Don't Blame Me! - S6E3: I Look Like Fun w/ Melisa D. Monts

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

This week we're sharing advice on:    Dealing with your racist friend Knowing if a guy is genuine Being stuck in the middle of a fighting family members Wishing your boyfriend would spend more time with you Update from the caller that dated her friend's ex Threads of Black Owned Businesses to Help: https://twitter.com/hopewrlds/status/... https://twitter.com/jadealycebod/stat...   If You're Not an Ally, You're an Enemy: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAvvLskDapa/   Follow Us! @meghanrienks www.instagram.com/meghanrienks  @dontblameme  https://www.instagram.com/dontblamemepod/ @sheisnotmelissa www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa     Listen to ad-free on Stitcher Premium! For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com and use promo code 'BLAME,' PLUS exclusive bonus episodes.     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! I'll do my best to share my 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 me if I screw up your life. I kid! My advice IS AMAZING. - Want to WATCH this episode as well? Check out my YouTube channel:  http://youtube.com/meghanrienks Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/join/dontblameme See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hello everybody welcome back to another episode of don't blame me in the quarantine um and oh yeah give me some background vocals so i can lay it down i saw a tiktok of this guy with his daughter and he was she was singing no more monkeys jumping on the bed but like he gave her like a beat box in the background and she was like no more monkeys and it was it was like it like it slapped i was fucking into it um why don't you send that to me that was late last night do you think that when i sent you my titanic one you didn't send me that oh you did send you the titanic one okay that's been my go-to all i know is that you know that i don't go to sleep usually to like three o'clock in the morning so that is not an excuse no but that's my issue because i'm

having a hard time sleeping and i know if i text you who's gonna fucking respond and then just talk to me and then i won't then i won't sleep so like if i'm like committed to not sleeping then i'll text you late at night but otherwise i'm about to say the other day we were no i know it was like four o'clock in the morning and neither of us said anything neither i was like wow it's four o'clock we should go to bed nope nope nope um so this is our first episode that we're recording um i don't even remember the last time we recorded we i mean i don't think there's any like necessarily smooth way to transition and to like address the state of the our country and the state of like the world right now and i think if you have been listening to this podcast for a

while you know um you know that uh we have talked a lot about race on our podcast and we've talked about race between each other um and if you're following us on our individual socials you know um i mean you you know what we've kind of been saying but this is the first podcast and we got uh one honestly only one comment from the one that went up but i always think it's better to kind of address so um i mean i don't even necessarily know what there is to say black lives matter that's a given here right um if you don't believe that you're not welcome here so go ahead and leave and also choke on a dick and go fuck yourself she said it um and uh

to my black brothers and sisters we are strong i love you and like we i mean it's like other people try to demean the things that we say and talk down but we know that our voices will rise and i'm thankful for people like megan who i'm going to say is an ally um for standing up for what's right um and this should not be a political issue at all this is a issue um that is about life and the rights of people about for human beings and so So if you have a problem with that, with saying that Black Lives Matter, you need to look into your own heart because that means that you have, you're racist. There's no other way to put that, but you're racist. And if you don't think that you're racist, it's internalized racism. If you don't know what that is, go look it up. very well said and this is like you said this is not the place for that this is not the place for uh educating you and teaching you if you want to be educated and you need some assistance with that

you are more than welcome to come over to my instagram but this is not that place also google's right there like oh it takes the same amount of time that you can go to her instagram dare i say less time less time where you can go to google and find the specific problem that you have find scholarly articles about it like this isn't something that's like hard no it's not and i think that's something that's really um eye-opening and uncomfortable for a lot of white people is that it feel it for a lot of people right now it is feeling hard and that is like a moral question of oh why does this feel hard and that is systemic racism and i go into it a ton um and it is and the reason why i'm saying you can go to my instagram which also

if you message me on instagram and ask a question the first thing i'm going to respond to you and say is google it um is that uh this is this podcast and like the calls that we have and there is some educating that is done here but this is a human rights issue and it is a moral issue and i don't even think it's an issue like i just think like it like the fact that it is even up for debate or like conversation is completely fucking disgusting and we're not entertaining that here at all um and uh i would also like to say um i personally would also love if people didn't message you shit like i i i the things that i've gotten mostly is people just like they're pushing their white guilt on me by apologizing

and uh saying weird inappropriate tasteless things to me pushing their racism or their family's racism onto me i don't want to hear that shit at all and this is mostly coming for from people that i don't know some people i know too but mostly from people that i don't know doing a push-up challenge for my mental health and tagging me in it along with other black people that you don't know it's not okay like at all push-up challenge for mental health awareness yes that's the kesha song the kesha song that's about like you know like praying for my abuser to like be a better person yeah yeah um tasteless about think think about what you're doing really think about what you're doing take a breather take a minute process before you

fucking hit send um or don't even hit sin i don't know you don't hit no don't hit send don't do it well um we'll have any relevant links i that in the description for anyone who wants to get involved uh and you have to get involved it's a human rights issue and you have to if you listen to our podcast otherwise you are not welcome here and you are not a little fucker you're a fucking racist dickhead so silence is part of the issue if you don't feel right speaking up that's your problem and you're racist if you make excuses for people that don't speak up you're part you're enabling what they're doing and you're part of the problem mm-hmm shireen's had a great uh response to a i think it was a

a tweet or if it did it happen today no this was a while ago okay she sent me something today too so this one she had just coming out she had just responded to something i she responded to a comment i think it was a comment on my instagram and she said silence is violence and that is like a it's a very true statement and i think people think of like oh i want to come across like smart and educated and i'm like okay so then do a google search before do a quick google search but how are you getting smart and educated on this topic sitting on your fucking ass saying i'm not going to say anything and also all you have to say something too that you've seen somebody else say and all you have to say is black lives matter and if my whole thought process is if you are someone

