Don't Blame Me! - S8E22: He's Mad But We Were Never Exclusive

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

This week we're sharing advice on:  Misunderstanding leading to a break up Mental Health and True Crime Admitting You're A Virgin Best Friend Dating A Republican Don't Blame Them - Friend Who Just Gave Birth Isn't Communicating    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

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Get tickets now. hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of don't blame me starring me megan and my co-host producer melissa greetings and salutations that's some pig wilbur is that like charlotte's web i had a friend who was obsessed with pigs as a kid like that was like you know like kids have an animal hers was pigs i got a notification on my phone like a few minutes ago that said that there's a new deadly disease out here attacking pigs in the usa is it gonna be like swine flu i didn't read it i just saw the headline remember murder hornets yeah they didn't turn out to be as big as we thought they were gonna be similar to quicksand which i definitely

thought would be a major issue in my life. I did. It was in a lot of movies. It's not in movies anymore. Probably because of the false advertisement. True. I was promised quicksand. Well, we're an advice podcast where we give advice. Are you shocked? I know you are. It's not like it's in the descriptor at all. So if you want to call in for an upcoming episode, you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976. And international listeners, you can send us an audio message at meganpodcasts at gmail.com.

Keep it under three minutes, write everything down, and then we recommend timing yourself as you read it out loud so you have all of the information in there. Your age, pronouns, we keep everything anonymous. You don't need to include your name

or anything like that, but we want to have as much information as possible and then we can give you the best possible advice. But if we don't have all the information, you're on the risk of us giving you advice that's not as relevant or what you need. Or accurate. Exactly.

Yeah, what we lack for in... When we lack in credentials. We make up for in... Opinions. The big O. The big O. Yeah, so forgive me if I'm a little slow today, as you all probably, if you know, if you don't know,

I am, I guess technically it's long COVID, but like some people have said four weeks after here. I don't know, whatever it is. I'm still dealing with symptoms, so I'm a little out of it sometimes. Did you take your Addy? I did this morning and I took it late, so I can't take another one yet. Let's just double check in. Did you know that's like one of the things that's like back ordered and like

trapped on ships and taking forever is medications? Oof. Honestly, my psychiatrist can call in my like refill on a prescription and it's controlled. So you can't get like a ton at a time. normally she'll call it in and like my it'll be ready within that day and like maximum 24 maybe 48 hours and i didn't even realize it because i like lost a whole bottle and found it later on but it took a month and a half for it to like fill and i had to deal that with my birth control too that like i was running out and i like did like i don't know like four days in advance i was like

or maybe it felt like a week i like issued it and moths went to go pick it up and they're like oh we're not going to have it for at least another three weeks. And he was like, no, no, I don't think you understand. Like I, she needs it. My biggest advice to people who have had like negative reactions to like birth controls, remember which one you didn't like when you're going to go to get a new one, tell them and tell them why you didn't like it. I'm not saying what brands things are. Because then people think negative, but that might be the one that works for them. And at the end of the day, I'm like, if my birth control brand that like I love and it like work for a family, if they want to pay me for my pain and suffering, I feel like I deserve

compensation for it. But they also have a whole team of lawyers who knows how to write things that like ensure that like, I'm not saying anything wrong or doing anything medical jargon wise. I had one that like it was giving me horrible migraines. And there's like a specific ingredient that if this kind gives you migraines, it's usually this is the ingredient. And then here's the other one that will give for you. And even though the one I was on before has it can be really helpful to other people who get migraines it just means they react differently to that so that was helpful so i agree i'm now on month four of mine and the spotting that i had before i don't get that i'm not getting spotting at all anymore um no migraines i'm still cramping but

like they're significantly less so i will attest like i had written off birth control because of the adverse effects that it had on me but I got to a point where like I was getting so sick before my period that I was like mentally and physically getting awful reactions that I needed to go on something um now I found the one that works for me so I'm happy about it I'm so happy for you I cannot wait until I stop spotting like it's definitely not as bad and it's like petering off but i got period underwear i talked about it on my youtube channel in one of my recent vlogs it's in the title if you want to go check it out but it is been fantastic and like great for the consistent spotting and i have like friends moms who are like you know post-menopausal who also

use it just for like peeing like if they like you know cough and pee a little yeah so that i also got this message from this person who i'm friends with on instagram who told me that they started using period underwear in workout classes which is like they were like it's great like you know yeah and it's not as comfortable and they like dry very quickly and also helpful after having like a kid in workout classes like specifically or just having a kid like in general it's very helpful so i left a message on your video it said something because you said don't talk about how small my ass is or something and then I said I'll look at that small ass but like truthfully that ass you've seen me at all stages of my body which only the only time

