If I Speak - 97: When will I start feeling like a grown-up?

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Ash has a big theory about what makes someone into a proper adult – and it’s less about age or wisdom than the experiencing of caring for someone else. Plus: can you make a casual hook-up turn serious? Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July 2026 – tickets are available now from https://crossedwires.live/ […]

to if I speak a podcast that hopefully you are listening to because you want to and not because someone is playing at you. Who are you? I'm Royal Lady Maclean. Who are you? I'm Ash Sarker. I don't know why I did a special voice for that intro. I think I just panicked and forgot how I normally talk. What's your favourite special voice?

Because mine is the Siri lady. Well, announce a voice. I have an announcer voice that I do sometimes. As a bit. At the moment, I'm trumping everything. You've got to. It's been a big few weeks for my Trump impression. My Margaret Thatcher, as you well know, can just leap out for no reason.

You've got lots of world leaders. Can you do Reagan? I can't do Reagan. I can only do... Oh, no, I can't. I was trying to do his mist me, but I can't really... I'm not gravelly enough for Reagan. Reagan is like very down here in the chest.

Right. Hit me with some question. Okay, this is all looking to the year ahead. Apart from one, which is a total wildcard. Maybe I'll start with that. First question, who has contributed more to the world? Alan Carr with one L or Alan Carr with two L's? Okay, so Alan Carr, which is the one that's like the How to Quit Smoking person?

That's double L. Double L. So, probably in terms of like, saving lives double L, right? Quitting smoking super important but I've never really smoked like I've had the odd attempt

to look cool not really ever seriously smoked so for my personal cultural world it's got to be chatty man it's got to be totally valid and fair right

it's your last day on earth Donald Trump is going to nuke us all what deviant thing are you doing oh it's so lame but if it was like my last day on earth and it's like everyone's last day on earth I'm probably doing nothing deviant at all I'm just probably gathering my loved ones and my cat together and like you know waiting for the bomb in a sort of like puddle of love is what I'd do but if it was sort of like a zombie scenario because I've actually discussed this with my friend is that I've got a particular friend where neither one of us want to survive the apocalypse, right?

So like a zombie apocalypse scenario, people do survive, right? And they form colonies and it's really difficult. I don't need that in my life, all right? Let me go. So me and him are getting every drug produced on the planet, like cranking out the JBL speaker and we're going for it. We're going out with a bang. So the zombies are going to eat you while you're like,

gnaturing about oh the 1915 cabinet was the worst one yeah yeah yeah yeah you know what fair fair what about you last day in earth like give me your nuclear option which is obviously the end for everyone and zombie option where it's like some people are going to survive i'm going to have sex with lots and everything ryan gozling and riana i'm co-op you both um no no they're busy they're busy and they're really far away. I definitely would have sex on my last day or not. Are you kidding? Several times. And congratulations to whichever

lucky person I choose. Should we run a competition for it? I don't think I would apply. That would be really bleak, wouldn't it? Oh, that's bullshit. No, no, but I don't think the people I'd want to apply would apply. Okay, that's different. Yeah, it's fine. I know the shortlist I've got at the moment of the people I'd have. have sex with on my last day on her right now right in this same moment okay i want to i want to have some sex and then i want to eat some delicious food i want to have a maulies i want to have a maurles and then i

want to eat ben and jerry's um and then i want to go i want to go out in peck and plex watching the law of the rings do do do do do but it has to be we've Yeah, I can't decide with it's better to just finish it like in the middle so we don't know it's coming or whether we've just finished the return of the king

bam, that's it, done. Like as they're disappearing into the undying lands, that's when the great white flash. I think that would just be a great day. I think that would be a fantastic day. Maybe I'll just do that this weekend. Anyway, anyway.

Anyway, okay, next question, which was, what is your, well, last question. Oh, I'm torn. I'm torn. There's two I could ask her. What's your favorite resolution you've made? I don't make resolutions.

We've talked about this. Okay, well then I'll go to my other question, which is what is your wild big prediction for the year? Oh, uh, um, wait, I said this and then I forgot. Okay, wildest prediction for the year. Um, Nicholas Maduro, Fred again, co-lab. How? I don't know.

