Don't Blame Me! - Messy Friends

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

TW: 1st Call - Disordered eating and fatphobia Meghan and Melisa give advice on: Cutting off an emotionally abusive father Turning 21 but not wanting to drink Friend dating a racist Don't Blame Them: Losing Interest during sex and deconstructing fatphobia Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Follow Us! @meghanrienks www.instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @by.meghan.and.melisa https://www.instagram.com/meghanandmelisa Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): www.tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf Need Advice? www.dontblameme.show Domestic Listeners Call: [phone] International Listeners Send a Voice Memo To: [e-mail] … with as much detail as possible under 3 minutes! WeI'll do our best to share our wonderful words of wisdom. If you're under 18, please get your parent's permission. Advice is for entertainment purposes only, so you can't blame us if we screw up your life. I kid! Our advice IS AMAZING. Want to WATCH this episode as well? Become a patron! https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Join the Facebook Group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/dbmsecretgroup Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/join/dontblameme Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

here we go can you keep your little tiny tongue in your mouth oh my god you think my tongue is tiny that's so nice you're doing it you're making it like a little like then you do have a long lizard tongue though i have a really fucking long tongue yeah i don't know why i mean your whole body is just long i was just stretched you see this is in my lore god didn't make me a saltwater taffy maker maker made me just stretch me out each little bit in peace i'm pretty long i'm trying to think about other parts of me is there any part of me that's not long i don't have very long eyelashes that's about it my boobs aren't long but i think like they could eventually they will get long you know if i'm so lucky to be able to breastfeed i think

i think they'll extend downward yeah i have long fingers i have long toes i have long teeth even like my front teeth are pretty long but they're also just then you get them angled i've got well i've gotten them shaved out like 95 fucking times they like are like we can't shave anymore because it's just gonna like you used to like almost not even be literally like they're once you can start feeling it like no but you used to not even be able to like see almost my bottom teeth but it's a combination of i have long rabbit teeth but also they're not a right angle they're going they're they're sticking out a little but invisalign is not in my journey and that's okay could have had it free so many times yeah and then they found out they're like oh your jaw's messed up and legally

we don't want to take that on like that's fine it's fine i always wanted you know i've said before i've always wanted braces i always wanted a cast for people to sign really what i wanted was attention both those things you can get but like fake you have some fake braces and some fake cast i used to take a paper clip and like put it on my teeth and be like everybody did that yeah retainer honestly i wanted a retainer more than i wanted braces like because like a retainer you could pop out but like taking out a retainer is no offense to retainer errors it's disgusting it's like spit and then sometimes they gotta go yeah ew it's like if you're gonna spit with it or you're going to like suck it in like i had to go dumpster diving for my friend's retainer once

we were knee deep in refried beans trying to find it she threw it away for like the ninth time we never found it yeah sister megan has a permanent one hey stick it in there that seems logical yeah because then it doesn't get juicy yeah it's just there and it's behind her teeth yeah someone's popped out and it like cut them but i remember who it was anyways hi welcome to don't blame me your wonderful podcast starring two people who are the best and the and the most beautiful cool ass paper you want to be friends you can stop anytime you're frozen and it was so fucking funny because you were literally just frozen where your head you were just you were just hair and it was as if i was doing that on purpose though i kept getting lower and lower

until it was here so it wasn't that frozen shoddy got low low low low low low low do you want monster i talked about in the car ride i was like who is the first person not the first person who used the term shorty shoddy i want to know who was the first recipient like when that was became like who was who was who's the original you know i mean like who's the who's the muse i think that about a lot of sayings like who's the first person that said that literally like i don't care who said it i want to know who was on the other side and i think about like before the uh before we had like internet and stuff and people just the words just got spread i know i think about that with like you know some it's like in music so like you i could see that but then

there are others that like i heard about them before i heard them in songs and so i'm like so how did how did we all or like the rumors that circulate the childhood playground like everyone heard the one that marilyn manson awful person removed a rib to suck his own dick and apparently i'm like so why did every elementary school everyone knew hear that rumor yeah because apparently it's not true so why do we all know it's right there are a lot of others we owe sierra an apology melissa i was just about to say that and i was like do we even want to go there i'm not gonna say what it is but i'm just saying we all oh i never said it because i thought it was awful same thing was going around about lady gaga too truly like just the fascination that like

with genitalia is so creepy and even if they did so what truly like and like we're supposed to feel misled and like offended and upset that we weren't privy to your genitalia i don't know most famous people i've never seen their genitalia like no i don't need to most of the ones that we have seen was fake anyway or against my will because twitter doesn't censor images yeah that's true and i don't need to see the teen wolf boys fapping those dicks when i tell you that i was like i'm about to unfollow every fucking person who's posted this or like just i don't want to see a surprise dick on my timeline yeah it's un-american anyways welcome to our advice podcast where we give you advice we do not give you unsolicited dick pics you were ripping that up

for something for me to say and i was like this is new you didn't prep me before take this away you got this no i won't even send an unsolicited like i'll when i get a dick pic not from anyone i know obviously i'll be like melissa can i can i show you this like i'm not i'm not even gonna let i'm not gonna surprise those people with it anyways it's rude it also gets a lot yeah anyway welcome don't blame me and you just said it was a advice podcast where we give advice okay um so what makes us qualified to give advice you may ask we exist we're here we're gorgeous we're funny and we have a podcast so not we're women with a podcast so naturally that makes us experts in our field right been here since 2017 before andrew tate i can't believe he got

arrested i'm so excited the thing is i did not know remember i was refusing to look into who this man was at any time but now now that he's been arrested i have looked into who he is because now you know there's something being done about it then i'm like yeah this man is awful i don't even know what he looked like bald obviously yeah but now i do and he's an idiot and like truly the way that he got caught what's that i'm embarrassed for him it's really like serendipitous to be honest because of how awful he is who he was attacking he got cocky was talking about not recycling pizza boxes and then that was what did him in oh it's the pizza boxes to sex trafficking pipeline that pizza gate has been looking for

exactly exactly it it's it's been there the whole time it's right under our nose oh my god it it fucking killed me i could not be happier and it's an exciting day that was a while ago but anyways um yes we have a podcast and it's great and it's wonderful and you're gonna listen or you're not in which case you're here and you're listening so just stay it's a good time And if you're wondering how to call in for an upcoming episode, you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976. And international listeners, you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com. So you record your voice in whatever mechanism, then we play your call and we give you advice. But in order to give you the best, most pertinent, accurate, helpful,

