Don't Blame Me! - S8E16: What’s College Greek Life Like?

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

This week we're sharing advice on:    Update: Friend Faking Vaccination Card Not like a friend Quitting Your Dream Job Joining Bumble After a Fight With Your Partner DBT: Family Members Misgendering   Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me Follow Us! @meghanrienks  www.instagram.com/meghanrienks  https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa  www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @dontblamemepod   https://www.instagram.com/dontblamemepod/ Listen to ad-free on Stitcher Premium! For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com and use promo code 'BLAME.”   Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): www.tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf    Need Advice?  www.dontblameme.show  Domestic Listeners Call: [phone]   International Listeners Send a Voice Memo To: [e-mail]    … with as much detail as possible under 3 minutes! WeI'll do our best to share our wonderful words of wisdom. If you're under 18, please get your parent's permission. Advice is for entertainment purposes only, so you can't blame us if we screw up your life. I kid! Our advice IS AMAZING. - Want to WATCH this episode as well? Become a patron! https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme   Join the Facebook Group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/dbmsecretgroup Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/join/dontblameme See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of don't blame me yeah i'm megan hey hi hello and we are joined as always but with the person who's the only reason why this podcast exists is recorded goes out um is uploaded all everything melissa me yes wow what an introduction it's not moss that i actually do literally like no one else here it's not not he's not doing all he does is walk in the background you guys can't see him though um speaking of seeing if you want to watch the video version of the episode we are on patreon for only a dollar a month you can catch the video versions and um if this is your first time listening hello uh buckle buckle in bitch i just want to say off top we are pro vaxxers and if you disagree this

probably isn't the podcast for you yeah and that's not going to change we always have been if you say well i've been listening since the beginning you haven't been listening well yeah we've always talked about our beliefs and how we see the world and you haven't been listening so stop lying might i suggest uh joe rogan go ahead get yourself some horse dewormer live your best life right yeah so we're an advice podcast we give you fantastic amazing wonderful life altering changing perfect advice we're also so pretty so gorgeous so funny and just like the best people ever um and if you want to call in for an upcoming episode you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 or if you're an international listener you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com wow i did

almost say that my name started with a p and you know what whose name does start with p addison ray's character in the remake of she's all that he's all that guess what they named her pop no there's only one person in the world I know with this name and I don't know them personally they're an actor and like Patricia Padgett why would they go that obscure I don't know so you watch the movie no I watched Trixie and Katya watch the movie which is how I watch things that I don't want to watch makes more sense I was like why I would never okay but I did seen she's all that yes I recently not recently because I haven't been on an airplane since 2018 or 2019 I watched it on a plane okay and i definitely watched i think growing up but i watched it on a plane

like three years ago or something kiss me that's six pence oh not richer what a great song so let me give you some criteria for the requirements for calling in to the podcast because we we have high standards and you have to be 18 or over have your parents permission and we suggest that you write everything down we don't even just suggest we demand we can't be in your house but like imagine we are holding we are holding like uh i'm not gonna say gun to your head because like plot twist big gun control fancier right um i'm holding a dildo on fire to your head that's on brand and we are saying you have to write down everything that you are going to say and then read it aloud for your call but before you do that practice practice

practice practice practice because you have to keep it under three minutes and the only way that you're going to get all the details information in there is if you write it down, practice and do it over and over again until you aren't missing any info. You've got the ages in there, everybody involved, all the important info. We really don't need to know if someone smells good unless it's like so relevant or what your zodiac sign is. What else? Let us know your pronouns. Was there anything else that we ask? No. So what's new with you? I moved. Yes. Yeah. I'm really happy i'm really excited last night i slept the best i've slept in a long time but now it's i'm in a lot of pain so if you're watching the video i have this ball here that i've been

rubbing on my body because i had packed up my good shoes for moving and i was in some shoes that didn't have a good bottom on it and my whole body is aching it was like packing stuff i didn't you know actually move anything yeah my body is aching but I'm really happy to be in a much bigger place not a tiny one-bedroom apartment how many bedrooms is that three that is like such a change yeah yeah that's so exciting I'm so excited for you thank you I can't wait to see it what's new with you um not much we went to Palm Springs for my birthday the vlog is up on youtube if you want to watch it so that was really fun it was so nice everybody was commenting on the video like oh my god you guys look so happy you look so much fun and i

was like we were thriving like all everyone like the group chat afterwards was like damn really sad to be home but that's like my favorite thing about my group of friends and like i've always been like this because i don't have a ton of like close close friends that i would invite places that i like all of my friends can be friends with each other and like know each other and like you and you've hung out with kyle before haven't you like we went boxing and like he sat in on podcast yeah so i was gonna say sydney's probably the one you haven't hung out with the most right it's probably equal between the two of them because she was actually on the podcast so like that makes me like always excited because like all of my friends know each other so i'm like i have a bachelorette

party like i'm fucking sad yeah like everyone just it was just a good vibe yeah and i wasn't sure how because i you know i haven't but yeah left la since february 2020 and that was the most amount of people i've been around oh yeah at one time 100 yeah yeah no this was and like it was great but yeah that's pretty much exclusively what's new with me is that i we were involved and I think that's it I've also decided that I'm redoing my wardrobe or not even redoing my wardrobe because like I have a lot of pieces that fit into this aesthetic but I've decided my new aesthetic style wise is um Lorelai Gilmore meets Blair Waldorf meets a character from a Nancy Myers movie those I know three are completely different so the Blair so the Blair and Lorelai

that has a little bit of a crossover with Lorelai wears but she wears it's like it was boring I said it you're not wrong but that's also why i love it like it's not one tree hill like you've watched like when you're like settling in for a show like one tree hill you're like let me prepare myself for like someone like chasing in a corn maze and like high school shootings like it's a lot and like no more girls it's like i wonder who rory's gonna bring to like the pumpkin festival so i live for that show but she dresses very late like very early 2000s kind of style that can mean a lot of things but like okay so early 2000s in the like young adult version of it so as opposed to like furry or like fuzzy like hair clips or like stuff like that she's like are you wearing

juicy couture she definitely has sweatpants that say juicy on the butt which i still own juicy sweats and i wear them all the time never seen yes you have you just they don't say juicy on the butt okay but i would get those they just never went on sale when i was a kid so like naturally i never had those or they never went to like i used to get my juicy from goodwill marin county man great goodwills but blair is like very preppy and like laura light like she like wears to drop off rory at chilton it's an accident outfit so okay i was picturing the daughter but you're talking about no i'm talking about okay so she wears like this like pink graphic tee long denim shorts and like boots and a blazer to like drop rory off at chilton and it's

like supposed to be like oh my god like laundry day like i have nothing to wear but like it's kind of a vibe so that's like the look and then the nancy myers i just like need to like you know because that's something like cashmere like throw some like that's very me yeah and like that's like very like old rich lady but then also like the summer dresses and all of that stuff so that's what i've decided that i'm going to um dress like the only obstacle in my way now is um where the fuck am i wearing these clothes too right i i'm trying to figure out what my fall look is oh yeah so take in mind i think if you can get on my level with formal fall looks we can then that can just be us together great because mine involves a lot of blazers and i need to like can't be sitting