How is that happening? He's in custody. He's been kidnapped. I'm just saying some shit. I'm just saying some shit. Lil Wayne made great music from inside. But what's Fred again? Not, I'm not accepting that.

You know it's impossible. That's not going to happen. It's not Fred against us back. I can't really think of a prediction so I'm just made a joke. Who's going to challenge Kirstama? Ash's face is so funny right now. I've never seen more like child Ash being told that she can't come downstairs. Angela Rain is going to be there in some.

you won't she's like she's gone to the batman i think what's my good prediction for this year what's a good like death one is this the year that david attenborough finally goes we're all watching we're all watching we've all got our every year i was talking something like every year i said that david aton was going to die and i'm like well you're going to be right one of these days you're going to be right at least once so keep at it keep at it okay no big predictions i do think it's wise not to make predictions so yeah i can't I don't like being a hostage to Fortune. No.

No. Fortune is a cruel kid. Cognaper, cruel, whatever you call it. Mistress. She's a cruel, yeah, but I was thinking more of like, if you're being held hostage. Capter. Capter. Capter.

Fortune is a cruel captor. You don't know what she's going to do that with. Captor? I hardly know her. Right, okay. You have a big theory. I have a big theory. I have.

A big woman theory. And it's this, which is adulthood is defined by your relationship to care and not by your age. Just to say, that does not mean people can start treating the age of consent, lucy-goosey. I know that there are always opportunistic men out there. So I'm just going to say that right at the top. So look, we all know by now that there is no single measure of when someone becomes an animal. adult, right? There's biological maturation, there's the legal age of majority, there are rights of passage, like moving out of your family home, completing full-time education, cooking something

at a barbecue which isn't sausages and pre-squished burgers. And something that we've talked a lot about on the pod is that there is a sort of long-term infantilisation that lots of people in our age, are in their late 20s and 30s, and they still feel deep down that they're not proper grownups. And I think that the use of the word adulting is really interesting because it really takes off in 2019, or you don't really have adulting as a sort of cutesy verb before that point. And the reason why it gets turned into a verb in the way that it does is because there's a sort of recognition that there's a mismatch between how you see yourself and the tasks which you are compelled to do to get through the day, right?

And that's why it's called adulting. It's sort of like putting on a jacket. Now I'm adulting. And yeah, you know, there are all sorts of ways in which I find that like, I'm just a little girly, like, wah-wah. And like, shut up, Tyerson. But have dealt with that already. But it occurred to me recently that the people who don't talk that way about themselves

are people who have children. And it's something which I see within my own extent. extended family. So my partner is the elder of two brothers and his younger brother has a child. And in many ways, his younger brother seems like he could be the elder, right? You know, he's that bit more grown up or older or sort of pragmatic and practical. He's definitely less able to live in a way, which is like hedonistic or explorative, you know, how he expresses his agency is limited because he's got a two-year-old to look after. And he takes that really, really seriously.

It's a very, very, very, very, very present, very, active father. And obviously, that's not everyone who becomes a parent. Some people become parents and they don't change their lifestyles at all. I would say that that's the problem. But I think the point still stands that the majority of people who become parents, that is a moment which brings to an end, the extended adolescence that, they may have been living in. And the reason I've been thinking about it in this way is because in

recent months, my own orientation towards care and providing care has changed pretty profoundly. And that's not because of having children, or should I say more children, I have a cat, I have Musa, I have my son. Still, that IUS is doing the Lord's work in my uterus, got no plans to pull it out yet. but I am having to take on more care responsibilities within my own family as the generation above gets older. And that's due to a combination of things, obviously gender, you know, women are sort of trained to take on this role in ways which are like kind of subtle. It's not necessarily someone saying you have to do it.

But it's kind of interesting to me the ways in which men just sort of seem to not. Like they just sort of like seem to not and like seem not to feel the pressure in the same way. You know, I don't have kids. You know, my sister has a kid, so it means that there's certain ways in which I'm more able to do certain tasks. I definitely have, as we've talked about in the pod, lots of times, a particular way of thinking about duty and obligation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it definitely hammered home to me. I was like, oh, I am an adult, right? Like, I don't get to retreat into adolescence anymore.

