

and now and they cut me down because everybody was doing it and i truly think the teachers were just tired and they're just like everybody yeah wow yeah yeah my project that we do like that where it was like how to write a research paper like i think it was our eighth grade project what was it called i don't remember but i did mine on the titanic um and i also got far more interested and wrote yeah three twice or three times as many pages as i should have but as you're saying m&ms i go that might have been a lot i should have done something like that because being all encompassed with the titanic then made me convince it well it's uh i know timely i i'm gonna talk more about but am i wrong uh yeah well all of that aside um you might be wondering you have wonderful

personalities i'm enjoying just listening to you to gab back and forth what do you do here well we give advice here because besides being entertaining we're also incredibly insightful intelligent hilarious and alpha females with microphones so it's par for the course well you might be wondering how you how we give you advice and that's i don't know how to do that so if you want to call in for an upcoming episode tell us what's happening in your life what your problem is the situation what you need some advice on you can leave us leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 and international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com.

Got to keep it under three minutes for both. We say that you write everything down, practice it a few times, time it out, make sure it's under three minutes, include your age, if you're ageing over, have a parish permission.

I don't know if I already said that. You could let us know your pronouns if you would like. And if it's about a relationship, how long have you been together? How old is the other person? Just, you know, have a full rounded idea of the situation

so we can give you good advice. We don't want to give you bad advice. Here we go. Hi, Megan and Melissa. so um i'm gonna get i'm just gonna go straight forward i'm a stoner so i be smoking like kind of every almost every single day because um i live with kids so i don't want them to be around that so 100 i don't stop in front of them but also i'm trying to look for a new job and uh even though there's legal here in my state i would rather they still require a drug test and i want

to learn how to weed it off and i forgot which one of y'all was the former stoner so how did y'all like we're able to weed it off wean it off so i just need some advice on that because literally everyone around me is also a stoner and they're like just steal pee from like your kids i'm like i'm not gonna steal my kids pee because one i don't know how his bladder works two do you know how impossible it is to take bladder from a child and that's weird and gross and disgusting no thank you but yeah help me weed it off thanks i mean i don't have great advice for this because i basically stopped smoking weed because I had I first I had one really horrific experience which I like was convinced it was like laced with something and then I didn't smoke for a long

time and then I smoked again after one night of like drinking in college and woke up in someone's bed who I was like who is this and I was like call my big pick me up and that I was also like is this like so like I had like just two really bad experiences and so I mean I think that's how it is for like a lot of people so like in terms of like weaning yourself off from it like when it comes to like the debate of is weed addictive there's a difference between something creating like a chemical dependency versus habitual dependency and a reliance on an escapism like you can if you if you look at addiction in terms of two different kinds of addictions like things that are showing up in your brain and dependency and things that are showing up in uh coping

mechanisms or habits of things i guess my question is if it's legal in your state and you have a medical card would that i think maybe you would probably need a you would need a medical card it's not they finalized the bill but it's not completely legalized yet i don't think we're the people to ask for this that's the thing is like yeah this is a chemical thing that's going on in your body and i would ask a professional i know it's not legal but there are drug professionals that you can speak to that this is literally their job to to work through so i would research that and find that because this is basically giving medical advice and that's not something that we do also because my question is like are you trying to wean off just to pass the test or is it like

because here's a lot of the time there are places who will drug test and it's very much irrelevant if you smoke weed on the weekends or even if you have a medical card but there are other ones that it's like you're operating heavy machinery and so even if it is for a medical reason they don't have to hire you and that's not discrimination it's the same thing if you were on painkillers because of for a medical reason you wouldn't be able to do something that again is operating heavy machinery. So I think like if the field you're trying to apply for jobs in is one in which the drug testing there is not just kind of regulation, like it's not just like, oh, it's because everyone does it. It's because of the field. And if that's a field you want to

get into, then I would definitely like look into like quitting as a whole. Otherwise, I think if it's just for a time period and just before the a test i would probably like look for a job for i don't know if like you know a smoke shop or a rest like something that like is a culture where like where do your friends work like a culture where if this is like if you enjoy being a stoner and that's something that you want to do then i think a stoner centric job versus getting a job that can't have you smoke weed and then just smoking yeah weed after i um used to work at a place where people would come to this place specific specifically to get the items so that they could pass a drug test for the week and i'm not gonna say because it's actually illegal like we could

not legally i knew why they were coming in to get it and they if they were to ask that this is the reason I'm coming in to get it I could not say but there are things I would but they're not it's not legal and you can't ask for it by that name no and it's also like it's not a sure thing and you just have to be cautious for why they're asking for a drug test because some places are doing it just because that's just what everyone does and other places are doing it because if then you are signing on to a job where it says that you have to be like drug tested and be free of any sort of substances weed will show up later in your system but you could then be at fault for something because you've signed a contract essentially you know what i mean so like it's

one of those things like you don't you might not want to cheat the system because that doesn't actually work in your favor in the long term if something were to happen because if they're going to require a drug test the beginning a lot of companies will also do a random drug test and And then if depending on where you're working or the circumstance, the location, if something were to, God forbid, happen and then that aligned with a random drug test, you're not really protected in that way. And also some places might do a hair test as opposed to a pee test and you might not know that. And those are like you can't just get rid of it. I just think do your due diligence before you make any choices, because if you have to really go out of your way to pass a drug test to get the job and it's, you know, lots of people smoke weed. but if you have to really jump through like all of these hoops i would also find out why because