my ass gets larger is when I'm like working out yeah it is only like I have nothing natural it is purely only a muscle so when I like was like essentially kind of bedridden with COVID for two weeks like my ass is basically concave like i look like a frog like from the back where it's just like my legs come out of my back it's so bad it's rough i love living troll comments on your anything you do it's what you're destined to do it makes me laugh so much so anything new with you no i think this will be the last day everyone will see me with braids for a minute are you done i'm just taking them down because it's like time for them to come down i take them down this weekend and like let it breathe for a moment so then i don't get my edges snatched does taking them down

mean taking that like taking them out yes if you get like a weave or extensions you could like move them up so i don't know if like moving down opposite no not for braids you can't do that with braids you know how people like watch asmr videos at night i watch people braid their hair no if you want to come unbraid my hair you take it on half i'll help you but not now just let me know when okay yeah i watched a girl who her she decided at like 6 p.m she wanted to re-braid her hair and it was her and her roommate doing it and it was like she had to get on a plane the next day it looks great but like those are my zen videos just like watching like it's just the close-up of the i'm like do you want to put them back in after yeah i'll probably put them back in like

december ish it's just so easy it's so much easier to do my hair like literally i just wake up and take my bonnet off and i'm good to go and do you have to schedule like your hair wash days around things anymore no because i can just it can just like it dries really quickly too so yeah i can just wash it real quick and i'm done i don't have to take a whole day and do anything so are you going to change the colors up or you want to do something i might put some red in there for the holidays i'm sorry can you do do they do tinsel there's this guy that like made a video about uh you remember that movie atlantis of course yes and so there's this guy that like looks like the guy in that and then she had braids that had silver in it and she's like so you're

gonna make this video and and so now i have to cosplay as her so she already had she's like i already got the hair so yes that hair moment was like that was like an identifying like that was a moment it was so good maybe you should do that yeah maybe it looked like storm from x-men just do pure great or you could just do a strip of you like stacy london okay anything else that we should update on buy our merch buy our merch that's it should we uh get into this episode let's give some advice hi Megan and Melissa I hope you're doing well I'm a tourist and I wanted some advice on this guy I've been seeing for the past two to three months now throughout this time we've never really spoken about whether we're exclusive

or seeing other people so now this has caused issues since the other night I went out to the pub and I ran into an old friend of mine from school we decided to go outside and catch up when I went outside I just happened to run into the guy I'm seeing clearly he did not like that he saw me come out with another guy so I went over I said hi I said I'm catching up with a friend of mine but I'd come over later he didn't say anything back so I kind of just left I wasn't able to find him for the rest of the night so I messaged him asking if he was okay and about the situation He straight up told me how he was embarrassed that I picked another guy in front of him and his friends,

that he was not a mug and pretty much just wants to end things. I explained to him how that was not the case. I did not pick another guy in front of him and that he was just a friend, nothing else. But even if he was more than a friend, I didn't think it would be such a big deal because we never specified the terms of the relationship. he didn't want to hear me out or really understand my perspective on it and is still set on just

breaking up now this is where I need your advice because he is seven years older than me so we clearly have a different mindset and a way of thinking so I'm not really sure on what I can really say or do to help him understand my perspective and for him to really communicate and figure this out because I definitely think breaking up is extreme this is definitely an issue that we can speak about and work through but from the sounds of it he doesn't really want to do that or put the effort in to fix things he just wants to end things just like that yeah so I'm hoping you can give me some advice since this is my first proper relationship and not really sure what I can do to change his mind since I definitely think it's all being blown out of proportion

yeah so thank you okay you didn't tell us that we can't give tough love i'm gonna give you some tough love yeah he did you the greatest favor by showing you a massive red flag this should be like a thank god that i have now seen this side of him and like this is out first of all this is something that like is so embarrassing for him like this is something like if you like matz and i when we started dating like we weren't like exclusive like i was still like talk like you know talking to someone else or whatever he was like i would have never fucking said anything like that's mortifying like that's so embarrassing like we haven't made that conversation like for me to assume that like you can't assume that but like he's also seven years older and like he's

gonna see you out with a guy and it's like no you're like i'm not a fucking monk like like no fuck off that is he's jealous he does not gonna want you to have any friends and like he's not gonna wait to hear what you have to say and is just going to overreact based on the fact that like you also like have not had that exclusivity talk and if you saw him out with a girl, first of all, you wouldn't have had that reaction and if you did, I promise you,

he would have lost his shit on you. Like this is not healthy on his end and then the part that is not healthy on your end is that the trying like how do I make him change his mind? He doesn't wanna work on this. It's being blown out of proportion. I want to. no no first of all he did again he did you a favor but we don't get to say that like this