Like, that's just over for me. And of course, there's, like, sadness and melancholy and anxiety and resists. but there's also a sort of self-knowledge that comes from it, which feels, you know, if not fully empowering. It's like, okay, like this is, this is who I am. Like, I am an adult. I'm an adult taking on adult roles within my own family. People get here much earlier than me. You know, there are lots of people who have to become carers for adults when they themselves are children or teenagers. Or they have kids earlier. You know, I'm still like, oh, what a sad 33-year-old victim of teenage pregnancy.

But like, in olden days, I'd be like considered barren. You know what I mean? It's like, what's she on about? But yeah, it's really changed how I feel about my life. I've come to this realization that taking care of older relatives is not a series of one-off crises. It's now a consideration that I have to integrate into basically everything. It is a phase of my life that I am now in.

and thinking about it, because I know we've talked about responsibility, I'm thinking about that part of adulthood that I'm now in, not just in terms of obligation and sacrifice. I'm also thinking, okay, well, I also have to be responsible for making it emotionally and psychologically sustainable for myself. No one else can make that happen for me. I kind of have to take responsibility for like, where are the boundaries, where are the limits,

limitations, right? You know, look at me. I am the grownups now. And the reason I wanted to bring this to the pod is like, one, it's the thing which is most preoccupying me. But also, too, so many of the dilemmas that we get from people are kind of asking in a variety of ways, how do I feel like a grown up? Like, how do I feel like a grown up? How do I feel like I've reached this point that I've arrived in my life or like arrived at who I am? And, And the thing that I've realized, that's that, you know, there are very unhealthy ways to do it, and it's certainly not all fulfilling and it's scary. But leaning into care, that will make you feel like a grown-up.

I think there's something there's like several different ways to approach this. And there's the, yeah, they should do this for the X, Y, Z reason. And then why do you want to feel like a grown-up? But being a grown-up means that you have to take all. all these responsibilities that probably are going to blot out your own life. That's also a question. I think caring for others obviously is a sacrifice. And I wonder if this is also the, you know, like I don't think I want children.

Part of that is I don't want to make the sacrifice. I don't want my life blotted out by someone else's. And why should that take precedence over my existence sort of thing? And I would resent that, I think. And in the past, that maybe would have been less, a concern not articulated in the same way because the same understanding of my life is this precious thing, and my autonomy is this precious thing, was less drummed in because it was less individualistic. And then we come to the other aspect of why people might feel less like there, as you put it,

grown-ups because the social obligations that we have just to care for people in our immediate vicinity mutually our local neighbourhoods are links with people responsibilities that we have to each other have broken down um in a lot of ways like there's lots of neighbourhoods where that still happens you know you go to if like if you go to where i grew up then everyone's taking each other casseroles and checking in and that's still very much an ongoing practice there is ongoing social responsibilities that everyone has in that neighbourhood. And roles that they play without being asked, they take them on, they do them. People step up.

And I would say that, you know, my cousins who stayed there came of age a lot quicker in the way that you're talking about than I would. Whereas I've got to, I've gone to London and live out this extended adolescence. And I see this with my peers as well. We live an extended, very selfish life. The ones who haven't got carrying responsibilities, the ones who have. haven't had children. Not that I, as you said,

you think that having children automatically puts you in that position as parents who I think have had children because they are living in their delusion and extended adolescence. They're just like, well, this is what you do. And then they regret it. And then they try and offset that burden onto someone else who's still around, maybe a grandparent. Because they're like, I'm actually not ready with this. I don't want to be an adult.

I don't want this at all. Please, can you take care of them all the time? But yeah, the social obligation. thing is something I think about a lot and something I think we're missing and I think there is a yearning actually to do that and that's why we partake in, why I say we, I used to many generalisations. That's why you have a proportion of people who are saying, I want to feel grown up, which is why I buy a lot of things that seem like they are the trappings of an adult life, like this new rug, like this mid-century desk, like a car, but haven't been able to experience actual responsibility

because actual responsibility would be putting yourself in a position where there is the element of sacrifice, like volunteering or you have to do something else where your needs are subsumed by someone else's or a wider collectives. And that's very hard to stomach. And I speak from, you know, direct experience. That is a hard thing to stomach. Like the responsibility I take on absolutely pales in comparison the responsibility that my mother was probably taking on. Actually, she was traveling around a lot. She probably has a bit of the hints of me. I probably didn't look it off a stone, you know? But I'll say my aunt. I didn't look it off a stone