which i don't agree with this but i'm like if you have to step away and learn and educate yourself hi i'm so and so i'm saying i stand for black lives matter i'm gonna take the next couple days to read this book to watch this movie and i will be back with more i will be back like more well educated on this subject and i'm ready to discuss this and talk to my racist friends and family but not like you'll see me in three months when i feel like this has died down and now i can post my like normal stuff right here's your picture of my food thanks no thank you no we don't need to fucking see that also this isn't a memeable moment either for you like the death of people is not memeable so don't use this to build your clout either i think that's it i mean the

first call is about racism too so buckle up buckle up bitches we're getting ready this is don't play me an advice podcast you guys didn't know if you didn't know imagine this is the first podcast you stumble upon and it's like wow well we'll know we'll know we're getting the real ones um so if you want to call in for an upcoming episode the phone number is 310-694-0976 and international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com so let's get on into it so i am a planetary moon and sun and i am a towards rising um the person i'm talking about is a Virgo um and so the so I have a best I had a best friend um and so last year about uh during the summer uh it was one of the reasons why we kind of stopped our friendship was because like

she was being very ignorant and I'm a black woman she's Salvadorian and her parents are immigrants um she was being very ignorant about black issues and like things like don't say the n-word even if in a song it's not that hard right um but apparently it is to a lot of people but um and so we just had a conversation about that um at the end of summer last year um by the way we're both in college we go to different colleges but we're both um college students um and so we just had a conversation about it because it was really bothering me like I can't have you be my best friend and be saying these things as if it's okay nor did I say it was okay nor do I say it around hurt so i'm like i don't know where you got this idea from but um the reason we kind of broke our

our stop their friendship or cut each other off was because um like around october she did really ignorant things about her roommate and um and dehumanizing things and she was just trying to be like i'm not dehumanizing and i'm like girl you literally called her an animal you can't call someone an animal as if you're above them and it was just like babbling to me because i was like girl you are a minority you are a woman you are a woman of color like they're all the odds are active against you girl especially in the Trump era so like I don't know where you got this thing that you thought you had privilege in this world but you don't I'm sorry this was like a whole big argument on the phone um and so like we decided to like end our friendship um long story short

like I had her Instagram information on my phone um and and she was just like oh like I really think you need to get off the Instagram right things that I should do right the the Sagittarius a petty the Taurus in me was just like oh hell no you tell me what to do now I'm gonna fuck your shit up right I didn't fuck her shit up I was just like doing too much I was just being a petty immature I know I got it um so like last year in January logged off the phone it was good like I was like trying to you know better myself right lately in this quarantine like everybody's been having dreams and feeling really anxious lately my dreams have been like she's been involved in and we've been friends um I don't know what that's supposed to mean um I'm just a little nervous my

question is I don't know what to do is this something where I just need to cut her off for good and like just never speak to her again and I understand the reasons why but I just keep feeling this urge that I need to talk to her and maybe that's because she's been my best friend for the last 15 years help me please thank you she's a Virgo by the way I think I said that bye um you already you yeah i think you do if she's not good for you emotionally she obviously doesn't care about your needs um she's racist even if you didn't say it and if she doesn't believe it just because somebody is another person of color that doesn't make them non-racist um i would just you just need to cut her completely out of your

life um and i don't think the dreams mean anything like dreams are just things that our brain conjure up they're not actual facts about life or anything I think what you want is closure and that is what you're asking do you need to get closure yeah no that sounds that sounds really right to me and I think uh 15 years of friendship is a really really long time and not in the sense that you need to honor that friendship but in the sense that it's going to take you a really long time to get over this like friendship loss because it's losing a best friend and losing a best friend because she's been racist you've called her out on it and she's continued to do it like that is like so many traumatic blows that i think i think you'll probably dream about her for

a good amount of time i think like you're still processing all of it and i think holding on to the good memories that you did have and especially if you guys became friends when you were younger um a lot of I don't know like like it can be a lot of things that you either thought she would grow out of or that she grew into and it was very different than the person that you knew um but it is not I mean you don't need me to tell you that it's not your responsibility to like deal with that and educate her and like give her uh give her the benefit of the doubt or anything like that but i truly do just think that you need to treat it like a breakup like a romantic breakup versus just a friend breakup i think friend breakups like that are harder like so much harder

to get over she's been part of your life most of your life like she probably felt like family to you that she's toxic yeah and i would urge you i mean there's all of those like stages of like grief of like getting over friendships and stuff like that i would urge you as much as you can to like maybe even write down all of the things that you don't like about her and all of the bad parts of your friendship and think back like not just these very obvious awful racist issues but think back to like other even just like little things or things when you were younger and all of that stuff and look back at it every time you're like thinking about her you want to reach out to her or something like that um and just remind yourself like I think you need to be