it might not be a one and done we're good thing but it could be like a career shift or a job that you really love and that's like part of like what kickstarts and has you be like oh i'm not gonna do this anymore yeah weed is great for some people it is not great for other people i'm one of the other that just makes me go to sleep oh i'm just paranoid being like i want to go to sleep so bad see i get paranoid and i'll have like paranoia while i'm sleeping like i hear people outside but i'm still asleep that doesn't sound fun it's not unless like i go into it as with the mindset of this is the experience that i want you're leaning in you're light bright yeah all right we're gonna take a break

we're back from the break and it's time for the rest of the class or the next call hi negative melissa i'm 26 i use she they pronouns and i'm queer i live i also live in a major u.s city this may be a different a little bit of a different question for y'all but i thought you guys might find it fun dating apps all suck we can pretty much agree on that uh at least or at least that's the consensus in my queer group chat that I'm in for my major city. We had a really awesome chat, and then that bigger chat, just for singles to get advice, then to maybe even connect with each other. Everyone was complaining about being out so much, and I also deeply need them.

And then I got me a matchmaking service for all the cool people in my group chat, especially for those people like myself who aren't quite bold enough to just message people on the side and see if they're interested. Because I'm autistic and I hate to fix it, I wrapped the session through together in Google Form with some kind of bare-bones questions and threw it out into the chat. I'm also a UX researcher, so I was really interested in keeping it more open for the first round and letting my quote-unquote users tell me what was more important to them in a queer dating experience so I could create a better question for a round two. We had 90 participants, which was wild, and ended up with 45 initial pairings. I made sure that nobody went to unmatch.

I'm riding that high from round one, and the fact that we already have one match that's turned into a relationship with a bunch more positive first dates also happening all around. I'm gearing up for round two so people who didn't get to participate can try it this time, and that people who maybe didn't work out can have a second shot. I want to make this a thing that happens frequently. That's where my question comes in. I'm overhauling the questionnaire, and I'm scrounging around some new questions now. For E's, I'm trying to keep as many as possible as multiple choice questions, but just select few as short answer. What more unusual questions would you want on a matchmaking questionnaire?

I have stuff like political affiliation, attitudes on drugs, relationship goals, etc. But I'm looking for even more things that get at the heart of who people are and what they're looking for. Thanks guys so much in advance. Bye. This is so cool. Wait, like, I love the way your brain works. I do too.

And then I want you to make the chart. yeah we'd be friends with we'd be friends with you you won't get this reference but okay i'd like you to make the chart and then connect everybody and then like you're like the alice of this universe of the real universe it's from the l word um so you just assume that they're gonna get it yeah yes i do and they're listening going i do i do i do get it i know the where it is that was one that i remember as a kid i would see it at like the movie store and i was like i want to watch this and my parents like no but i was like this looks like the covers were always like it looked i was like girls having fun like i'm like i was picking up crossroads

i was watching the princess diaries and i'm like it actually the vibe of the cover it probably is the same as cross yeah and i was just like what i want to and i'm like 11 being like i want to watch i watched this with the traveling pants like i this looks like a fun time like no and And then literally, I think it was when I got a Tumblr when I was like 17 or no, I was probably like 15 or 16. I was like, oh, OK, this is this is different. This is why I wasn't allowed to watch it when I was nine. But Alice on the L word essentially made Facebook before it was Facebook. Oh, my God. Wow.

If you would like to hear some more things, check out Pants, a podcast hosted by Leisha Haley, who plays Alice and Kate Minnick. hell yeah produced by me uh you don't say i'm shocked this is just a huge fan this is like ingenious yeah i i would love for you to be part of my life to figure this out for me yeah this is incredible what questions would i like what time of day do you like to work out i would also like to hear like as a short answer i know you said multiple choice but as a short answer because i think people would want to answer this one describe your perfect day off because that to me is like how you act when you have your recreational free time i need to know if we align on this do you like to eat dinner in front of the tv or a table what is like one

movie that you would like recommend to someone or like a guilty pleasure kind of thing because i think guilty pleasure questions i find them insightful because if someone says something it's a guilty pleasure that is like so not i'm like what does that say about you that you're guilty that you think people see this is something i think that's a trick question though because what is a guilty pleasure no i know i'm trying to come up with your questions like really get to know people but that's because i'm you're straight oh yeah we are trying to write matches we're not trying to vet out straight men yes it's different wow i'm sorry this is just like opened up a hole you're right you're right you're right this can be fun yeah coats and so like how

you how you function how you like like yeah you're right workout time all of those things oh like what's what's like the best thing that you've ever cooked and what's the worst thing you've ever cooked that's a fun one like oh even like would you rather like we're going on a vacation are you a stay at the hotel by the pool the whole time or are you an adventure yeah like a constant adventure you get a text message that some we're going out for a party tonight you've got 10 minutes to get ready are you excited or are you stressed i'm not going and i'm not going either but like for me like if someone like was like i need someone who's like spontaneous who i can just i was like no no i have to mentally prepare and i need you to tell me like two days

