Girls Gotta Eat - Should Love Be Unconditional?

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

It's just the ladies this week, and we're discussing that romantic little notion known as "unconditional love," and whether it's realistic or even something you should expect in a relationship. We also answer some listener emails and DMs, and share our most recent "meeting men in the wild" tactic (spoiler alert: it works). Enjoy! And follow Girls Gotta Eat on Instagram @GirlsGottaEatPodcast. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do dogs uncovitionally love you? Because they would literally die if you didn't help. If you didn't feed them and give them shelters. So like don't be the kind of person. Don't be a human equivalent of that. Yes. Hi guys. Welcome back to another episode of Girls Gotta Eat Podcast.

It's just the two of us today. You're welcome. We love having the boys. But back to just the OG, Raina and Ash. We are here at Health Media Network, powered by Senheiser as always, in our comfy, cute studio. I love it here. You look cute, doll.

Do you look pretty today? You're right. I have a dinner. We're so good at taking compliments. Be humble. I have a dinner event tonight. This is going to be the first time that Ashley and I do not go out to dinner after we record.

I know. When you sprung that on me like a few hours ago, you're like, well, I have an event tonight. I was like, what? I like just put my workout clothes in my bag. I was like, I guess I'll just go to Barry's after. You know I hate doing this to you, But tonight is a special event.

Yeah. So now... When Ashley says I look nice, it means I wore something besides stretch pants into this office. I am in my full stretch pants and my hat, as always. All right. And then my housekeeping for the day, which I always say up top is guys,

thank you for subscribing to this podcast. We really appreciate it. There's been an influx of you guys mentioning us in your stories this week. We love it so much. Ashley actually started crying a few minutes ago. Shut up. It was beautiful.

Why? I know. I'm such a pussy. I'm sorry. It was a beautiful. listener email about some anyways um we'll talk about listening emails later but um please keep subscribing tell tell a friend about this podcast today it's really important to us tell your whole office you know what send an email go into a board meeting tell everyone send a mass email like we want to stay on the top of the choice

spam all of your friends please you know when you like clap really hard like tinkerbell comes back to life this is how you can bring us to life and keep us at the top of the charge yes we love you guys so much okay just want to talk about what happened last night of course of course Of course I do. I was kind of drunk, so I'm a little... Right, God, right, right, right. Okay. Rita is a lightweight.

I'm just going to put it out. I mean, you're small. You don't eat a lot. So I already had like four glasses of wine before I came. Yes, you went to an event and then we met up. Ashley was all cute editing the podcast by herself, having a glass of wine in the window of this restaurant. It was so sweet. You know, it was, that was a cute moment for me.

I love... And then I showed up. I know that my calling is this podcast and editing it. because I can do it while I drank. Like, when I was mostly writing and enjoying all that kind of stuff, I wouldn't drink and work. And like, I can drink wine and do this podcast for you guys. It's like, that's how I know it's real.

Does that mean sex is my calling? Because I can drink while I do sex? I think just drinking is our calling. Okay, guys. So we are out last night, as Raina has mentioned this in a few other episodes, that every week, say it. Oh, yes. Every week the universe gifts me a present.

It did. It happened last night, like 930, 10 o'clock last night. because we're like, what are we going to talk about at the intro? I think I manifest these things because I'm such a creep. I swear you manifest these things. Like, we come into this. We, we, in province, spitball a lot. But, like, we do come in with an outline.

So every week, we're like, what are we going to talk about on the intro? What's been going on this week? And Raina's like, I don't really have anything. And then literally the night before recording, 11 p.m., something hits. So I was being a creep. It's all me being a creep. So we're at this place last night. And I'm just going to tell you what happened from my point of view.

I don't remember. So whatever you said. Oh, my God. We were sitting at this place on St. Marks, which, if you know, New York, very busy streets, kind of like the Bourbon Street of the East Village. And we weren't like on the street on a patio. We were in the windows. We were the table closest to this giant open window.

Like you could like reach out and touch people walking by, but there's still a barrier there. So I'm there with Raina, her other best friend, Melanie. Oh, like you don't talk about Kate. on every episode. We always shout, Kate, we're going to give Melanie a shout out today. Melanie is Raina's other best friend, no big deal. And I love her. So we're sitting there.

All of a sudden, this is super hot guy walks by. And Raina's like, hey. Like just, and he like stopped for a minute. He was like kind of shook. And he was like, hey, what's up? And like kept walking. I was like, okay, girl, keep doing what you're doing. It was so subtle.

She did this thing where the guy stopped. Like, do I know you? Or then just kept just kept walking. I was like, if she just keeps doing this, someone's going to stop. Numbers game. It's a numbers game. Another guy walks by, she's like, hey, how's it going? And he was like, what? Like, didn't know what to do? I was like, she is crushing right now. It's only a matter of time. Well, this guy, this guy was like, I'll sign up for this for a few minutes. So then we're on dude number three, the hottest, one of the hottest guys I've ever seen walks by and Rayna was like, hey, how's it going? Just out the window. And he goes, do I know you? And she goes, no. And he comes over. And he. And he comes over. And we're like, oh shit. Hottest man alive with an Australian accent. Who's going to talk to this guy?

How can we talk to this person? And he was just like imperfect, like at leisure wear. His headphones kind of hanging out of his shirt. And like, I mean, he was beautiful. Do you remember the conversation? I think what you're feeling is pride. So we talk to this guy and Melanie's over here just like, hey, they have a podcast. Maybe you should listen to it.