I've never heard Oh my god It's an Irish expression It's so good It's when you're talking about something And you're like Oh well he didn't look it off a stone Because it's like their parents are exactly the same

Yeah Oh I love it I love it Such a good phrase I didn't look it off a stone You know So there's there's There's two things I suppose I wanted

To like respond to One is I think that like The way in which society Has sort of you know been constructed The like expansion of higher education Blah blah blah which sort of means that like, you know, 50% or more of young people are going to university,

many of those people will then move away from home into like, you know, big densities where there are employment opportunities, but that housing is really expensive, blah, blah, blah, blah, is that like you can't really have kids in that context on that wage with those, that cost of living. And the thing which compensates for that is a sort of cosmopolitanism of like being able to go out, go for dinner and socialise, which, you know, you know, keeps you in that sort of, like, that frame of being young, right? You, like, you live life in a, in a young way. And so there's a kind of interesting thing that there's,

like, sophistication and worldliness and cosmopolitanism without adulthood, you know, like, without, without that sort of, like, a pan now, yeah, like, there's a little bit of Peter Pan in it. And I think that definitely resembles how I live in all sorts of ways. And it's quite telling that it's now when, you know, there's the element of like the older generation getting older and that changing my responsibilities where I'm like, okay, like, you know, I've loved, I've lived in London my whole life and I was like, I'm never going to learn to drive. Like, I'm like, oh shit, maybe I need to learn to drive. You know, like my orientation towards the place where I live and how I navigate it is changing

because of this sense of like, of caring responsibility. There's a second thing which is like about the terror that comes from thinking about it. Did you see Tar? No, I didn't watch Tar. I loved it. I think it's probably one of the most exciting cinematic experiences that I've had in recent years. I've certainly not really seen anything since, which made me think and feel the way that

I did about Tar. So I'm not giving away any spoilers, right? There's this sort of like egomaniac, you know, kind of predatory female conductor of the Berlin Orchestra. And she with her partner has a daughter. The daughter is called Petra. And away from her family home, she keeps a separate apartment

where she composes music. And she works on her music. And she's a germaphobe. She's a control freak. Very, very domineering. And, you know, she sets up all these relationships in which she has the power over people that don't.

Her next door neighbour in this second apartment. She's very sensitive to noise, is the other thing. Very, very sensitive to sound. Her next door neighbour is a woman who I think has some kind of learning difficulty and her mother who is old and needs care. And there is a sort of alarm noise, which is like, do do do, do. do, which keeps going off and it drives, it drives Kate Blanchette's character crazy. And, you know,

when she goes and sort of like knocks on the door because this alarm's been so disruptive, at one point she sees this scene which is like horrifying where the mother is like fallen off a toilet and there's like feces everywhere and the daughter needs help to like lift her. And like tar does it and she sort of ends up covered in the feces and she's like, she's so freaked out by the whole experience when she goes back. But then at the end, that refrain of like, the do-da-d-from-the-alarm becomes the opening notes of a song that she writes for her daughter. And the reason why I've gone into that in so much details, is because I was like, wow, there is something in there which, like, mirrors me a bit,

like that feeling I have of, like, repulsion and fear and disgust, when I see people with that need for care and also people taking on that kind of care. And yet, at the same time, there is this sort of, like, compelling thing, right? like she integrates that sound into a song that she's writing for her daughter, which is the only selfless thing that she has in her life at all. It's the only way she sort of interacts with selflessness is thinking about her daughter in this music that she's writing. But that thing about the sort of disgust, the fear, repulsion,

the desire to run away, I've never seen that more, I don't know, like beautifully, or not beautifully, powerfully, like impactfully staged anyway. Sorry, I just talked about film for ages, but that's what I want to do. We should talk about films because how, like, film, music, TV shows, that's how we communicate these sort of themes. That's how you can see these things realized in ways that make your brain go, oh, oh, okay. I mean, I haven't seen TAS.