ahead of time who's all going to be there yeah and then i can pick up my outfit but something like yep that is that's a good one i want to think more on this yeah and maybe every episode we'll just drop a gym oh my gosh well wait you remember that game you came up with the the red the red flag game you came up with it that we never we're gonna make eventually but there's a whole bunch of stuff in that i still have it like in my email i forgot i start so many things but like it's so in debt no it is i don't want to i don't want to give that away i want to give it to you because your spreadsheet idea is like this other idea it's it's different but like yeah it's very different but it's i don't want to give all of our good things but i was also going to say something

that i've been doing and i think i brought it up in the last episode which i've been and i've also just said it in our patreon when people are like talking about who they're dating and i'm like cast who's playing them in a movie so i think like and again i think if you're gonna do short answer write-in ones they have to be kind of i don't want to say egotistical but something that like you want to answer where it's like it's like a fun and fluffs yourself up so i would say something like your life is a movie who would you want to play you and who is actually going to play you so like self-aware like of like the do you have like the i would want this person to play me but like this was the person who would probably realistically play me or mine is the same mine's

the same and so to me i've said it before that tells me i'm like oh so self-assured so confident like knows who they are there's not this what's your answer for that my answer would be i already gave you my answer for you for this we've talked about it what time but what age range are they they're your age emma roberts yeah yeah so that's what i was gonna say so like i think i think it could be if i was older i would say like cameron diaz just humor wise if it was younger i would say amanda bines humor wise and i was younger but yeah no i think again amanda bines is like my age though no but me when i was younger and she went her when she was younger because like i don't think we have very like now no no not so much now yeah and i would have said

younger like hillary duff but i was way fucking weird or that would have been like so if you asked me when i was 15 i would have said like i wanted to be hillary duff but like it's not gonna be you know i mean so i think that that's something like interesting and and fun who's yours quentin okay well i okay so i i i wondered if it was i was like maybe that's the reason why you weren't sharing the information i was like okay that should have been my clue because you're not telling me so i'm it's still quinta it's still quinta it's still quinta it will always be quinta it's never not quinta no and i'm it's been quinta before the world yeah before quinta was i mean she was a household name in our homes but for people who it was it it really solidified it

for me she was in some i forgot what video it was but my friend from college sent this and it was it's old like years ago my friend from college sent it to me and he was like this reminds me of you and i was like you're correct she'll play me a movie one day she's been on the list the whole fucking time yep oh another good one would be like what from what fictional group of what fictional world would you like to be a part of like a tv show or like movies or whatever like what friend group of those people or even asking like whether it's like a tv show because like you said it's a group chat with people and if you know and i guess you're also starting to get to know these people from their answers from the previous ones so if you know kind of like the genre of movies

or tastes that people have saying like a tv show name or like a shonda like shonda verse like something that is like uh multiple shows like who are you like who which friend group would you sit with or like what is your shonda verse is so messy no i know i don't think that first love him but in what way everybody's scary yeah I think also like I would look back and like you already know this but based on what the other answers were especially with a couple who got together I would also ask them like which were the questions that they like that stuck out for them and like what was the way that that kind of match because for me it would be lifestyle compatibility what time do you go to do you eat in your bed yeah are you in a shoes on or shoes off household

that's big for me do you wash your legs do you wash your sheets once a week as someone who currently does not have a dryer i have like five pairs of sheets that i just rotate through you know when i was moving i was like getting all cocky and shit being like i'm downsizing and so i got rid of i now we had two pairs of sheets and that's fucking it and that's not enough time when you don't have a dryer but yeah so like i guess lifestyle things if i cook will you clean the kitchen great can i have your pickle when we're eating our lunch are you are you the pickle eater or you're the pickle giver yeah are you friends with your exes oh that's a good well i feel like in the community that this is in that will be regular yeah but i mean if someone's if that's a

hard no yeah you know i think it's it's that's probably it can it can weed it out this one it it can come off harsh and i don't mean it harsh but i think this is an important question for dating are you okay with dating somebody that's more or less successful in your eyes to them oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a good one how would other people describe you I think like how would your best like how would your best friend describe you or like how would your best friend sell you on me because depending on I don't know but you're you said 26 so I would say like in like the young 20s age range self-deprecating like self-deprecating humor is just every that's just kind of the the norm and then I think on dating apps and like other dating apps it's hard

to read when people are being self-deprecating versus not and then sometimes like at least for me I would automatically go to self-deprecating because I have to describe myself so if you told me to like describe how someone else would describe me I would probably give you a far more accurate and like positive thing of versus like me spewing my own shit yeah I was doing more self-deprecating stuff on dating apps and I changed it to be not so much I wouldn't say self-deprecating I'm just sarcastic and it does not read well across a dating app it also does not read well if they don't know you like yeah it's but I'm I'm hilarious and I like to burn people uh as a joke and people like you they get it immediately in person I just take it's like

it takes a minute and so i've changed how my dating profile is and i get way more well and from like my mind was always very like self-aware self-deprecating like funny but then i would never swipe right on someone who wasn't self-deprecating because i was like i don't like that like you answering all of these questions like so earnestly like i could never do because the questions weren't worded in a way that it was either like you're gonna be sarcastic and self-deprecating or you're gonna be like sucking your own dick and being like oh my god like my shit doesn't like so there's not a happy there wasn't a happy medium and so I'm sure that like I like even when I was like on yours where I was like oh my god these people are so earnest and you're like no