next to someone who's like not well i mean i used to wear blazers all the time no you were my partner in crime for this you were heels yeah i just stopped so okay i'll i'm i'm figuring it out okay abercrombie isn't doing it for me for fall i did get some pants haven't arrived yet pants wise but like top wise no yeah I want some like funky knits some like weird colors like I want like a green sweater yeah I hate shopping at multiple stores I just like to do one dump at one place and so I'm trying to figure it out I know maybe maybe eventually we go to like the mall and then we what a joke I know but that's what you should do is I hate shopping from multiple places online yeah and i hate malls more than i hate that's what i have to figure out do i hate

them all more i can say that definitively which mall do you like or which mall none of them you don't like any of the malls here oh not one if i had to pick i guess it would be century city okay of course then that's the only one i do like that mall yeah but i only like it more for the food that is offered what do you like to eat there well you can't have it but eataly oh i love no i can eat stuff at eataly okay i love eataly eataly they've got some good ice cream shops that have like lactose-free ice cream there's like two or three of them wow what else that asian yeah fusion whatever that is i i do love it there i do well i'm looking forward to the looks that we're just going to be popping off this fall i'm very excited me too okay we are going to hop into an update

and even though melissa gave you the warning at the beginning if you are an anti-vaxxer and you are still here why you are asking to get your feelings hurt and you're smelly wash your legs so this is your warning you need to exit out go take a snip of some like snip of some like frankincense or whatever some lavender and then um carry on with your bullshit so should we get to the update roll the tape so i'm the caller that called in about having a friend that said that he was gonna get a fake vaccination card um and that did not sit well with me because like i said in the call if you guys heard that last fall i was not too happy about that i was pretty mad i thought that that would be a really poor choice to make um so basically what happened

was that I ended up distancing myself from him a lot and he'd reach out to me a lot and I'd be really short with him and I kind of I didn't know what like what to think or how to until I knew it was like official that he was going to do it so I distanced myself he'd reach out to me and my replies would be kind of short and then one day he asked me he's like hey are we okay like what's going on and I was like honestly no we're not really okay like and I kind of told him how I'm not okay with his decision that he was going to do that and he wrote back saying that he was actually going to get vaccinated for real and that you know he kind of looked at it as like he's so fortunate and like privileged to have you know to be able to have access to the vaccine and he wants

to go ahead and take advantage of that so he's going to do that so he got vaccinated and none of his classes were actually on campus they were all online so either way it worked out but he got vaccinated he said he got vaccinated I'm really hoping he really did I I wasn't there and he got vaccinated so it's like I just have to take his word for it and hope that he's not lying he said that he would never get a fake vaccine card because even he did say himself that he was just kidding he was stressed out about school and COVID but he said he would never actually do that especially for school when you know campus is pretty dead we go to community college and so we're not all back to campus yet like universities like I only have one class on campus and it's a

ghost him on campus like there's nobody so he said that he wouldn't risk doing you know a fake vaccine card for that so I'm pretty happy and I really really hope that you know he isn't lying to me and that he is telling the truth because if I find out that he was lying or just saying that just to kind of keep our friendship then that's it I'm pulling the plug that's just with anybody that's not okay with me yeah I mean definitely my first instinct was did he actually right because like and also because you said you distance yourself from him which is like a totally valid thing to do but like it just kind of sounds like when you get mad at your boyfriend and he tells you exactly what you want to hear like I'm like I'm sorry we use the term privilege

like this seems like I'm like it does seem like a bit of a stretch for him but if he did it great yeah I don't want to be like people can't change like I want that to be like the truth very much like too but i do wonder like the way he's talking about it sounds like someone else got do you know i mean like it doesn't necessarily just sound like oh whatever but it's like yeah no you're right blah blah blah like it sounds like fingers crossed that it is true that like someone else got to him so yeah and that's what i'm hoping because we actually had a bit i hung out with him the other day and we had a really big discussion about everything and you know we talked more about like the vaccine and i know before he wanted to wait till his fda approved

in them once it did get FDA approved I know that that like made him want to like actually go get it even more and I know like before like like I said before in the last like I had been fully vaccinated since April I got it it was my choice I didn't have to get it for school or work or any of that like I got it on my own and he kept saying how like he was sketched out but one thing which you know you can't make somebody get vaccinated or not like that wasn't my spot to do that but the one thing that made me mad was like we'd go out in public and it was back like when COVID was pretty bad and we'd be in like crowded places whether it was indoor or outdoor and he'd refuse to wear his mask and like dude like it do you see how crowded this place is do you see how like this

is like last fall and last winter and i'm like do you know how bad cases are like it's not gonna kill you like i know we're outside but still you know like it's really busy and he'd like fight me out and he's like no i'm not wearing it like it's not gonna kill you to wear the mask but if you don't have it on it might kill you yeah yeah and again like i know i can't force anything but it made me mad. I'm like, out of respect for like myself and the people around us. And like, it's just, you know, even for his own safety. And, you know, for me, like I, I worked in customer service. I worked in a restaurant for a while and this was during COVID. And I've had so many people come in and try to fight me. I'm like wearing their mask. And I'm like, look, like, come on,

like it's, it's, it's just for a minute. Like, can you just please, like, I have to wear mine for like seven hours a day I'm not complaining like you could wear yours for like two minutes to walk to a table you know like it's gonna be okay like just chill and um yeah so that kind of made me mad and it made me mad that like my friend was kind of acting like that because it's like well I don't want to be friends with someone who's like that and so we were we're very like different with COVID like he doesn't care about it as much as I do he's not as safe as I am and you know it's just kind of hard in that way because like I want to keep a friendship can I ask why what's his like like why like no offense like and I don't mean this in like a shady but like we are forced with

like moral failures in like people doing like failing to do this kind of thing that like I completely understand it's one of those things that you're like this is really embarrassing that like this is someone who I'm friends with and like oh my god how could you act like this like what are why do you why do you want like what are his good traits like oh gosh so I met him before the pandemic really kicked off you know I met him so I moved back to California back to San Diego last January 2020 so that was before everything got really bad and I met him then I met him on the first day of school so I was able to see good traits before everything but and I say this about everybody once the pandemic hit really showed people's like selfishness and like who people

really are I think that was kind of hit like his selfish traits started to show and I think because like yes like there are some bad parts to him that I don't agree with and that I don't like there's also some good parts and kind of like I want to keep that friendship but I also like I don't know like not you know because it's hard because it's like rewarding someone for bad behavior but then it's also like you don't want to necessarily up and leave every person yeah who can like showing growth and all of that stuff so i mean i think if he's like showing growth and like he's actually like learning and understanding from this i think like i am like very much on your side of like i don't know if he's like like totally telling the truth so i would

just i don't know like bring up like covid things in general to see like if he still has that same mentality of like i'm not gonna do this i'm not gonna then it's like maybe you actually didn't get vaccinated or like make a reservation at a restaurant where you like have to show your vaccine cards plan a trip to europe together exactly see if he gets caught in one of those like fake busted ones if it's actually fake like the moderna the girl that got busted with hawaii i can't it's almost as bad as the woman who got busted because she made vaccine cards for her like children who are like four and five right right i was like ma'am fox news is really not educating you well surprise all of them are vaccinated i know that's what like drives me