So I can't contribute as much. Watch it. Watch it. I will watch that. I've got a long list of things like that. So I'm doing an album a day. So my like culture meter is, is quite hot. I fill up at the moment.

What's your album today? Today it's going to, I need to check my list. I think it's going to be either Revolver by the Beatles or a Korean funk band. I was recommended. Ooh. I'm doing, I'm doing traditional and just like random stuff to try and, uh. I think Revolver was the album that made Frank Ocean want to write. blonde.

That's so funny because the prince dirty mind by prince there's a lyric in it which my friend told me which I listened to the other day is one of my albums there's a lyric in it

which is when he's sleeping in between us which apparently I'll sleep beside you I'll sleep between yeah there's nothing

that's a direct reply to that lyric so white Ferrari once you listen to here there and everywhere listen to white Ferrari oh yeah I read a bit about

okay great anyway sorry that was a sidetrack Tara, responsibility. So is that the only responsibility that Tar feels in that movie and she runs away from it completely? Well, kind of. I mean, it's sort of like she's confronted with someone doing this work, which is low status,

which is dirty, like it's sort of set up that she's a germaphobe. Like she's just like, blah. Low status, dirty, like class is in there. You know, I think the fact that the daughter who's doing the care work is, is implied to have some kind of disability herself. And that contrasting with Tars, like intellectual mastery of the world,

um, like the body lowness of it, like the being trapped in obligation, like the thanklessness. Um, like all of that is sort of set up to be this like, upside down mirror of, of Tarr's own life and how she set it up and,

and everything that she fears. I think what comes up to me when I hear us talk about this is like the thankfulness of these the thankfulness of responsibility to other human beings is increasing you are going to get people like me just choosing not to do that and I think that's going to lead to a worst world but how would you

like how do you make us not choose the easier option which is this flighty life free of major responsibility well I think that's the sort of you know million dollar question I mean the first thing is that the reason why I'm doing this work within my own family is one because I love the people for whom I'll do this care like it feels like an important thing in a way of establishing their value and their value to me but the other thing is I've been my whole life in some way trained to be that cog do you know what I mean like you know I was I was made by the darkness molded by Like, you know, it's not something which I've necessarily chosen to adopt. It's something which through the family system I exist in made me that way. And other people don't experience it that way. But then there is a sort of second aspect to this, which I think is really interesting,

is about the choice not to have children. Because one of the ways in which people on the left explain it is, you know, sort of declining birth rates in the global north and other countries as well. Is like, oh, well, that's because everything's getting so much more expensive. and like no one can afford to you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a part of it, it's not all of it. Another part of it is that women were compelled into reproduction because their ability to live public lives to participate in the economy,

to have choices, was throttled. So off we go into marriage, very often not wholly of our own choosing, right? And I'm not necessarily talking about coercion in terms of being forced by family, though that's in there. It's also, well, you know, I had sex because I wanted to and now I'm pregnant. And if I don't marry, I'm going to be shunned or my child will be taken away from me. Or I can't open a bank account. You know, I can't support myself unless I do this.

You know, there are all these push factors into marriage and in particular the absence of abortion and like, you know, birth control. Like, you're going to have babies. And now those push factors. don't exist for women in the same way in much of the global north. And on top of that, there are, you know, having children is competing with all these other kinds of fulfillment. Some of which, I think, you know, are truly very, very meaningful, right? Like, you know, a vocation, you know, a purpose, that kind of thing. Some of it is to do of sort of like consumerism and hedonism. Like, let's be real. Like, let's be real. Like, it is.

And so having a child, when it is a choice, because having a child is now a choice, is not always the most attractive one. Yeah, I mean, I see that. I definitely see that because I think that's part of my attitude to it. Like I know there's responsibilities coming up that I'm going to have to shoulder because I've been trained to shoulder them like you. And having a chat, but then some of them are like, what if I just had a kid? Then I wouldn't have to do this other thing.

because it seems like the people with kids always get out of doing the other stuff not always not always I mean that's the things that my mum was the one that did it in like her family unit this is also the question I have which is how do you get responsibility shared because a lot of the time what I see is the person a specific person within the family unit tends to shoulder all the responsibility and all the guilt for that family's care and then everyone else sort of escapes scot-free.