I mean like it's fine but it's it's just because there's no in between so I think especially when you're asking people like questions about themselves I think multiple choice is a great call because you don't have to kind of think about it and you only have so many options so not picking like something very negative but I think asking like how someone else would describe you is is a more accurate usually a far more accurate description than we can give ourselves um I this I think is another good one is for the holidays where would you like to spend like oh yeah do you like to host do you like to go to your family do you want to go to I don't know if the if the other person has a family or do you just like to disappear yeah oh are you the driver or the

passenger in the relationship do you care about astrology that's big into it do you want someone from a similar background and life experience as you or are you do are you someone who likes to be dating as a mirror or do you like to date someone who's had like a completely different life experience than you wow this is so fun i could do this forever yeah i mean i always dm us because i want to see what it is because you said it's a spreadsheet and i'd like to see the other questions like what you did before oh yeah that's what that's i don't know how spreadsheets work but yeah because i think things like deal breakers and stuff are like important but i even think something as simple as like your favorite cuisine like your favorite tv show

here's one that both of us have talked about before but like how clean do you like your house great one great one yeah what do you and like what do you consider clean like what's your cleanliness standard that's a very very good call do you break down the recycling boxes and you take them out as you should uh-huh do you wear jeans in your bed oh immediately get out of the group chat disgusting what's your thoughts on outdoor outdoor clothes is a thing like yeah indoor and outdoor clothes that's huge huge for me what's how's the long what's the age range of the long the plant you've kept alive the longest cats or dogs i think is another one that you know care about what are you singing karaoke

would you get up and sing at karaoke are you people usually are you the oprah or the gail but i don't think you can like gail is front of the house at this point you mean yeah i mean gail is on cbs news and then also running o magazine yeah no gail is behind and in front of the scenes at this point are you a talker or not talker and are you okay with being with someone that's a quiet person that's gonna be with a talker that's gonna stand up for them when shit's going down are you someone who's okay with going to bed angry that's like a communication style what's your love language sleep with the air conditioner on or off can you braid hair if i could date someone who could braid my i literally said i was like i need to teach you how to fucking

braid my hair because my dad knew how to he did her hair he had to well he also had long hair at one point in the 70s as a lot of people did i would like to see the pictures uh but he did because my mom was off doing corporate stuff so he would do our hair i see like lots of like dad's able to i mean i didn't have either neither parent could braid hair or do any of that and that's how i ended up with the beads on the hair at the end of my braids because my best friend was jamaican and her mom was white and she was like this is fine and we grew up in her my friend and i'm like no that was don't put beads in my hair you know how some people and like this is something that i love that like moths and i are like that like i love getting ready with him it's

like i'm like i want you to hang out in the bathroom like if i'm showering and like we're getting ready to go somewhere like i want you to hang out and talk with me yeah and there are some people who want to get ready separate even if you're like living together in a relationship and then you come together like let's go to the door and we're gonna like head out now it's like i don't know how to phrase that are you a uh a couple get ready or a separate get ready yeah because in my head i'm like would you braid my hair is synonymous with if my hair is braided would you take it down for me would you take my makeup off before i went to bed would you brush your teeth my teeth for me if I laid in bed do you brush your teeth before you go to bed how many

times a day do you brush your teeth yeah do you have a whole jar of um toothbrush disposable toothbrushes that you keep at your sink for people that come over do you have IBS C or IBS D that's another good one um oh middle C what seat do you take on an airplane yeah that's a good one what role do you take at the airport are you the person who has all of the passports are you the planner or get there two hours before yeah vacation wise the same thing like not just the what I said before about like are you hanging out the pool never leaving the resort but are you the google doc itinerary I know who you are caller are you the google doc itinerary like we've got the reservations we have all these ideas that is awesome Melissa and I love to travel people like

that or are you someone who wants to have take things spontaneous how do you take your coffee that's another good one do a couple throw in a couple there that's like a setup in the sense of like I don't know if you send the results other people's answers to each other I don't think you should but I think if you can have like a bonus question it's like how do you take your coffee or like what's your favorite flower or something and sharing that with the other person if they match and so it's like oh you're going on a date with this person got the coffee or like you know what I mean like something like that that that can show an interest because I don't think you should share everything because then what do you have to talk about in your first

yeah and also sometimes things might be opposite but they actually just work out in the relationship too yeah or it's like you might think that oh no i wouldn't pair that together but someone who has like a bird's eye view of the situation goes no no this this definitely fits and makes sense together i don't know if you have any heavier questions but the only thing that would come to my mind that i like know people who this is like a hard yes positive or a hard no because it's too relatable for some people but you would know this better about the appropriateness of this but like religious trauma like did you come from a religious background whether you're still practicing or i know people who are at different levels in deconstruction of a religion and it's if that's