was blown out of like he reacted how he reacted we don't overreact we just react and you can't change someone's mind and convince someone to like want to work on it and him not wanting to work on it that should be enough like why do you want to convince someone to want to care about you Yeah, she said two things that she said, this is my first proper relationship, but also said that you guys weren't exclusive. So they contradict each other. It's not you're not in a relationship with him. You're dating him because you haven't made the exclusive whatever. it seems like he thought you guys were exclusive even if he thought this this didn't you guys never had to talk one and then two it was just your friend like it's just a friend so like you can't have friends and then he felt embarrassed because he was in front of his his friends and then you're like we're different ages and age has nothing to do with it like you have different

mindsets age has nothing to do with this this has it's just the fact that he seems like he's controlling because he doesn't he only wants you to hang out with people that he approves of and doesn't see as a threat and he doesn't want to be with you i feel like he used this as an out because if he actually wanted to work on this there wouldn't be anything to work on because you were with a friend like he can't control who you hang out with yeah i also think that like part the reason why you're probably calling it a relationship now is because like he made you feel like you did something wrong and it was a relationship and all of that kind of shit and like if anything him being seven years older means he should be more mature and shouldn't be like this

like this is just so many so many so many red flags and again like he has handed you like the greatest gift on like not having to figure this out later down the road and this isn't par for the course when it comes to dating and I would just recommend in general especially if you for everyone but specifically if you have not a lot of relationship experience to not date somebody this much older than you stay within two to three years because older men or honestly really anyone anyone who is like an older person who is dating someone a lot younger 99% of the time maybe 90% of the time they're going after people who don't have experience with relationships because they can kind of set the standard of how this goes and they not only have the well I've

been in relationships and you haven't kind of thing but they also have age and so like we assume that they know better or they know how these things work and it's just not an even playing field and it can just fuck you up real fast. I'm against large age gap relationships. I don't think seven years is like the largest in the entire world. But it sounds like if you've never been in just even from the sound of your voice, and you've never been in a relationship before, and like you were met up with a guy you saw and caught like in university, like, it seems like you are in your 20s. And those years between your like early 20s and your late 20s, like it's transformative. And like that those are the years I find dating someone within your closer to your

age range is like honestly i know aside from like when it's illegal like that is like the most important time so just walk away and never never never never fight for something that the other person doesn't want you can't change people and if you can then that's also not a relationship that you should be in because think about it if their roles were reversed would you want him to change your mind if you wanted to end things two to three months in this is way too fucking toxic this is so many red flags right as i said in my book red flags are blurry stop signs put your glasses on and be like okay stop do not pass go do not collect two hundred dollars and then date people your own age all right next call hello megan and melissa oh i'm 24 i go by they them

pronouns and my situation is kind of interesting so i do not know and i hope you guys can help So I, a lot of people now, is very into true crime. And I actually want to be a forensic analyst because I really want to help solve all these self-crimes, especially ones that I'm very into, like the Freeway Phantom Killer, where the majority of the victims were 10 and 18, majority African-American. Look it up. It's a very interesting story. also sad story that is still unsolved to this day anyways I also make content that involves true

crime and like I do these researches like I look up the most craziest people that I've never heard of or that I already know of but don't know much of the detail and it takes a toll like on your mental health like researching like all these gruesome stuff like Gary Heitnik and Trigger warning trigger warning shoving screwdrivers down his victims ears and as much as i want to like pursue in this like career in like forensic analysts and also do like content where i talk about these stories especially stories that i feel like people should learn about especially those which the victims are mostly like minorities how does one separate hope with looking up these like horrible stories especially since it does take a toll on me reading all these gruesome things

and an author michelle mcnamara when she researched on the golden state killer she unfortunately died in her sleep because it affected her mental health that she had an accidental overdose on her medication so yeah i just want to know how to like separate my normal life and seconds really from my research yeah hope you guys can help thank you so i say this with like the utmost love not just to like this caller but to like anybody who is into quote unquote into true crime into all of this it is an unethical incredibly problematic thing in terms of creating and consuming content about this majority of the time. I am someone who listened to a lot of true crime podcasts. I've read Michelle McNamara's book. It's a very popular

genre of things. And I naturally stopped kind of like listening to ones that I had over the course of time. And based on an incredibly public case that I'm sure everybody has known, not going to talk about it by name at all, not to talk about any of cases by name, has completely turned me off of the consuming any kind of content from this genre that has not been done at the request of victims' families, that has not been done with victims' families, or has not been done by someone who has lost somebody to a horrific incident like this because those people have been through it then in turn are working with victims families and seeking justice and all that i don't think that there's anything wrong with like wanting to get into being like a forensic

analyst right i was going to say that was the difference is that they are studying forensic science yeah i think that's a great great thing but i think that the making content about this is the no you're making entertainment off victims think about any other crime that there is that isn't like the quote unquote true crime, because usually with true crime, it's usually like a marginalized person, a woman or person of color that is being gruesomely killed