She's the most beautiful person alive too. He probably came over to talk to her. What's about me? So she's like, these girls have a podcast, do you want to come on it? And he's like, I'm kind of more a private person. Anyway, we start talking to this guy. He works in fitness, and we were talking about fitness classes and different things. He's here from New Zealand for 10 days.

Beautiful man. And, like, just kept getting more beautiful as we talked to me. Right. She's a wonderful person. And he was here for 10 days. And today, it was day four. So I was like, oh, he's got a week left. And he was like, well, let me know if, you know, you guys want to hang out while I'm still here. and hands his phone over to put our numbers in.

And you guys know I have a little PTSD from the last time this happened in the number exchange from two episodes ago. And he hands his phone over the barrier and Raina hands it to me. I got scared. I didn't know what to do. Which I was like, is she the best friend ever? You're welcome. That was your birthday present.

From God. My birthday's coming up. That was your birthday present. Oh my God. So I put my number in his phone. I haven't heard anything yet, but you know, fingers crossed. Well, he's busy. I don't, we Googled him after he.

Okay, so you left. I've been talking for a while. You talk about now what happened when we Googled him. I mean, we Googled him. He had a very unique first name, and then we also know what fitness company works for. So quick, I did quick Google and he pops up right away. Right. I mean, I can get your bank account numbers in social security in 30 seconds. But, yeah, found him, and there is a page of Google hits.

He's like a model. He's a full-blown. Like, there are hundreds of professional photos of this guy. magazine covers. He's like, oh, I'm kind of a private person. Like, nobody. Oh, really? Because you were in vogue.

Right. Like, what? Oh, my God. Hold on. Let me just check my phone. I'm just, you know, I just want to see if he's text to me. Okay, not yet, but I'm sure he's going to. He's going to.

Yeah. It's not like East Village Tom last week. Was that his name Tom? I don't remember. Joe. Joe. Typical Joe. Didn't leave.

Jim teacher Joe. Didn't put his phone number in my phone. I haven't heard back from the architect guy. Who fucking. They're last week's news. He started texting me, like, photos and all this, like, information on what he was up to. I sent him, like, one text back. No, we're on to Australian models only now.

Yeah, sorry, busy. But just to wrap that up, sit in a window and just holler at people. Can't hurt. You did kind of stick your tits out, too. You were like, hey. They're double ds. They're out. My mom told me, I was like 14.

You can wear a burlap sack. People know they're up. But, like, you arched your back when you said, hey. I did? That's what Melanie said. You were like, hey. You like did a stretch, like, arms behind you. Well, it worked.

But honestly, I mean, that's the thing. Like, you can never go wrong. Like, I just want to just back to our meeting guys in the wild, and then we'll get into our topic for the day. Like, this is not construction workers hollering obscene, obscenities at women. This is pretty girls just being like, hey, how's it going on a New York summer night? Like, what man is going to be like, you're such creepy? Like, nobody thinks that's weird.

And one out of three times. They'll stop. And be a model. 33% of the time. We got the best looking richest one to stop. Anyways. So this week... That's where we'll be every night.

On tape marks. Until the end of time. So this week we... So we've been talking about what to talk about this week. We talked a lot about like single stuff and like meeting guys. And this week we really wanted to get into like... Let's talk about a topic when you're in a relationship. Because actually and I, we are single now, but we have been in relationships.

So we came up with a topic today. because we really do a lot of research to just find articles that you guys would think are interesting and fun and put them in our Instagram stories. And Ashley came across this really cool article. Where was it in The New Yorker? This is a, yeah, New York Times article. So it's not brand new. This was an article that I knew about before. And yeah, like Raina said, like we love all you single ladies that listen.

We're single right now, but we haven't always been. So we know that a lot of you listen that are in relationships and one advice there too. So we were kind of tossed around different ideas. And this is, obviously we have this podcast, but Rain and I also talk about relationships all day, every day, aside from this. So this is a topic we wanted to touch on. And this was an article. This is actually from like June of last, oh, it's a year old, June from last year. And it is called to stay in love sign on the dotted line, which is like the unsexiest thing you can talk about.

This literally talks about how relationships are contractual. And people get all wrapped up in the romance and the love and all that kind of stuff, which is great. But relationships are contracts. They are contracts that you have with someone else to you do this, they do this, make sure both people's needs are being met. So you're both like happy in a relationship. And this is about a couple that they sit down yearly and they go over their relationship and they talk about it. And I'll read this one excerpt. It says the latest version of Mark and Mandy's relationship contract, a four-page single-space document that we sign a date will last for exactly 12 months after which we have the option to revise and renew it as we've done twice before.

The contract spells out everything from sex to chores to finances to our expectations for the future. And I love it. Most unromantic thing ever, but it's true. And I think that we always, it's always in your head. You always are like, I do this for this person. This person does this for me. What does this relationship mean to me? Are my needs being met?

All these type of things. And I kind of like that this couple, I mean, popping open your laptops is a little extreme, but it worked for them and we'll obviously provide you guys with link for this article. But I just, I love this idea so much. And I've seen a therapist, Raina's mom is one. Like we've all dealt with therapists and people that are very well versed in relationships and things like that. And like that's a term that a lot of relationship therapists and people in the professional space use is like it's a contract.

Like you're in this contract with another person. Right. And whether you want to admit that it is a contract or not and you want to sit down and actually write it, it is a contract. And love is based on conditions, right? Are my needs being met? Am I happy? Am I being treated the way that I want to?