Well, I think this is the other point about why I now feel I am an adult is because part of that adulthood is me going, I'm going to tell people I need them to do other things. And I'm not going to feel guilty for doing it. And I'm not going to take it all on like Atlas. Like part of being responsible for doing this kind of care is also being really upfront about what it is I need to be able to do it. Yeah, I think that's the point. Because I'm a grown ass woman.

I'd like, that's the point, the key point I'd like to leave people with is like, if you're not taking on a responsibility within your family unit, you should take on more. And if you are taking on all of it, you need to not martyr yourself anymore. There is a balance. It is not one or the other.

The point is if you, everyone should be taking a share of that responsibility. If you take it all upon yourself, you are sacrificing your life, and the next generation is not going to learn how to do it either. And I see this in people around me, who have no cares in the bloody world. and it makes them less interesting people.

Being a martyr is not being grown. That's the realization that I've had, right? Because I have a long established record of martyrdom. But the thing I'm doing now is being like, no, not martyering. Like here's something that I need to do and I need to take it seriously and I need to take it seriously enough to look after myself. You're getting decanonized in 2020. Decanonized.

Having my satedhood stripped from me. Get her out of the pantheon. Literally. Debatify. in 2026, that's the me. I want my canonisation gone and to become a human again because you don't want to be devil or angel. You just want to be a human being

who has some responsibilities. Shall we do a dilemma? Yeah, we should do a dilemma. So this is, I'm in big trouble. Is Marino back in the premiership again? No? I saw him kicking around the other day. I don't know what's going with football anymore.

Sometimes, this is the thing. I go out of football for long periods. to like it. I don't care about it at all. It turns out. I can care about it like, you know when you watch someone else take great pleasure and something? I really enjoy that. I really enjoy watching like my friends and if someone I'm dating likes football. Love that. Great atmosphere. But on my own, I have no idea what's going on. So I don't know what he's doing. Anyway, this is called I'm in big trouble. And if you are in big trouble, you can send your dilemma to if I speak at navaramedia.com. That's if I speak at navaramedia.com. I would like to commend a

special one who recently listened to us and sent in a dilemma and then within the 24 hours grace period retracted it that's how you do it okay we prefer if you didn't send it at all but we know some of you just need to get it out but you have to retract it within 24 hours or we might read it out 24 hours of your grace period to add to this and I'm not going to say what it was but we received a dilemma where for the first time in the history of the pod I don't think it's true I need you tell me to when you think it was or I don't think it's entirely true I left a comment in the doc moment

but what I'll say is this is that I'm very sorry to this person we will not be reading out your dilemma because I don't think it's true because it's the new doc because it's so heroes and villains I just don't

I feel that it would not be responsible to read it out to like indulge the sort of delusion. Fantacism of it. Right. Do you want me to read out of you? Because I read out the last one.

I think that you'll have something to say on this one as well. All right, let's see. Dear, if I speak, I've accidentally walked myself into a mental quagmire and hope that your wise advice might help me out of it. The crux of the matter boils down to the question, should I wait for a man? I'm 32 and had a three-year relationship

end abruptly almost two years ago. It was pretty devastated for months after the breakup, especially as it felt like it came out of the blue. Since then, I've dated casually, but it has been far from a priority. Near the end of October, I thought I found the perfect new casual hookup. I've vaguely known this person for a few years through friends, and we've never really had anything more than some brief conversations. I found him quite standoffish, which always annoyed me. Okay, Mr. Darcy. Despite this, I ran into him one night, and we ended up going home together at my initiation.

It pretty quickly became standard practice to stay over at mine or his once or twice a week. This is unfortunately where the Quagmire started, since I've realised I really quite like him. Every time I'm around him, he's a calming presence. He's funny, smart and thoughtful, and totally physically my type. It's been about a decade since I felt this excited about anyone I've been romantically involved with. This casual hookup is also the first person I could see integrating well with my rather eclectic leftist family. recently when I was staying over at his place he told me he didn't think we should hook up anymore he explained that he'd recently had a bad breakup out of the blue in September seemingly mirroring the one I had a couple of years ago and that he felt like even just hooking up regularly

was something he didn't really have the capacity for at the moment at that point feeling I had nothing to lose I confessed my feelings for him which is someone who tends to play their cards close to their chest was for me foreign and out of character we ended up having a long conversation about past relationships, our current states of mind, friends, family, etc. I ended up staying over and we cuddled but didn't hook up. We said we'd talk again, however, we haven't. Having been in a similar situation to him regarding an intense breakup, I understand where he is coming from.