maybe a little toxic advice, we need to know all the information. So first and foremost, you'd be aging or over, have your parents permission. We do ask that you include ages. So our advice about like relationships, school, dating, job is going to be very different if you're 21 and if you're like 36. Different life stages and if it's about relationships or truly like if it involves any other people, also include their ages. You can include pronouns if you would like to and include as much information as possible. But the best way to do that is write it all down first, then time it out. So without your phone, without your sundial, without your hourglass keep it under three minutes from like the time that you literally start talking not the

beep on the voicemail and practice a couple times make sure you are within the time limit if you need to add some more info do it we love the drama we love we love the gossip don't refrain from that like you don't have to tell us you like us like i mean we love to hear it but if that means you're cutting out like got a witch to do a succubus dream which is a real call like we need we want that like give us that oh and then read it when you're recording like a script like a play like Shakespeare like a monologue we're not asking for improv don't need to improv this is an open book test do you know how I know I had like reading and learning and math problems open book test meant nothing to me I was like it doesn't fucking matter if I have the equations I need to do right

there whoo it would be the best circumstance for me to attempt to succeed I need it to be multiple choice and I need it to be open book or I need it to be an English test and then I'm good I think about open book now and I'm like do they use computers to do it because if so you can pretty much anything you have a question if it's written in a question form you can just type the question the answer will come right up I don't think I think you still have to do books or sometimes they would give us like small note cards or like a whole page of paper you could write them on at my niece's school they don't even have books they use i mean they're textbooks but they're just on their ipads that they get oh maybe i feel like i already was really good i was already

really good at cheating and i feel like i would have only gotten better with the age of technology like i was just cheating like if the information is there like at a fingertip it's not like i feel Like, because what school is trying to do is prepare you. This is more philosophical than an actual, you know, writer-owned thing. But school is to prepare you for the real world. And if the information is already there, it's not cheating. It's just using the resources that are already there to find the answer, which is the whole point. I had one teacher who that was like his M.O.

He was like, when people would get annoyed that I wasn't failing. And he was like, she's worked smarter, not harder. and he was like it's irrelevant like how she got the information like this is life life isn't fair like you got to figure it out be scrappy get whatever you can get like do whatever you can do i don't really care how it ends up happening um but like i used to store when we didn't have open book tests and we would just have like we were allowed to have a what are the big calculator calls what are the big ones the ti89 isn't there a name for them the 89 i thought there was like a something but I don't know we used to call them the big calculators I mean the smart kids didn't

but us normal we would call them the big calcs so I used to add in like there was like a note section in there and I would like add answers as much as I could in there or I'm sure I've told this one before I used to write my notes or answers on my like upper thigh and then I was like well if a teacher comments I'll just beg why and you know what I graduated high school so whatever graduated high school and got into college yeah but you know I said you got in just leave it there no I know but I know but you're I just want everyone to know I I got into the participation awards of colleges like I don't think they were it doesn't matter it doesn't matter i said leave it there and you just kept going i just didn't want anyone to think well

of course no one's thinking i went to cornell no one was thinking it we just leave just leave it there megan okay i dropped it we're leaving it there we're leaving it there okay that is uh the intro to this podcast so we're doing a little bit of a different format today because people are busy okay i didn't know if we were going to shame them or be understanding it's going to be understanding we have more don't blame them than calls this week and we are really selective with the calls which is not to deter you to not call in like please call in but we're also really cognizant of what other episodes we've done and things that have already been done over and over again and certain calls that are just we have absolutely no advice to give and they just are

triggering for like the mass majority of the audience so we don't have ones that we think are going to be like new and or useful and or entertaining so we've got a couple but we're gonna supplement with some more butter supplement with some more dumpling numbs god that why is it so hard to say i don't know but i do want to add that we had several calls and we've already done this so many times for people that are either moving in for the first time with their significant other or their long distance and starting to move in this starting to live in the same place or a combination of both we've done like if you have that question just type in search engine don't blame me moving in with partner something like that you'll find we've done this question so many

times now and we're going to put a pause on it because i don't know how many more times we can answer this question i dare you anyone to give us like how unique could it be like you're moving to antarctica and it's because he gave you a treasure map to get there like you gotta unless we're there and they're all relatively similar and the advice that we would also give so but really utilize the search feature that's how like last week i was able to find some like a reference to an old call from a different episode like it's really it's it's pretty easy like our titles are catchy and and raunchy salacious but the descriptions are really descriptive and so you can find the calls that way so oh did i say our names what's your name

who are you my name is megan rinks my name is melissa diamond mons and do you know why my name starts with an m because you're a miracle i am or a menace both do you know why your name has an h in it because you're i i'm irish the potatoes the irish the potatoes and the cabbage sorry to my ancestors my bad anyway so let's do it sorry cut you off to megan and melissa i'm a 22 year old who identifies with she her pronouns we like to give a content warning before i begin because there's causes disordered eating and fat phobia in this call. I live five hours away from my hometown. I'm the

oldest daughter of three. It's me, my sister, she, her, who is 17, and my brother, who is 14, he, him. My mom, she, her, and dad, he, him, are still together in everyone in the house, but my brother hates my dad. This is because my brother has Down syndrome and doesn't understand or recognize my father's emotionally abusive behavior. Growing up, I was more of a parent to myself and my siblings than my father was. He always forgot when he had to pick us up from school, he wouldn't feed us when my mom was on business trips, and he constantly was commenting on my food, body, and clothes when I was growing up. He is extremely fatphobic, and now he has heart issues and is paying close attention to his own food for a specific medical need. All this to say, my father

has always been emotionally abusive and focused on food a lot. I have been wanting to cut him off for a long while, but it is difficult as my parents are together and my siblings still live in the same home as him, and I loved him too much. I didn't go home for Thanksgiving, so I wouldn't have to spend a food-centric holiday with him, but a few days before I went home for Christmas, I invited him and my mom to Zoom into my therapy session so that my therapist could talk about food neutrality and how to support me in my disordered thoughts around food while I came home for the holiday. On Christmas Eve, he asked my mom if sweet potato skins are, quote, good for you. I turned around and expected him to realize that that was harmful to me and my

mindset I am trying to deconstruct. He then asked me directly and I responded in a therapized way saying the nutrients but reminding him food is a neutral thing. He scoffed and walked away. Two days later, I spoke up for myself and told him how hurtful that was and how when he forgot the name of my oldest friend from high school, which was unbelievable, was also very hurtful. I told him how I don't feel seen or feel respected. He rebutted with saying how he didn't ask me and immediately knew it was wrong when he said, is food good for you? It was a moment I realized he was actively trying to gaslight me

and tell me that he didn't say what he clearly did say to me. I decided I was done officially. When he realized he couldn't win the argument, he brought up things I did some 10 years ago when I was still a child, middle school age. The discussion escalated quickly and I excused myself. Upstairs, my fiance had already touched and we agreed to leave three days early.