crazy but yeah it sounds like if he's like hasn't been taking covet as like seriously or like safety precautions and all of that kind of stuff like that is like cause for concern even if he does get vaccinated and all of that like and that's like great i think it's like the hope is that he continues continues to move forward in a positive trajectory and like does now take it seriously and does now wear his and does all of that kind of stuff because i think if like you're having to fight a friend on like caring about other people it is kind of ironic because like a friend you're supposed to they're supposed to care about you and if like they can't do like the basic human decency that kind of stuff that can be exactly and it's harder because like you know

you can't force anybody to do anything and you can't make anybody change they have to do that on their own so that's kind of the hard part too because it's like as much as you wish they would change it's like you can't do too much about it like you can try and like talk to them about it you can try and like you could try to steer them in that direction but if they if they're fighting it or if they don't want to go so it's like it's kind of like a rock in a hard place like i know i can't make him or anybody but at the same time it's like it's tough and yeah yeah funny you mentioned though really fast about the mom who made the fake vaccine cards i'm on my school paper um because i'm actually a journalism major oh so when i said expose him it could have been you

I was dying laughing when you guys said in the call when you guys were like yeah like I'm gonna send a letter to your school paper I'm gonna do this I'm like I am the school speaker I love that so funny I could do that but yeah and um I actually we had to share a story and I shared the one about the anti-vaccine mom and I was this girl in my class like when she heard that we shared it for everyone she the girl was like that is so cringy like I hate that that's even a thing i'm like me too she probably sold some cards to the moderna girl but literally like so embarrassing so embarrassing but like i just want to know like what would you guys do if you were my situation like you guys have pointers that i could like if i could handle anything better what would you guys

do i mean i'm not friends with anyone anymore that's not vaccinated that that can get vaccinated and aren't vaccinated so i honestly i would ask to see their card that's what i do i'm very straightforward in that way and i would do that too and then i think that like my mo with being friends with people who we don't necessarily align on absolutely everything we align on like the very big things we just don't align necessarily on the way we get about we go about getting there or i've had friends who like they went out a lot and like did stuff during the pandemic like, wearing masks all the time. But like, still, I was like, shut the fuck up. Come on, we are like surging in cases. And I would say stuff to them. And like that we I'd gotten in

a couple of arguments with friends where I was just like, here's the thing that's like frustrating is like, if everyone did what you were doing, we would be even more screwed than we are now. And why do you think that you are above what everybody else is doing? What makes you special in how you get to handle this. And the same way when it's like people of my friends were like, you can be more relaxed. And I go, why? Why am I better than anybody else?

Like, why should I value me getting to do this and doing all of that stuff? When it's like, well, not everybody's doing it. So then why me? Why am I special enough to do that? And I'm not. And the same thing with like other people and having people having to explain like,

oh, do you actually genuinely think that you are above and better than other people? That kind of lets it sink in because we do get really stuck in our own bubbles of like what we do every day. And you like, when you go out, like you were saying, like your campus is deserted.

And so like, or you go other places and there's not a lot of people out there and you're like, see that it's fine that I'm out. And I go, but other people are choosing to not do that, to protect that. And who are the people who have to be out? The people who work here, the people who like need stuff.

Like, I don't need to just go like meander and like prance all around. Other people need that more than me. And like, who am I to say that? Like, I deserve that more than anybody else. Right. And like, we went away this weekend and everyone got covid tested before and vaccinated we had already been vaccinated so yeah and that's smart that's a safe way to do it honestly my situation kind of if you guys remember

this call i'm sure you guys do but it reminds me of the call you had where the girl was saying that her and her friends were going on a trip and they all got covid tested before and one of the friends lied and she got tested and she didn't but when i think that's the next update oh yeah i think that's the next person the next update yeah no way yeah that's like what it kind of reminds me what's more embarrassing like what's worse though i had this co-worker we used to be friends we're not friends anymore we don't even follow each other on social media she was actually way worse than him like she was super anti-mask kept saying covid wasn't real she one time told me and i'll never forget this this was the this was so she said if you have a weak immune system that

sucks for you and i was like did you really just say that that's insane yeah that's absolutely insane. One last thing I will say to you, because you said community college, you moved into a new place, like new city and all of that. As somebody who went to a college, moved to a new city and all of that, the biggest advice I can give you in general is it is so much better to be alone than to have shitty friends or friends that you don't necessarily align with. And friends can be like a stepping stone. And sometimes it feels nice to be surrounded by other people and all of that kind of stuff. But I think if you find just watch what the other people that you make friends with that like the compromising on like how people handle a pandemic and all of that isn't not

necessarily completely commonplace, especially for new friendships. And like, I got into a habit when I had like friends that were great, but had like, they were nice and like, well, but they had some like major character or like moral flaws. Then I started just kind of accepting that with other people that I would become friends with. And then like my bar got set like lower and lower and lower with that kind of stuff. And I know how lonely it can be in a new city and to have like new friends and like that can be like a whole great thing but i think if he ultimately is not open to communicating or doesn't make you feel like it's a like safe or like valid place for you to air your concerns and like have those productive conversations then i personally

would cut your losses with the friendship and like they're not even that like major of losses and you will find so many more people who are like so aligned with you on all of this stuff that you won't have to like kind of like walk on eggshells around someone who you're like why the fuck are you doing this right yeah and it's you know and it's also like i don't want to seem too like nitpicky or anything but seem nitpicky who fucking cares yeah there's no reason not to you guys if you go somewhere just be like i'm just showing i'm sending you my here's a picture of my vax car just shoot yeah yeah exactly i'm like hey i i would love to be friends with you guys there are lots of versions of us everywhere lots of people angry about anti-vaxxers and

anti-maskers and all that shit exactly and like if you guys ever come to like my part of california i'll tell you guys like separately i don't say the podcast just let's go to lunch the three of us like you guys are great i love you guys cool well thank you so much for giving us the update thank you guys so much for your time and for having me on and again i love you guys and i love the podcast thank you so much thank you have a good rest of your day bye you too bye guys i hate to be a pessimist you don't think he did i don't i think he did i want him to so like i am like choosing to believe that but if there were two sides at war in my brain one of them has a lot more people on it well at least he's not going to class yeah fingers crossed

fingers crossed we love to see people and growth and all of that and i shouldn't be pessimistic because i want that i usually am so the fact that i'm not on this one yeah i trust you i'll be on your side okay i don't believe you nope i don't either okay you don't even believe myself uh let's get into the rest of the episode get some calls going on hey megan and melissa i have listened to about every episode of your podcast and recently the new one I think it was episode 14 for this week I think it's called should we try to be poly something like that and you mentioned in the beginning that you're both members of sororities Megan that you didn't have a good experience Melissa that you had a great one and I just want to know more about that I plan on going through