or having something sexual done to them. And think about any other crime, you don't romanticize it in the same type of way. And you can't control how people consume that content. If you're making that for educational purposes, it's not your responsibility and it's not your job and i mean this with zero shade even if you get a forensic and like degree like you you are qualified to do your own kind of like reading and like see all of those things that you find like that can be helpful in your studies but you're

not qualified to educate other people on something i did see a great tiktok and this is kind of this is just based on how we talk about doing our own research or whatever really what we're doing is we are reading other people's research because you're not actually in the field looking at things all you're doing is regurgitating other people's research and these are some horrific things and like you said like these are done to mostly women and marginalized communities and the lack of positive attention and media around representation of marginalized communities in general and then making entertainment content that might not be intentionally you're trying to make entertaining it becomes that is how we're consuming content about indigenous women

that we're not seeing a lot of representation on scripted television shows or reality shows and what we are seeing is content that people are using people are watching on the same places that they watch makeup tutorials in the same places they watch comedy consuming it in the same manner about incredibly gruesome things that have happened to those people those marginalized groups are not being represented in these joyful happy ways otherwise and that's like a huge huge problem it feels like a savior complex yes and i think that like a lot of the true crime community has defended this as being an incredibly helpful thing and it's not like there are so many more harmful things that come from all of this like they're like defense attorneys who are like you're

actually giving someone like a complete like perfect case for this like it is just there is so much more harm to be done than good in those cases and you want to pursue this as a career and do that good and I honestly think if you remove yourself from consuming that kind of content unless again it is from someone that is like educated on the topic and has reached out to the family and the family is well aware of what they're doing and then knowing that like if those things the content you're taking does not have an immediate call to action that goes here is a letter that has been written to like this legislate like please pat help this if there is no call to action and it is just talking about it that is not productive or helpful for anyone and i think if

you can take yourself out of the consuming and the if you could take yourself out of the true crime community. There is a lot of sensationalism and gory and just, again, consuming it as entertainment, whether you think you are or not. I think you will find that you're going to be able to look at things from a much more analytical and clinical lens. And obviously it's an emotional thing. And if you feel like you can't handle that, that's okay. But this needs to be something that you're looking at in a textbook and not something that you're creating content with. Again, it's the similar thing that i feel with like people who are in medical school who make like doctor tiktoks who are like talking about like giving kind of medical advice or whatever and it's not very clear

that they are still studying and they are not qualified to give that kind of advice that's like me making a tiktok and saying i'm a biologist no yeah the thing that i've learned the most about true crime from having like leading a lot of conversations about it on my platforms over the last month or so, I got a lot of messages from people who have had family members and close friends who were involved in horrific, very popular cases who were like, you have no idea how horrible it is to log into the podcast app and to see your sister, your aunt, one of your best friend's name, your cousin's name listed as one of the top billed podcasts. And none of us knew it was coming. And now there's an entire podcast where they're talking about her. And

like unless a family is specifically seeking someone out and asking, and that happens. There are lots of podcasts like that. There are lots of things like that. There are lots of content that is like that. It's just a matter of regardless of what your intention is, when you put that kind of stuff into the universe, it is consumed by all different kinds of people.

And my biggest thing, and if anyone's in the Facebook group, you will also know this, like I am not okay with having a forum and me providing an outlet for people to talk negatively towards other people and spread misinformation or say things like I will monitor things like fucking crazy. Like we do that in the Facebook group as well. Like no, it's no one's responsibility in the group to educate someone else. If they're saying something that is like incorrect scientific,

like no, no, no. And that's the biggest issue. One of the biggest issues I have with this true crime is if you post these, this content, whether or not you keep the comments open, but it gets shared on Reddit and then you go on Reddit and then people are hype making hypotheses about this. And people are inferring about someone's like sexual orientation, someone's sex life. If someone had done this victim blaming, like, you can't control that. Once you put that into the universe, and people consume it as entertainment, regardless of what you do. And there are tons of people who are making informational content at the request of victims, families and doing exactly the call to actions that the families want, and that stuff. And so I think if you are reading a

book, or you're like studying and you come across something that's like, or you even see something on twitter that like is like a retweet of like a missing person or whatever search up that the family members don't contact them but see if they have like a gofundme they have there see if they have any links see if there's any petitions change.org petitions you can sign and use that kind of like fire for justice to actually make actionable items and steps that can actually lead to that versus awareness because the awareness needs to be at the request of families because otherwise you're just re-traumatizing them. I have like done a complete 180 to this kind of content. And yeah, I'm embarrassed that I didn't see it sooner. And I think that's how you separate

how it is, because I think one of these things is analytical and really clinical. And then the other is really sensationalized. It's sensationalized and it's a lot of guessing and not knowing. And I think when you're guessing and not knowing about somebody's life and you're putting all these hypotheses out. You're just asking questions that just opens a broader net for the actual person that was committing the crime to think about things that they might not have thought about in order to get away with stuff. Yeah. I don't think you have ill intentions at all, especially because a lot of people who create true crime content have no credentials or like nothing that they've done. And so I honestly think if you follow