not aligned at that point that's not gonna happen i love this though yeah i do i do too i love like learning about people through things like this like one of my mods and i's favorite activities for a long time and like i brought it on this show doing like the buzzfeed quizzes and things and i love seeing i like want to look over other people's shoulders and again for like what kind of dessert would you be at an irish wedding like i want to see what people are answering for all these like silly stupid like they're just fun you know yeah i enjoy this a lot i love it so please let us know like if you can send us some of the stuff like we'd love to see we won't share the no it's just good questions but i would also ask if you're a part of our

facebook group or not i don't know you said you're in a major city so i don't know if like the group chat is if you're looking for like more people but you fully have our permission to if you're in the facebook group to like if you want to open this up to people in your area and post that in the facebook group like you totally can i know we have a rule about like no self-promotion but we obviously make exceptions for things and you can always message us and ask about it before you post um but this is your verbal you know or if if you don't have it and you want us to post like if you don't have if you're not the facebook group you want us to post it or anything i know that we have a like a large part of our audience depending on what city you're in would love to

participate or even do something like this in their own city i i think that you should make money from this i think you should do i think you should make an app so there's this baby naming app that i heard about when my brother-in-law and sister-in-law were having their first kid and it's kind of like a dating app so you swipe left and right on oh yeah yeah i heard about this too and so then it gives you a notification when you match on a name with someone so i don't know what it would be like i think you probably have to say the one of the guaranteed questions have to be like do you want someone who's opposite from you or not because then it would match go on based on that but i think like core values like that's a big like that would take up a lot of things and

that's something that doesn't change opposite or not yeah and i think then the app would be like it would not the people wouldn't get the notification like oh you've matched on these core values immediately you could get the oh then the app puts those people into like a little circle and then it divides it from further but then you pay a premium you can unlock everyone who you matched with on these five questions or these 10 questions and you can enter that in but you could also even do something like whether it's like a discord or um not like a location based app but like you know a email address that's like whatever dating in atlanta something dallas and having that and like people paying a one-time fee to join into this and opt into like

a pool of people and then you you host them like every couple months and it's you have a buy-in for just that yeah and then you can start throwing parties and stuff that you like this is you could even like say that you'll cover like cover dinner for the first date for the first people who like match our like first first coffees on us or something like a promo for something and obviously you know should be covering your cost to be able to do that but i think you could do that in you could not you don't have to and i don't know what your ambition on this is like taking it on a nationwide scale but also specifically if you want to keep it in the circle of the area that you're in, you can then train other

people in other cities to do that and they'll know and be able to adjust the questions and things based on the values of the people who live there in their social circles. We just helped you create an MLM. MLM of people. Yeah. But yeah, this is great. This is so cool. Please, like for real,

give us more info. I think this is so interesting. Alright, next call. Hi, I've been a long time listener of a pod so love you Megan and Melissa so I'll get into it so it has to do with a lot of gift giving and just things not going the right way so basically me and my best friend he him and my pronouns are she her we have been giving each other gifts for like 15 years so you know that's

just been kind of a habit for every holiday and stuff like that so at Christmas time there was I guess maybe miscommunication on both of our ends or something but we usually give each other gifts he went all out he got me like a really nice sweater that I like and everything and I gave him like more like I guess more gifts where like I gave him like a mug with his initials I gave him a nice candle I gave him some of my favorite stationery for him to have and everything and I guess that just wasn't enough for him because later for my birthday he didn't give me anything he just showed up and here's the thing honestly I'm a person that's like if you just want to show up I am super happy about that so he did and I didn't really think too much of it

and then it was until later till another friend of ours uh their pronouns are they them and they threw a little party for all of us and we showed up and I gave them their gift and they were happy with it you know they were like oh my gosh this is amazing thank you so much you know it wasn't an extravagant gift like but it was a thoughtful gift like the ones I've given before and my friend just his face and his comments that he was making while watching our friend open this gift was like oh wow really oh wow that must be nice like those kinds of comments and I was just generally very confused as to why he was acting that way and then later brought up when we had a phone call later he told me that he was just upset that he didn't receive like a thoughtful

gift for Christmas and I was just very confused by that and I told him like yes it was like how can you think that it wasn't and we got into a huge fight he later then said that he didn't like my boyfriend which his pronouns are he him and just threw that in there and kind of blew up on me and we didn't talk for like a month month and a half and we're actually going to see each other maybe in like two weeks to hang out a little bit but it's like i just don't know what to do my one of my love languages is gift giving so i definitely feel very offended by all of this and i don't know if it's me trying to draw a boundary or something but i just need your help on what to do do i cut this friend off do i talk to him more and clarify like i just don't know

what to do at this point so i'm happy to hear what you guys think so thank you so much is he in love with you okay I think I have a really unpopular opinion what is it I don't know what previous gifts you have given him and what this like what if you can like look back on all of the years but to me as someone who like I put a lot of thoughts into the gifts I give people and you're you're an incredibly thoughtful gift giver and it's like some people it's not matched so I will still put in the same I'll still put in like the thoughtfulness and the effort but if I if I had a friend who like was not you who gave me like a gift that because I'm just gonna just point blank to me candle mug and stationery is something I would give like a white elephant thing like

that's something I would give someone I don't know like it's so unpersonal to me that's something I would I would give someone I I don't know well and I could have even like have never met before so I would never be offended or hurt receiving that gift if you gave me that gift I would be like are we good like yeah huh like you've given me candles before but it's because I wanted candles like it was like specific candles that you knew that I would love the scent of yeah because I also am a big believer in like you don't like shit that you don't want I don't like shit that I don't want a lot of my friends like I'm gonna ask someone like you don't have to tell me like what you want for the holiday like if you don't have an idea like sometimes I'll have a good idea