sorority recruitment at my university this fall and I just want to know Megan what your experience of like in Melissa what yours was as well as which organizations you were a part of so if you guys could give advice on that and talk about what it was like for both of you I'd appreciate it by the way I guess I should say my pronouns are she her and I'm 20 years old so I look forward to hearing from you bye-bye I don't even like to say we are both in like to say what we are in is under the same umbrella because like yeah so I will say that like any of my just like to preface it and I said this a bunch on TikTok when I talk about like my sorority experience and all that stuff. My issues start and end with pan-Hellenic sororities and like pan-Hellenic Greek life fraternities and

all of that kind of stuff. And I think that a lot of the quote unquote ideals that Greek organizations are based off of are really only exemplified in Black sororities and fraternities, Asian sororities and fraternities uh professional and business ones and special interest those all uphold those kinds of working towards a common goal and like people I know who are in like business ones it was like incredibly helpful for getting into business school and doing all these other things my experience in panhellenic sororities has been just and again not to say that other ones aren't like this. I'm sure they all are just based by, by nature is just like incredibly clicky for like no reason. And I have friends who've had like wonderful experiences in

sororities and fraternities and stuff. Um, but I think it's for, for me, it was definitely not a necessary thing in my life. And like, it felt like a very necessary thing in my life because there was no social scene at my school. Cause I went to a commuter school. So like everything was Greek life based. I didn't like the person I was becoming when I was in a sorority. And I had a horrible experience with the people who like were in it. And it felt like the most important thing in the entire world at the time. And I had friends who even like, or like who I knew when I was a freshman who were seniors, who like, did not give a shit. And I couldn't understand how it was just like, so whatever thing or even my friends at other schools where it was just kind

of more passive. I just think that it has the potential to be like a really great experience for some people, but I think it also has equal, if not more of a potential to be a really like traumatic experience because it is wholly unnecessary. It is just exclusionary by design and can just breed a lot of toxicity that I just think the history of them is not great. But you had a completely different experience than me. Yeah, I had a completely different experience. I wasn't, when you said we're in a sorority,

with my sorority, it's a lifelong commitment. So I am in a sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, which I think you can kind of see like the importance and the commitment to it because like never before really had a sorority been talked about like on national tv during a campaign and it was brought up a lot with Kamala Harris who is a member as well so I went and I think also depending on the school that you're at you're going to have a completely different experience so my sorority I was initiated in spring of 2004 with my sorority, you can't come in as a freshman. Oh, so that's smart. You have

to have a certain amount of hours. So I actually, because I had taken classes when I was in college, I actually had enough hours to be initiated. So that's one positive thing that I see with it is that you're a student first, not in a sorority before you even school even start. You have a sense of your own individual identity before we didn't have like we started Rush before school even started right that's that's really smart so um I actually think at my campus at the University of Arkansas they've actually changed it for the Panhellenic like they don't start recruitment until after school starts but it's still you come in as a freshman so I think that's one of the positive things about it you have to also have to maintain a certain GPA and have a

certain gpa to get in you have to be voted upon and people like actually have to know you as opposed to i think with panhellenic it's just like you're coming in fresh and most people don't really know you yeah well because it's i think that makes a lot of sense all of the well you also didn't you have the highest yours was one of the highest gpa at your school yeah and on top of that too in a panhellenic sorority you're rushing everyone like you go around to everyone with nphc sororities and fraternities you're only going to the one that you want so you have to know what sorority or fraternity that you want to be in so when you do that that eliminates just ending up where you don't want to be well the whole process before you even get in just seems

a whole lot less toxic than all of that that it is about because that's the thing like to me your experience and we talked at length about the difference that like it just seems like everything I was promised in a sorority was what was delivered right and like all of that kind of stuff where it was like oh this is about jeep like or even when people defend them or whatever that was that which I'm like that makes complete sense because you the steps are taken in order for that to like be the outcome where it's like of course it's going to be catty when like you don't know any of the girls it's based purely on looks some some care more about your GPA but like not really, but yeah, it is like, you're rushing like nine houses, nine to 12 houses and hoping

they pick you. Yeah. So you're going after one and hoping they're picking you. And if you try, like you go for one and then later try to go for another one, that's not happening. Like you can't do that. Yeah. And also I was at a PWI, predominantly white Institute in a historically black sorority, which we did have other ethnicities in our sorority, but it's still predominantly Black. So our initiation class was a lot smaller than what would be like, because you might not make it to the end of your initiation process as well. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so total on my initiation class, there were nine of us. So you really get to know each other to get to know each other. But that's also like if you went to a school that had a higher Black population, then

there's going to be way more. And I think for me, it was a good way to get to know people, a true sisterhood. Also, whenever I move, I can always be like, I can find a friend wherever I am because I can go to like local chapter meetings or whatever and get to know people. When I moved here to LA, I stayed with a girl that she was in my sorority. She was a couple of years older than me, but we were in at, at the same time at one point, but we weren't really friends, but like, we became closer friends when I moved here because like, she let me sleep on her couch for a couple weeks. So for me, it was a positive experience. I had a lot of fun, maybe too much fun. I got to do a lot of great things in college and it has, it has like opened up doors for me. I also,

one thing too was like, when I first moved to LA, I really didn't know a lot of people as far as like in the entertainment industry and I had in my profile that I was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha and I reached out to a lot of writers just to like see if you could naively you shouldn't do this but see if I could get some scripts or whatever so this one guy responded back to me and he's like I'm getting back to you because my wife is in your sorority wow wow now that because I didn't know the the initiation process is what you're saying it's called I didn't know any of that stuff's like this may it makes so much more sense to me the community of like you and your like because you've told me this before about how like having those connections and all that kind of

stuff that makes so much more sense because it's so much harder to get there and to be there that like the vetting has been done so much that like you most likely are I would assume like-minded with like the vast majority of those people like did you feel like that in your sorority yeah yeah and it still is clicky too well yeah there's friend groups everywhere there's friend groups everywhere but i think there's a difference between like you know sisters who fight or whatever and like the ebb and flow of like friendships in general versus those real clicks and like manipulation and mind games that people play with each other but i mean i think if you are going to rush a panhellenic sorority honestly i would recommend rushing as a sophomore

i had friends who rushed as sophomores who were in my we still refer to ours as a pledge class And I looked at them with like so much like awe with how they were not really phased by the same things that like really got to me or they weren't as like, they just kind of were independent and like were having fun and doing their own thing. But I find that when you rush so early on in your freshman year, not only do you, like you tend to abandon anyone you knew beforehand to that, but it really ties. It's like a boyfriend. It ties your entire social experience in college to a group of people that you've hardly really

spoken to. And like, you don't really know if you have a ton in common with them and it can open a lot of doors. Hypothetically, I found it just really closed a lot of like, like, I don't know if I would have stayed. I mean, I doubt I would have stayed in school. I like was not taking any classes. And I think that like, it can feel like the most, like the biggest deal ever. But I had a lot of friends who I met like the very beginning of freshman year who were like, oh, I'm going to rush sophomore and by top sophomore came around, they're like, Oh, I like don't need to, it's fine. And I will say, I mean, if you haven't followed me for a while, I was a Kappa Kappa Gamma, but I think that people can have great experiences in sororities. It doesn't negate the bad experiences