through with becoming a forensic like analyst and doing all that stuff i think you will probably change your tune of how you talk about these things and how you feel comfortable because you will then have so much information to know how harmful those things can be and if you look at the difference between like paul holes's podcast versus like any other true crime like we heart murder podcast like it's so different it's all and that's the only i've never been able to listen to any true crime podcast because they always make me feel icky. And again, I didn't know why, but I didn't even, I never went to listen to them. But then I had to listen to the murder squad and I had to listen to it because of work reasons. And when I listened

to it, I was like, this is so much different, but it's because they're both professionals and understand how things work behind the scenes. And they always talk to the victim's families first. they make sure that they have permission and they never say too much because they'll say things like we don't want to say this because it might tip somebody off so they keep things and then they'll do like follow-up episodes where they'll give more information later if the person has been called or whatever yeah my biggest advice to anybody in general is to re-evaluate the content that you are consuming and why you like it because one of the big reasons that a lot of people had said to me they're like it's one of those things that i find it really informative and helpful for

how to like prevent me myself from getting in situations and get out of those situations which sounds like a very harmless statement but is in fact victim blaming and like i need to learn what this person had to lose their life so i can learn a lesson and i can learn to not do that because that's what got that person killed and when you put it in terms like that that's a really callous and like fucked up victim blaming statement to make and the way that we talk about like murder shouldn't be dialed down into like a quick sound bite or like a cheeky t-shirt or anything like and the fact that like I was attracted to podcasts that like were still really like they were like still had their personalities infused they would make jokes and be funny I'm like yeah that's

because it made me uncomfortable if they weren't like that if it was really serious and I was like so I felt more comfortable when they made murder and these horrible things less serious and more digestible for me. And I was like, that's on me. And that's like a very fucked up thing. And there are other people who are doing it out there ethically and seek that out, taking it back to the collar. Part of the reason I think why you feel like this is draining and it really takes a lot out of you too, is I don't think you're one of those people. Like, I don't think you're someone who's like consuming this purely as entertainment and all of that.

And like, you're probably surrounded in the true crime community by people who like, they live and breathe this kind of thing. And like, they're not taking it home with them in this like really deep emotional way. And if they are, it's in like a savior complex kind of way and take the analytical route. Some people, they may be professionals

that do take it home with them, but they're also like in therapy, they're able to work through those things and separate it. So we need those people like we need people who do all of this, but it's just a matter of the same way that we don't get medical advice from random people on Facebook. Like we shouldn't be putting someone else's trauma in someone's life, not to praise law enforcement or anything like that. And I also think it's a big fucking issue with a lot of true crime is a lot of like, we love this place. This detective did such a good job. It's like very glamorizing and romanticizing policing. policing. And then at the same time, they'll be like, the police suck at this. And I'm like,

please. OK, this is where this is where you draw the line. Sure, sure, sure, sure. But I think it's also indignant of the fact that we do need to reallocate money and funds. So we have actual educated detectives that are out there or forensic scientists out there doing the actual work, then it would help a lot of things. Hey, how about this? If the forensic analyst thing is too emotionally taxing, if the origin of a lot of this is like helping people, you can there are a lot of organizations there was like a specific group that does a lot about missing and like taking indigenous women and that kind of stuff so like volunteering there and doing all of those kinds of things there's lots of like facets that can be less gruesome to read about

that still can help victims and victims families this is like really no shade to anyone but this is something that i had to deal with i'm glad that i had that realization so time for a break and take a quick break and we'll be right back and we are back from our break shall we get into the rest of the calls Hi, Megan and Melissa. I'm 19 years old, almost 20, and I go by the pronouns she, her, and I am still a virgin. My virginity has never been a huge issue for me, but it also hasn't been something that I necessarily want to still have. I'm not saving myself for marriage, and I don't necessarily want to lose it to someone special. It just hasn't happened yet. i've recently started seeing a guy that i do really like and i feel like if we keep going in

the direction that we're going we probably will have sex so not to my question and my problem do i need to tell them that i'm virgin i don't want it to be a big deal and when i ask my friends about it it's about a 50 50 response of yes and no my friends that don't think that i should tell him say that they either wouldn't sleep with a virgin or that they don't think that it's his thing to know. The part about him not wanting to sleep with me because I'm a virgin kind of scares me and I do agree that it's not really his thing to decide but at the same time I don't want it to be awkward and if he can somehow sense that I haven't done it before or if he afterwards finds out that I haven't slept with anybody else it might become really