I told my dad I never want to talk to him again or see him. And I'm serious this time. Do you have any advice on how to successfully cut him off and keep him cut off and not feel like I'm abandoning my family, mom and sister? Totally understand, but I still feel guilty. And how do I support my mom who has mentioned recently that she is trying to get out of this marriage and how to support her while trying to win custody? I am also the deconstructing fat phobia caller from the November 7th episode, feeling misled on a date, in case that helps. I love the podcast. Love you both.

So nice. I mean, you're nice, not your, not your dad. I want to give like empathy because it is really hard to cut people off when it's really hard to cut people off in general. And it's also really, it's never anyone's first choice. Like it's never anyone's like goal. It's never anyone's intention. Like that's like literally the last resort.

and it's really I can imagine it's even harder when you are trying to remain you've got a good relationship with other people who are in their lives and at a like high capacity like you know I I have like full no contact with a part of my family and that's like it's really easy because i don't have any other like family members there's still some people that are shared in that way but i've just set really clear boundaries with them but it's not the same thing as yours like i think that this is a lot harder but i think honestly like no one really knows how to do this because it's not natural and i don't mean that and that's a way that like oh something we shouldn't do But like, we're taught that the people who brought us into this world and who raised us like love us unconditionally and all of that. So like, when they don't, there's not really like a handbook or a playbook on next steps forward from that. And a lot of communities that are like, you know, talk about no contact or low, low contact. There's not really like an instruction step by step kind of thing. There's helpful ways to get out of a dangerous situation.

but you know it's kind of like an ebb and flow and you might slip back into contact and then be like okay no that wasn't a good idea but the best thing I think to do is just talk it through like talk it through with your therapist talk it through with yourself if that means like writing everything down and talk about it with your sibling in an age-appropriate way of being like you know I want you to know that I am unable to have a relationship with dad at this point. And I'm really sad about that. I really wish that he was different, but he's not. And I need to protect my healing, my recovery and like my future by separating that relationship. But I want you to know that like that has nothing to do with you. And like, if you at any point feel like you don't want to

have a relationship with dad, like I'm here to help you. If you continue to want to have a relationship with him, like we will have our own relationship. Like I'm not, I'm not going to abandon you. I'm doing this for me. So I can also be the best sister for you. And then what I would say to your mom is just like you know I like same thing like I can't have a relationship with him anymore and I know that you said that you're looking to get out of this marriage I am willing and able to help you in whatever capacity that I feel up to but I need us to like have some clear boundaries like I if you want her to clue you in and like help her look for apartments or something. But like, if she wants to use you as a therapist, I don't think that's productive for

either of you. And if it's detrimental to you, it's not going to be beneficial to her. And so just saying like, I'm processing through my own feelings about dad in therapy. So I can be here for the logistic stuff and for planning stuff. Like if you need me to like watch the siblings for a weekend, if you need me to like help you find a different school district for them, like where you move into whatever that is like i'm here for that kind of stuff but for the emotional labor i would recommend like seeing um a therapist because i just know that i'm not i'm not going to be able to give you the help that you need because he wasn't my husband he was my dad so our relationship is different and i don't think like you're you said i think you said your fiance but

like you haven't been married you're younger it's just like i just i don't have i can't relate and I haven't had that lived experience so I don't feel comfortable being your confidant in that because I just think that would do a disservice to you as well and like your journey so that's kind of really it and you know you block numbers and you you don't open mail or packet whatever like you just don't do that and I would also have a conversation with your fiance about like what the boundaries are and that it's like that i don't want to hear about this i want you to block them as well whatever and it sounds weird to say but like from a logistic standpoint it is a lot easier than you'd think it is like because again it's nobody's first choice and yes people will

not go quietly and they won't do it without a fight but that like it'll be like a fog has lifted like there's an ease of life when you've cut out a horrible person that that is invigorating like that is like it's like I'm gonna chase that for the rest of fucking forever like I'm not fucking going back like that's something that is really does it's what sustains and if you go on any of the subreddits for like you know narcissistic parents or no contact with families or whatever like people will say you don't realize how much it has kind of snuck its way into like every crevice of your life until you eradicate it and life's just a lot better and it feels natural to just continue on what what makes you feel better and so those decisions I found personally I didn't

have to think so hard about them in the moment like I thought about them before and I like you know tried to plan for different outcomes but it was so black and white when it like finally came down to it that like one of these things I'm miserable and the other one like I'm fucking released and so that's a really easy indicator and it's just innate for you to follow that feeling yeah and I'll just add on how you said that you wanted how to like talk to your mom essentially what you're doing is the same thing that she wants to do is divorcing. You're ending your relationship with your dad. She's going to, or pursuing or has talked to you about wanting to do the same thing. She feels the same way about him that you do. You, you, I'm just saying what

you said. You said that she also hates him along with you. So just let her know that like, I I'm going through the same things mine's it's different because it's a different type of relationship and we don't have like a legal bond together but emotionally this is what I can handle these are my boundaries I'll support you as you go through this I know it's going to be might be more difficult for you but you know I'm here whenever you're on the other side of it yeah that is it is like similar to a divorce it's a divorce without the paperwork work yeah so i'm happy for you that this is a decision that you um are going to make because i know it's not anyone's first choice and i know it's not anything that comes easily but i also

know when you want to do it it's so fucking necessary and it's again it's a night and day difference so i'm i'm excited for you to for the first time in your life like not have this like energy soul sucking presence or voice in the back of your head that like and it takes a bit to unlearn that but it's like it's like I don't want to say chasing a high but it's just like it's like running towards the sun like it's something that's just so like oh yeah like I'm fucking freezing cold and this is where like I'm going and it is a very reassuring thing I don't know anybody who's ever regretted it but yeah I'm sorry that this it has gotten to this point but I don't think you'll like your I don't think your relationship with your mom or your sibling will suffer

all right next call I'm Megan and Melissa I am 20 years old I use she her pronouns and I just me some advice regarding my upcoming 21st birthday. My birthday is in about a month and I'm just not really sure how to approach it with my family. For some background, I don't drink. I have some trauma regarding alcohol and it's not something I've ever been interested in. But my problem is I know my family is going to push me to drink once I am of age. I really don't want to explain to them why I plan on being sober forever because they are the reason. This is a really big trigger for me just even being around people who are drinking. I've recently started going back to therapy and I'm trying to work through some of it but I'm not close with my family. I do live at

home with my mom so I need to maintain some peace but I'm not sure the best way to do it. I'm mostly worried about my dad and stepmom pressuring me though, because it's happened in the past where they've tried to get me to try their drinks. I'm worried about turning this age in general too, because it's going to be much harder for me to avoid the conversations of why I don't drink. I know that you two don't really drink much, so I'm hoping you'll have some advice on how to handle this. I'd really appreciate any tips on how to navigate these situations. Thank you both so much i think it's strange when anyone tries to force anyone to drink but especially parents of people that are underage that's it's weird it's like why why do you care so much

if i want to taste a drink i could get the virgin version of it i mean when i come home like my parents offer like if they have a drink they'll offer me something and i've told them a million times that i don't drink and i will just keep continuing to tell them like when they ask i just say i don't drink remember i don't drink and then that's that no one asks why but um just saying i don't want to but that's like the easiest thing is i don't want to if i wanted to i would anyone that's under 21 over 21 if they want alcohol they can get it that's the thing like if you wanted to drink your parents seem like your dad and stepmom are fine with you drinking so if you wanted to drink you would um i even had um i went to the event with the pringles man someone there asked

me like they're like you're in town for blah blah and i was like yeah i'll be here for a few weeks so like let's go to brunch and get drunk and i said i don't drink and they just left it there like you eat we can just go eat and i was like okay i'm not going but um shocked but that yeah but that is like i just feel like that when you just tell people that you don't drink most the majority of people respect that the majority of people don't ask why just say and if they do i don't drink and move forward yeah i do think that like that is an age thing like i think like people now really don't ask me but like when i was 20 like it was a what why why like and even when I was like 23 maybe like 24 like and like honestly normalize lying like if

you don't want to tell the truth especially to your family just be like it gives me really bad heartburn and I don't like it or just like it makes me throw up it makes me really nauseous I really hate the taste of it I just think it's so gross I've drank and like you can lie and be like yeah I've like drank before and like I just I just don't like it and I I don't have any desire to like it or you can describe it like you know how when you have food poisoning and you can't eat anything after like eat that same thing again because it made you sick just like I just can't even smell it without getting nauseous like just you can pick something gross it gives me explosive diarrhea like you everyone anyone who's pressuring you it's because they don't feel confident in

their actions and they need everybody to be doing what they're doing because that means what they're doing is right and it's not bad and they shouldn't worry about it but you just you can you can come up with as elaborate of a lie as you want if that for you if they will take that more than they'll take i don't like drinking like it can even just be like i just don't like the taste like i just think it's gross i don't i don't have any desire to get drunk like that's it and i can't promise though with your family that that's going to be they're going to take that because again it seems from what you've said that they're the the reason you've got a lot of trauma around alcohol and they presumably don't have a good relationship with alcohol so seeing someone who's

choosing to abstain is going to feel like a personal threat and there's honestly like it sucks to say there's like truly nothing you can do about that like if they're going to take it personally they're going to take it personally and you can test out some other lies and just see and what what fits best and what or like even just suss out and like plant the seed early on and like yeah I'm starting to have like weird stomach things like I don't like it's just not whatever it is or I'm hung over from last night because I went out with my friends and I really don't want to drink like you can do whatever and people who are going to pressure you to drink honestly a don't deserve your truth if that's not something you feel confident or comfortable

or safe telling them, but also you don't owe anyone anything. And this is just like a survival tactic coping mechanism with what's coming up. So I would truly just, this sounds bad. I would set your expectations low for the interactions with your family, because I think the only way that they're going to be happy or okay or whatever is if you validate them by saying, oh, we don't have drinking problems by you also getting hammered. And like, that's not going to happen. So just knowing that there's no right answer there for people who are in denial about their own issues. And it's about them. It's not about you. And then for friends, I think exactly what Melissa said, where it's like, I'm just I don't want to and anyone who's going to pressure

you. They're not your friends. And they're not good people. They're not people you want to surround yourself with and I just cannot imagine having someone tell me like oh I don't drink and me asking them now that I don't drink but like when I did drink heavily I'm sure I would have been like why and that's because I didn't have a good relationship with alcohol yeah I would be like oh you're boring and that was really immature of me and really like I just and honestly when i first started college i didn't drink and i would tell people and they would say things like me it didn't bother me but then like you internalized it yeah i entered i i wouldn't even say i internalized it i just it just didn't bother me but then i did want to it wasn't even

because everybody was doing it because i still had some friends that didn't drink but i just wanted to drink i just i didn't want to drink until i was actually 21 and i didn't really start drinking until I was 21 you know and I when I did start drinking I did drink a lot but um but it was still it was more like it didn't it like I said with friends and things it didn't bother me at all and if I were I know Megan's like lie but like for me I'm more like if people are bothering me so much that it like they're they're making me uncomfortable I feel like they don't deserve to be comfortable so then i do drop the truth dude that's sometimes that's a little if it goes too far i'm like oh okay now i'm gonna make you really fucking uncomfortable like i was

preparing myself for things even when i came here things that didn't have to do with drinking just other aspects of my life and i had things on like ready on the go for what i was going to say to people so um and they were all true like it was things that were truthful about them luckily i haven't had to use any of them but i was prepared if i needed to they're like fucking logged in the quizlet cards exactly i know what i've got responses for x y and z but luckily i haven't had to use it but for me i i would just like i i wouldn't because the thing is like if you think that they have a drinking problem or you see that they have a drinking problem and then you're lying about drinking too much and you can't drink that to me it just does

it's not this it it makes things more complicated because they're like well you do drink but your thing is like i don't want to be that example like i don't drink and i don't want to be on the saying, I don't want you to compare me to you. Yeah. I think I understand that. I just think when you live with someone and especially someone who does not have a good relationship with alcohol, I assume that you're somewhat financially dependent or at least housing wise. And at that point, total honesty about a substance like excessive substance use. If someone doesn't want to confront it in themselves, then they're not going to. And it's a little bit easier to do that with a little bit of some separation but I just yeah I just like truly

think that there's it's again it's not I just don't think that there's anything that you could say that your family would deem valid so I don't I think all anything you say I think is going to be weighed the same whether in their eyes whether it's the truth whether it's a lie I think it's all probably going to be seen as a personal attack so it's whatever you know your safety more than anyone else and your like well-being that you can really just say like i just don't like alcohol i don't like it and if they want like we'll try this one it's like i don't want to i don't want to and at that point if you maintain at some point if you maintain the same like even keel and you're like, I just don't want to. And then just try and change the subject. And if they

keep going for it, like, yeah, they're going to feel so goofy. And just like, they realize that they're being like, come on, come on. So they're like 21 year old kid begging them to drink. And it's like, you know what? Like, this really isn't fun for me anymore. I thought we were going to hang out and have a good time. And like, I don't want to drink. And if that's like a deal breaker for you, like, I'll just go hang out with my friends. And if you can approach it from that perspective, and it's hard to kind of be very even keeled in the situations, especially when you're seeing a problem that they clearly have that they're not seeing removing yourself before you get it becomes like a really emotional and like re-traumatizing kind of event for you because

that's not how you should be like celebrating your birthday even if you're not celebrating by drinking like you can just celebrate getting a year older and if y'all are going out to eat and they are like you're in public and they're pressuring you order the drink and then when the server walks off go talk to like say you have to go to the bathroom go talk to them and be like hey you can charge for alcoholic beverages but i don't want alcohol in my drink so please don't give me an alcohol give me the virgin like maybe order something that somebody else at the table is ordering so then they don't want to try your drink and um just get up and go tell them hey don't put alcohol in mine yeah I've always found bartenders like at any like restaurants events

or whatever anytime that I'm with people who are ordering alcohol and I'm not getting alcohol like they're very making sure that I'm getting my non-alcoholic drink and then they're if we're at a restaurant they're refilling my things really quick they're at like they're they're protective of yeah because they don't know they don't know like if you are actually an alcoholic and you're trying to you know you don't want to drink but again the pressure or you're just not a drinker and they they recognize that and I think some bartenders are just some or wait staff are just some of the kindest people so they're gonna they watch out for you yeah and I've had before where I've gone on like dates or I've been at places where I like didn't want to talk about

not that I don't drink so I would order a like soda water and lime and I always would then have the bartender if I walk up with other people they're like do you want the same and I'm like yeah great and they're like I got you and when you do the initial order they say like I got you yeah like they know so there's they've seen everything they've seen like people who are pregnant who haven't announced it yet they see people who are in recovery or people who are surrounded by people who clearly need to be in recovery and they're not and so like in that moment you can have a safe person and that like it's not putting anything on them by just being like hey and for them they they want to know you leave a nice tip like that's great like you even

even if you don't have a ton of disposable income and you're able to add in a couple extra dollars to the tip you call the restaurant later you say the manager and you say that this this waiter this bartender was like fantastic and really really great and i just wanted you to know that like it was exemplary example i can't say that word but like fantastic service and i appreciated them immensely so yeah and the last thing I'll say is that like for anyone who was like me who would make comments on when people weren't drinking when I was drinking I when I stopped drinking a lot of people didn't give a shit and a lot of people didn't ask and I met new friends who really didn't care and then some people did comment on it and it was really easy for me to tell early on

who was commenting on it because they were insecure about their drinking and they were good people, but they just had drank too much and were feeling pretty self-conscious versus people who couldn't see me as anything other than like a threat to their worldview and their stability and their social life. And it got pretty easy to tell. And at that age also, and I've said so many times, people are always fucking relieved when you're the first person to say that you're not drinking because whether they're like I have a fucking meeting tomorrow I have a job interview I'm babysitting I'm hungover whatever the thing is most people continue drinking more often than they should because of peer pressure and even if it's not explicit like your parents telling you

to drink it's just like a like a social norm or what's expected and every time I've gone to a wedding and I'm like oh I don't drink three to five people are like oh you're not going to drink I'm not going to drink either tonight like people love seeing that And if you're not seeing that in your immediate friend group right now, A, I would branch out doesn't mean you have to cut those people off, but be friends with other people who've experienced other things. And it will get to that point at that age. It's just it's a hard age to not socially not drink. It's a socially hard age to not drink, but it's not impossible. and I have absolutely zero regrets and I would say I could say a regret is that I like didn't stop drinking sooner but I don't think that I would have continued to like not drink for years and years and years if I had stopped any sooner than that so you'll find your people and just know that like it's the right decision for you and anyone else's opinions just say more about them

than you all right let's take a break we're back from our break what is up with your tongue today are your lips dry always I'm so glad you brought that up everybody because now we can promote our Patreon where you can watch the video version and you can see my tongue no you and I really think it is

Mott's commented on this yesterday Sunday so so much of our drive we drove for like 24 hours straight not straight but like in total of our two days we drove for 24 hours and so much of it was so stressful so I had to be like completely silent I like couldn't like he was so anxious and like this wasn't like I've

he told me like don't talk don't move or whatever but that's my response when people are yeah when my people are really anxious and really stressed like I just I really retreat and I'm like if you need like tell me what you need but if you don't need anything like I'm just gonna shut the fuck up and when we were out of it he was like you're being so extra weird he goes I think like you just need to get it out like I think your body was like oh I'm done with like I'm just gonna shut down he's like but i don't think any of it went away like i think it was just like building up and i didn't realize like i literally just kept making weird noises with my mouth i kept just like doing all of like the stimmy things that i do and i was just doing them in excess

without realizing and he was like yeah i think it's literally like you're you were gonna combust and we've been in a car sitting so i think that's part of it is still it's they're still coming out okay well next call i'm megan and melissa first of all i just want to say i've been a long-time listener and i really love both of you and appreciate your advice y'all have gotten me through a lot so i'm a 24 year old female and i'm looking for some advice on a friend situation so i became friends with this girl we'll call her hannah in college and she's been in a long-term relationship with this guy jack i was also in a long-term relationship to the man i'm now married to and

that'll come up later. So she and this guy were really good together in college, but after graduation, they were kind of outgrowing each other, and it was dying out. The short of this is that he didn't do anything wrong, but after a long series of events, it was going to be better for both of them to end things, so she and I broke up with him. Fast forward, they break up, my friend moves back to her hometown, and starts making the drive to hang out with Jack's one and only best friend. We'll call him Sam. She goes out on the weekends and parties with him, even crashes in his living room, and it becomes clear to me that Sam is actually romantically interested in Hannah. I even recall a time towards the end of Hannah and Jack's relationship where Hannah had been

hanging out with Sam one-on-one and was kind of just talking about how much she just liked the care and attention that Sam was giving her. I suggested she sort this stuff out in her relationship with Jack and stop spending this one-on-one time with Sam. Needless to say, once Hannah and Jack broke up, she kept hanging out with Sam. She insisted she wasn't interested in a romantic relationship with him, but it was pretty clear that he was interested in her. He even asked her to sleep together, and she insists that she set clear boundaries but still continued to hang out with him. Then came a weird turn of events. Hannah starts dating Sam's roommate, Aaron.

Like, right in front of Sam, they made out, and she starts spending the night with him. I meet Aaron and immediately get bad vibes. He's way overly affectionate to Hannah with PDA. He's so clingy. Honestly, he's an arrogant asshole. He starts talking about his job and acting like he's the smartest person in the room when he definitely isn't. My husband and I go to dinner with Hannah and Aaron and Hannah's family for her birthday. And after being so annoying and making condescending remarks the entire meal, making rude remarks to her sister and to my husband and I, he starts making racist remarks about Indian people and generalize an entire group of people based on one thing his one Indian friend said to him.

I was shocked. It was so inappropriate, not to mention that I spent months living in India myself for work and research and called him out right there on the spot for like A, making an inappropriate comment and B, generalizing literally 1 billion people. Instead of having remorse here in the moment, he just dug in further. So my husband and I left the dinner. We didn't go back to Hannah's house with everyone else after that. And I honestly couldn't bring myself to hang out with her for like three months after. Life got busy. But the whole thing really made me question her as a person too.

Is she so in love with this guy who's honestly kind of trash? Like not to mention the way she went about getting in a relationship with him in the first place. I guess I'm wondering if I'm a bad friend for not really wanting to hang out with her anymore. She was one of my closest friends. she even attended my wedding which only 20 people did and now she feels like a different person i'm not sure if it's someone i want to be friends with or maybe i'm just blowing this out of

proportion and she needs some time to just figure her shit out this is what i mean when i say that we want the drama like i just want to give you i don't have a diamond to give you i could give you a rose because that's my little name i won't i won't step on your toes also to be fair you can if you want to but i mean i feel like another another franchise you get to be real housewives and i get to be the bachelor like that fucking sucks but mine is specifically real housewives beverly hills and they suck so well i mean and that otherwise i think the other options would be like to your middle name would be orange or what else do they hold potomac holds champagne flutes champagne i knew someone's last name was champagne uh yeah peach atlanta peach is cute

anyway i think she sucks like honestly she just seems like somebody that's not a good person with the way that she treats other people and i'm sure there are other signs that you probably haven't picked up on but if she tolerates this guy and is okay with that then that's not cool with me like you are the company that you keep and if you keep if you keep staying around someone that you claim to be in love with and want to spend at least this portion of your life with then even if she changed maybe there are things like she might it but it might have been small things Like I think back about one of my friends, the former friends that I cut off and like there was a big thing that really was the end of our friendship. But then when I started looking back on our friendship in the past, there were there she was always making little comments, saying little things that I just kind of brushed on the rug and laughed off.

But all this all the signs were there. she showed me who she was and i just didn't want to see the full picture until it got the snowball got so big that i couldn't just pile it wasn't just one snowflake it turned into a huge shit pile after like you know snow after it's been driven through by a car and gets absolutely disgusting unbearable and you don't want to be around it that's what she was but like that's i i think that that's like so common like we need a catalyst to see all of the other things like i always say that um like red flag i said this in my book but like red flags like blurry stop signs and so like we can kind of see them but we're like i don't know what that says and like well

you can move past them but like a red flag is something that usually you double back and you're like okay now let me see but you have to weigh it against the context so when you haven't seen any like other bad behavior it's really easy to explain away things that kind of give you pause until something so big happens that it then that becomes the center of it and you find everything else to corroborate that versus like well they've always been good I can't think of anything really bad they've done so the rest of these things must just be you know little or insignificant but I agree I think she's awful and it does not seem like she's a good person you're 24 and I've always said and i mean science says like your frontal lobes develop at 25 but like for me personally

the difference of not only like not just me as a person but like my mindset my outlook it was like someone snapped the rest of the legos into place between the ages of 24 and 25 so like there was a lot of shift in my life of friendships also just how i what kind of friendships i sought out what kind of relationships i sought out how i operated with the people who were already a part of my life and like how I would suss out new people like and it wasn't a conscious decision it just everything clicked like everything just I knew myself a lot more and other people were going through the same thing and so there were other people who are getting to know themselves a lot more and for me I was like holy shit you feel like you fucking changed like a full like 180

overnight and it was like oh as I've been coming into myself and feeling more confident in who I am and like being like, wow, I really know myself. That's what this person is doing. And I just don't like this person now. And like, that's my prerogative. It's their prerogative to change and to be whatever it is that they are. But like, it's not my responsibility to wait around or to assume that this is a phase because I'm going through a big transformation period in my life. And like, again, this is literally just your brain. It's not about what you're doing in your life at that point it's just your brain and if something changes with her and she is different again and like you want to have a relationship and she wants to pursue that like that's totally

fine but I also like I do judge my friends based on how they behave in their other relationships their other friendships their other romantic relationships like I don't look at us as a completely isolated from every other relationship they have like I we've said this so many times before but like when people are like oh well this person's never done anything bad to me i'm like you tell me you don't like someone and we said it like you i've sent you tiktoks and you go oh i don't like this person i go oh we hate them you're gonna tell me why i'm just i don't even need to be told why i'm just like cool that's that's kind of i have a bad feeling about this person i don't know why yet but there's just something i'm like melissa i log on every single

one and then i go okay most had a bad vibe let me put that in the catalog because we've never been wrong about our bad vibes. And then I'll see a video that goes, the bad vibes, the omen came true. And then I said to you, you're like, wow, I should I should always keep that in mind. And I was like, I never forget when you tell me you have a bad vibe about someone. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. So like, so how someone treats their romantic partners shows me how they treat people that they care about. And if they care about me, why would I be exempt from this behavior in a non-romantic version and or i don't want to condone this behavior so like i've had friends who've been in relationships where they've been like the bad guy and like they've

done something really shitty and i will always suss out the emotional like levels of people but i will be like can i tell you my unfiltered opinion i'm not just gonna like dish it out on people and if they're like yeah and i'm like i think that was really sucky and as you're and this is the term I always say I was like as your friend it like really hurt me to see you do that because that's not my friend like that's not someone who the person that I love and care about would never do that to someone and I think if I did that I know you and I know that you love me and I would fucking hope and assume that you would be like what the fuck is she doing like I don't want you to blindly cheer on my bad decisions if shit blows up in my face and I

ask for your honest opinion give me your honest opinion and I do that with my friends as well but like there's a really big difference between knowing a friend is going through a rough time and maybe isn't the best friend for you and isn't really there for you versus feeling culpable in someone's bad decision making in relationships and how they treat other people and as someone who like not in romantic relationships like in friendships where i've been friends with people who like they've treated me like shit publicly and then we'd have other friends who are around and didn't say anything like i remember those people too and i would never want if i'm out with someone and someone's saying something awful or being really fucking shitty or whatever

like if you can look and say that her ex was a really good guy and you can see what she's done is like really not really not good I wouldn't want to be associated with someone who's continually hurting people and not learning and growing from it like to me like that says a lot about my character and I think that all of your instincts are correct that like this isn't about the guy that she's dating it's about her and how she could have a relationship with this guy and I think like your original analogy like this has snowballed for you to kind of take a step back at her other relationships and then make you evaluate your relationship with her which I think is the most mature and smartest thing to do because when people treat other people badly they will treat

you badly and I don't want to stick around for that like I'm here for the growth but I don't need to be there for the process like you do that on your own like circle back when you're out of this and this is better but it's not your responsibility your instincts are right you should not be friends with her if she changes you can cross that bridge when it comes to it but like i don't think you should hold out waiting and anticipating that to happen when you've seen no moves towards positive change only negative change all right uh you're like you guys just came back from a break yeah well things change we're gonna take one more break stop questioning us

and we're back and it's time for don't blame them don't blame them you might be wondering what is this amazing segment and it's so aptly titled megan and melissa all of your podcasts have names that can be fixed into small little segments so well and yes we did think that out we are our own branding consultants so don't blame them is where listeners call in with their own advice pertaining to previous calls we've had on other episodes so maybe they listened and they heard something in the call that we didn't really touch on or they had another idea maybe they're a professional in the space that the call pertains to maybe they have personal experience or they've experienced it by proxy or they are just incredibly passionate and are aspiring podcasters of their

own. But if you're an aspiring podcaster of your own, streets are rough out here. Hi, I'm calling in as a don't blame them for your episode titled Husband Makes Me Wrap My Own Gifts. My call is regarding a caller who is an ex-religious person from Utah who is struggling with getting a quote-unquote ex during sex. A little about me and why I called in. I'm a 22 year old female in Utah who is an ex-Mormon slash ex-LDS. They're the same. They're both names for the same religion, which I'm assuming is the high demand religion in Utah the caller is referring to, or at least a similar one. I love Megan and Melissa's advice about finding a therapist and about opening the lines of communication with the caller's partner.

These are both super important and fantastic advice. I wanted to build upon those and add my advice as someone who has and is currently still going through this process. For listeners and Megan and Melissa, I think it's important that people understand the teachings around sex and this religion. Women aren't allowed to masturbate, take off any clothing with a partner, or have any sexual contact before marriage. Technically, even making out is off-limits, although the wording in the official teachings makes it a gray area, and most Mormons still do. When a person gets married, it's like a switch, and suddenly everything is allowed after the wedding. This can make sex difficult, even for married members, as our brains struggle with that

slip. Knowing this, I agree with Megan and Melissa that a therapist is a good option, but I would suggest that you find a non-Mormon or non-LDS therapist. Many therapists here in Utah are Mormon and may have biases, which could make these conversations difficult or make progress more difficult. Finding this community is also important. When I left the church, I found an ex-Mormon group that met in the city closest to me and went to activities they planned. This helped me to make friends who understood my upbringing and provided relationships where I could talk about sex and other topics my Mormon friends wouldn't discuss. They also could have great therapist recommendations. Anyways, I hope you're able to talk to your partner and figure things

out to make your sex life even better. Thank you. My ignorance out here, it never even crossed my mind. I was going to say, I don't want to offend anyone. I really don't care if you're offended. um that like mormon like actively practicing mormons would be therapists like i would just think that they would just do church related things because the the you wouldn't be able to do therapy like do you what i mean like i completely don't i mean in the sense that like how many like would you would only be able to have mormon clients because so much of the things that people would want to talk about, like, whether it's like substance or whatever, like it would have to, I could only ever see that as being like conversion or a religious, like, uh, like a Bible

study kind of thing. Like it's not coming at it from like, well, the topics that you could talk about would be so limited and all would end up going back to God that like that to me is just like so counterproductive and I could imagine a lot of people who get therapy who are in the Mormon community who are maybe trying to like leave the Mormon community get a Mormon religious therapist who just that just adds to the religious trauma and could really make your your viewpoint and experience with therapy like so negative which is not what you need at that point so didn't even think to mention that because it didn't even cross my mind um which is my bad so i wholeheartedly agree with that um and i think we said in the episode but like

i am all constantly on ex-mormon tiktok and that's a great therapy is really great to get your feelings validated and like to have someone hear you but um i think for something that's like when you've been harmed by a really large organization sometimes it's also helpful to hear from a large group of people who have also been harmed not just one person who's validating your personal experience i think they you should have that but then also having a lot of other people say like that was my experience too and it's not okay it it makes it it validates how this is uh an issue on a not a personal level on like a a huge mass level with all these other people yeah that's why i said try to connect with those uh swingers

that i like i want to go back to that i mean i i don't know much about it so maybe it was like a very traumatic experience for like people involved but like i just like miss the days of absolutely unhinged drama of people i've literally never heard about before and like you know it's it's sex it's consensual sex it's yeah it's nothing dangerous it's nothing bad like i miss that drama yeah because like i'm sure they probably or maybe might have some of the same traumas and they express it by being swingers so do you think

any Mormon therapist would suggest that I think that there's a lot more freaks than you think there are I mean I don't mean freaking like weird weirdo type way I mean freaks are then sexy freaks yeah getting down in dirt day yeah

and just like watching Real Housewives and i know that they're not a great example as of any but like yeah like they're they'll they'll be okay yeah i mean i think of all the religions mormonism is the largest one that has the most people like leaving so uh because i think it if you think of like ratios do you know what i mean like catholics can say this as someone who's could have been raised catholic if their parents ended up differently no no but i was gonna say so like catholicism is huge and like a lot of people leave like the extreme catholic and the not so extreme parts but mormonism isn't as big and i think lots of people are leaving especially young people who are seeing other people with experiences

the same as them so i think that there's a good you could find the swingers or maybe you could just find other people on tiktok but let us know are you going to do the swinging round or the stationary round oh that got me good all right next don't blame them hi megan and melissa i am calling in for a don't blame them i just listened to the episode feeling misled on a date. And my call is in regards to the caller's call about internalized fat phobia. I don't have anything to add. I just wanted to call and give like my most sincere gratitude for both of your responses. They were so thoughtful. And just, I'm somebody who struggled with an eating disorder for a long time. I'm 30 pronouns, say she. And your