and you can have a good experience in a bad system. The end of the day, Panhellenic sororities right now, I don't know if anyone look into like some of the hazing stuff in the fraternities and all of that. It's a pretty broken system. And I think now as like an adult looking on it, if I were to go back in time and join one, I would want to be on exec board and like really work towards a lot of stuff. But it is also kind of like a moral question of do I want to be giving X amount of money to this organization that I don't necessarily like that as a whole, I don't really stand for and how much change can I really make and all that kind of stuff. But I know people who were even at my school who were in different sororities who had like wonderful experiences and

like not to be that bitch because like it does sound really like hoity-toity and all of that kind of stuff but like there is something especially heinous and I find that they could be toxic everywhere but the top houses in these panhellenic sororities like the quote-unquote top houses quote-unquote bottom houses I know people who were in quote-unquote bottom houses who had wonderful experiences and it was really about your personalities and how you jive with each other and all of that and ours we had code words for girls who weren't pretty and like I got pulled aside and told that I was one of like the prettiest girls in our pledge class and I wasn't allowed to tell other girls in my pledge class but I was going to be going and they were going to be

a couple senior girls were taking me and like three other girls around and like literally just like pimping us out to the frats and just like parading us around like prizes and like that felt really good at that time which is really fucked up and like that's the part that I think that I wish I could get through to people that who are really in it and understanding it if if you are in a sorority where those kinds of things happen and like those flaws like I promise you even if you don't think it's changing who you are or any it is and like I'm so happy I got out like when I got out obviously not in the same way that I did but yeah I hated how I talked about other women and like it felt really like 15 steps like backwards and all of that kind of stuff and

it happens and I think that like the farther I am out of it the more I like recognize all of that and I think the idea and concept of a group of women together is great and like having that and like especially in college and all that but it is so innately sexist and like puts you in really dangerous situations I never thought about like us a sorority we couldn't have alcohol at like at our houses we didn't even have houses but like we couldn't have alcohol at x y and z things and so if you couldn't really get drunk at our own events where like you have your friends and your sisters looking out for you and so it would be like oh just go to the guy's house the guys will give you alcohol the guys will pour your drinks you can party there and be with all of them and

that's not safer I don't feel like I got anything good out of it and when I hear it in contrast to Melissa's experience we've talked about this so many times prior to this that to me I'm like that's what a sorority should be. And that is what sororities are portrayed on television as being like and all of that kind of stuff. And I think if you can find that, that's great. But going in and just being just really aware of like what the history of something you are joining to because I think I think if I had known the historical like horrific, like horrific sexist and like racist shit my sorority had done like and like not my personal chapter but like some of that stuff i and like the lack of growth and knowledge and response and all of that i'm like i don't want to

give my money to like this thing it also looks really shiny and fun even when i was looking at rush talk i was like this is how i know it's like it was like a cult i look at that and i'm like i have to remind myself how terrible it was because i'm like they make it look so fun and i made it looks so fun. And like, I was a part of that problem with all of that stuff. And it's not till you're out of that, that you recognize it. But again, it's some schools like Sydney was like never, it was like never a huge deal, but it really depends. They're in the same tourney. Yeah. And everyone from our high school was like, you did this on purpose. And they were like, no, we did not. It's a lot. I did my, again, my biggest recommendation, wait till sophomore year.

So that's my advice. Hi, Megan and Melissa. So I'm a 24-year-old. You know, I go by she, her pronouns. And basically, recently over quarantine, I made a new, like, girl group friend. We're all in our, like, 20s. And we kind of bonded over this other podcast that we listen to. And so we'll hang out, like, once a week-ish.

And basically what has happened is there's one girl in a group of, I'd say, like, eight of us who pretty much nobody really enjoys the presence of. She can be kind of harsh and bad at reading social cues and is just, I don't know. I personally like don't vibe with her. And then I've talked about it with a couple other people who have also said they don't really mesh well with her. And some of her comments that she's made to them

makes them like a little bit uncomfortable where it's like a little bit rude. And so we're basically in this dilemma where we, to put it like brutally honest, just like want to kick her out of the friend group. because like no one really likes her. And obviously she shouldn't be in a friend group where no one likes her

because that's not good for her either. And we are just struggling on how to address the situation because obviously it would be really hard to go up to someone and be like, yeah, no one likes you. But I mean, that is the truth. And so I guess any advice

on how to approach the situation on kindly disinviting someone to the weekly hangout that we have and kind of being like, hey like none of us are really interested in pursuing this friendship with you sorry but that's just the way it is so yeah any help would be much appreciated thank you first and foremost we if you're watching the video you heard us say i mean you saw us saying this and it was confirmed by google i really both of us really not into the term um someone who like doesn't

understand social cues as like an insult or like a non-medical professional describing someone because that it feels inherently ableist and as if not being able to read social cues is a bad thing or something that people can control or has any reflection on them as a person or whatever. And Google has confirmed

that it is quite ableist. So just to get that out of the way. Words matter. Yeah. This is the lens that we will now be giving the advice on this call is you obviously use that term for a reason. and I don't know I mean I wonder how horrible this person is I mean I've definitely been in

friend groups of people where like we didn't like want someone but like I've never been in like a seven versus one or eight versus one kind of situation but I have been in like a three against one and as the one like that kind of it sucks and like I think that no matter what it's going to be mean no matter what it is going to be nobody likes you no one wants to be friends with you we're uninviting you from our friend group and you just have to decide do you dislike that person enough to do that because like there is no nice way to do it because it's not a nice thing yeah especially because of the way that you met too like online in a i guess i'm guessing it's online she didn't really say but also not our podcast so yeah what if it was and there's

one person causing a problem is her name rachel if you're in the facebook group we're not talking to anyone specific in oh no no no we've just decided that the name i think it was because one time someone left i mean there's they left a comment with their name girl that's leaving the same comments because it's said a couple times it's rachel has come up yeah so there's a girl named rachel who like hates our podcast and so now we refer to everyone who hates our podcast it's rachel yeah so yeah like megan was saying is it enough for you like you dislike her enough where you feel like that you need to ostracize her to enjoy your group or is it just like everyone knows that she's a little bit annoying and we can deal with it or is it that she's just so rude

that she's just toxic for the group i would call it out in the moment then yeah i agree like call them out and say if this was a 1990s after-school special hey man that wasn't cool it reminds me Hillary dub do you know what it means when you say that's so gay exactly that type of energy and just let them know because maybe they know they're being rude but chances are they may not realize what they're doing or that they're causing a riff in the group and it's better to tell them in their face than talk to them about it behind their back yeah yeah 100 and I think if you are going to make it and I think inadvertently it's a high likelihood that you'll make it a hostile environment for her because you all have talked about her behind her back and like she will be

able to sense something is there so like the next time she does something as opposed to like I'm assuming you haven't said anything but maybe you have but like it's supposed to be like whispering or giving each other that like knowing look or whatever that fucking sucks and all that will do is bring breed more hostility from her and it will just become like a complete cycle but I like normalize calling people out who you're friends with who are being like like I do all the time like Kyle seen it in action palm strings like that is like who I am like I will be like hey that's rude and like don't say that like I've just always been like that because I think it's I would rather sell like there are certain things that like I'm a ghoster and will cut people off