awkward. My friends who think that I should tell him argue that he kind of deserves to know and that it probably will make it easier for me in the moment and afterwards I don't really know if I should tell him and if I do tell him how should I do it I've been listening since I was like 16 and I really really love the podcast and I really appreciate you guys and everything that you do and yeah bye 16 yeah she's been here since she was 16 always makes me question everything are we fed well we've answered this question similar questions like this before we have i mean i don't stand by the whole like he deserves to to know i think like if you want to let him know like that should be something that you want to kind of share i think the whole the whole

deserve thing is how people put too much emphasis on quote unquote taking your virginity because it's like he should know so he knows that this is what he's about to do take your virginity like it's something for him to have it's not his and we put so much and for you you're like I don't care who I have sex with for the first time yeah like as if like he needs to know because it's a valid reason to not want to have sex with someone so my thing is is like what do you want out of this experience would you be okay if you had sex with him and you never heard from him again and a lot of time unless you go into it knowing it's like a one-night stand like that's not anyone's real ideal outcome but if you're going to have sex with this person for the first time what are you

looking to have out of it what are you looking to happen afterwards are you looking to continue to like see each other are you looking to continue to date are you looking to become boyfriend girlfriend or partners, whatever, because that to me dictates what you do. I think that if you are looking for a relationship, whether it's like in three months from now, you want to keep dating this person for like three to six months, and then you eventually would like to get into a relationship and you don't want this person sleeping with anybody else. That is something that i think needs to be said before you have sex because if that's what you want that conversation of what you're like looking for at least for me like if that is something you want that's a more

important conversation to have then hi i'm i want to let you know that i'm a virgin i think it's more important to establish what you are looking for out of this relationship first because once sex is involved can potential to have a lot more feelings involved if you were just fine like having it be done the first time in like a one night stand situation then i think like totally go for it don't have to tell him at all but i think if you are looking for a relationship with him and you are looking for like to continue dating and like having all those things specifically i think you should tell him that and then from there gauge would you be comfortable telling him that you've never had sex before but if you find out that he's like oh i'm like seeing other people

i'm sleeping with other people like you know those are conversations you should have before you have sex with someone is that person regular has been recently tested like there are all of that other kinds of like stuff and i think if we're uncomfortable talking about sex with someone doesn't have to be that you've never had sex but have a conversation about where are we going what are we into where are we have you been tested recently before you actually have sex with them yeah I think yes having a conversation about just sex as a whole but I don't think you have to bring up your virginity with anyone the first guy I was with was just some guy that was in one of my classes and we were studying and then we ended up hooking up and he didn't know I was

virgin. I didn't tell him. And we kind of dated after that. I think it was more like we were just studying a lot together and we're just hanging out. But I did not go into it with the intentions of dating him or even sleeping with him, to be quite frank. But it happened and it was fun and it wasn't bad. Like to this day, he doesn't know that he's the first guy that I slept with and it didn't matter. Like it doesn't matter. It doesn't. It's the last person you sleep with, not the first person you sleep with and even then who cares like i'm just like yeah by the time i'm so old my final fuck i don't even know if i'll remember it yeah it's sex like sex means as much as you want it to mean yeah it's a physical act of sharing bodies yeah it is nobody's business

also what is virginity like i know my whole thing is like take away like the virginity aspect of it and just like have it be like sex in this thing when I was like, you know, growing up and like first became sexually active or whatever. Like my whole thing was I wasn't comfortable having sex with someone who wasn't on the same page as me. So whether I, it was really casual, then I would only feel comfortable having sex

with someone who it was also just as casual to them. If it happened later down the road that I found out it wasn't as casual for them, then I'm like, okay. But like going in with like clear intentions and knowing that if I really, really liked someone and I wasn't sure if they like really liked me back, I was like, I'm gonna need to hold off

until I tell this person how I feel before I'm gonna have sex with them here. So I think that just like being honest with like yourself with what you want and the same thing with whoever you're sleeping with. And that's like all that really, regardless if it's your first or your like 10, like your thousandth time, like having sex

is just like making sure you're doing it because like you want to and it's fun and the person you are with is doing it because they want to and they're also having fun. Good, wet, consensual sex. have a great time and it might not be this person if you want it to be cool if not okay here for it do we have another one yep let's do it hi megan and melissa i'm 21 and i go by sheer pronouns i'm calling about my best friend who is also 21 and goes by sheer pronouns

and my advice what i'm looking for is regarding her boyfriend so basically me and my friend are childhood best friends and we always used to talk about how close we are and how we would be in our life forever and be to his need of honor and we hung out all the time um but this all changed about a year ago when she started uh dating her boyfriend and her priorities kind of shifted and she started spending more time with him and less time with me and I kind of expected this to happen even though she said it wouldn't but it's her first boyfriend and she's a head over heels for him but the problem is that I'm not really a huge fan of him I don't think that the relationship itself is toxic, but I do think he has some major character flaws. For one, he's anti-vax and his