I'm like oh I know because you've said you wanted this before I don't even have to bring it up but if there's something that hasn't been brought up and I'm like okay like what's your vibe and that you were like I really want some candles like and I was like oh okay say no more I have a great idea so unless it was asked for in that sense or this is very aligned with the previous things that you have given each other. To me, a sweater is something that is a lot more personal. Like I'm having to think about your personal style, but stationary, it gets used up. I don't look at my closet every day for the next 10 plus years. That's what I was going to say. It's either like something that I'm going to use or I'm just going to sit it there and not use it

because I don't, what am I going to use this for? Yeah. And I don't mean to say that that was your intention at all because there are some people who stationary mugs and candles like that is oh my god if you care about me you know that that's like what I would love and there might have been so much thought put into it like the same way that like if you hadn't told me that you would wanted candles for it was Christmas one year and I put all this thought knowing like okay this is it were jackie aina candles and i was like okay this is someone who like the sense you're going to love and like the person behind like you're gonna love the whole branding the aesthetic like all of this kind of stuff and if you didn't want candles and you had no idea then you would

have had no idea the thought that was put into it so i'm not saying that you didn't put thought into it but i'm but on the receiving end depending on the previous gifts you have given each other he's not thinking about the thought you put into it because it's not maybe a gift that is really for him and who he is right now. It can be something like, oh, I really love this thing and I want to share this with you or I think you would really like it. But I also always really like to do a vibe check before each holiday if I don't already have an idea. But especially as you start getting older and people's budgets are changing, people are having weddings, people are buying houses or whatever it is to be like do we want to put a pause on this year for a gift or

like do we have something or if you're you know knowing that someone is like oh my god i'm so excited i got you a great gift like i even like to tell people that and like a lot of times i just word vomit it but for like other people you know it's sometimes nice to just be like how i want to check over are we going to do gifts this year are we not and you've done it for 15 years and so to me this just is like 15 years to have your first hiccup I think is not a phenomenal yeah I think that's fantastic but I think this is more along the lines with you thought there was a lot of thought put into this gift and it might have been really specific and special to him and you wouldn't have got it for someone else but it didn't land and it didn't feel that way and so it can also

just be you're seeing parts of him or things that you think he would really like that you know for him you see him he maybe has like cute stationery all the like nice things like that and you're like oh i'm gonna get him some cute stationery he goes i already have a ton of cute stationery like i don't really need something like that but that this whole theory of mine only really works if this is so far if this is just not really in the realm of other gifts that you've given and if this is never if it's also not kind of in the realm of gifts that he's given you back because otherwise yet maybe there's a a jealousy thing here yeah i only said that is he in love with you since he snapped and was like i don't like your boyfriend yeah but i mean the the looking at what you get

someone else is like like what the other friend gifting the other friend something and it was like oh wow this is just i mean i've gotten gifts from people that felt incredibly impersonal and I put so much thought and effort into it to the gift that I got them and that person just didn't even think about that. They didn't even, whether they didn't get it, they didn't register it or they were just kind of off doing their own thing

and it wasn't reciprocated. And there's a lot of hurt there. Like it is a lot of, cause like it feels intentional. And so it's clear that that was not your intention, but I think if you can do your best, like hop off the defensive, and understand and ask him to like get him to like really explain about it and i would i would

give the precursor like you know this clearly like didn't go over well so like there's nothing you can say to me at this point that's like gonna be too far or hurt my feelings like please just like be brutally honest and like tell me tell me what's up like tell me what happened to what went wrong because this is clearly a miscommunication and i want to get to the bottom of this because we've never had something like this in 15 years as far as I know if we have because the other part of me wonders like what did you get last year like it has this compiled over like did it used to be you were both getting each other like far more thoughtful or maybe extravagant or whatever those gifts were and that they slowly started to not really match up in a line and he started

pulling back and then we've ended up at this point like has this been compiling or not but clearly there are some issues here but i think gift giving is such a touchy subject because no one wants to sound ungrateful or whatever that i think you really have to be like we just need to like not hold back and just like say like get everything out on the table here to figure out where the mis like to figure out where this went wrong and where this soured but yeah i also i would ask like how long have you been dating your boyfriend what gifts did you give your have you did you like like did you and your best friend did you used to gift him concert tickets and you both would go to a concert and like that would be your thing and then once you start dating your

boyfriend did you gift your boyfriend concert tickets for the last birthday and then you started doing that thing like it could be a symptom of you know spending more time with significant other and less with a friend and then things that you used to the friend now doing with i think it's compiled or this was a massive shift gift wise you know yeah but it's it's hard especially since you said you do pride yourself on giving gifts and his reaction is just i i don't y'all just need to talk this out just talk it out what what was where was the disconnect and maybe explain like why you got those specific gifts for him and that might make him feel better yeah yeah because I think I can't imagine that you caller would be someone friends with someone