and all of that kind of stuff but like at a certain point like if someone says something rude I don't want to assume that they're a horrible person I'd rather get an apology for like you I mean? So I just think that like, there are a lot of steps that have kind of like seemingly been skipped here. But maybe you have called her out. And maybe it's not working. And I think that like, if that's the case, I also want to know what rude is like, is she like commenting on like, that's an ugly shirt? Like, is she just like negative? Like, is she just bringing people down? Or is she like making fun of people? Is she like a bigot? Because I think all of that matters. And then if you really want to be done with a friend group, I guess the hard thing is, like you said,

like they all met kind of probably in a weird way where they all had equal footing so then i would just i would if you're going to do it it's going to be cunty and it's going to be mean and it's going to hurt her feelings the only thing that you can do other than say something to her is that you all full ghost her and it's still horribly mean like you will be the villain in her story and you just have to either be okay with that or you're not okay with that and you try and like work on this relationship with her or maybe then she'll decide that she doesn't want to be in a friend group but like yeah it's like she's being rude if you're all together and one person is like hey that's rude and that opens up a conversation then maybe you should leave you don't have to do

anything yeah uh i guess like one last thing to like loop back into the social cues thing a let's not use ableist language but also if you mean meant it for what like it is usually typically used to describe which is someone who it's not in their control that's again ableist in itself But I think that that is someone if you're recognizing that a again, group of friends should not be talking about that. But if you're recognizing that, that is the to have a conversation with them if they're saying something that's rude, because in itself, it's not an intentional thing. It's someone who's not it just Yeah, and like, to cut someone off or something that it seems like you also think that she like doesn't know what she's like doing or isn't aware to make her aware in a nice way. this is my worst nightmare. Like a group of like eight people all together and like they all secretly hate me. There is nothing worse than like

if you have a problem with somebody than talking about it with other people. Like, and people know, people always know when people are talking with them behind their backs. They might not realize it at first, but the thing is when you start talking behind people's back,

you start getting more comfortable and then you're making those looks or those side glances or those whispers and then the person picks up on it and then they know that you're talking about them. And there's no worse feeling in the world than being with a group of people who you all know, oh, they've definitely talked shit about me.

There's no point in making someone uncomfortable regardless. And I think that like even you can try your very best to not do that. But once you talk about someone behind their back, inevitably it slips into your everyday life. Yeah. Oh, this is going to be one. This is going to be a call that Rachel gets so upset

what they hate when we don't take the side of the collar so sorry rachel okay we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back we're back from our break and we are going to get into the rest of the calls hey megan and melissa i'm 25 years old and my pronouns are she her i just started my fourth years teaching and I've been at the same teaching job for all four years of my career. I teach music to kindergartners through 12th graders every day. I have wanted to teach music since I was in seventh grade. I put myself through hell in college to get my music education degree, but on some days I do love it and it feels fulfilling, but the bad days are starting to outweigh the good. With the climate

of everything going on, I hate having to tell children over and over why it's important to wear a mask correctly when their parents are completely anti-mask and don't believe that the pandemic is happening, still going on, all sorts of crazy shit. My kids and band do not have the motivation to practice their instruments. I told them a couple days ago after I specifically gave them an assignment to practice at home. Literally all of them said they did not practice or pick up their instrument one time. They didn't even lie. It's so defeating.

I know moving to a different school and a different place is an option, but some days I have crippling anxiety about school shooting. I had to call in sick because I had it in my head that it's going to happen. In fact, when we're trained on the situation, we are told when it happens and not if it happens. It's horrible. I'm really considering switching my profession, but I don't want to give up on all of the years I've worked for this. I feel kind of like I'm giving up on junior high. Overall, I'm looking for advice on if I should make the switch and what should i do i don't know anything outside of school i've spent the past 20 years in school how does a non-school person find an adult job do i need to like make a linkedin or something

thank you for listening i've been a listener for years now and y'all make my mondays my favorite day of the week thanks goodbye you sound so nice well thank you if you choose to go into a different direction work-wise you're not giving up on no junior high you did it you did it and i want to say like i don't want you to think of it as quitting it's pivoting so i recommend picking up michelle obama's book because she pivots a lot she pivoted a lot yeah and she talks about it and she says it all the time and i think that that book would do you a lot of good but it's not quitting you did it your people change evolve we're i feel like we're a part of the generation that we're not like career driven like where you have to stick in one career you can change

whenever you want to if you're you've done it if it's not fulfilling you anymore move on to something else yeah i mean it's like you hiked to the top of the summit you got there you enjoyed the view and now you're ready to hike somewhere else and go somewhere else like something my therapist has told me which is obviously not in was not in related to the same vein was that things serve you and then they stop serving you and you try and go back to how they served you before and it's never the same that's because they serve their purpose and like it worked for so long because you needed it to work and because it did whether it's like coping mechanisms or anything like this thing served you very marie kondo and at a certain point it stops and we can try like

chasing after it's like we can try and go back in time and have it be what it used to be for us but it's just not going to happen and that's when we have to adjust and change and do all of that being a teacher is like an it's a thankless and incredibly one of the hardest jobs especially where we're at right now we're asking way too much of teachers and good for the ones who are able to like maintain that joy of teaching I would not be able to do that yeah like junior high you didn't know that we were beat we would be in a pandemic this was something that was unforeseen and it's completely unfair of you to judge yourself against like your thoughts that you had 10 years ago and your dreams from 10 years ago dreams change reality makes things different like

maybe if we weren't in the pandemic you'd feel different but also like it's wearing you down it's wearing your students down and it's hard it's hard like you shouldn't be judging yourself unfairly because we're in unprecedented times and you had a dream you achieved your dream and now it's time for a new dream and I will also say that new dream as somebody who has like been very both of us are very much like this like I don't work to live I live to work I love to work teachers don't usually get into the field because like they usually love the money. No, you love what you do. And I think something that can be helpful is like knowing that your next dream also doesn't have to be career focused. It can be personal growth. It can be anything like that. Like it

doesn't have to be centered around your career. And because you are going to be kind of like starting fresh, you don't have to embark on something the same way that you did with like a childhood dream this can be like i'm gonna try something else out now if you want or like if you really still like music maybe it's getting into like private lessons that's what i was gonna say because with private lessons it's usually with people that are a little bit more dedicated to what they want to do and you're getting paid more if they're not like if it's a parent forcing their kid at least up charge and you know that they've practiced because their parents have been and that also eliminates the school going to like campus anxiety which I can't even imagine