I think you need to get mad at her again I think right now you miss her and I think maybe you need to get mad again like you did when you guys ended the friendship um and I think yeah because I think you're probably just at the missing her stage and she doesn't deserve you to miss her like and I think it's valid that you do but her not being in your life is leaving room for somebody else who's going to be way fucking better in your life it's a shitty friend it's not even a friend it's not a friend at all value anything that you say you tell her that what she says hurts you and she doesn't care that's fucked up like that's next level fucked up also i am just highly curious um for any listeners out there please just like slide into our dms or comment on the youtube

stream do people not listen to radio edits of songs that like have is that i'm not like that's like what i like i have i don't think most people i think most people listen they download on their phone the explicit versions oh because i was like you could there's the non-explicit versions that's not the ones that they want to listen to and so they think that since it's in a song that it gives in a free pass but like you cannot say the lyrics of a song like there's some songs that i don't say certain words in like you you can censor yourself i saw this video of this girl and she was a black girl and it was like i don't even i think it might have been i don't even want to misspeak but it was a rap song that was like super fast and she did the whole thing and didn't say the n-word one

time and she was like if i can do it you can do it yeah well i mean i even think about it in the sense of you're saying there's like you can there are rap songs or any songs that some people won't sing like if you think of like very uh like macho like cis hetero dudes like will not sing a song that involves like like if it's about a guy like they won't sing something if it's like oh like yeah i'm gonna blow it or like something that's like too vulgar or too raunchy that like can be like oh this is gay like this is but you won't sing that but like but i just always thought i always think it's so odd because i've only ever listened to the not explicit versions of songs and i had mentioned that to moths and he was like i don't actually know like he's like i didn't i

like never really he's like i don't sing that ever but he's like i never really thought of that as like a why aren't these like kids on tiktok dancing to like uh these white kids on tiktok like why are you what like yeah but and also most of the time like first of all because because they think it's cool you should love black people as much as you love black culture and if you don't you have no respect for it and you're racist no it's it's 100 true i just i always think it's funny to think of like um i don't know i love coming back at like the arguments with people i'm like you literally have a version right here so now i know the reason why you're doing it is because you're racist but like now what's gonna be your answer when i've given

you this one like yeah do you have one do you fucking have one but um also i would like to say there are some songs that the radio edits are hilarious like they're so much funnier and like i'm into it like they're because they'll censor i mean there's some explicit versus non like levels of explicit songs but there are some that like i forget which one it was but there was some usher song that made it it was like chef's kiss like the radio edit was fucking hilarious and i was like yeah usher did not write this to be this way yeah but there's some songs that like i'll know it like especially from childhood i'll know the the radio version and then i'll be older and listen to the explicit version i'm like this song is disgusting it's so much better the other

way i don't i can't remember what song there is but there's an exact one that i have that exact same thing with where i'm like i don't remember this as a kid and then i got older and i was like the fuck is this wholesome song i listened to on the way to school in seventh grade the fuck is this nasty shit oh so funny oh um well should we go on to the next one Hi, I'm Aaliyah and I'm in Aries, just in case that matters. I'm 20 years old and I'm having some relationship trouble. I was recently talking to a guy I met off Tinder for about a month. However, we do know some mutual people from high school.

He had made it seem like he wanted a relationship with me. He would tell me how he's never met someone he's had such a good connection with. And I agreed because we had a lot of the same views from past conversations that we had. He brought me a flower, which he knew was my favorite one, on our first date, and we went out for six hours, which it went really well, and he even asked me on a second one. We were texting per usual, flirty and whatnot, and he texted me a couple hours later and said basically never mind, and he couldn't pursue a relationship because of things that he's dealing with. I guess I'm just in shock, and I'm struggling with dealing with future relationships and how I'm going to trust anyone again. um I've dealt with a situation like this in the past and I let it go on for almost a year where it was off and on again so my question for you guys would be how can you tell when a guy is

being genuine because apparently I have a tendency to get up caught up in what they say and end up getting blindsided in the end thank you so much and I love listening to your podcast you guys are amazing bye it is hard because it is like I don't know it's once you know you're good and you'll know from that point on and you won't get into this kind of thing again but until you learn that it's like essentially and I honestly don't even know how you learn it without getting like without just being jaded and having that be a huge influence. I think my first advice would be if you have a friend who is like us, you have a friend who kind of tells you how it is and doesn't sugarcoat and is really straightforward with you. I would get their

input once you start texting this guy, like any guy that you're talking to and have them kind of suss it out. Or if you have a friend who's like dealt with a lot of fuckboys, but I would also screenshot all of the texts from this previous dude and compare him to the next guys that you're dating. Because I think there's a lot of things that sound that we can kind of, we can hear one thing and this is not bad we all fucking do this we can hear one statement and that statement can sound pretty close to what we want it to sound like and it's really easy to make it sound like that in our head and more often than not we're also reading into like actions of oh well he brought me up like a flower and we were wearing we're weighing these i think actions speak louder than

words once you're dating but i think words speak so fucking loud once when you're just like in that courting stage because like every guy or not every guy but a ton of guys will be like no i really see like a future with you but then if he's not texting you or is like not really responding as much if you can if you're having to use his actions or his words to justify the other that's kind of a hmm sounds like a fuck boy but i think the biggest thing is if it sounds if he's saying everything that you want to hear and it sounds too good to be true it probably is yeah and i think that it can feel i mean the media's whole goal is to like make women feel like shit like it is it is uh you shouldn't have hair on your body you're too big you're too small like your hair

is too flat it needs to be bigger it's too long it's too short like it is everything needs to be fixed and everything is wrong and so we have these unrealistic and unattainable beauty standards and then we also have not a ton of mental health support so you have all of that combined and I think it just it essentially just breeds us or at least for me in my own experience to like then go out kind of into the dating world and then you're seeking validation from these other people and that they say these things that make it feel like oh wow this is so amazing this is what it's like in the movies this is how it's supposed to be but your first date with someone they should it should be just as much as you getting to know them as them getting to know you and if they're like all