for 15 years you always get each other gifts that there wouldn't be thought and care behind like I don't think you gave a mug stationary in a candle the same way that I would give it to something you what I mean like if I gave that to like one of them if I gave that to you like there it's not a white elephant kind of style gift so I have to assume that that's how you gave it but that's not how he received it and to me that's indicative of a larger problem yep I have experience with this Melissa's like oh she knows anyways all right let's take a break yay all right we're back from our break what a break we actually took a mini one we did mini ketchup yeah here we go hi megan melissa i'm a long time listener first time caller to this or

literally any other podcast. I'm a little nervous, but love you both and really looking forward to hearing your advice on this. I'm 30 years old. She, her pronouns. I just got divorced in March to my husband at three-ish years. We've been together since 2016. But the details of the divorce don't really matter here other than it was my choice and a long time coming. I knew since about June 2022 that it was time. Anyway, I started dating a guy and got pretty serious nearly right after the divorce was final. He knew about the divorce and I was transparent about my fears, about commitment. I feel strong feelings towards him though and we say I love you and I mean it. However, recently I'm having doubts and a strong desire to just be by myself. I'm craving

independence and doing my own thing, which means I've pulled away from him and spending time together. It feels increasingly harder to say I love you and feel that excitement. I think I'm just scared with how quickly this moved and that maybe I never fully processed my divorce. But at the same time, I do really love him and love spending time with him and could see us having some kind of future together. But I do fear I'm doing myself a disservice by not taking the time to remember what it's like to be me without a partner. I know I lost a lot of myself in my marriage, but I know I can't have both this new relationship and the time to take a step back and figure myself out. So any advice would be appreciated. I am in therapy also since I have

time I'm a cancer son Aries rising definitely identify with the Aries so don't be afraid to hurt my not so sensitive little crabby uh cancer feelings thank you so much since you you said you were with your ex since 2016 I think it makes perfect sense that you did get together with someone after your divorce immediately after the divorce because you weren't used to being alone And now that you've, I'm guessing, healed somewhat from the divorce, then you're like, it's okay for me to have time to myself. And so while I hate the term rebound, it kind of like fits into this of you were with someone for a long time and then you weren't. And so there was a transition period where you were getting over your ex and someone was there to fill the void. And now you don't need that void filled anymore.

And so you're craving your independence. I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're feeling. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way that you went about processing everything or even the steps that you took. Like this was what was right for you at the time. And now it doesn't serve you anymore. And so this person that you're with may be great, like they were great for that time period.

And they may be great for a time period in the future, but they don't necessarily, they're not necessarily who or how you should be living your life right now yeah you have to trust your gut and like your gut knows even the way you're talking about this that you're like i'm finding it harder to say i love you and then you were like but you know like yeah i love him but the the distinction between those things is i love you from afar as a person i'm not in love with you anymore and you're saying i could see him it's like some part of my life not but not where you're currently at and where you're currently at is how this relationship is defined and so like there has to be a change in the definition of this but yeah like I always

think the the phrase is cheesy but it's true like people come into your life a reason season lifetime this it's the duality of a season and a reason and I agree with Melissa like I don't think you should feel any sort of like shame and all this makes sense to me because another thing like you said the divorce was on started on your end sometimes when we make decisions divorce or not like anything that we are in control of and we aren't maybe entirely positive especially we've been sitting on it for a while because you said you've been you've known this since june of 2020 that we need to make other decisions that that force us to follow through with them so for someone getting out of a divorce a lot of people do hop into a relationship right after

because they're like I if I don't hop into this relationship I might go back immediately and I kind of I need I need I need a nail in a coffin I need a nail in a coffin so the other person is like I'm not gonna get back with you like I need something to I can't have all of the control like here I need to take exert this control to make ensure that my future situation is something that I know I consciously want not something that I'm going to get back into other habits so yeah you you hadn't been with anybody else in a while and I and I don't want this to come across in a way that like oh you used him to heal because you you didn't but you at that point post-divorce also I think the pandemic plays a huge role in this too that like the amount of I don't know

how long the divorce process took I don't know if it was mediation I don't know if you had to go to court like I don't know if it ended up getting contentious like any of those things but even if it's like the simplest divorce and you end on amicable terms like you're still mourning what you thought was your future you're mourning a relationship moving out of where you lived or the other person moving like you're having to go through all that emotional deal with all of those emotions. And a lot of people don't have the bandwidth to socialize with different people and go out on first dates during that time. And so having someone who's a comfort and someone who you can share and spend that time with, I look at that like friends also do that same thing.

And it just happened that this was more than friends. You said from the start that you were very honest i even think if you i think if you weren't very honest i don't think that would even have mattered because factually when someone's getting out of a divorce like those those that's the cards that are on the table you tell me that it's like no i want something really serious like it's no big deal i'm gonna have to choose to suspend disbelief then because this is a situation like it's a untangling and intertwining of lives like that's a that's an ordeal so he knew the situation and beyond that he also like knew your feelings but i don't think that you are scared in the sense of oh like i'm i'm scared that i'm sabotaging something good and i'm gonna let

something good get away that's not really like how life works like if he is good for you right now you wouldn't be having these doubts and he was good for you and is what you needed before like when this when you guys started and there's a reason why your feelings changed and feelings feelings are always going to change they're always going to grow or they're going to diminish and that's because you're either growing together and you're falling more in love every day and they continue to be the right person for you as you mature and evolve and go through life changes and vice versa you to them or you start diverging like different paths and different like life things and that doesn't mean that it was like a waste of time or anything but