whole family are Trump supporters. This upsets me because me and her are pretty liberal, so it really confuses me how he doesn't bother her. He's also just very immature with the way he processes emotions, and I can't stand it when she calls me to complain about him. It really worries me that she's convinced she's going to marry him, and ever since we started dating, our friendship has never been the same, and we started drifting apart. This hurt me because I've been going through a long tear and I could really use support but she's been in my head. I'm not even joking when I say that I haven't hung out with her at night for a whole year because she has to be with him every single night. I've never been in a long-term relationship so I don't know what it's like but I

feel like that's not normal to rely on your partner that much. But I've already expressed to her that I don't see her as often or don't feel like she's there for me but she always just gives me excuses about how busy she is with work and school. I don't want to confront her about her boyfriend because I feel like she'll just be defensive and feel like I'm attacking her. I think that my resentment towards her boyfriend has kind of pushed her away in a sense because she hasn't been reaching out as much and I haven't been reaching out as much, so it kind of goes both ways. She's someone who I thought I would have in my life forever, but this resentment towards her behavior since we started dating her boyfriend makes me question our relationship. I'm not sure

if I'm just overreacting over this whole situation and I should just let it go or I should stop wasting my time with her and shift my priorities to building other friendships. I hope that wasn't too long but thank you guys uh who we date is a reflection of us and who we spend time with is a reflection of us and i think you are subconsciously and or consciously pushing her away because like i don't mean this in like a mean way but like i think that you are rightfully kind of embarrassed by who she is letting in her life and like it doesn't morally align with you and it sucks but if she consciously started dating someone who doesn't align with her morals and like being an anti-vaxxer or trump supporter is like not a predisposed condition like that's

a choice yeah it sucks that she's been your friend for so many years but just because someone was your friend doesn't mean that they have to continue to be your friend it's not something that you sign up for for a lifetime commitment with people change and evolve and she's made it clear that she doesn't even want to spend any time with you since she's with him all the time you say you haven't even seen her in a year because she's with him every night and then the only time she calls you is to complain about him so her whole life revolves around him and you just happen to be someone that she can rely on the call to but if you take that away it's just like what are you getting out of this friendship friendships should be mutually beneficial

if you're not getting anything out of this then why are you still there and we talk about like toxic relationships a lot and like you know having to protect yourself and separate yourself from that friendship but like keep that door open and let them know that like they can always come to you that this to me doesn't seem like a toxic relationship this to me it doesn't really seem like it has honestly anything to do with him you want to put a lot of this blame on him for kind of changing your friend like making her like this but she was always capable of this like if it's not this guy it's going to be another one if it's not a relationship it's a job if it's not a job it's just a phase in her like it's kind of an inevitable thing that happened to show you who

she is and at this point in time nobody dates an anti-vaxxer you consciously know that and you're very okay with it and i think like you said at the end of the call like should you pursue other friendships yes yes 100 you deserve those kinds of friendships and like just because you guys are childhood friends you have all of this like people grow apart all the time but like most relationships it's not like a waste and it doesn't it can feel like friendship losses are really hard but it sounds like you've you you are kind of rightfully pretty fed up and it's been like a year of dealing with this and you deserve a whole lot fucking better and she's just a childhood friend that you have sometimes people date people they show us who our friends were and like who they really

and you're like oh okay thank you this probably would have taken years if they weren't in this relationship this like slow burn but now i'm getting it all at once and like thank you for this clarity moving on you know i've been through it i've been through it too it happens and you can hate him all you want but like he's a catalyst for an inevitable end of who she's going to be and i don't like giving men that much credit yeah if she tolerates this in her life that just means that she's okay with it to begin with she's okay with misinformation bad science quote-unquote science she's okay with racism she's okay with homophobia like she's okay with all these things so if that's not something that you morally stand by then that's not somebody that you

inevitably want to be friends with that's someone that you know assuming if she wants to have kids that someone she potentially wants to procreate with and have that be the household that those children grow up in with said extended family as well yeah yeah it sucks and it's also not on you for not like seeing it sooner or realizing it like it's only until these events or these people come into someone else's lives and like i think it's similar to the pandemic how like a lot of people's true colors came out that would have eventually come out at some point but like this was the catalyst which sucks but you sound like a great person and i bet that you're gonna have a lot of other great friends out there okay all right time for don't blame them okay so don't blame them is

where a caller will give their own advice on a previous call aired so maybe they have their own experience maybe they just had some ideas of something that we didn't say you know they just have something to say so say what you gotta say hi i'm calling in for a don't blame them for the most recent episode episode 18 about the girl whose friend just had a baby two weeks ago and she was already she was responding to a text so i am i guess a new mom my daughter is now a year and a half old i dealt with postpartum depression and also postpartum anxiety which is something that is not really talked about in the motherhood community as much. It's now starting to be talked about more.