about you on the first date they don't know you yeah and that to me that is a that's a routine and that's a move like i think if you go on a first date and you have like an amazing mind-blowing first date and it's like so fucking fantastic and like neither of you expected it i totally understand if you can be like oh wow crazy amazing connection but i think that preempt that preemptive planning of a first date where it feels so smooth and so slick and you're being like courted essentially when in reality he should be also getting to know you to decide if he likes you too i think if you go into a first date and the dude already likes you he's already doing that with every other bitch yeah the hard thing is that we there's a lot of information missing

from yeah um we don't know what you said what he said um the specifics of like what the date was it could have been like they went to the movies at the movies you're just sitting next to somebody and maybe he enjoyed the movie and then he got home he's like i don't think I really like her. Oh, I also think he got back together with his ex-girlfriend or he's hooking up with somebody else. Somebody else gave him the green light. I think if you've had two bad experiences like this and you're like, I don't mean to sound negative, but I think the more that you can treat this as like a learning experience and like, oh, cool. Thank you for teaching me this. Now I have this under my pocket to keep in mind the next time I go out with someone

versus feeling like you're having to like look over your shoulder and like be so like oh no this is gonna happen again i think if you can take this as empowering information versus like debilitating information i think you will go you'll you'll be able to take in these dates a little bit more because these dudes do fucking exist and the reason the way that you figure out if they're shitty or not like any of your friends who's like has a good fuck boy sensor is because they've fucked a lot of fuck boys like yeah you don't i don't think that we can necessarily give you any like full-on cheat code but just know that it's it happens a lot and it's something that it's like a muscle it's something that you're going to learn and you're

always going to get better and it's never a waste of your time and every shitty date that you go on or guy who kind of like ghosts you or like screws you over they're only meaningless if you don't learn anything from them also how many guys are you dating because it seems like you're it was just those two guys over the course of a year so like if you're only dating one or two guys every now and again the chances of you getting the shitty guy it's gonna be higher way higher because you're not casting your net wide enough you got to put your 10 000 hours in yeah but i would also say a good a good rule of thumb is um go on once you if you like match with some guy go on three dates in a week and then you can also compare and contrast of like are all of these

guys saying the same thing is one now coming across more genuine than the other i think it can be a little easier to not get caught up in the moment and the romance of all of it when you can literally like compare and contrast pie chart shit and also if his name is like you know any of those typical fuck boy names that's like a hard pass and a mirror pic a shirtless mirror pic out put it in your spank bank but don't date him no no no no no no okay should we go on to the next yeah hi um so i'm just calling to get some advice for myself and my mom and sister um okay i'll explain the situation um it's just it's really weird um so like i'm pretty close to my mom and my sister um just for context i'm 21 and my sister's about to turn 20 um it's just like

they come to me with a lot of their problems and a lot of it is about each other and they have a very weirdly unhealthy but healthy relationship it's hard to explain uh my sister has a two-year-old daughter about 23 with a pos human being which caused a lot of stuff to my sister like just a lot of not good stuff mentally and my mom had a lot of that happening to her when she was younger and the difference is that when my mom like when I had my mom she was taught you know push it down and my sister wants to talk about it wants to support but my mom doesn't know how to do that so they have a lot of communication problems and so right now my mom and my sister are raising this kids and my sister you know is the parent and she wants to be the only parent but she has yet to

finish high school which you know good for her to keep going for it but they both keep coming to me with problems about each other and they it's like they want me to pick their problems kind of and I keep telling them I don't want to get in the middle of it I don't want to pick sides um and then they get mad at me or frustrated i say um when i don't tell each other about what the other said about them um and my sister's trying to move out and she cannot that's a car hold um they cannot like she can't um support herself if she moves out and And, yeah, I don't know. I just would like some advice on, you know, how do I handle this

and still be supportive of them without getting in the middle of it and maybe what they should do. They both refuse to go to therapy, which I think they should. Or I suggest a journal conversation or just put it down and work through it and just be there. But, I don't know, they just don't listen. But, yeah, they take out their frustration on me. But thank you, guys.

oh god yeah i don't envy you i don't either being in the middle um i mean like my mom does this but it's usually over stupid petty shit is like whoever's her favorite that week that's who she's gonna complain about well no whoever made her mad that week then the other person's her favorite and then she's gonna complain about that person but it's like over stupid shit that we get over in a few days but this is major there's a lot of layers to this because your mom is essentially still taking care of your sister and the child so she feels like she needs to mom both of them um and then your sister on the other hand is a mother yet she can't finally support herself she hasn't finished high school yet um but she has a child so in your sister's

if your sister didn't have this child then i don't think she would feel like an adult you know the child is what what is making her feel like an adult and so she wants to be treated like an adult when she doesn't take care of a full spectrum of adult responsibilities i'm sorry you're in the middle of this um you're doing everything that you can do um you're giving them all the tools that they can have um and like you said they want you to fix it but like you can't fix it if they don't actually want to get the help um so i would i if this was me i would be like look i love you i love you you guys love each other we all love each other but like if you really love me and if you really love each other you'll fix this with somebody that's equipped

to fix this. I don't have the tools. You're causing a mental burden for myself. So if you actually want this fixed, if you're serious about fixing this relationship, you guys need to get professional help or at the bare minimum, write, write down everything that is frustrating you without the, about the other person. So then you can communicate openly. Yeah. I, I'm so on board with all of that i think i and i also don't have i have a half brother but it's not i don't want to call he's way older yeah he's not you didn't grow up together no um so i'm i can't i'm my advice might be like super far off um but you sound so incredibly reasonable and like melissa said i think both of i think your mom and your sister both have solid points i think your mom

You also mentioned that your mom, like she said that like she's gone through this like similar kind of stuff. So she's seeing herself in her daughter a lot. And so she's trying to prevent and fix any mistakes that she did vicariously through her daughter. And that never goes unnoticed. like no matter how subtle you think it is, it becomes really controlling because I think your mom's having a hard time. Um, it can be really hard to communicate that because you get, it's like, if it's hysterical, it's historical. Like you get worked up, you see this thing happening and you're like, let me just fix it. Let me go, like, let me get this. But your sister has to learn her own lessons. Otherwise she's just going to be, and it sounds like she has really resistant, like resisting a lot to what your mom is saying and doing and I wonder if that is because your mom is not like you know how like when you want someone to do something like and you like make

them think it's their idea and like give them that idea I think in this case it might be that your mom has I mean she obviously has more invested in this because it's her daughter but it also feels like oh this is my chance to fix the things that I I like went through or I did or things that I wish I would have learned and wish I would have known, but she needed to learn them and know them. And so does your sister. I would suggest coming at it from the place of your niece.