And so what we wanted to kind of get in today is this idea that, like, you should love somebody unconditionally. And I really don't believe that. And I think that love is conditional. And not only do I think it's conditional, I think it should be conditional. And, you know, you are a single entity in a person and love is a contract and you have the right to not be a part of that contract if those conditions are not being met. And like you said, it's not super, like, sexy to be like, okay, we will have sex three days a week and you will walk the dog twice a week. But the only person that you really deserve unconditional love from is your parents. And I hope that you have that with your family.

And Ashley and I are lucky to have that. But in a relationship, there are conditions. And I think we just want to talk about what those are. Right. So surprise. This episode is like unconditional love is not a thing. No, I, you mentioned the parents thing. Yeah.

So this was a little bit of an eye-opening experience for me. And we're going to get into our personal experiences. But I was seeing a therapist for a brief stint when I was dealing with a pretty rocky relationship with somebody that I really loved and I wanted it to work out. And this was somebody that did want this unconditional love from a partner. And I brought that up with my therapist. And she says, okay, first of all, back up. Unconditional love is not a thing between romantic partners. And she said, the only time you really have, and I guess deserve unconditional love is from your parents. And a lot of people don't even have that. A lot of people might have it from one parent,

both. If you have it from both, you're very lucky. I do. You know, but at the end of the day, like, whatever, if I just went and, like, burn my parents' house down and stole all their money, they don't have to love me. You know, that's an extreme case. I don't think anything's ever really going to come between me and my family members, my parents and my brother, too. But it's not a thing with romantic partners. Right. That's not something that you, that you have. I think some people use I love you as a ticket to start behaving any way that they want to. And those are different things. And I think that we want to sort of define, like, what is acceptable and what's not. When you're in a partnership with somebody, it is about compromise.

And you should be going to restaurants that they like and doing activities they like and things like that. That's just a compromise. But should you be with somebody who no longer tells you how excited they are about you or, God forbid, cheats on you or beats you or something like that, you don't have to be a part of that because that love is super conditional, like we said. A lot of times this comes from someone's past where maybe they didn't get that growing up. and it's a tough thing to tell somebody that you're dating and you're in a relationship with.

It's like, I just want unconditional love from you. It's tough to say, oh, no, no, no, love is conditional and you better hold up your end of the bargain. Right. And that's a thing. And I think that Brayne uses the term that you've been in past relationships, so we're going to talk about that where you're like, I mean, I signed up for this. And it's like, yeah, okay, you didn't sign up to like let yourself feel badly and be treated a certain way by someone and then continue to love them. you want unconditional love, fucking get a dog. You know, like, that's not something that humans need to give each other when they're not

getting their needs met. And there's such a difference between commitment and unconditional love, quote unquote. Like, I think you can be 100% committed to a relationship and wanting to make it work and riding those highs and lows with your partner as opposed to, like, I'm getting shit on and I'm supposed to unconditionally love this person. Right. Totally. And I think that, you know, I see all kinds of different things happen in relationships.

And, you know, one thing I see people do is, like, they sort of stop dating, right? So, like, everybody has different love languages, right? There's five languages of love. There's different things that everybody needs. So there's verbal affirmations of love. There's gift giving. There's acts of service, et cetera. And I think a lot of people are very good at all of those things at the beginning of a relationship.

They will spend time with you. They'll tell you that you look beautiful. They're excited to see you. They do acts of service. Like, make your bed for you in the morning. They'll cook you breakfast. And I think a lot of people, not everybody, but I think a lot of people sort of use I love you when we're in a serious committed relationship as a way to sort of stop doing those

things. And I think it's important to never stop dating. Remember that like you should always treat somebody the way that you treated them the beginning of a relationship. And you should remember it to tell somebody you look beautiful today or do something to surprise them, take them to a good restaurant, things that are exciting. And if you're not getting that from your partner, like, those are conditions of the relationship. You're allowed to say like, I don't want to be in this contract. Or like, let's reassess, you know, like, this couple. Like they pop up with their laptops every year and they assess their relationship. Am I getting my needs met? Are you getting your needs met? What can I do? What can you do? How can we

maintain the love that we have and a solid, healthy relationship? And I think I totally agree with what you said. It's a scary thought for someone in a relationship to think this person is never going to leave me. And that's exactly what we're talking about with unconditional love. Unconditional love means no matter what, I'm going to love you and I'm not going to leave you. And that shouldn't be how it should be, like, the thing that keeps relationships healthy is, like, knowing that you could lose that person, you're going to do what you can to hold on to them. I mean, there's clearly people get married, but they get divorced. Like, even that isn't guaranteed. So I think that there's people out there, men and women, that get into a certain place in a relationship, and they get really comfortable. And they're

like, what is this person? What are you going to do? You're going to leave? Where are you going to go? And it's, we joke about it, but you should always know that like if I don't treat this person right, they could leave. And I think there's a difference between that feeling and the feeling of like being scared someone's going to leave. Like you want someone that's committed, but you don't want someone you can walk all over. Right. It's a fine line, totally. But, you know, we talked about being the kind of person that, you know, it's important to give all those things to your partner, but you also need to uphold your side of the bargain, which is to be worthy of that love and that acceptance. And I think we find a lot of people that just aren't that nice to their partners.

And I think you find in men a lot, they know that the woman cannot leave because they have financially, I don't want to say financially crippled the person. But like I know I have a girlfriend in mine who's married to a military person. She's 35. She has two kids. And she's never really worked in her life. And I mean, I'll just say it. I think that he verbally abuses her. I think that he is terrible to her. And I know that she knows that she has no other options. And I think that's a scary place to be in with somebody where like they're not doing things to be worthy of that unconditional love, but they know that you're not going to leave them. And I think it's just super important to be the kind of person that is worthy of that. And you know, that's a lot of power

to wield over somebody that they don't have like the money or the like professional background to leave you. And that's, I don't know how to even like give advice on that, you know? I mean, that's a whole separate topic, I guess. But like, yeah, like having skills like something to fall back on so you're not completely dependent on another person. Duh. But I think this kind of segues into something that we discussed before, and that is, are you living someone else's life? And that's in the article that I mentioned, the New York Times article. The couple in the article, her previous boyfriend was someone that she found herself living his life, where she was like, oh, I'm just hanging out with his friends and I'm doing all of his hobbies,

and we're going on to the restaurants that he wants to go to. And I think she woke up one day, and she was like, my knees aren't getting met. And that's why she has this contractual relationship with her new partner. And it works really well for them because she was so fearful to, get back into a relationship like that. And I don't totally have that experience. But I think that I keep myself in check a lot. So with one of my last series relationships, I was thinking about that. Like are we just doing everything he wants to do? Like am I getting, is this equal? Is this an equal partnership? So I think that's something to ask yourself too. And that's where, again, you get caught up in this like,

well, yeah, I mean, I'm living his life or I'm living her life. But I love them unconditionally. Fuck that. Have you dealt with that where you felt like you lost some of yourself and your partner? Yeah, when I was younger. And it depends like what losing yourself means. Like sometimes you move to another city with somebody to live with them and you become friends with their friends. And that is not losing yourself or living their life. That's just, that is compromise in a relationship. Like sometimes there isn't another option but to live in a certain city. And if their friends and family happen to be there, then those people are your life. And there's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with being happy and excited about that.

For me, I lost myself in a relationship when I was very young. It was my first serious relationship in New York. I was like 22, 23. And he was just older and more successful. And he really made me feel very sort of small. And like all of my decisions weren't as good as the decisions he would make. Right. And, you know, I ended up living his life a little bit because, like, I didn't really

want to bring him around my friends as much or my family. And I really felt like I had lost the ability to even, like you said, pick a restaurant. Like, I remember when we broke up and I was like, oh my God, I get to decorate this apartment the way I want to. I get to pick where I go on to eat and decide, like, where I want to go today. And I really, really lost myself in that relationship. And I will completely take 100% responsibility saying, like, there was no reason for it. It wasn't like we were married. We didn't have kids.

There was no reason that I needed to. I just thought this person was better than me and smarter than me. And so I let myself be there. And I think that's also more common when you're a little bit younger. Yeah, for sure. I just didn't know how to ask for what I needed. Yeah. And I think that's just kind of simply a matter of just like self-reflection and like removing yourself from the situation that you're in and literally asking yourself like, do I really like to watch football day on a Saturday?

Like, and there's compromise too. It's like, I'll do that with you if you do this with me. Like, are we taking the trip you want to go to and then also taking the trip I want to go on? You know, I think those are things like you just need to ask yourself. And I think that that's what this contract is all about is having certain responsibilities in a relationship and like uphold. them to meet the other person's needs. And Rain and I have talked about this before. We just want to make it clear that when you're in a committed relationship, like, you should be kind of ride or die with that person where you're like riding these ups and downs with them. And we don't, we clearly

don't mean to like abandon someone if they're going through a hard time or they're losing their job. I mean, that's what being in a loving committed relationship is all about is riding those highs and lows with somebody and being committed. But that is different than unconditional love. So I'll give you the perfect example of this. And I was in a relationship. relationship for a long time, and we talk about this a lot in the podcast, I'm going to always talk about the same couple relationships. I've only been in a couple. But, you know, I was with this person who could kind of never get his life together, and it was always like another job and another pipe dream, another lapse in between jobs where I had to pay for things all the time. And I felt

like I was being really taken advantage of. But I said to myself, I signed up for this. You know, I signed up for the highs and the lows. And I signed up for, you know, you're going through some tough time. And of course I'll pay our rent this month. It's no big deal, like, because I will have lows as well someday and I will lose my job and I'll go through things in life where I can't work and you'll pay our rent. I just decided like I should sign up for this because like you said ride or die and internally for years I couldn't figure out like why I was so unhappy. I don't mean that as a joke like I just I felt like you're carrying the relationship in your back. But I didn't feel I felt like I have a man who is a great partner to me emotionally. He loves me. He treats people. I trust him. I know he's coming home

to me every night. He was my biggest fan in the world and I thought to myself like, why doesn't feel like enough? And I really would have, I would have married this person if he hadn't left me and thank God he did because like I thought to myself like, I signed up for this. I'm going to do this. But, you know, looking back, this is the perfect example of conditional love. Like, yes, you sign up to be with somebody through highs and lows. But if it's just low after low after low and it's causing you to like really emotionally crumble and financially crumble, do you know how frightening it was to me to think about combining my finances with that person? Yes, exactly.

It was really, I remember using the term, I feel like I'm staring down the barrel of a gun. Right. Like, thinking about, like, giving you access to my bank accounts. So, anyways, like, that's a good example for me of somebody that, like, might not be verbally abusing you and cheating on you and doing all these things. But, like, you are allowed to say to yourself, like, I cannot be a part of this. Right. It's not going to be okay.

Yeah. And I use my parents as an example. They will have been married for 40 years this August. They are the total anomaly. they're still so much in love. They're super attracted to each other. They both have these really great separate hobbies and lives, but they come together and they travel together

and they do all these things. We have a great family. But in recent years, my mom's opened up to me a little bit more about some of the issues that she has with my dad. My dad's an amazing guy. He's the person that I am most like in the world. Basically, I'm amazing. But she's...

Well, you are amazing. If I can plug your mom. I'm a product of both of them, but like my dad and are so similar and we have a lot of the same flaws. And we talked recently, and my mom, my mom has never, ever said, I'm going to leave your father. I just want to be very clear.

There's zero, whatever. There's one percent risk of divorce. Like, that's not happening. But I think at the same time, my mom has been, like, very close to that breaking point when my dad's going through, whatever he's going through, where she doesn't feel like he's treating her the way that she deserves to be treated and she just feels a little dismissed. And my dad, like, harbors a lot of things. So, you know, it'll be weeks.

My mom's like, I just feel like he won't talk to me and he's mad at me. And it was, I remember it was last summer. and we had, well, when I got drunk, and she was like, I'm upset. I'm pissed to your dad. And I was like, fucking tell him. Tell him, you'll leave his ass. Like, as much as my parents got divorced, I would throw myself off a cliff. Like, they're everything in my life. But like that, you know, I still think my dad, after 40 years was not like this woman unconditionally loves me. Like, I need to act right, you know? And I think that's how every relationship should be. It shouldn't matter 40 years,

50 years, you know, a couple years. It's like that mindset of unconditional love can, be detrimental to a relationship. I understand that there's reasons why people stay in bad relationships. There's tons of reasons. And we talked about finances being a reason, and you're married, you have kids. I understand that you want that kind of companionship. And it's hard to find a person you really get along with

and that you say to yourself, like maybe I can just suffer through some of this bad shit because the end of the day, this person is my best friend, whatever. But like, I just don't think anybody should ever make you feel like you have to stay in that relationship. there are other people in the world to date that will not make you feel like that you should give them

unconditional love like fuck that, no. And people get caught up too, speaking of married couples with this like, well, we took these vows in front of God to unconditionally love each other. And I want to reference sex in the city because I thought this was a very powerful part and if you haven't listened to our Sex and City episode,

please do, we love it, we're so proud of it. But there's a part in the movie where Steve cheats on Miranda once, one off, because he was not getting his needs met. And what she screams at him or she says to him in therapy, I can't remember exactly, she's like, you broke a vow. And he's like, so did you. Like there's cheating and there's lying, but there's also love and respect.

And like that's in the vows too. You know, so if you are feeling like someone is not loving you and supporting you and respecting you, that is what you signed up for too. It's such a reciprocal thing. And I guess our takeaway is just like, don't say that fucking word in a relationship. I love the Katie Perry song Unconditional. It's like my favorite song. I like all the remixes on my Spotify.

But it's like it's not real. Just throw it out the window. I don't ever act in a relationship like I should be unconditionally loved. You have to earn that shit. I try to be exciting and fun. I want to have sex with my partner. Like I look at people that cheat like you were saying. And like, well, did your partner not sleep with you for sex months?

Like they broke a vow too, you know? Like can you? really expect, can you really expect somebody to be in a sexless relationship with you? Right. That doesn't mean go out and cheat on people. I'm not saying like that's okay, but like loving somebody is not the only vow out there in the world. And there's, you see that with couples, especially once they have children, and you see couples that have great sex lives and they have a baby and things just change for a multitude of reasons. Time and you don't get any sleep and your vagina hurts, whatever. You know, like I'm not a mom.

Clearly. And you hear frustration in men, and I think that that is never a time to cheat, but it's a time to see your partner down. And I think that that, obviously, this all boils down of communication at the end of the day. And like the second you feel like your needs aren't being met, it's time for a talk. Totally. I remember I broke up with somebody and he broke, he brought up the love languages. That was so funny. But like, you know, I was pretty vocal, pretty early on when I said to him, I don't feel like you ever tell me that, like, you're excited to see me. And I try really hard. We had a long distance relationship and I would try really hard to plan things that would be exciting for him and to like wear outfits I thought he would like.

It would look nice. And, you know, when he would come to town, I would make sure that I had all this stuff planned and like sexy laundry and all this stuff. And like, you know, you want to do nice things for your partner. And it was pretty vocal pretty early on. Like, you don't ever tell me you're excited to see me. You don't ever tell me I look nice. And it was, it was super disappointing. And I tried to be really honest in a nice way at the beginning. And then I felt like he refused to get better and refused to say things, like give me verbal affirmations of praise. And it was tough for me.

And it just created this really shitty situation where I started withholding things from him. But at the end of the day, all you can do is be upfront and be honest with your partner about what you need. And if they refuse to give it to you, then you're allowed to make a decision to not be with that person anymore. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, guys, at the end of the day, day throw the fucking term unconditional love out the window that's not a thing in romantic relationships and if someone says you're supposed to unconditionally love me you need to tell them to get a dog

because that is the only and that's a teaser for an episode we have coming up about pets get excited dog lovers I've never had a pet my whole life I had a goldfish once it died but they they unconditionally love you I mean you know pets you can do you can really fuck with the dog and he'll just come back not that I do but like it's a it's a sad thing to even think of about. But why do dogs uncofficially love you? Because they would literally die if you didn't help. If you didn't feed them and give them shelters.

So like don't be the kind of person. Don't be a human equivalent of that. Yes. You know? Perfect way to wrap it up. Thank you, girl. All right, guys, we're going to take a break from the main topic to go ahead and pay some bills because girls got to pay to eat.

We need like some like, chiching, like sound effects. I can't do it with my mouth. I'm not good enough. What that mouth do. Okay. So we thought to lighten up this mood today. We would read some of your emails. Yes.

You guys email us and you DM us and we promise that we read them all and we file them away. We're not able to give responses to everybody. We try, but we thought we would read some today. Yeah, I think that'll be fun. And yeah, we will get to them eventually. We'll get them eventually. And we can't play, never have I ever anymore because I just, I've done everything. Yeah.

We'll bring it back one day. But not today. I don't know. I've just done everything. So anyways, we've gotten some really fun emails. I got this one that I think is a really interesting situation that a lot of people have probably been in and I have some very strong feelings about it. Oh, okay.

You want to go first? Yes. Hey, ladies. I'm hoping you can offer your duo of sage wisdom on this issue. I dated a guy and met off Bumble for two months. We had a lot of unprotected sex and we were really getting down and dirty. Okay. Come to find out he had a long-term relationship back in his hometown.

Obviously, I feel really upset. My health was in jeopardy. The other girl was as well, and this guy didn't give his shit either way, even when he assured me that they were not exclusive. So do I fuck some shit up and tell the girl what's been going on, or do I just let karma be a bitch? A lot of things about this. This has happened to me.

I've been like the other woman and found out that the guy that I was seeing had a girlfriend. It's happened to me. I mean, it's happened to everybody a couple times, right? I've been in the situation where I just decided, like, live and let live, like, whatever, who cares? Like, I'll get over it and move on. And you know what? I'm going to go ahead and give people permission to not do that. Because here's how I feel.

Why should I have to sit around feeling like shit? Because somebody manipulated me and lied to me and was inside of me. And you get to just go back to your relationship and be perfectly fine. Right. No. No, no, you don't get to do that. to me. So I would absolutely tell the person.

And I know some people would say to themselves, I don't want to start the drama. I don't want to be involved in it. Fuck the high road. You know what? No, it depends on the situation. But if you were dating somebody for months and realize that they were lying, I'm not even about like girl power, tell the other girl. I just mean like if you fucked my day up,

then I'm going to fuck your day up. And it has never been easier in the world to reach out to somebody on social media. And you're like, hey, just want to let you know. And leave it at that. You don't have to, like, get into a long conversation with the person. I don't think that you need to, like, maybe somebody will say prove it. You can send some couple text messages. And then I would step out of it.

Then I would exit the situation. Exactly. You don't need to, like, yell on the phone with the person or anything like that. But, like, think about it in the reverse. Like, wouldn't you want to know if your man? I would want to know. Like, I am never, well, never say never, Justin Bieber. But, like, I would, I mean, I never, I can't ever see myself in a situation where it's

one of those, like, don't ask, don't tell. I know my man's cheated on me. I don't want to hear about it. I don't think I'm. ever going to be a situation like that. Those do exist. So we've both seen, and you've seen it in TV and the movies or whatever, and probably in real life where someone comes forward and they're like, I'm sleeping with your man. And the girl's like, bitch, I'm like, why'd you have to do this? I know. I know. I don't have to work and he makes money. Like I know what I signed up for.

And there's situations like that. But like that's ever going to be me. So yes, like I never had this happen. I fully picture myself one day in some scenario where, well, let's hope not. But I could picture myself in a scenario where I'm dating somebody, some girl comes forward and tells me and then we fuck his life up together. I can see that. Why not? But why shouldn't you? Like, why should somebody get to make you feel so bad and so manipulated

and terrible? And they just get, I don't believe in like karma will take care of it. No, I will take care of it. I will find this person. This happened to me. That's why I feel so like serious about it. But a guy who lived in Chicago was doing this to me. It was fully dating me, but had a girlfriend he lived with in Chicago.

And I found out and I immediately told her because I was so upset. She said to me, I don't believe you, and this isn't true, and I trust him. And honestly, I walked away from it at that point. I just said, you know, hey, if you want the proof, I'll give you the proof. I'm not going to, like, send you all these messages, whatever. My work here is done. Right.

My work, exactly. Like, I don't, if you really don't want to know, like, clearly somebody in New York is not reaching out to this stranger in Chicago. Right. And making this up. But, like, I don't, okay, well, if you don't really want to know, then I'm not going to make you know. Right.

So that's why I feel about the situation. I say, I say tell the person. Yeah. I mean, I find there's a little bit of a difference between a drunken makeout at a bar and a full-blown, like, cheating relationship. 100%. So I don't, you know what, I don't know. If one night my boyfriend made out with some chick at the bar and seriously regretted

at the next day, whatever, I don't need that girl to tell me. I also know if that person owes you anything. Like, this man owed me. But when you're stringing two people along, oh, fuck you. Like, we were, like, we both worked like, we both worked like, from home. And so, like, we would, like, be on Skype the entire day together. Like, I was having a relationship with this person.

Right. And, yeah, you owe me something at the end of that. If you were just lying to me and lying to me and lying to me. So, yeah, like you said, if somebody, if I, like, made out with a guy at a bar, bad I need a girlfriend, no, I would not go out of my way to start drama with a total stranger. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. DM. I'm going to read the DM. Okay. Okay. Hi. I love your podcast and I made all my girlfriends listen to it in the way home from

O-C-M-D. Is Ocean City, Maryland, yesterday? Okay, girl, thank you. One of my favorite things is how empowered you are about your sexuality. I'm exhausted by the double standards in this world. I say all the time that I can be slutty and be happy about it. I got trashed recently for posting a double bikini pick. A guy friend literally said no one will date someone who puts it all out on Instagram for everyone to see.

But I'd love to hear your take on it. Love you girls. First of all, fuck that guy. Fuck that guy. No. I hope that guy never gets late again. No, yeah. Seriously, fuck that guy.

I guess this is two parts. we say this all the time. Like, be safe and, like, do you? Talking about sex and being, quote, unquote, slutty and living your life. Like, we talked about the sex. We said our episode, when to give it up is all about, like, doing what feels right to you. If you want to sleep with a bunch of people, be safe about it, you know, that's fine. Like, whatever feels fine to you and, like, don't let anybody judge you for it.

And again, we'll just throw, I mean, that's, like, span that sex and city. That's what that show did for women was, like, women can do this. And I mean, I don't really recommend like fucking a different guy every night or every other night. And like I just don't think that's like safe and healthy. But it's really just like you do you type of thing. You know, and I don't think anybody should judge you for it. And the bikini pick. I mean, to me that's just like an antiquated view of women's sexuality.

It's so stupid and small and ridiculous. And this man is not representative of all men. Like I think this is a person that's just being sort of ridiculous. and what feminism is to me is like, do what you want and what feels good to you and own it. No man should be able to tell you something like this. But yeah, there will always be men that feel like that or people that feel like that. They would rather be more private or more conservative. And that's fine.

You should live your life like that. But you have no right to tell somebody else that they can't. It's not like, I mean, she's not naked. Right. And like, I'm not going to post a naked pick or almost naked pig. But, I mean, I'll post a bikini pick here and there because I'm proud of body and a lot of it's just like I work really hard and I work out and I it's like if I feel good and feel confident fucking I'm gonna post it but I mean I think also like when girls when you're doing

these pictures and like just think about what what your purpose is because I think you know sometimes is it just because you like need that validation and then maybe like reassess what what's going on in your head there you know like I think you're when you post that it should be less about like I need these likes to feel worthy as a person. and I need these DM slides and I need these people to comment and these guys to tell me I'm hot because I need to feel validated as a person versus like I'm really proud of how I look. And I think you should strive for that ladder. And I think when you really feel like you need this validation from likes on your bikini pick,

like it's time to maybe like reassess what's going on your head there. Well, sex is the exact same thing. If you're having sex with somebody to validate some kind of like inner insecurity, like don't do that. But like if you're just doing it because you enjoy it, then like, fuck it. Who cares? Yeah. Okay. You got another one you want to read? Yeah. I don't know if this applies to a ton of people, but I feel like probably everybody has at least thought about this once or twice, so I thought it was really interesting. Hey, girls, I got to start by saying I love the podcast. And she goes on for a few paragraphs to talk about how amazing me and Ashley are.

I'm going to read that on our own time. I'm going to read that in that later. My best friend, who I've been friends with since I was 12, recently started dating my cousin, who is also our age, 23. We all went to high school together. We were a different friend group, blah, blah, blah. They're kind of in this honeymoon stage of the relationship. They're always kissing, hugging, holding hands. It's very awkward for me.

A few things have been going through my head, and I don't know if I'm being unreasonable or not. And she lists a bunch of things, but she wants to know, I'm going back and forth in my mind, about whether she should have asked me if it was okay to pursue this relationship. When they are out at bars together and I'm standing right there and they're all over each other, am I allowed to say that it's inappropriate and make her aware of it?

And then finally, what do I do if and when this goes south? So I think this is really sort of interesting. I mean, the email's a little bit longer, but I think like she's sort of asking us to address a couple things. Right. Okay, so tell me how you would feel. What if I wanted to date your brother? Well, the whole time that I was thinking about. this, cousin and brother feels very different to me.

Me too. Maybe she's different with her cousin. Totally. I mean. But they're all the same age and they grew up together now. I mean, there's, obviously, I'd need more details to give like a full assessment in the situation, but it's a matter of like, is this a cousin that you guys hang out all the time? It sounds like they hang out all the time.

Right. Like it's almost like brotherly. Right. I don't even know I haven't had it happen and it makes me feel a little weird. So I think it's two things. I think a couple of things. It's a really tricky situation. She wants to know.

should this person have asked my permission, am I allowed to say something if they're inappropriate in front of me, and then what I do if it's south? So I think a couple things. I don't know that grown adults need to ask permission from other people, but I think there's a way to behave and a way to do things that is acceptable, and there was a way that behave that isn't. And as the friend, I would hope that that person would, number one, be honest.

I'd be like, I just want to let you know. I did start, like, maybe hooking up with this person, like, we made out. And, like, you don't have to have, like, a sit down and ask permission for it because you're allowed to sleep with anybody you want to in the world. But, like, I would be honest that it's happening. Yeah. I mean, if one of my best friends, I mean, again, like, to me, there's so many different relationship tiers. So it's like, is this, like, a kind of a good friend? She said it was her one of her best friends.

She said it's one of her best friends and her all the same age and they grew up together. Yeah. I mean, and granted, that's, like, probably bound to happen if they're all hanging out, like, eventually. So, but yeah, I mean, before this friend starts dating the cousin, her loyalty is to her friend. So, like, I would say something. I would definitely address it. Like, I would think my friendship at this point is the more important relationship and the one that I'm going to prioritize, and I don't want to lose that.

I always like to think that girlfriends are going to come first before some person that may or may not last as a boyfriend or a fling or a man in your life, whatever. So, like, I would do everything I could to keep my friend in the loop and, like, preserve that relationship. I feel like it feels a little sneaky. It does. And, you know, there's a fine line between I'm allowed to do whatever I want. and just doing whatever you want with no regard for other people.

Like I think it's maybe a little weird if she's like hanging all over this guy in front of her friend. Yeah. Like maybe don't throw it in the person's face. And if you really feel like, if you actually feel like your boundaries have been crossed, like you're the family member and you're like, I don't want to watch these things. And like, I think you're allowed to say, like, I'm not super into this. And, you know, you can sort of decide how much you're comfortable with talking about it. But like, if you're worried about what's going to happen at the end of the relationship,

up, like, when something goes south. Like, I probably wouldn't open the door to be talking about it a lot. Right. Okay. So after my brother's wedding, I kind of hooked up with one of his friends. Okay. And kind of. I mean, I did.

And I know, let's be real. Yeah. And everybody knew about it. And it was pretty open. And this is somebody who I had known since I was nine years old, known pretty much my whole life. And I, you know, went to his kindergarten. graduation, his football games, his baseball games, high school graduation, whatever,

he had been a part of our family for a long time. I had to tell my brother and I was up front. I was honest. We hooked up after the wedding, but then we sort of continued the relationship. If it's a one-time thing, I think maybe don't tell. But if you're going to continue to talk to the person, I would be up front and do that and then probably shut it down. I decided whatever happened, I wasn't going to talk to my brother about it.

I wasn't going to be like, here's the issues, here's what I'm upset about, here's what annoys me or like because you have to be cognizant of the fact that the family member doesn't really want to hear this stuff. Right. Right? Like if I was dating your brother, would you want to hear about like what's going on behind closed doors? Like no. For me to go after one of my brother's friends and like let's say a girlfriend wanted to date my brother, it better be like you think that person's a person you might want to marry because it is so my brother would be livid. Like his friends are off limits to me. Like that's it would have to be that like this had been years and I was like, I just think this might be my person. Like my brother's name is Matt.

Like I would have to be like Matt. I know you hate this. I know you, this makes you want to murder us both. But like I think that your friend so and so could be a real partner for me. And I really want to find somebody. Like I would never jeopardize a relationship for a fling or for something that I didn't see an actual future with. And like that would really piss me the fuck off. That would piss me off. Like one of my friends came after my brother just to like have hook up within. Like what I would be like, fuck. you. You know, but like, I don't know if one of my best friends was like, Matt and I have been

hanging out and like, I hate this of Ashley, but like I think I might be in love with your brother. I would be like, but also, I don't know. Like you, in those situations, like, yeah, be really cool if that worked out. Great. It does happen. Like, you meet, you date people that you know. So it's not that crazy.

If it goes bad, it's so bad. Well, my brother, I told my brother in a like quiet, confined space. It was just the two of us. I was like, I just want to let you know that this happened. and this has happened more than once and like whatever. And my brother was like, he had the perfect response and he's so great. But he was like, you know, I kind of always figured that like something might happen between you too because he is somebody that I really like and I've known him his whole life.

He's a great person. And my brother was like, you know, totally fine, like blessings to you. And sort of left it at that. And like, you know, some things happened between us that I do not appreciate. And I didn't share those things with my brother. Right. Because that's just not, I'm not going to jeopardize the relationship with my brother by being like, you can't believe what this guy did to me.

I don't want to mess with that relationship either. Right. And I think you said, like, so perfectly, like, of course, people fall in love and that's different. But, like, it doesn't sound like this is a casual hookup with this girl. It sounds like, whatever. I think, anyways, moral of the story, if you really feel like your boundaries have been crossed, I think it's totally fine to actually say something. And at the end of the day, like, we said this a million times, like, communication is key.

Like, sit down with the friend and the cousin separately and have that, like, conversation over a drink or two. And like, listen, I just want to talk about this now. I'm, you know, hopefully it doesn't go south. But, like, I just want to talk about, like, kind of how we can all navigate this together so everybody feels comfortable. Totally. And maybe have a drink before you do it.

Like, not everybody's super comfortable. Like, leaning in. Okay, do you want to do one more email? Okay. Guys, thank you so much for listening to us, talk about fuck, unconditional love. And keep sending us these listener emails and DMs. we hope to get to them eventually. Yeah, we love them.

I thought this was really fun. I want to keep doing this more. Please go on iTunes. It takes one second. Leave a rating. Keep putting us in your Instagram stories, guys. This is how we will grow the podcast. You could follow us on social media at Girls Got to Eat Podcast on Instagram.

That's all I do. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat. You know, it's funny, Raina, because you don't use Snapchat, but you do go in there to use the filters. Yeah, because I'm not that attractive without it. I, like, level up, like, six levels with the... Pretty filter. All right, guys, thank you again. And keep us posted on all this of you guys are doing.

Send us your screenshots to your text conversations and keep meeting men in the wild. We love hearing about it. We'll see you guys next week. Bye, guys. Have a good week.