I would be I would be more shocked if you if you were the exact same person that you were as soon as the divorce was finalized and that this relationship would have withstood the test of time because to me that would have said like you're still where you are right when you got divorced and I think you would be doing yourself like you said I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice. And I don't want this to sound cunty, but like treating men and treating romantic interests like a scarcity and that like, oh, I found a good, I have to lock it down. And it's like, no, no, you are the prize here. That's not that the, oh, you found the, I found the one, the first guy that I date after I got a divorce, like he's the only good one. Like he's not the

only good one roaming the earth at all. And I think like the thing to do if you are scared in that situation is being scared that you're not going to come across someone else like that and I don't think you went through a divorce and went through all of that and like chose yourself in that instance to then not continue to have confidence and believe in yourself that like you're going to meet tons of great people and it's not just this one yeah and after you're alone for a while you may grow and change and this might not be the person that you need later yeah and that's okay like that's okay that just means that like that was who like i've said before and megan said like that's who you need it thin and like they might not be the person that's good

for you later yeah and and i don't know how the relationship with your ex ended but in most cases I would say that the the first person you date right after your divorce is not the person for you yeah I have a lot of friends that have gotten divorced and they were like immediately like had sex with somebody and was like that was the best sex of my life and then later they're like actually it wasn't it was just it was someone new and it was good for then and it was a good way to you know move on but you know it was more of the excitement of I'm out of this thing and this is a new person yeah I don't think that going through divorce is expensive and emotionally expensive and dealing with all of that stuff that I think that some people if hopping into dating then

hop into dating and then other people they start off I'm just taking my alone time and then the first person that they date maybe two years down the road is the person they end up with but you have to accomplish both steps of being single and if you want to be in a relationship then that is the other step and this isn't like a oh well i did the relationship now if i'm single i'm never gonna get into a relationship again no not at all but the most you will do the most growing when you're single you can grow in a relationship but this division between how your feelings are changing is indicative of like this is not the growth in the relationship you know so but congratulations on divorce yeah I think being divorced at 30 I hope we see more

people divorced at 30 because a lot of people don't have the financial situation or are not at the space where they feel ready or can leave a relationship but when when you need to and when you want to and when you should so i more divorces at 30 well i'm i'm very pro pro fucking divorce and yeah you didn't go through you didn't go through all of that just just to be unsure and hesitant of your decision you know yeah so congratulations and i i foresee so much life in your future yay all right that's it for our episode do you ever see that tiktok of that person who's getting divorced and they did like a divorce their friends threw them a divorce party afterwards and they like took pictures with the judge and the lawyer and it was all I was like

that is the paperwork yeah not that I'm hoping anyone my life gets divorced to have a divorce party but some situations are that bad where you need to have one yeah well and I'm like if a friend of mine gets divorced I will I'm throwing you a fucking party not wishing ill on any relationship but if you need to get get the fucking divorce divorce divorce divorce Divorce. I'm going to edit myself on a cheerleading cause. Divorce. Anyways, that's it for episode. We hope you all enjoyed. If you would like to be on an upcoming episode, give us a call, send us a voice memo. And if you were a caller on this episode and you would like to give us an update or you're the one who has the Google sheet, you can shoot us an email with an update.

We can schedule to have a call up. We'd love to hear from you. And yeah, we didn't do a don't blame them in this episode but if you a listener if oh i would love to solicit this if you have done something similar or have heard of someone doing something similar of the caller with the google spreadsheet and that kind of information data collecting and uh what do they call it when people like hack they're like like hack your wellness like hacking your sleep what is that called no clue biohacking okay that's the word but something like that in terms of i don't really give a shit about like the the wellness aspects of it but in terms of like interpersonal relationships i would love to hear a story like that or if the person who called in is interested in developing

this into an app if you have the skills to do that then let us matchmake you oh my gosh we'll be early investors too we do it yeah without a doubt unless i hold up if we were able to this is so for full fucking circle that we went from getting a call on our podcast where someone was someone who's gay was talking about meeting a friend on a dating app like just going on a dating app to meet friends and then being like but my girl the girl i'm seeing she like thinks that it's sus and we were like i mean that is sus like no one does that and then we got infiltrated with all of our lesbian listeners and our queer listeners our gay listeners being like no your straight is showing your straight is showing and then us now investing in a gay

dating app we're fucking here for it and melissa has connections to the hallward i do but she will only give them if you let us invest nope not during pride month megan that's extortion anyways um we hope you all enjoyed this episode can't wait to hear more from you follow us on all of our socials and make sure you're subscribed to our podcast on the apple podcast or spotify so you can stay up to date on the rest of the shows that we release throughout the week and you can support the show on patreon very very very affordable or you can also enter in how much money you want to spend if you're like if you're rolling in the dough do it please we love you all you're wonderful goodbye wear your

seatbelts use your turn signals bye Don't Blame Me is a production by me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, plus Diamond Imprint Productions. Post-production sound and editing by Coco Lorenz. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. And music by Giacomo Picasso and Ryan Hunter.