I think she said daughter or kid. Okay, let's niece or nephew or non-binary little cutie. Come at it from the place of, this is a situation that we're in right now. And we are so happy that we have this member of our family and obviously tensions have run really high, but they're at an age now where they, we need to get this solved and we need to have a good process and a good system at home because they're grow. This is how they're growing up.

And I don't want them to grow up in an energy from, in a place that feels really tense or it feels really split in the middle um as somebody who grew up in a thing like that obviously this is a very different kind of situation but I think if you can go about it on come at it from your side and the kid because I think that's the two things that they both care about and I would say to them you both can be right and you both can be wrong and I think that you both have like really great points and I want to learn how we can do this better and I have signed us all up for a family therapy session and all three of you are there because a therapist will also be I think if you have you you are the mediator between them and I think if you are in a therapy session with them

not maybe not like forever but even just for the first couple ones the therapist can also you will be a part of the conversation and you will be there to be like well this is this this is this this is where i'm at in the middle and i don't know what to do and i can help out in that sort of sense um i would really really encourage that if you can and maybe if that seems not happening this sounds like manipulative as shit but this is the shit that i used to do when i was a kid is like asking for that kind of like, I don't know, empathetic, uh, more like not sad, but kind of like heartstring stuff. I asked for it for your birthday. Be like, for my birthday, all I want is this. That is literally all I want, please. Um, and maybe it's also you, I don't know if you're

in therapy, but if you are in therapy, maybe it's you going to a family counselor alone and being like how can I get my sister and my mom in here with me and you can kind of be equipped with the tools for that because I do think the most important thing for you is your mental health because there's no way that you can first of all there's no nothing you you know that there's nothing really you're nothing really you can do you're just like the pawn in between but I think you need to focus on your mental health and if they're not willing to go to therapy I definitely think that you should and your therapist could even give you some like really great tools on approaching it day by day like each specific incident and then even if it's just like

fucking ranting to your therapist for like 50 minutes after like a rough week with them and really being able to like let it all out and vent and then feel a little less a little less like there's all this pressure on you to like fix everybody else it can be about you but i don't envy you but i will say i do like when you are melissa you melissa are the um the the the the least favorite child of the week oh it's a lot it's my favorite it's like i'm like what's up you're like no it's just no my i'm always texting my sister i'm the least favorite this week i love it it's so fucking funny you also like you text like you talk like your personality people don't know your personality but like i think if someone if like our listeners

read our text messages and like you'd be like oh i had to be like i can hear it like i can so hear it so it's fucking funny no i mean i like the the the shit that you were texting your parents when like quarantine first started i'm like i'm reading the screenshots i forgot in your voice oh my god they were so funny so fucking funny made me laugh uh okay guys we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back okay let's get into the next one hey guys i have a little bit of a problem I don't know if it's a problem or not I guess you will tell me but I really I'm trying to date always because you look like so much fun but I don't want to look like fine I want to look like somebody who these guys could have a future with and date but I have all these

people telling me I look like fine and they just want to hook up and it's just really bad for my self-esteem because yes I am fine that's me but I'm just not taken seriously when it comes to dating at all and I don't know how I can present myself in a way that makes it seem like I'm approachable but I'm also trying to get cuffed like I've hooked up with a lot of people just because I don't know why too much but yeah how how do I be less fun how do I be more dateable I don't really know but I've had so many failed relationships because they just want to chill and i'm a really chill person so i guess i give off that back that vibe but i also just want to settle down but everybody i'm talking to hits me with this you seem like so much fun or worse

you're a cool girl like i hate it so how do i change should i change let me know bye dude i know that this is like a problem for you but i am lightweight jealous no one's ever been like no it's fun nobody's said that to me i'm offended like you know like that means you look like you're gonna be like a good fucking time in bed yeah like it's a compliment and i totally understand it's a compliment but like also it's not no exactly and it's not what you want it's it's a compliment if it's what you want to hear and like i think it'd be i don't know i think it's it's flattering but it doesn't get you any closer to like what you want at all and it also is kind of like yeah it's like it's a it's a gross kind of comment but like i'm i'm i'm a leo

so i'm like no one's ever called me fun and never that's the thing i've never heard this before it's interesting like i i wish you would i know we stay like anonymous around here but i wish you would have sent over a picture a picture you could have put like a emoji over your face like what does fun look like i can tell you what fun looks like i can tell you what that's what i'm gonna tell it's what straight head like these it's i'm gonna call them let's call them simple dudes simps well that's a different thing oh yeah the fuck that's monster's new favorite fucking slang by the way i put it in my one of my scripts one of the ones i finished last week i put that i caught hadn't called some call somebody called that that's so funny but like it's this this kind of