I think that's a good step or a good pivot that is still in your wheelhouse but it is something that could ease you into something that if you decide you want to do something completely different but I think the cool thing about that like there are lots of different like tutoring organization like less teacher organizations who do that kind of stuff or like a music school that like has freelancing. My friend does that. She's a freelance vocal teacher too. So I think that I would recommend that. Melissa says you have to make a LinkedIn. You do. I'm not on LinkedIn, but yeah, make a LinkedIn. I think if you have any other people at the school who you are close to, whether it's like admin, I mean, not students, I mean like

admin or people like that to be able to like, let them know like, Hey, I'm thinking of taking a sidestep work-wise, this is like what I want to do. I would love to be able to pass out flyers or have like a sign and like let the parents know of like the students and like all that kind of stuff to like utilize that network that you already have. But I don't know if teachers, you have to sign, if it's a public school, I don't know if you had to sign like a non-compete or something. Probably not. Yeah. But you should be able to be fine to like do all of that stuff. And as you do that, I would set a personal goal. So you kind of take the focus off of the career right now because switching jobs and changing that, that already is a pivot and it is

like where you're going to have a lot of your energy and focus on. But I think you've held a lot of value in who you are based on your profession for a really long time, which I completely understand. So I think as you do that, if you can set a personal goal for you that has nothing to do with your work, I think that will like put you on like a good trajectory. But yeah, no one's looking down on you at all well best of luck excited for all of your future endeavors and thank you for all everything you've done as a teacher and you're you're still incredibly valuable hi megan and melissa i'm a 24 year old with she her pronouns and today i need some advice on my boyfriend of two years who is also the 24 and goes by he him our relationship has been great

and i truly can't ask for much more except in the last few months we've been arguing a fair bit and can't seem to come eye to eye on a few things. This more so started when the COVID vaccine became available to our age group in Canada, and he really wasn't eager to get it. We fought a lot about this and couldn't come eye to eye until one day he just came over and was like, oh yeah, I got vaccinated today. So obviously I was super happy and he's now fully vaxxed. I think he just needed some time to decide that that was his decision and didn't want me telling him what to do, which he is a bit stubborn in that sense. However, he has brought up a few times that the government shouldn't be making the vaccine mandatory to do things like work in the government

or travel. However, he is fully vaxxed, so I don't understand how it affects him or why he keeps bringing it up. Since he knows my stance, it seems like it's only to argue. Flash forward to two days ago, we came to the topic of birth control, which I recently stopped taking as it's been causing me some really terrible side effects. So I brought up that there really should be male birth control, and he was quite against this idea, saying that condoms are male birth control, which I guess is sort of true, but they only work if you're using them, and they don't have tons of side effects like female hormonal contraceptives. I tried explaining my views on this and then talked about how we live in a patriarch society and how the world is truly designed for men. For example,

women are more likely to die in car crashes because the crash test dummies are designed as male bodies, and people are less likely to give CPR to a woman because they're trained on male body dummies. He argued against every point I made and said that women have come a long way in the last 50 years and that it also sucked being a guy at times and I said I was trying to explain how a male-dominated world really has effects on women that men don't seem to notice and he truly wouldn't acknowledge what I was saying or believe half of it. This ended up turning into quite a heated argument which ended in him slamming the door and leaving without resolving anything when he was supposed to sleep over that night. I was absolutely livid and in the heat of the

moment, decided to download Bumble. I made an account, swiped no on a few people, and then realized what the fuck I was doing and deleted it. Then two days later, after we haven't spoken for two days, he messaged me saying, can you explain why you're on Bumble? And said a friend of his found my account. I know I'm so in the wrong here and I feel terrible, but I wasn't interested in anyone and didn't swipe yes on a single person. I want your guys' perspective on how to come out of this. I know I'm in the wrong, but I also feel like he is too from our arguments, but I'm really struggling on how to resolve this. Thank you so much. And I love the podcast. For those of you just listening, Megan just held up her iPad and it said, dump him, which we have to make merch.

Yes. It normally is where I write my notes. And that is the only note that I have. You're not in the wrong. You're talking about equality and he's talking about how far women have come that's not talking about equality at all this man it's not like he likes to argue with you he is a misogynist yeah he does not believe in your equality he thinks your equality is up for debate yeah he's selfish you guys do not have the same values you can't be in a healthy relationship with someone and not have the same values as them there are certain things that people can debate and like have help it is i am a misogynist and i am not a misogynist like that's not a debate like matz and i even had to table one debate that we had i'm not into

debating i i don't like it i'm not into debating i'm not a person that's like well devil's advocate no the devil doesn't need a fucking advocate no he's got little naz fucking down there with the stripper poll he's fine he's fucking fine he's making a big case for himself okay but like oh moths and i had to table one that like when people were saying that oprah should run for president and here's the thing i don't necessarily think that oprah should run for president but i didn't like how much he said oprah shouldn't run for president and so then we got into this massive debate that finally i was like this isn't going anywhere i don't even really have strong feelings like pro or con any of this like I just don't like your like response to this or whatever

and we just like tabled it but like that is such a minuscule hypothetical sort of thing that like you are arguing about your rights what you deserve and your experience like you are having to defend and debate your experience as a woman to your male boyfriend who's like like you're debating your exist your personal lived experience and your existence you logging on to bumble afterwards you don't want to be with him first of all i think he was on i don't think a friend saw i think he probably saw and that was a direct response into something that you have been, something that has been done to you? Sure. Is there a world in which I didn't do that? Yes. Does that negate my point or my feelings or my anger or anything? No. Does

it make me the bad guy? No. Cause here's the thing you're going to like, you have to, he's a piece of shit. And like, if he's going to pull the whole, like, well, you should have respected our relationship. You should have respected me enough. You fucking asshole. You expect me to respect our relationship enough to just not hop on a dating app and just swipe on through but you are going to sit your ass here and fucking tell me that women had it like women women have come really far you're gonna mansplain that let me mansplain this shit to you we're over fuck you dump him i hope that by the time this episode comes out that you already have but if not i hope that this has inspired you to do so he's a royal piece of shit and it's not your responsibility to fix him or

anything and if he's been with you for two years he's been in a relationship with clearly a feminist like someone who is i mean you're a fucking woman you're just like living your life doing all of this shit like the fact that he can feel this way about uh not only women but a woman who he has been dating for two years fuck him you didn't even touch on the part where he told you that you need to get back on birth control oh my god okay not only do you dump him be so fucking mean don't do anything illegal but like rip him to fucking shreds hurt his feelings make him cry he's the type of dude that wears a condom and says that his dick is too big yeah just doesn't feel it's just not comfortable it doesn't feel the same he's a misogynistic asshole and there's

no knock on you for dating him because it doesn't if this is coming up this late in the relationship i'm just gonna assume that like he's been pacified yeah and or just things haven't necessarily come up and they haven't been like one year i think is like you still kind of have the rose colored glasses on like two years is where you really start to get to know each other no knock on you at all for being with him but he has shown his true colors and now it's time to get out bye-bye now i like low-key want for these people who are like dealing with their like horrible boyfriends like what's their username let me search them up let me search them the fuck up and so i can see who they are because half the time i want to like go find their girlfriends

and be like hey i just want you to know that your boyfriend said that he would really love to been the guy in this hypothetical where sororities were forcing forced consent which is not consent of um pledges to give guys blowjobs and he said he wishes it was him you pro you happy with that with that guy but then they always have patriot in their bio and i'm like well you're a lost fucking cause yeah oh i'm disgusted i am so disgusted you deserve so much better get your ass back on all of the fucking dating apps send me a dm i will pay for your bumble plus for a month i will you deserve it okay we're calming down so this is don't blame them this is where a listener will call in with their own advice that they have after listening to a previous episode so maybe they