But as a new mom, I had no idea what it was. It's really terrifying. You have a lot of intrusive thoughts, all those types of things. And like anyone with anxiety, you start to doubt like your friendships and the guilt, not to mention all of the guilt from motherhood. You're constantly guessing what you're doing right or wrong, how you're hurting your baby, all of these things. And it's a very overwhelming process to understand how to cope with all of that.

And I had all that on top of continually working as a therapist and being on into my anti-anxiety meds and all that kind of thing. So one thing that I would say is reassurance wouldn't be a bad idea. There were times when a friend would text me something along the lines of like, hey, I know you're really overwhelmed. You have a lot to deal with going on on your plate with a new baby and everything. I just wanted to let you know, I'm always here. If you need to talk, nothing you say will scare me away. And our friendship isn't conditional on you replying to this message. Like, just something along those lines where she doesn't feel the pressure to respond,

but knows that she's not damaging her friendship by not responding, if that makes sense. Because you can kind of convince yourself when you're sleep deprived at 3 a.m., out-touched with the baby on your boob, that you're never going to talk to your friends again and they're all pissed at you because you're not responding. And a good alternative to meals would be like sending her a DoorDash gift card or like an Amazon gift card to order food. Like my infant is hooked to Whole Foods, that kind of thing. That was almost better than the meals because then if you had food, you could eat it.

But if you didn't, you had that stuff in your DoorDash account and baby costs a lot of money. So it's not a bad thing. Don't go bad. It's part of motherhood. It gets easier around a month. So first month, you have literal contractions every time you breastfeed. so it's like that on top of a c-section is just a nightmare so you're doing great you're an amazing friend just be understanding be there for her and you guys will be fine she'll be back in a few

months thanks love you guys bye i'm sorry the idea that i knew that but just the reminder that you have contractions for the first month every time you breastfeed depends on the person it's not everyone yeah it's possible yeah fuck that some people get very like sleepy and relaxing so it just depends on the body i was reading something from breastfeeding specialist or something it was talking about how like you know because like the different hormones are released when that and like similarly to just people who are who don't have great serotonin levels like it's a threshold of the amount of things that get released and then sometimes it's not at all which is part of the reason why when some women are like breastfeeding doesn't hurt at all and then there's a lot of

people i mean it's not comfortable there's like this whole range and a lot of it is not everyone has the same amount of hormones released so it affects everyone really differently but thank you for letting us know about that i think the um discussion of postpartum depression is as a whole like as a like community i think it's so great that we're talking about that now i hadn't even heard of it until i was in my 20s like didn't even know what it was and i think like a lot of people are going to now be better equipped and have an understanding or at least an acknowledgement of postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety before they even get pregnant and have kids.

And I think that's a very exciting thing that a lot of people who gave birth most likely just suffered in silence for a really long time not knowing. And I think it's great. They called it like the mommy blues. Yeah, baby blues. I remember that.

Yeah. And that's like, sounds cutesy. And it's like, yeah, it's not. That's not what it is. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for giving us firsthand experience.

Exactly. Well, that is it for our episode. Hope you all enjoyed. If you want to call in for an upcoming one, leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976. And international listeners, you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com. All the same things we said at the top of the episode, apply and give us some calls with some crazy things. Let us know what's happening. Throw some wild cards in there for us. We'd love to know. Test us. Let's see what we can do. Follow us over on Instagram. And if you've made it this

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it's very cute I saw someone in the Facebook group ask if you'd put it in the dryer if it shrank it does not I've had mine I've washed it numerous times I got it a little bit big and it's still a little bit big on me hasn't shrunk at all they're great quality too very high quality so I'm going to read this this one is from Lulu Domineary so the title of this review is how does rachel have the time i love you both so much watching the podcast is a big highlight of my week thank you for continuing to make this podcast and entertain us you both are so funny and i cannot express how much i adore you both i do wonder how rachel finds the time and energy to review bomb and make so many accounts i'm exhausted just thinking about it us too and if

you are new here and you don't know who rachel is go to our podcast reviews and scroll not even that far down hopefully a little bit farther down by the time this episode is out and you will see that there is a common theme and a reoccurring person leaving reviews named rachel and um so if you would also like to leave a review to combat rachel's bi-weekly republican agenda please please uh if you feel so inclined to we're not stopping you they can't oh well is that it anything else you want to promote your book oh yeah paperback copy of my book is out it's so cute it's great big fan oh yeah she's got it up on her wall so cute so i highly recommend go get it go check it out and follow me on my socials and all that stuff

oh i have presets out too and if you buy those things that can help me eventually buy a house and then i can make cute house content we'll cross that bridge okay we'll see you all next time goodbye Bye. Don't Blame Me is a production by me. Executive produced by Melissa DeMonts 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.