guy who like sends uh a like like sends like the same like hey girl you up text messages like this is like you look like fun is a fuck boy thing to say and a fuck boy is going to say that to a girl who in their mind which is incorrect is like you're presenting yourself in a way that they think oh she's doing this because she wants to have sex with me not like she's doing this because like she's hot and she's confident and she's great fun is going to in my mind in my experience because i've had i i've never been called fun but i've had friends who have been called fun i've been friends with guys who have like dated like hooked up with the girls like oh she looks like fun or she's just fun. She looks like a good time. Yeah. That I've heard. It's

that. It's that. And it's a mix of confidence. It's a mix of chill and them being sexually attracted to you. And I think that those those traits are not something you need to work on at all. Those are great fucking things. You don't need to change anything about you. You need to filter these dudes better and if a guy calls you fun out not about it and don't entertain it at all like don't go on dates with them don't hook up with them just because unless you like just want to hook up with them but you know that they're just a guy that you want to throw away unless you just see him as fun yeah don't exactly and it's it's uh it kind of sounds like it's like a fuck boy meets a fuck girl and he's like I know I don't have to put in the work with her

so let me just say what I want from her and get it and then we both can move on because that's all she wants from me too. I would also do some like reflecting internally and if chill is a term that you have given yourself and that you pride yourself on and that you really like about yourself or if it is a compliment that a guy gave you that you feel like it has to affirm this part of you that maybe was like a little bit there but not so much and now you have to like you have to hold up this expectation of being like a chill cool girl because uh that i think that compliment can be that can fuck with you like it can fuck with you because it essentially i just like love how chill you are and most of the time someone's saying that is very early on we haven't gotten

in an argument yet you don't know me all that well and now i'm feeling like you've put this barrier up into what the threshold of my reaction and my feelings can be but because you've deemed me as chill so therefore whatever you think chill is i must fall under those categories and react accordingly how you see fit but we're not having a conversation i do think it is uh i don't think it's necessarily always an intentional misogynistic kind of comment but the opposite of saying like wow you're such a chill girl is the equivalent of saying you're not like other girls other girls are crazy and I think there's a very uh I think it's so ingrained in our society like certain phrases and words and things like that that people don't necessarily know that you could

have definitely like dated someone who was really intense and was a lot and was like manipulative and like had uh what had um like attachment issues and like all of that sort of stuff but um that also then that's not everybody and so then if you have this one bad experience then you take it on to like give somebody else that kind of compliment um i don't think it's necessarily always intended to be misogynistic but i think it is a lot of the time um and i would say i mean my my first i would if you've been like i hate the phrase like one of the dudes like you've been that like friend cool girl like we're fun like i'm not looking for a relationship yeah and like i think the the key is get out of that circle when you're starting to date people um because i mean i think

we can obviously all grow and evolve and change and like see that in other people too but i think maybe these groups of like dudes can't and they're like just seeing you as one specific thing um and then for dating apps like you said don't even respond to a guy who says that I would also say I know I have it in my book that says the um things that you should put on your like how to make your dating app profile great um I would I would look at what your pictures are and I say this in like a I'm not gonna like say like don't have your boobs out like have your fucking like do whatever like fucking rock them titties like when I have big boobs lives for them being out I'm all for a good titty free the nip but more along the lines of make sure that every picture

that you have is a representation of you that you are doing because it's something you really like about you not that you think other people are going to like about you and I my always my rule of thumb is I don't think you need to have drinking pictures on your dating profile because I think your profile should be here are the core things about me or here are the core things that like I want you to really get a sense of and let her like the first or like these these things that like are the most prevalent parts of who I am and it's I don't think drinking is one that you need to show I think it's assumed I'm assuming you drink I'm assuming you do that I'm assuming you party but like if it says in your profile it usually says do you drink are you a drinker so

like if it's already in your if you already have it in a profile that you drink you don't have to show pictures that that's something that you're doing yeah and I think if like on the reverse side when I was on dating apps and I saw a dude and his like he had two pictures or even honestly just one of him like bottle service in Vegas at a club I was like oh this is prevalent in your personality this is prevalent in who you are and I'm not like that so nah so I don't think that you I think now that you know that you're fun and you're a good time I don't think your profile needs to reflect that aspect of it I think that you can just really and maybe maybe it already does. And maybe you're just coming across these like absolute shit dudes, but I think that you

can, um, yeah, focus on stuff about you that you really like. It makes you feel really confident and really good and not, yeah, maybe some things about you or like some, like, yeah, some aspects of you that like other people don't necessarily give you, like your friends compliment you on that, not these dudes do like something that you can kind of take it away from, uh, pleasing them, um but yeah i think we should add this you look like fun you look like a good time you're so cool you're so chill needs to be added to uh our list of things that fuck boys say that we know and how we can tell that they're a fuck boy i just like i've always wanted to be like told that i look like fun or a good time or cool

what was your like what was your um like not not in the like i always get the why aren't you in the relationship you're so cool and then like it was like a lot of dudes it was like a long time where it would be like dudes in relationships were the only guys that were coming up to me and wanted me to be like their reason for getting out of their relationships you and Lily both that's Lily like I don't know if Lily's ever like dudes in relationships love love her yeah and both of you are very chill ah see that's what it is that's what that that attraction of that is is that oh I'm with a girl she's so crazy she's the worst even though I'm the one pursuing somebody else in a relationship and so then you become like that fucking epitome

shrine of everything that she's not because you're so cool and chill okay should we go on to the next yeah i have boyfriend we've been dating for two and a half years living together since about october um he's always been a gamer it's more of a social thing to do with his friends he has different friend groups and he always has to kind of make time for each of them and they're most of them are laid off but he isn't and he doesn't want to feel left out of gaming and it's also a big stress reliever for him since his current job is um now online and he doesn't really like that um it changed his job a whole lot and it's not as fun for him he doesn't really enjoy it and stresses him out a lot um he is laid or i'm sorry i'm laid off he isn't he works from home and has