have some personal experience maybe there was something that we missed or maybe just maybe they want to say that we were spot on and totally correct and they just want to hype us up hey guys um i'm calling with a don't blame them for the caller who recently came out as non-binary to their siblings i don't know the context of the situation but i guess i just wanted to give some perspective of like um something my family's been going through and like basically i come from like a pretty um conservative area people are not very knowledgeable of things that they definitely should be knowledgeable about like um different gender identities and sexual orientations um one of my siblings recently came out as non-binary and my parents had a really tough time at the

refer to my sibling mainly because they didn't even know what non-binary was before my sibling came out so again I don't know your situation and it doesn't this is in no way to like invalidate your identity you who you are and your identity should not be questioned by anyone but it did take them some time at first just to even come to terms with what it meant to be non-binary to understand that that was a transgender identity that it meant not fitting into just one specific category and it did take a lot of like frustrating times of like me and my other siblings kind of trying to defend and come to and like explain to my parents how important it was that they got it right and I did want to say that they have finally started to be consistently correct in

using my siblings' preferred name and pronouns. So I guess I kind of just wanted to say that, like, just because they're making these mistakes, like, if they're showing effort and trying, please don't take that as them not loving you because there's some people that just don't understand. And, again, like, even though they should, it just does take some time where they've known you

as different pronouns for your whole life. to figure out what that means and to correct themselves to refer to you properly. So I just want to send you a lot of love because I know how hurtful that must feel. And you definitely deserve for them to be referring to you correctly. And I hope that they're able to listen to Melissa and Megan's advice and really start to grasp how important it is to refer to you correctly. Thanks. I'm so happy that your sibling has you and your other siblings to help with your parents and all of that. I think that I am not non-binary, but I would also assume people who are non-binary when they're going through this can tell people who are trying and that trying shows love and care

and sometimes messing up but that's still trying and the issue with the original call was that there wasn't the effort even trying yeah yeah so I think for you the don't blame them color I part of me wonders if you heard that and you were like oh no I want to make like my sibling I let like our parents still love her like blah blah blah and all of that not a personal attack on your parents at all it is just about trying there and all of that and I I can imagine being the sibling in your personal situation feeling like trying to mediate everything and all of that there and i wish the original caller had that yeah and i hope things have changed since that call and i love them the original caller me too can they call back and give us yeah let us know if

you played the call for your siblings yeah i hope it's going a lot better but yeah i think that like there's been like a lot of like news of people like in the news like non-bind like all of that stuff so i think that there's been some more education on that but i would also say um one of the great things about reddit when you have the app is like you look at one thing and then it like will suggest give you push notifications and suggest like random boards for you to follow and i was looking at she's a model and uh i was looking at like one of her quotes or something that was on a, I don't remember what the exact board was, but she's a transgender model. And then it got suggested one that was all about like ask an NB anything kind of thing. And it was like

a whole community. It was a very heavily moderated board. It was like very, I could see as someone who like as an older person or someone who like isn't necessarily like very well versed on that kind of a thing that it seemed to be quite a helpful discussion. And I saw a lot of specifically parents on there who are trying to understand more about their kids and make the effort but as always I think unless you are told differently I think the best thing you can always do in those situations is if you have like a friend or a family member or anyone who comes out ask them like hey what can I do for you where what are the bet like I'm gonna go take initiative and do my own research and stuff would you prefer I come to you if I have questions or would you prefer me to

google and then just go based off of that I think showing initiative in those things is really important and makes in general at anywhere, anytime you're showing initiative shows that you care and like all of that, but then also understanding that it's not someone's job to educate you. You don't need to just like sit on your ass for there, but that you can go to them for a resource if they are making that available and open to you, but not assuming any of those things. Well, what an episode. Yeah. A lot of different topics covered. Do you think Rachel's just like scream do you think she's already left a review yeah do you think she's going to do one for every call no it'll be she only comes back every other week so that is it for our episode

we hope you enjoyed if you want to check out our patreon we have the video versions there it is only a dollar a month which basically translates to either 20 cents an episode or 25 cents an episode math and we also do live streams twice a month they're literally like zooms where we hang out they're really fun no pressure five dollars a month it's also a really great way to support our show keep the lights on we literally have lights on now today we do that helps us keep the lights on and you can also you know if you are rolling in oil money any other kind of money and you want to spend more go for it and during however much you want and we appreciate it our merch is also out it is so cute it is so great i live for the fact that

anytime that i wear it whether it's on like instagram or tiktok people are like oh my god cute sweatshirt. Can I get the link? And I'm like, Oh, it's actually our merch. So thank you so much. So we always have that listed in the show notes. You can also just go to our Instagram, click it, order you some, get you some cute merch. If you want to call in for an upcoming episode, again, the phone number is 310-694-0976. International listeners, you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast.gmail.com. All the same rules and requests that I said at the top the show, apply, follow us on Instagram, TikTok, follow our personals. My book is coming out on paperback. It is coming out September 28th, but it has a new cover that I designed. I mean, okay,

I'm not going to take full credit. Like they have a whole team of like designers and people, but we worked really hard. If you know me, I'm all about the aesthetics. I think I sent you options. Yeah, you did. So I'm really excited about it. It's really cute. And even if you have the hardcover cover like paperbacks you can like travel with it you can be that like person on the train where you're just like reading a paperback book and like wow so cute and also it's cheaper than the hardcover so if you haven't gotten the book yet please do hey lots of sorority tea in there that we talked about on this episode oh look i just bought it oh thank you so nice so yeah oh also if you want the audiobook too you can listen melissa directed that but get the

paperback i'm supposed to promote the paperback so get the paper back copy of my book so if you could pre-order that would be fantastic and also pre-orders count more than buying it the day of its release and just like the hardcover if you haven't bought that it will ship to you on the actual release like you will get it on the release day so a lot of people think that you kind of if you order it then you're waiting and people would rather buy it the day it actually comes out it will arrive on your doorstep and then sometimes honestly it's very earlier you know it usually does i have people who like got my book like from amazon like two days before it came out i was mad because i was like i had ordered mine way before yeah and i was like excuse me 2042 is it happening

right so get my book and my presets and watch my youtube videos anything else you want to promote no okay nothing i'm over she's over it she's fucking done yeah um you know what should happen we need an integration abercrombie we need a brand deal yes please there's two girls that you know they've been doing like they're all over abercrombie's instagram here's the thing like pick us we have already had our not our name our likeness ripped off for a greeting card in target we know we look great together right like we are a look we are a vibe like why do we not have a sponsorship yeah first of all we look completely different we have completely different body types we're different heights like we are what you want to sell your product on that goes look look at

them wow look at them maybe we just need to like start spamming them yeah i'll tag them we'll figure it out if anyone works for abercrombie please uh hit us up okay that's it go leave us a review and offset uh the anger reviews that rachel will obviously leave after this episode goodbye don't blame me is a production by me executive produced by melissa de monts and diamond and print productions. Edited by Coco Lawrence. Post-production sound by Chris Henry. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. Music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso.