Don't Blame Me! - My BF Hooked Up With My BFF

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

On this episode, Meghan Melisa gives advice on feeling behind when dating, your friend group being a reality show, and in Don't Blame Me, a bunch of you write in to share your thoughts on dropping out of a PhD program. There's also a lot of talk about Love Island. Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme Subscribe to But Am I Watching? Apple  Spotify Subscribe to Don’t Blame Me! Apple Spotify Call In for DBM - 310-694-0976 (3 minutes or less) Write In for DBM - [e-mail] (300 words or less) DBM Submission Form Buy Our Merch https://crowdmade.com/collections/sister-sign Follow Us! instagram.com/meghanandmelisa @meghanrienks instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/diamondmprint.productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Don't Blame Me. We have a plethora of what I would say is like, I would, this is like a reality show level of drama in this episode. Especially that second call. Oh my God. I mean, yes, we talk about Love Island, we talk about reality shows, but we also talk about the life that one of you that is living that is in fact a reality show. And I want you voted out, or you self-remove, please. I need you to become...

Or tap in completely. The absolute top of the motherfucking pyramid, or I need you voted off the island. We also have some advice to someone who has never had a boyfriend, they're in their 20s, and they're noticing some toxic traits in themselves. And then what did we discover about our audience, Melissa? We have so many smarty pants up in this bitch. Like, so many of y'all are working on or have already obtained your PhDs. Women in STEM. Yeah. Absolutely amazing. We're so proud of y'all. And they are giving lots of insight into what

PhD programs are like specifically how to help out that prior caller that we had about them being miserable in their program and we really just learned how smart all of you are the doctors the doctors of the audience all right how do people participate you can give us a call at 310-694-0976 send us an audio message to meganpodcast at gmail.com or you can fill out the form that's listed in the show notes or on social media all right let's get into it First up. This person is 20 she her. I've never had a real boyfriend. I've had crushes, talking stages, flirtations, and situationships, but nothing has ever turned into an actual relationship the guys near me only seem interested in sex they'll act interested for five minutes and

then it becomes obvious what they actually want but the guys who seem sweet consistent and genuinely interested in getting to know me always live far away so i end up texting these long distance guys all the time and that's where i completely lose control oh my god do you kill them like what does that mean when i like someone i text back right away if i see a message i answer but when they don't do the same i start spiraling even if they say that they like me even if they act interested i convince myself that something's changed then i get anxious sad petty and i'll send passive aggressive messages or act cold because i feel rejected when nothing has actually happened then i regret it but by that point the energy is already weird and i know i'm probably pushing

people away before they even get the chance to really know me i also know i should probably try dating someone who lives near me but i have no idea how to meet people in real life i've never gone up to someone i thought was cute and no one really approaches me when i'm out i feel behind i'm 20 i want to fall in love and have a real relationship but instead i'm stressing over texts and ruining things before they start how do i stop sabotaging myself and actually date in a healthier way you are not behind you're you're 20 and also there's no such thing as being behind yeah and i and i need you to know that like when we say you're not behind in your 20 it's because like what you are doing you know it's not healthy and like it's not like this is very much like a

20 year old thing to do and that's not like an excuse that like you should keep doing this like this behavior you're not wrong this behavior will push people away but it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy because like hey the reason why these long distance guys aren't trying to sleep with you it's because they can't they can't it's the proximity yes so i think that you've unfairly categorized these people into two different things and so like it it just comes true and in that sense the same way where you telling yourself that like oh you're reading into all of their text messages and like thinking what they say or whatever if you're honestly texting guys who are long distance far away and I say this from a place of someone who has done that like I loved a safe

crush like I loved a crush that like nothing could actually come from it like there was nothing that could happen and the stakes were so low but because of that that you are putting such an unfair expectation on to them because if they're long distance I don't I'm not sure what you think is going to happen most people are not like forming very deep bonds that we're gonna end up moving to each other from a long distance place like it's just it's not really happening too often and so of course you're gonna read into everything that they're saying because that's all you can do is read because it's text messages that's all you have and like you can't gauge if they're being different because like this is the only version of them you know and so it's such an unfair

expectation to put on someone but it's also I would say it on reverse it'd be a really unfair expectation for someone to put on you that you're acting different over text and so I think that like you also feel safer to kind of like ask for what you want or like to be more direct because it's not in person like you said you've never approached anybody you're not necessarily getting approached on your own. But if you're ending up going out with guys and it's very clear that all they want to do is sleep with you, I would also ask yourself, where is that coming from? Do they just want to sleep with you or they also would like to sleep with you? Because that is a component of relationships. And so you didn't say that you've never had sex. I'm assuming you have had

sex and there is a very i'm not not i'm not like discounting you or discrediting you saying like you can tell they're only in it for sex because like there are without a doubt people like that and like yes i believe you you can totally tell but what is like your timeline for sex and also what how are you vetting these guys ahead of time or beforehand and like i think that it's an unfair characterization to say that everyone around you just wants to have sex and the people on your phone that you text don't want to have sex because those people also want to have sex with you like they just their dick's not that long right they're not close enough yeah so this is hard and i hear you but you are coming on it sounds like you're coming on really strong over text

and you're not coming on strong in person at all and that's how you kind of end up with these guys aren't being weeded out until you've already gone on a couple like dates with them and you're able to see immediately like oh like yuck like this is you're just kind of in this for that but like i think there's nothing wrong not even nothing wrong i think that like if you're looking for a relationship you should say that you should say that on all of the apps that you're on you should say that when you're on a date with someone in person you should say all of those things and like does that still mean that a guy will pretend to be into a relationship and then you hook up and then he's done totally but i i think that it does also mean that some guys will

take themselves out of the running because they're not looking for anything serious but i think oftentimes that like we can think like well we can get stuck on the technicalities like well i'm not necessarily looking to like for something like serious like marriage right away but like i'm looking to date someone then hopefully get in a relationship that just means i'm looking for a relationship and so like you have to use those kinds of words and not not tiptoe around that because you feel like it makes you come across or like look a certain way. But I would also suggest with so much kindness, I would also suggest therapy because this is like not a healthy sort of pattern of behavior. And if you're having a hard time breaking the pattern of behavior

while you know that you're doing it, you can only try so many times on your own before you're like, hey, I actually need someone with a professional degree in this to like really help me out with bit because like if I could have fixed this problem on my own I would have yeah and I just want to we've said it but just emphasize you're 20 like there's no timeline on anything and I think you're putting way too much pressure on yourself and even though you're not necessarily like really going after these guys you know like pursuing them as far as like you're going to be my boyfriend or like it's it's hard for you to you know date people and it's and not have and them not wanting to have sex which again that's part of dating like wanting to have sex and then

only expecting sex are two different things but like megan said being open about you what you want but also like maybe using the long distance guys one why are why are you in communication with so many long distance guys. If you have no interest in being in a long distance relationship, then you shouldn't be, I don't know where you're meeting these guys. If you're like on a dating app

and setting your location so that it includes people that are long ways away, don't do that because that's just gonna set you up for failure because you don't actually want to be in a relationship with these guys. You're just casting your net wider to see what hits. And like you're saying,

like it's easier to talk to them because there's no real stakes there you have nothing to lose so if you go into it like i have nothing to lose with these guys just use them as practice for talking to guys but nothing beats talking to somebody in person and even if you like want to talk to them on the phone that could also help with setting your correct expectations of what you want and how to converse with people and also help with you not spiraling but again like don't if it's just going to add to your your um one animosity and resentment towards the guys closer to you and then two giving you false false expectations then that's not healthy either and also like if you do want to meet people and you you are scared to go up to them how are you

going to meet them. So you have to initiate conversation in some way. And that's why I think I've said this before, it's easier to talk to people by joining groups or things that you have like-minded interests. That way that it's more just like you're conversing with people because they're interested in the same things that you're interested in, not specifically going on a date. if it turns into that cool but like let's just make friends be there to make friends i'm also curious if you're in college and when you're talking about the guys close to you aren't looking for a relationship you mean like the guys you go to college with because like that's fair like that's like it is kind of a stereotype that there's like a lot of if you're i don't know what

what you're if you're in college what that experience is like but like we used to have like party frats fuck boy frats and boyfriend frats like if you're going to like a party frat or a fuck boy frat looking for a boyfriend like not really gonna happen but like dating in college and like boyfriend girlfriend aspects of like serious relationships in college i would say those weren't like the most common until like junior senior year but also you know there was a lot of people who were single and there's a lot of people who like want to stay single through college and i think that like i wonder if you're doing a lot of comparisons to other people of like what their experience in college is like and i'm here to tell you that

like if you are in college there are a lot of people who do not have a boyfriend or a girlfriend all through college like that's not an uncommon thing at all yeah like who are you comparing yourself to yeah like i wonder if you have friends who go to a different school and like it's just a different energy or a different vibe or people who are with their like high school partners or like their boyfriends or whatever that is because I didn't have a boyfriend when I was 20 I had had a boyfriend like prior to that the only like relationship I had had that was like boyfriend girlfriend definitive terms was in high school like and sure middle school but like we're not counting that like the only like boyfriend I had probably in the terms that you're thinking of

was when i was in high school and then we broke up when i was like 17 and by at 20 i didn't have a boyfriend like i wonder what you're viewing this as as like what is the standard and why you find that you're so far behind because there are people at 20 who've never had a first kiss they've never had situationships they've never had they've never had any of that kind of stuff so i do wonder if like you're you have an unrealistic comparison to this that or even if it's like your parents met when they were in college like something that's like just so not applicable to like where you're at in your life and more of like the fantasy of it all but I think that I'm coming from a place of so much like love when I say this but there is a I'm a huge believer in like

knowing what you want advocating for for what you want and saying what you want you can get into a little bit of a sticky situation when you want a boyfriend point blank because that can lead you to like settling for things i'm not saying that you're settling for this at all but like it becomes like well what about that do you want like the concept of it as opposed to like i want to be happy and live my life and if i meet someone that'd be so cool and that'd be so fun but when you set your sights on like wanting a boyfriend when I've seen people do that those relationships that eventually come from that are not great because like it comes from a place of like checking off a box and like finally having like enough of the pieces that kind of fit together to make it work

versus being like well why do I want this like why do I want this specific thing so much and like I think wanting a guy to treat you well and wanting to like fall in love totally awesome great thing but side note I would like write down everything like when you're not talking to a guy explicitly like just with yourself write down like what you want your expectations and like do you not want to sleep with someone until you are like in name established boyfriend girlfriend And I will tell you that like unless you're at like Baylor or like a very conservative or you are dating people who are also more religious or conservative, that might whittle down the pool to the point where like it might take you longer than you would like to find someone who is interested in defining a relationship in terms of boyfriend girlfriend without knowing that there is an intimacy match there or which is perfectly fine. totally fine or that person will be like sure we can be boyfriend girlfriend you sleep together you're not sexually compatible and then they break up with you like there is just you can

have expectations going into a relationship and so can other people but i think and i don't think it should necessarily change you should shift that or cater that to the person you're talking to to be like oh well what how can i say what they will be the most chill with or what will not scare them off or push them away like you should have your core values and the things that you want and the things that not even what you want an apartment but what you want in a relationship like this is this is this is the expectation that i have and then you need to feel very comfortable expressing that and very comfortable walking away so you're not wasting your time because if you don't want to have sex until someone is your boyfriend that's totally fine but that is i would say

not as common of a desire you will find somebody who's totally cool with that or you'll find somebody who that's also what they value but it might take you a little bit longer and you shouldn't try and push other people into that like box to get to that point and again everything comes with its pitfalls like it could end up not working out and then it's you're broken up from that so I yeah I think there's just like reflection to do in this and you seem like you're doing a lot of that already which like massive kudos to you to recognize that you're like hey my behavior is like quite toxic and certainly have like an insecure attachment style and like where is this coming from and how can i work on this and if that means also like taking a break from your friends who

like all you do is third wheel with like please do that like you should have friends who are in the same boat as you not like all of your friends need to be in the same boat as you but like you should have friends who are also single and like friends who are also like enjoy the same things as you and like are not like oh you're gonna go out like me and brad are gonna stay in and watch a movie like you need people who are living they don't have to live every aspect of your life with you but like are at the same milestone part with you so you do not have to go and embark on that alone and or in a comparison and that also makes things easier too if you guys are going out together you letting your single friends go out together that makes it easier to

approach guys too and please be wary of ages of these men yes all right uh we're gonna take a break. When we get back, we'll get into more advice. Your playlist might get you through the workday, but have you ever wondered how your ancestors spent theirs? What work helped them build a life? How did they adapt as the world around them changed. With Ancestry, you can search select historical occupational records for free for a limited time and discover the stories behind the jobs in your family tree. You've got questions. We've got ancestors. Search free until August 31st. Visit ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. All right, we're back. I'm 24 and I need advice because my relationship situation has become way

more dramatic than I ever wanted to be. A few months ago I was dating this guy I really cared about but things got messy with his friend group. One of his close friends had feelings for me and another friend brought up an old video of me making out with someone from before my relationship. He made it sound like something shady had happened while we were together which was not true but my boyfriend believed him. We ended up breaking up and he told me he needed time to figure himself out he said it was just a break and that maybe we could move past it eventually and then about two months later i found that he hooked up with my best friend we're trying to move past it because i still love him and he says he loves he still loves me too but everything has been so up and

down we keep fighting about little things that turn into huge things recently he hung out with a girlfriend girl space friend and multiple people told me it looked like a date he said it was just a group hang but then they ended up going back to his place to watch a movie and didn't tell me that part at first dummy dummy dummy dummy dummy dummy dummy and now we're spending time together again but he doesn't want to officially get back together he says he wants to see where things go which is driving me insane because i don't know where i stand i know i'm acting anxious i'm constantly texting asking questions and then my friends keep telling me new things to make me panic even more i love him but there is so much hurt between us now how do i know this is worth

fixing or if i'm holding on to something that is already broken both i mean like like it's not worth fixing and you need to let this go like everything about this is a walking red flag i don't know why you're still into this guy where's this best friend in all of this too well also like your friends are doing yeah i need your friends to be more direct like your friends you're like my friends are like bringing these things up and it's just like i don't know and i go your friends are trying to tell you like this guy is shady be done with him like yes this they're doing everything their power to like not say that verbatim but like you have to be done with this but also like who is saying this is this your best friend you didn't say my ex best friend

you said my best friend as if this is the current person like is this person a person that's still whispering in your ear and they want you to break up so then they can be with him but what is this is there anything to break up because you're like where do i stand you're not standing you're actually sitting on a bench on a roster like that's where you're at like this is a man who has like suddenly discovered his own sexual prowess and he's he's now discovered that like other people also like him and like he wants to keep you in rotation in case his stock shifts but like he you're not a priority you're not the number one you're not even by the way you shouldn't be the number one you should just be the only one like you should be the one

this is absolutely insane to me this is not how people in love with each other no and also like in a monogamous relationship it's shysty like this everyone is scheming and plotting from his friends to your friends there's videos going around there's like i can't trust by the way all of the video that was all an excuse so he could hook up with your best friend i was was gonna say like all of this it looks like he already had his foot out because what did he need to work on his self for when it's you you in a video making out with like one who had this video two why were they holding on to it this long because they they've had it so like if they didn't want y'all to be together in the first place why didn't this video surface from the

beginning of the relationship what is really going on in this friend group because this is just odd weird petty are you all like does everybody just want to hook up with everybody does everybody hate each other what what what are y'all doing it feels like love island like it feels like you're on a reality show but my other question is is everyone 24 because like that is too old for everyone in the group to be doing this this is 20 year old behavior this should have been the last person this should have been like this is this is the ordeal i'm dealing with but this is like you should have been so done with this guy so long ago i think like you choosing to believe a video that by the way unless you took this on like a fucking sony handycam from like 1984

there's a time stamp on the video we're not together like there's nothing actually that could have been shady while we were in a relationship because we weren't actually in a relationship right where was where did they get the video from did somebody send it to them And regardless, the fact that even though it is dated from before you were together, that it's like, well, it still feels a little shady. How? That to me, I'm like, oh, I'm done with you. Like, oh, you're looking for, you're looking for an out.

And like, by all means, here's the fucking door. But like, it doesn't get to be reopened to you again. Like this man has like not just lost your trust prior to that. like he like didn't trust you and or just like was blatantly disrespecting because like I think that like if your friend admits that they have feelings for me and then your other friend is showing a video of me making out with someone what I'm hearing here is friends are the issue and by the way your friend is also the issue yes so like you and him if this was a relationship that was going to work at that very moment he would have been like my friends are not a good

these are not good people for me these are not good friends for me to have and he would have separated from his like he would have not been friends with those people anymore and been like they're trying to sabotage my relationship and then your best friend would have been like oh my god no no no and then you've been like oh you're trying to fuck my boyfriend we're actually gonna move i'm going to end this friendship but the fact that like he was like no i'm i'm actually gonna agree with my friends who have like pulled this fucking bunny out of a fucking hat magic trick of something that's not real that i know is not real and now i'm actually gonna fuck your friends like it's a level of disrespect on like so many on just like so many factors of it and i

can't believe your other friends are not being like i would sit you down i would i would duct tape you to a chair i would treat you like an unruly passenger on a delta flight and i would then be like we're done we're motherfucking done from this man i'm deleting him from your phone you do not know him if we see him in public i will cuss him out so bad that is embarrassing to you that you won't be able to show your face in front of him again and then you will thank me later And then also, what was he doing out with this group hang where it looked like he was on a single date with this girl? That's what he's saying. It was a group hang.

I don't think it was a group hang. I just brought her back to my place. Who also was like seeing all this and was like, let me report back. No, you need new friends. And not just being like, hey, dude, what are you doing? No. It seems like like everybody in this in this, including you, needs to in all sorts of relationships, not just like romantic ones, but friendship ones, too. Well, I just like you all just want to have an orgy of friends, which then everybody needs to just speak up and say, that's what we want.

And that's what you do. And then nobody gets hurt. You've ever seen. Like, yeah, my thing is that, like, I find it ironic that your friend group is acting like they're on reality TV minus the crucial part of reality TV, which is confrontation. Well, I was going to say a camera, but there was a camera involved. But yes, you are right. A confrontation. I just think if I had seen and this has happened to you before where I had been out at parties when I was in high school or like post high school, but I'm like back around high school people.

Actually, I even did this in college where I would see someone that my friend used to date and I would bitch that person out. One time one time I found a man. I was in a library and I saw him and I whisper bitched him out for like 20 minutes. And it was I didn't even get kicked out of the library. And eventually he left. I was like, don't fucking show your face around here again. And guess what I was referring to? I was referring to our university library because he was like, that's what you do. You don't be like, oh, like I like we were all at a party together. Like, if I end up somewhere where your ex, who has fucked your best friend to, let's assume I'm not this fucking best friend. If I see him there, I'm, I'm not going to be like, oh, yeah, it was just like a group hang. We were all hanging. No, no, no. That man has to leave this party. Or I have to leave this party because someone's like, we gotta, we gotta get her out of here. Because, like, we're escalating the situation. But, like, your friends should never, like, just, like, be chill with that situation. like that i find even if you're not a confrontational person or your friends are not a confrontational person like i've had friends who've been like oh my god i saw they immediately call me i saw so and so i can't do this i'm leaving but just to be like oh yeah by the way yeah like by the way this thing happened and like he did this this and this what no and you're way too like you're not angry no why are you not mad why are you not mad at him for fucking your best friend why are you not mad at your best friend and like why did you not fuck the friend like

like why don't you fuck the friend that that had feelings for you that feels like the next step then we're even like why are you that's i don't actually mean that but i do i do why are you on why are you sitting on the bench be asking this man who has disrespected you so heavily being like i'm just trying to figure out where i stand what do you mean like why why are you letting him call the shots like why are you giving him all this motherfucking power and also like why are your friends kind of just like letting this shit like i'm not well depending on what age i was at like that man would have not taken her to a second location like i i'm not saying that i would have physically stopped them but i would have embarrassed them to the point of being like hey

you know he's dating something like and she's a she's a friend so she she should know that you exist anyway yeah so like i just think that like you seem to be you have such a very you have a very that one of my mutuals on tiktok made a fantastic point about this is about love island but she was and it's an overarching sentiment that she was like said that she's like learned in her life shouted alexis saying that like everyone's threshold for disrespect is different and like you cannot fundamentally get through to people when you tell them like well i found the disrespectful if you're like oh i didn't find that disrespectful all that says is like oh your tolerance for how other people can treat you is so much worse than what i would let how i would

let other people treat me and the issue is is when you let one person treat when the bar is in hell for one person it becomes really fucking easy to have the bar be in hell for everybody people that you date for your friends for any of that and so like if your friends are downplaying all of this and being like oh it's fine it's fine it's fine all that should tell you is not oh i should be fine with this it is oh wow they're fine with someone else treating them like this and that should never be how you gauge what is acceptable behavior or not like if you feel a certain type of way that is which by the way you should feel way stronger than you do about all of this like that is not like a oh i should get on i should stoop down to everybody else and i should

just be okay with this as opposed to being like oh no i should actually have not only a partner who doesn't treat me like this i should have friends who aren't like okay with someone treating me like this or who don't think it's a big deal because i'm just i'm truly just shocked and this man is like i cannot stress to you like he is not the one who got away no you need to run that you need to drive away put him on a greyhound bus and send him away uh-huh forever like along with your friend yeah round up a party bus get a load of gas then everybody actually will fuck and that's fine and then they'll never come back like this and then she'll be like i still love him should i take him back no oh my god this is just like i i the this is such you have been let down by

so many people in your life that like this just makes me feel so bad because like of course you're asking like how do i process this how do i deal with this how do i know like yeah you have no idea how to trust your instincts because like all the people you surround yourself with are enabling his bad behavior or downplaying any of this behavior and treating this like this is totally normal like why is everyone fucking your boyfriend and you're not fucking any of their boyfriends do you know what i mean yeah like if this is going to be your social dynamic why are you like why is is only happening to you and you're not yeah doing it yeah like either become an active participant in this or get off yes because either this is your toxic lifestyle this is your toxic friend

group or like and get this out of your system while you're 24 exactly once you're 26 no no more no 25 i need you to be petering off i need you have six months into being 26 no more no 25 you know yeah start just like it's just one friend by 26 we're done but like 24 to 25 just fuck everybody if that's if that's what you want stop being the victim in this be a participant be the ringleader be the motherfucking ringleader because by your saturn return is going to hit you like that greyhound bus it is your frontal lobe development is going to smack you in the face like that party buzz and it's just going to be like damn there's a lot to process and a lot to go through so like if you want this to be your life then you have to participate in this otherwise

like this is this is just signing yourself up for hurt i hate your fucking friends and i hate this fucking man i'm i'm more mad than you are which is shocking well we're gonna take a break and when we get back i guess we're gonna talk about love island we can and then we'll talk about and then we'll get some um don't blame them too hell yeah real canadian superstore has everything you need this back to school season save on lunchbox savers like ziggy sliced deli meat products for always 375 and get life brand pure vita shampoo or conditioner for eight dollars each at real canadian superstore when you're ready we're ready with a whole world and more when west chat first took flight in 1996 the vibes were a bit different

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Going on vacation? We're here for it. With kids? Who turn the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tablet is louder, whose charger is faster, and why watching the same cartoon for the hundredth time is a human right?

Yep, we totally have vehicles to handle that. Because whether it's a road trip or a business trip, where your flight's delayed, your phone's at 2%, and your dinner is, whatever's open, yep, here for that too. Enterprise, we're here for it. We're back. Love Island, Love Island's been going on.

Melissa, people are suggesting that the last episode of love island get nominated for an emmy for editing specifically like they came out on wednesday would that be correct okay yes it was part one of movie night and i don't know what that means so they basically show all of the islanders like the things that because they were filmed and recorded 24 hours a day it's similar to big brother they don't talk to producers face to face really they don't see them like cameras are just everywhere and they wear mics all the time and so it is a show where people genuinely forget that they're being filmed one of them was like damn how's that audio so clear and i wanted to be like corbin what's around

your neck a microphone that's that's what this necklace is do you think that's just like a fun little thing like that's your microphone you're wearing it all the time so one of the guys it's the irony of this is impeccable one of the guys who is a i've never seen a clear display of a pathological liar because he's also somehow bamboozled by the fact that people are talking about how he's lying and he's like but i'm just like not saying all of the truth like is that lying and everyone's like yes that's that's the definition yeah but he is this is the only instance i've ever seen on love island where this man has not only been lying to every girl he's been talking to he fully believes his own lies like in the moment he's saying it he believes it

i think he passed the lie detector test like i think he earnestly believes what he's saying but turns out he's actually been lying to all of the guys as well so they had no idea any of this was going on and because we're seeing this from truly day one like we're like this is his personality the icing on the cake is his name is in fact sincere which everyone's like did a witch come to his mom in a dream and said you have the opportunity to do something very funny that child you're carrying is going to be the biggest liar in the world how about you name him sincere and his mom is like reposting videos on tiktok that are like half being like I back my son 100% and then half being like, LOL, I can't believe I named this kid Sincere.

And I'm like, wait, how do you feel? Well, maybe she's the same way. That's, hey, true. A learned behavior. Two-faced. You get the two-faced allegations. And so they play all of this. And because we as viewers, we've always seen this.

And like in the villa, they've even started to notice like this man's a liar. Like, okay, yeah, he lies. They all know. But we forget that they weren't seeing everything we're seeing. and then they made i think it was a three minute compilation of like all of the times that he was lying and they put it all in sequence and even people we've watched it we go oh my god this is so much worse than i remember he's saying the exact same thing he's calling the girls these two girls the exact same pet name and then they have like they splice it together so he calls

one of them beloved and then it cuts to him calling the other girl beloved the same day he's not even a good pet name either no well his name's sincere he's very like um inspirational quote mantra man and also anytime someone says anything to him that's like he views as like slightly intellectual he's like every sentence he hears is a brand new sentence and he's always like whoa i never thought of it that way and i go do you think because like someone's like that might hurt her feelings he goes you think wow never thought of it that way i'm like what what are we doing up there you've got a luscious a luscious head of hair and like not not many thoughts going on up there but he did so much lying one of them this girl's like he told the other girl that he

was with that he like wasn't interested in pursuing this connection anymore told the other girl that he wasn't interested in pursuing his other connection anymore kept them separate so they wouldn't be friends and wouldn't talk to each other about this and then he has the other girl on top of him straddling him making out with him the other girl walks through and opens the door other girl jumps off and he goes perfect timing and it was like oh my god like this is crazy all of the angles it is wild and everyone wants this one to be nominated because like it was remarkable like how and he it was silent like no one could defend it like even the guys didn't defend it everyone was like just looking at him with like shock of like holy hell and um now it's

gonna be two parts because he did this with one girl and then he was like why they only play clips from like the beginning like it's been a while and everyone's like you did this with another girl who's also sitting right there and so it's about to be part two of that and um i i could see i wonder if it would get nominated for an emmy it was truly remarkable remarkable but we have coco yeah so coco wrote on tuesday so that would have been before this episode so she says i'm nervous if you if you guys don't know coco is our editor and she's very cool she also thinks that i would have totally different opinions than what Megan has on this show I'm well now I'm nervous because I've seen a couple people with a certain opinion which I don't think you would have all right Coco

said I can't even talk about Love Island USA it's horrible just so bad all I can say is Trinity she's saving the show also a Libra just saying Coco's a Libra everyone else sucks lol but movie night is coming so i may care again next week uk is really where it's great uk is great so uh megan is like megan likes anaya and that girl is horrible beautiful but horrible she never really liked this guy casey she was upset and in a bad mood around him all the time they weren't compatible and she's mad he moved on like girl all you have to do is complain about this man anyways casey is also just a typical dude and doesn't know how to deal with shit they all suck also anaya looks like a horrible kisser watching the new ep now and casey is trash so i actually would agree with

megan on that okay there's so much to say but i don't want to kill you with it but that was the main thing and i was just and she said you hate to be the middleman on this and i was just like no you can go ahead it gets the people going and i have nothing to contribute to this conversation so here's me talking as long as she's not a casey defender like that's the whole thing that i'm like i understand people who are like oh anaya's on the wrong show but like so anaya has a nba basketball i think he played basketball her dad was a like a very successful athlete she grew up in the suburbs she comes from money she was a d1 athlete she's incredibly smart not just like emotionally intelligent but like when i told you that this is the first hand like you're getting

to see a first person look at the literacy crisis in america like it's truly crazy when you have these people read aloud and now love island is only sending text messages to certain people because some of them like do not have like the confidence of reading out loud like there is well they they send text messages i got a text yeah so like that's how they commute that's how the producers essentially communicate of being like you've got a challenge coming up or you've got like so-and-so's got got a date or there's a recoupling or something like that but so like i understand people think that anaya should have been on something like love is blind or whatever or she really didn't understand like that she like locked it down too early or really what i think

the main critique of it is is that like she's not um freaky enough like she's a little too aware of how she's going to be perceived she is a little too aware that like she works for her family's foundation her family has a foundation like she's just more aware of those things and she's also a dark-skinned black woman so like there's that expectation of her but there's also again like she's she's i wouldn't say that she is herself as a person is media trained but she's just aware that she's on tv and people hated alandria for that like because they were like alandria is way too buttoned up she's like way too aware she's on tv which i'm like she is on tv like i i think that that can be a critique that some people have because they prefer like a messier

show so i'm i'm very okay with people saying that like anaya is on the wrong show because i also think i feel bad for anaya i think she like she's gone through like a emote a lot of emotions on this but her mom which was her mom posted being like anaya you can you can her and casey have broken up since and she was like anaya you can get slutty it's okay and like her mom can't actually talk to her while she's in the villa but she's like trying to telepathically tell my child like we'll turn it off have fun like do your thing like go for it um but like casey called her a grandma because she wasn't sleeping with him like wasn't hooking up with him in bed after three weeks and he didn't say that to her face he didn't like talk to her about intimacy he talked about it

behind her back and like yeah and so a lot of people are like well she called him a grandpa and i'm like she called him a grandpa because he was sitting funny one day he called her a grandma she to his face he called her grandma behind her back when one of the guys was talking about the stuff that he'd been doing in bed with one of the other girls and he said i'm not getting any like and casey's sister allegedly i'm not entirely sure if it's confirmed that was her was like you know he should leave he's not getting any play after three weeks and i'm like oh my god like this is you know so i will say that like i i love messy tv too and i think that like this is also what happens when you cast people like you recruit people for the show versus people who sign

up because when you recruit people for the show if you really want that person on the show like jemma owen who is on the uk one her dad is like a david beckham equivalent like michael owen he's like a crazy famous footballer but she was also like 18 and it was disgusting she was way too young on it but she was very motherfucking buttoned up on that show and a lot of people hated that but it's like well that's what you know when casting really wants a certain person on it they're going to give them they're going to tell them that they can do that they can carry themselves on the show or do what they want to do on the show and so i think that like they were the worst match casey and anaya like worst match to have but then he just kept she kept she had that nagging feeling

would bring it up to him and be like i just feel like something's up i feel like maybe i'm a safe pick for you i feel like maybe they weren't compatible he's not compatible with her she's not compatible with him but like he kept like reassuring her like over the top like being like no no no no no and then she still wasn't really buying it and everyone's like oh she's too so too insecure and then he like moves on with somebody else and then she was like okay so i was right like i was a safe match like you weren't that into me and like okay and then everyone's like no no i'm like but if we're all saying we thought he didn't really like her and now he moved on because he clearly didn't really like her that much she's allowed to be like i don't

think you liked me that much and like that's also like the truth but he's also what i really hate about him he's very red pilly very red pill he was like oh my stock's gonna go up in the villa once like these of these girls here should be treating me how the other ones should have always been treating me because like they essentially treat casa more which they send the guys away and bring girls in they treat those girls like truly strippers like they treat them like what happens here stays here i can treat you however like and their girl's goal is to get back into the villain have them pick them over their other connections so it's like very sex forward or like sexually forward um yeah and he said like yeah not nice things behind her back but now anaya has like

the most gorgeous he looks you would like him he looks like everyone keeps calling him clark kent because he looks like superman he's it when they brought him on it was like they brought a ruler onto the island and i got to see what everybody looked like to connect to carl like carl for scale i was like you have to pick this like he's huge he's gorgeous he also seems to be rich because he did ask her in the way he phrased this the last episode i was like anaya please tell me please tell me you're understanding what he's saying he goes so if you like never had to work again like what would you do and i was like say more like you mean i what do you mean i never have to work again she was like oh i would travel like what would you do he goes oh what would i do

if i never had to work and i was like oh this man's planning on working yeah for you to do whatever you want to do or he doesn't have to work no he looks rich he looks yeah that's what i'm saying like he already he's asking that because he already doesn't have to work and he also put on glasses like at night and everyone's like oh okay you are clark kent and every girl who's come out like talking about him only has the best things all of his exes are like he's the greatest guy in the world we stopped dating because he moved away but like he's amazing where can i get a good image of him so i like wholeheartedly ship them but like i'm seeing people who like are you know rooting for casey and this and the girl he's with tt which and they just keep making fun of all

the other girls behind their backs and like laughing at them and like all this stuff and i was like i don't think that's this is the worst group of guys they've ever had like they are red it goes from like this scale you have one man who's like 30 who's just like cries a lot and like he's very sweet but like i only care about him because he's with my favorite girl trinity the rest of them the scale is red pill to incel and that's it which is awful yeah coco also said for me to ask you about clam sham uh slam but i'm already familiar unfortunately first i saw it out of context where there was a um college gymnastics team saying give me your impression of blah blah and everybody just dropped down into the splits and was doing it and i was like i don't know what

the fuck this is but then i saw megan the stallion's instagram so i have understanding now so i don't have to ask where she called her clam slam to her face but i did see someone said like a therapist mott's loving that because i know he loves that saying oh he loves the term and he goes oh my god we got to bring that back and i was like and we had forgotten about it in our household for a while but no but someone a therapist made a tiktok being like half joking but being like if anyone's wondered how because her name's kenzie and the way that she can move on from situations is remarkable like i'm not a fan of her she as soon as she got there she was always like she was like oh my god like he doesn't like girls with blonde hair blue eyes like this has never

happened to me like oh that's this girl okay you told me that before so i'm not a fan of her and i haven't been but she does have a remarkable way of moving on like when she's done with someone And the way that she, one of the guys didn't pick her on day one and she was like, fuck him. I'm fucking done with him. She did not speak to him again until like two days ago when she was forced to. And she hadn't even looked him in the eyes since then. And like they've been in there for weeks. Like she really, when she moves on, she fucking means it.

But I was saying, therapist was saying her nervous system is so regulated because she's constantly like opening up her hip chakras by doing her clam slams. And I was like, oh, that's so. And then beating out the trauma. Yeah. And they were like, no. She's slamming her clam. They talk about how, like, you store all this trauma in your hips. They're like, not Kenzie.

Kenzie's got that. Like, she jumps down into a split. She's done it before when she was angry. She's screaming and cursing, middle fingers up, angrily, slamming repeatedly down into the splits like that. She's done it when she's happy. And, like, we've seen an array of emotions with it. But also, this is Carl's face alone. This man is at least 6'4".

And he's built. Size means nothing to me. but he's built like superman like he's built like a like a triangle in that way let me see i need to find carl schmidt he's probably not private i thought he was private for a second he's the guy with the watch damn and he seems lovely and he's the only he's like anytime someone tries to talk bad about an eye and he's there put shuts it down completely even when they try and talk bad about the other girls i'd be like that other girl is doing too much and he goes i don't think that's fair to say and i was like thank you thank you and also i do think if anyone in the is watching

this show who's like so hardcore team casey love island is a show where women get to yell at men and men don't get to yell at women and like i don't make the rules that's just how it works if you don't like that don't watch the show like i just they're like well it's not fair if he would yell at her and i go no he shouldn't yell at her but she gets to yell at him yeah she can watch another fucking show i hate i i hate that it gets very boy mom-y you know yep speaking of i finished watching hunting wise oh my god how long was it eight episodes okay and that boy mom thing goes a lot further than we thought not as bad as you would as it could go but it's gross does she not just murder it gets grosser doesn't she kill someone yeah but i mean like as far as the boy

mom ish oh okay so that wasn't in the recap what happened now are you gonna watch it it's a it's actually a very good show okay i'll watch it i'll watch it okay it's just little things they never say it outright but you just see little things and you're like yuck yeah well she doesn't seem to like her husband that much no which is what how how it starts yeah well actually no started way before that we get a flashback so i i think it is a well written show very well written very good well i'll watch it usa love island will be ending way before uk love island so i i i'd be interested yeah hell yeah hell yeah all right let's take a break when we get back we'll get into some Don't Blame Them's.

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Search free until August 31st. Visit Ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. And we're back. So last week we had a call about somebody that wanted to drop out of their PhD program and so many people wrote in. I feel honored that we have so many smarty pants among us. thank you so much I'll first start with Diana who I didn't mention during the call because I was like I don't know if things where she lives I don't know if it's the same how it equates well we even I think I even asked you I don't know if it was in the episode but we were like are they even is it called the same you said that in the episode yeah yeah because I was thinking of her too because I was like I know she has a doctorate but I don't know if it's the same yeah I don't

know if the same but she did she had some thoughts also I just want to let all you that listen and are still working on your PhD. Diana put us in her thank yous in her dissertation. So I just want y'all to know that that is an option. Yeah, it is the standard. It's the best thing ever. But she said at my uni PhD minimum is three years. It's very rare. The average is four years, I think, in all over the disciplines like science and humanities and arts. You can hit a maximum of seven years full time and then they go, babe, you're taking too long. Your research is not it. And you want out. Also at my uni, PhDs can sometimes just like give up. And in those cases, we have what's called a MPhil, like philosophy. So it becomes a master's

level degree, a master of philosophy. It doesn't happen a ton in science, but it's the thing that can happen. Someone else wrote in, to answer some of your questions, in most STEM fields, a PhD is about five years. My program is 5.3 years on average, though it can take longer depending on a bunch of circumstances, either within the control or out of the control of the student. If this person is in the US, they likely didn't have a master's going into the PhD, though a lot of programs allow you to pretty easily get a master's on the way to a PhD, and the caller probably would have already passed that point. Most people can get it after finishing their coursework, which typically happens after completing your second year. You can't really

transfer without starting over at least a little bit. Sometimes programs will let you move between advisors within a school and as long as that research is similar enough there won't be too much of an added time to finish your degree as all of the degree requirements for the program are the same. Sometimes it adds like a year. If you want to transfer schools it really depends on how different the two programs are and the advisors involved. Sometimes your coursework will transfer over and you just have to start the research over. This typically means that you would have three to four years of the new program. But sometimes if the degrees are too different or the staff the schools are particular or assholes and you have to start over five years at the new

program oh my god this is so much school for someone who didn't even go to college like i'm like this is flooring me and then they had some advice specifically for the caller advice for the caller anyone thinking about getting a phd the best advice i've heard about getting a phd and choosing a program is it's more important to find an environment where you'll be the happiest so liking the people in your lab the program and the department setup and the city you live in This is because no matter how much you love the research, you will be miserable if you don't like your life outside of the PhD, which will in turn make your research worse. So you guys were spot on there.

Getting a PhD is rough, probably the hardest thing I will have ever done, so the caller shouldn't feel alone in that. I also think about quitting pretty much every single day, despite knowing that staying is the right choice for me. The caller could definitely talk to the advisor about doing an internship, which to help them get a job or just give them a break somewhere new for the summer or the semester. The other thing to consider is that the current job market in their field. For example, my sister is also in a Ph.D. program and could have graduated this past spring, but she decided to delay her graduation until she found a job in her field since the job market is pretty rocky.

If they're also in a field that has a terrible job market right now, it might make sense to stay. But if they're in an industry that is booming right now, it might be advantageous to quit and find a job now while people are hiring. Hopefully this is helpful, and I wish them luck in making this tough decision. That was actually very helpful. And that, everyone, is from the person that had dead birds show up at their door that we actually read their update last week. So, you know, they've been through a lot.

Yeah, they've got so much life they've lived. Wow, that's wild. Yeah. Then Josie wrote in, because I requested it, and she said, Is this play about us? Answer to your summons. It'd be helpful to know what the writer's studying.

I'm studying epidemiology. Is it so niche that academia is the primary slash only career path or is industry an only option? For me, big pharma, tech, or consulting. Yuck. Are these skills you're learning that you could apply to another field? Is there a way to do your research in another location? Example, going to another institute as a visiting scholar. So still making progress on your research while being able to leave your university's bubble.

Do you have to do your research in person? We can arrange to finish our dissertation research remotely. Where are you timeline-wise? Have you completed course requirements and passed your qualifying exams? Propose your dissertation and advance to candidacy. If you've already put in work towards your research, it could be worth staying. Is there an option to master cut since master's degree requirements are usually completed on the way to PhD, which is something that has come up with all the other ones that we've had can you take coursework in other departments i found taking social science courses helps combat my soul-sucking stats and coding classes and stimulates my brain in a different way it also might be a good way to learn new skills

in case you do pivot i was a fellow in a multi-department program and i and i teach so I've gotten to interact with faculty and students outside of my department. If you aren't fully funded, hate the work, don't see a future in academia, and don't see how you could use your degree in the future and could see yourself in a career that doesn't require a PhD, it's not worth it to force yourself to finish. It's normal to feel miserable in your PhD. I joke about quitting regularly i also have a great cohort to commiserate with okay hi female 26 phd in an interdisciplinary science i finished my stem phd oh my god you guys what the fuck does any of this mean i i didn't go to college i finished my stem phd in a marginally large r1 institution oh you

think you defined research meeting top research distinction based on grant money it is very hard to transfer PhD programs, especially after candidacy, and also qualifying exams, usually at three years. Having finished in five years, most take five to six and a half years in STEM, but some more for humanities. More for humanities? I don't know why that's surprising to me. The research is the hardest part to transfer to another place. A time off is much more likely if your professor or PI, principal investigator, investigator, will be sticking around for a while. I suggest you have a good relationship with your PI. Talk to them about finishing. Most times you can have, you can use published papers to build your dissertation this helped my daunting 500 page thesis this is

a huge feat but you're so close in the opportunity and economic cost of leaving after five years living in squalor isn't worth it my mind but the economy isn't great outside of school i made just enough of the phd funded by nsf department and teaching assistantships one way i got out of the mundane was conferences and fellowships for three months in australia look for external opportunities to learn other things more than welcome to answer any other questions and good luck i love that i feel so happy knowing that like one of the things i suggested but like fellowships other way like is the actual right term and i'm like yes go me and then we have one call too okay damn you bitches are smart uh hi melissa and megan i figured melissa would like being mentioned first so there

you go i have been listening for a long time but this is actually my first time calling in i'm calling in for advice for a caller on the episode from June 29th titled ADHD and PhD. I'm calling in about the caller who actually had the issue with completing her PhD. I took five years to receive my PhD. I also did it at a rural university in a conservative state, so I very much relate to kind of not having a lot of people around that I felt like I could relate to. My advice for the caller is to really just reflect on why did you want to get a PhD in the first place, and is that still true for you? Are you passionate about the work, or were you ever passionate about the work, and did

pursuing a PhD kind of change your perspective on that? Are there certain jobs you can only get if you have a PhD? Is it just for the bragging rights? Honestly, I really like the fact that people have to call me doctor. No shame in that. and is the initial goals you had for getting a PhD, is that still true for you? Are you still passionate about it? Are these still the types of jobs you want to get?

Because at the end of the day, whatever your PhD is in, people are going to ask you about forever. Whatever job market you're going into, whenever you're pitching yourself for jobs, they're going to ask, what's your dissertation about and why did you pursue a dissertation in that? I also think that you should reflect on what's making you miserable in your program. Is it the work? Is it the lack of community? If you're looking for community, I really recommend that you go to conferences. I have made a lot of lifelong friends at conferences over the years.

And since you're three years into your program, you have about two years left, you're probably ABD or all but dissertation. And once I reached that point in my program, my degree is in mathematics, so I was able to actually go fully remote after that point and complete my degree not on campus anymore. So I was able to move back to my hometown, reconnect with my people who I really get along with, and I didn't have kind of the isolation of living in this town where I didn't have a whole lot of friends. Also just want to say in academia, the job market sucks. I ended up getting a teaching job and never want to go back to academia again mathematics yeah mathematics a phd in mathematics i mean i

they said the job market sucks because i my first thing i'm like what the fuck do you do with that like that is the by the way like i'm gonna call you doctor i don't even know your name but like dr math like that's great that's as someone who like like learning disability wise like quite like quite literally prevents me from like doing math being able to get a phd in math is like so fucking like it's all impressive but that to me is like that blows my mind i can't do math in my head like wow and like then you start thinking about like the the concepts of math like beyond just like the do you know what i mean like beyond doing the problems of it like i thought about that because like i was talking to mods i had asked him if he'd ever taken taken a linguistics class

and he was like no and i was like oh my god i i had my roommate when i was in college she was a she wanted to be like a speech language pathologist and i think she was like her first major or whatever but she was doing linguistics and that was like her initial major and that was like a don't know fucking why but it was a gen ed like the 101 class was a gen ed english class i could count and like i've always been good at english that's like the subject that like i can do besides like artsy kind of stuff or creative stuff like it writing was i was like oh perfect this will be fun and she was like totally like you're smart like she was all she was very much like you like she would like never let me talk bad about myself and she was like no you are smart

like you've got this and we get to that motherfucking class on day one and when i tell you it was like they were speaking in morris code like it was like what's oh my god what's it called stenography like it was like a different fucking you're like yes i was like i'm sorry what's going on like i couldn't even know the questions that they were asking me like i that was how it was like out of my depths it was. And I remember turning to her being like, bitch, you're so fucking smart. And she was like, no, no, no. And I was like, no, no. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, you're so smart. And then I went and told all of our friends. And I was like, guys, she's been lying to us. Like, she's a super genius. But like, there's just something where

it's like people who have the brains who can, it's just so impressive to me. Like, anytime I'm expanding my knowledge, like it is within a realm of language I understand, which is the English language turns out if you even get more conceptual about the english language don't understand it at all because i took linguistics did not make a fucking lick of sense to me because i thought i was gonna make oh like latin origins of words no no not at all just like oceanography was not finding nemo which is also disappointing oh wow i love all you smarty pants me too thank you all for writing in and giving your own dissertations because they were all long um about about your dissertations especially those of you who are like still in the midst of it like you took the time to

do this of this program that's like a long time and very hard so um yeah appreciate it and let us know right back in if you're not in the patreon group because we'll know when some of you graduate and when some of you are done but those of you who are not in the patreon group i mean join but uh otherwise write in and tell us when you're done so we can celebrate you it's like so cool very cool doctor all right that is our episode join us on thursday on the but am i watching feed where we'll be talking about the new film supergirl and then on monday we'll be back for another episode of don't blame me one of the last episodes before summer break hell yeah goodbye

This is a Sister Sign production hosted by me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa D. Montz, plus Diamond Imprint Productions. Post-production by Coco Lorenz. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. And music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.