less work hours than before but he still wants to game more he's been gaming a lot more than he usually does just based on his friends wanting to game more I guess um he created a schedule because he was so stressed out um Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday he spends about 25 hours gaming 17 hours with me Friday he games for about two hours then hangs with me and then Saturday is like a work day catch up on I don't know chores hang out with me um just kind of a busy day and then Sunday is a gaming day where he literally just spends the entire day gaming which is totally fine um he's always had Sunday as a gaming day um but lately it's been an actual full day not just the night um but that's fine uh he's really stressed and trying to balance everything

and gaming seems to be a big stress reliever for him side note he's so stressed out that he has no sex drive which is very very unusual for him um he told me that and he I don't really have anything I can do for hours on end so I've been kind of going crazy because I feel like I always need to do stuff and I'm not the type of person that can just spend all day watching Netflix and be happy I don't know it's just I I need to do things so I've been trying to be productive but it's really hard um also kind of wish he would just choose to hang out with me more than he games but i mean yeah i don't know um any advice would be appreciated any ideas for more hobbies i can pick up i'm trying to learn french but yeah any advice would be appreciated

um i mean i looked it up she said monday through wednesday or monday through thursday he's like gaming for all of those hours um that's like over six hours a day she said he's spending 25 hours a week gaming 17 hours a week with her seven okay wait okay so 25 hours a week gaming that's five or i'm assuming that's divided by like she means work week because then she specified sunday he games all day right yeah so 20 so 25 divided by five that's five megan why'd you fucking look that up you knew it though i know i clicked you know the fives no i know i literally already, I clicked it and then it said five and then I go, I knew this. Um, it was really as it was happening though. And so then 17 hours with you, how many, okay. So there's 20, 24 hours in

a day times seven. There's 168 hours. No one can give me shit for this, by the way. I'm not going to math 168 hours in a week. And he's spending 25 at least gaming and then 17 with you. And then the weekend then he's got what chores yeah okay and then also sleeping i mean okay i am very i'll say lucky i'm all about gaming i think gaming is great um i'm specifically very all pro girls who game i think it's you know awesome all about it uh but i am not a gamer and i am a highly anxious person and games really fucking stress me out um so uh i'm i'm i'm pretty happy that i'm not in a relationship with someone who games a ton literally got his first gaming console and um i don't think yeah i don't think you didn't finish

he got his first one a couple weeks ago uh when quarantine all started um and i think i think you're being too nice like he's calculated the amount of hours and he is spending almost 10 more hours gaming than hanging out with you and you are unemployed and bored as fuck and i am like you i cannot fucking sit and watch netflix like i need to do shit i need to like whether it's productive or not like i am just like i need to do shit like i get so fucking bored and i would be really resenting if like my partner was just at the house with me choosing not to hang out but i don't know you know it doesn't necessarily sound like you've even expressed this to him see i disagree well that's because you love your own fucking space i do

yeah you're not like 17 hours a week that sounds great no but like i can understand if you're not doing anything but i think you need to get your own things to be doing like you for example have your puzzles she doesn't she says i want to learn french but she's not doing french like if there are things that you want to do actively pursue them because i think if you're doing those other things you're not gonna if you have your own shit going on then it's not him doing his shit isn't gonna weigh as much because he's not he's working and he's playing his games and he's not having sex with you and so those those are the issues so like maybe like look at like taking there's a lot of free online courses like you can do the french you can like for example i i'm like him where i

sit down and i schedule out every single hour of the day like every hour and so um i have like i've started my gardening stuff i painted all my furniture in my place i'm taking like i took like a nasa class online so like i feel like you just need to be doing shit and then you won't realize how much time he's spending not with you but the sex thing is what the real issue is here and I think that's why you're mad well I also think that I think that you're feeling insecure and that he doesn't want to hang out with you and I think you need to have a conversation with him about that because I think you're feeling like sad and neglected and you don't want to act like you you do you feel bad I don't know what your prior I don't know what like not to be like deep

and therapist-y. I don't know what your previous relationship experience is like or what your relationship with your parents is like, but you do sound afraid to ask for kind of what you want and to put your feelings on him and tell him how you're feeling. And maybe that you're feeling a little bit like, maybe you feel in doing that, that that would be a burden. And that is so not a burden. Sometimes I think it's also really important just to like, especially he sounds like he sounds like you he sounds like he's scheduled every single thing out and he's factored everything in all together but maybe he didn't factor in your feelings and maybe you kind of wanted him to do that on his own and he didn't and that's okay that doesn't mean that he's like a bad

dude or whatever he sounds very analytical and maybe he wasn't picking up on the fact that like you're kind of sad and upset about it and you're you sound like me in the sense that like if I was in that situation, I would be like, well, obviously I'm upset. You like, and you did this now knowing that I was upset, but it's like, nah, I didn't say that I was upset. It's like, I can't say that, you know, that I was upset, but like, I'm just more in tune with like, I can pick up on people's emotions really well. So I think it's so easy in my head. So I would say the first thing that I would do is talk to him about it because a huge part of it might just be that like, you need some reassurance from him that like, you didn't do anything wrong. And that like, he's not mad at

you and he's not trying to avoid you and he like still wants to hang out with you and all of that stuff um and also it might you might be giving him like this is happening with mods like a very great excuse if he's spread really thin with his friends and he's like so sorry like i now i gotta like he might love that he's like now i can have i can spend more time with you we can do something that's a little bit more chill um but i would 100 agree with you that you need some uh hobbies but i think the first thing you need to do is talk to him about how you feel i i think also i think there's no reason why you guys shouldn't compromise like i don't like can't you split the week so he's spending as many hours with you as he's spending like why doesn't he spend 17 hours a

week gaming and 17 hours a week with you and then like sleep some more or like take care of his mental health some more or something like that and also i think he i think the thing is he's using the video games for his mental health well that makes sense i maybe also have a conversation with him and talk to him and like check in if you know that he does that and you kind of like leave it at that um maybe also it's a good time to like just check in and see like where he's at and like how he is feeling mental health wise um also if he's not like streaming the shit and getting money he needs to start like i like imagine how less like upset you'd be if it was like raking in the bills um so do we have we have an update today an update from season five episode

24 uh the original caller well she is the original caller because this is an update in the original call she had been friends with this one gal but then they stopped being friends and during that time the girl started dating her friend's ex and now she's back friends with the girl and she didn't know and they broke up yeah and she should and she didn't know she should tell her friend that they dated so here's an update hi megan and melissa i called a few weeks ago you guys answered my question about i had dated my ex best friend ex and then he and i broke up and she and I started hanging out again well I'm calling to update you because I was like okay I need to grow a pair and just tell her because um we're about to graduate college and

we're kind of both heading the same direction so it's just like whatever not important but I was like okay I'm gonna we were gonna grab a beer um socially distanced but she texted me really late And she was like, okay, I know that this is, like, a little weird because we've been out of touch for a while, but we had another best friend that we all used to be really close with. We'll call her Shannon. Her name's not Shannon. She was like, I'm actually talking to Shannon's ex-boyfriend. He and I were chatting, and, you know, we hung out a couple times, and I don't know what to do. I don't know if I owe it to her to tell her because we're not that close anymore, and they're broken up, blah, blah, blah, blah.

and I was like oh my god while we're on this topic by the way I dated your ex and she was like oh my gosh I totally understand why you didn't tell me like you're on you were under no obligation to like consider my feelings or tell me when this happened it would have been weird if you did but I'm glad it's all open now and like no hard feelings so I thought that it was exciting and a fun positive update for a change because sometimes girls are nasty and this just reminded to me that somebody who has the potential to be a real bitch was very understanding um so like maybe that's just maturity maybe that's i don't know but i thought you guys would you know i wish that i had had the balls and initiated that but it kind of just fell into my lap um so thanks for

your advice you know not all girls are evil they will walk so you know thanks girl you had not all girls are evil how long you've been listening to this podcast right that is that is not that is not the language we subscribe to here um and yeah uh but before that let's just we've already addressed that part um well aren't you fucking curious if your other friend if her other friend is like now dating shannon's ex-boyfriend like where did that go like i wanted to i'm so curious about that this is like a fucking movie like it really fell in your lap wow i like it i mean it made any everything so easy and she couldn't get mad because if she did then she would be a hypocrite so i love when that shit happens yeah it's like oh i'm not mad yeah that's so fucking funny

also a socially distanced beer maybe their neighbors oh yeah i i did that with my friend we were like 30 feet away but i went inside her backyard and we both had a beer on mother's day because she wanted a break from her kid on mother's day fucking valley yeah wow and i'm happy a positive update except um we don't subscribe to the women are girls or women are crazy language here or they suck or anything like that no no we're all about girl positivity yes so um it's just people as a whole suck yeah yes people suck girls don't suck girls aren't the worst they're not like that no men are trash girls aren't crazy but men are all different forms of trash yeah and some are recycling and i love a good recycling like save the environment

compost like hell yeah like soil bringing new life like trash isn't always bad but sometimes like if they're a hot pile of steaming like wet garbage garbage that's bad bad bad bad yeah but no like a nice like neat little like broken down box where you like cut it all up a sliced thing with all of like the six pack of drinks yeah slice that up for the dolphins and the turtles sign me up for that life i want the compost life that you touched on earlier oh yeah because that's like who you throw everything you throw everything in the box plant the seed sometimes beautiful things grow from it but at the end of the day you're still saving the world exactly exactly maybe that's like the scope of like where like what like our

goals relationship is like the phases like or the stages and different kinds you go from garbage and trash i think you do garbage first and then trash because garbage men garbage boys learn how to be trash like you put the garbage in a dumpster yeah and then we we have all the things in between and then we go to recycling and the and and recycling may maybe that's where you end recycling is great it's like it's productive it's good for the environment it's a little repetitive like you always know how it's gonna go and then if you want you go to the compost right where that is like your one true love that's where that's where we belong i think the virgos would be most happy with like the recycling era i would love that wow um this has been a journey

uh that's it for our episode guys if you want to call in for an upcoming one you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com what else uh that's it i don't care about instagram joining the the facebook group we have enough we're on like a moratorium right now oh yeah you can follow us on instagram megapodcast at gmail.com hopefully by the time that this is out we are at we're staying yeah at 10 000 followers because we hit 10 000 followers melissa sent it to me and then i was like i don't want to jinx it what if like it's not that and then we went down three followers and then i followed it on all three of my finstas and then you followed on your finstas so we're in

like we're not in the clear yet we might not have it when i look now or tomorrow but we would love if you could um follow us there and keep that 10 000 um i also think that it's going to be a prerequisite when we come back with giving people getting people into the facebook group um but yeah it would be lovely and wonderful and great and um we'll see you guys next time goodbye oh buy my book don't blame me as a production by me executive produced by melissa demonts camera operator amanda lechner and music by ryan hunter and giacomo picasso