Megan and Melissa, both of your responses felt so healing to me. And if I could have gotten this response and insight when I was 21, I know that, you know, it just really would have changed so much in my perspective on my body and other people. I just want to say thank you so much um i'm a long-time listener um i resonate with a lot of the advice that you give you two are truly always right i hope you have a great day thank you oh my god that was so nice you try to make me cry yeah it's also full circle because the first call was that calling oh yeah yeah which i didn't know when i was when i picked it i think also like we don't we talk about like personally like our past and like who we were like a lot and you can all we also have it recorded and

like how our opinions have changed like our views have changed but uh like always my goal with this is like we can't avoid people from getting into bad situations or like you know learning life lessons but like there are a lot of things in life that i think are maybe not totally avoidable But if I had been given the tools or been given a map and directions, I would have ended up where I ended up a lot sooner and like without as much trauma or it wouldn't have been as like trying. And I think that like, that's always the goal. And I know people use that in terms of parenting that you could like give people like the toolbox. And we're obviously not parenting you listeners. but like i think that i personally learned so much from our audience and from like our listeners and our facebook group and like people people tell us and inform us shit of like that we've said that's insensitive or incorrect all the time and we're we welcome that information like we're

so happy for it like if if this had been a sounding board and even like we had been a sounding board and like you hadn't corrected me on certain things like I not only the podcast have suffered but like we personally I personally would have suffered and I think fat phobia is one of the hardest things and the thing that really has its fucking grip on our society and I had lots of conversations about this over the holidays with people who are older than me and trying to like you know direct uh gently direct certain things or certain statements or whatever and it's something that i think deserves so much of our attention because i think it's getting a lot worse and there are people who are understanding and being more inclusive and

knowing that like same things are politically incorrect or politically not incorrect but like i mean politically correct or not politically correct but i do think that along with the alt right and the toxic masculinity these things are all folded in together and anyone who's like struggling with body image i say this from like a place of understanding and a place of relating in a place of love you become really susceptible to the alt-right which sounds extreme but it it is and the the more that like i think like specifically as women we can learn how to like heal our body image and work on our body neutrality all of all of this like we are so much more whole to fight other things. And, um, it gives, it empowers us to like, also

recognize that it's not our fault in all of that. So I'm glad that that resonated with you a lot. And, um, yeah, I, I, I appreciate it because I think I agree. I think I don't want to put us on a pedestal, but like the things that we share here again, I it's because I wish I heard someone I'll say that because I think it would have changed the trajectory of my life and I don't want anyone who doesn't need to suffer to suffer because I didn't need to suffer like I just didn't have the tools yeah and like we say all the time we're not professionals we're speaking from our own life experience we're not coming from a place that is objective we're not coming from a place that is um you know like like if we were a therapist we can't give our own opinions and

things so everything that we're sharing are things that come from us they're our own thoughts there's nothing to measure against and like you know as we've said before like for other people you know you're not gonna applaud a fish for swimming but you know but we're you know we're thankful it's good to get that feedback just to know that we're on the right trajectory with things and if we're not just tell us give us specific examples so that we know and like it didn't naturally come to us like we put in the work to do that and a lot of that work was you know people people like informing us of things that like oh this is not the best way to phrase this or this is this and then we take that valid criticism and we do the research and then we like see the tiktoks and we we cultivate

like making sure that we're constantly learning and we don't pick calls that we can't offer anything for but we also know that like our two experience lived experiences is not everybody else's so we do try to make a conscious effort to educate ourselves on other people's lived experience so we can not like i think it's i think it's easy to be empathetic i think it's harder and more intentional to be educated on something and um as i we i'm glad that people can attribute like our podcast to that but so much of our education and my education has also come from listeners so it really feels like a symbiotic relationship and i appreciate that like it's always the greatest compliment to me when someone corrects me on something that i've said because to me that is

like I see your character I see you I think you're better than this and I'm gonna give I'm gonna let you know and take this with what you will because like if you think someone's a lost cause you're not gonna correct them you're just gonna ghost as two ghosters you know you're just gonna ghost and pass on by but like when someone gives me the opportunity to be like a better person and to change like that's so nice like that's like really really kind and I think that like if I ever didn't think if that wasn't the mindset that I had I I think I'd be really stuck in my ways and my ways weren't formed based on education and like all these things it was just my life and like my experience and um i'm glad that this this is uh it's mutual for people and

i got recommended maintenance phase podcast about body image from like somebody else and i've recommended it to countless people after that and i think the sharing of insight and information on like healing ourselves is not something we should ever gatekeep and the more we talk about those resources we're we do better for ourselves but also everybody else in our lives so appreciate that a lot so nice all right we're now at the end of the episode it's time to say goodbye if you want to call in for an upcoming episode you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com and same thing with don't blame them if you've been on a previous episode you want to give us

an update shoot us an email meganpodcast gmail.com we can organize and schedule that and leave us a review on the podcast app go comment on our instagram oh you know what this is like so stupid but like i really am curious about this tell me tell us not just me not to cut you out tell us something you want to learn how to like make or do this year like i always go to like recipe wise something you want to like learn how to make but if it's like a pottery thing or whatever i'm like not into new year's resolutions or like the very like really reflective deep kind of things those make me severely uncomfortable especially in a public forum but I think that like one of you Melissa you're like like things for 2023 it's like you want to

get back into the things that you did as a kid and like these hobbies and stuff and I've been thinking about that and like I want to do something more is macro big picture right I want to say more micro for me micro and small yeah that's what I was pretty sure of so I want more like micro of like I want to learn how to make I really want her to make eggs benedict but with like you know a gluten-free dairy-free eggs benedict I want to learn how to do air-dried pottery like just some small like little things that um I'm and I'm seeking I'm seeking input from other people and what they want to learn how to do like recipe whatever you can make it deep if you want but um you know it's a intentional thought that uh i think is good for the new year

i like that and for my notes app where i write down i also want a quilt oh do i know my real thing is most of them and i haven't done anything for this because whatever should i talk about let's all talk about it in the next episode for tomorrow so stay tuned for that tomorrow see you next tuesday not see you next tuesday the show's called see you next tuesday it'll be out tomorrow, Tuesday. And then you've got the rest of our lineup for the week. So buckle in, bitches. Don't Blame Me is a production by me. Executive produced by Melissa DeMonts and Diamond Imprint Productions. Edited by Coco Lawrence. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. Music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.