But now my dilemma is whether or not I should wait for him to be ready. Should I hope that in a few months he feels sufficiently ready to date and is open to dating specifically me? Or is that a fool's errand? did I unintentionally make myself the soon-to-be-forgotten rebound? I feel like I often play that role before someone finds someone serious. We live in a small town and run in similar circles, so we're frequently in the same spaces.

There's no real way to just let this fade completely into the background. A down bad special one for whom brevity is not a forte, just to say, we did edit it down a little bit. I hope you forgive us. Moya, I know you've got something to say on this one. I've got two things to say. One might surprise you. The first thing is, well done, special one.

for telling them how you felt. Well done for actually communicating openly and honestly about your feelings for this person. So there could be no misunderstanding about where you stand within this relationship. You told them you liked them. You told them you wanted this to be something, maybe more. However, this comes to the second point, which is obvious.

No, don't wait for them. They have all the information now. He hasn't spoken to you since. He broke up with you. It's done. for now. You cannot predict where someone is going to be in a few months. You cannot predict their state of mind. What you can go on is what they have told you, which is this man has recently come out of a breakup. He has not got the capacity even for a casual hookup. That could mean a

casual hookup with you. That could mean a casual hookup with anyone. It doesn't matter. The point is he doesn't want to be in this dynamic anymore. He doesn't want to be in this relationship anymore. When someone wants to continue seeing you, you will be aware. You will know because they will continue seeing you. If they end it, they do not want to see you anymore. It could be for so many reasons other than what he said. It doesn't matter. The point is that he doesn't want to see you anymore. You cannot wait for this person because they will not be waiting for you. And yeah, in a once in a million, maybe in like three years or a few months, you might bump into each other again and start a relationship. But you cannot live your life predicated on that potentially happening.

You cannot put all of your potential romantic happiness, stake it on to the relationship. Stake it on to this person because then that becomes complete fantasy and if there was even a relationship that would come from it, it would collapse under the pressure of the expectation you have built during your time apart. This person is now your ex. They're your ex. That's the end of it. They're your ex. You used a really important word which is fantasy. And special one, one of the things I think you're going to have to get your head around is the elements of fantasy that shaped how you feel about him. I'm I'm not saying it was all fantasy. I'm not saying it was all fantasy. Like, you know, sometimes we do feel very intense things, even fall in love with people who aren't going to give us a relationship, right? And then that's, that's fine, that's human. But there's an element of fantasy which is like, oh, you know, I could see him fitting in with my family, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? You know, you started like building this sort of imagined world around him. And I think you've got to ask yourself why you were doing that. Because it's not all located in his, you know,

virtues and attractive qualities, right? There's something that you'll bring into the table there. Like Moyer, I think, don't wait. Don't wait. Morn, don't wait. It's okay to have wanted something from someone who, for whatever reason, wasn't able to give it to you, right? Falling in love and having it not be reciprocated is not a humiliation.

It doesn't mean you did something wrong. It's a beautiful gift that you offered someone. Right. And that's how you've got to see it. And you can experience disappointment. You know, the strength of your feelings isn't always a good map to the future. It's always a handy guide to reality. And I think it's, you know, normal to want to like cling on to possibility. Like, God knows I've done that. God knows I've done that. And I've been like, ah, a breakup. I see your opening move. like it's not healthy for you to treat a breakup as an opening gambit or like the first step towards something else.

So mourn it, be with the feeling, be with the disappointment. At some point you'll be ready to think about why it was you chose somebody who wasn't able to give you the thing that I think it is that you want. You know, when you're saying like, oh, you know, the first person who would have fit in with my family, you want a committed relationship with someone that you can bring to your family.

Yeah. And I'd add something to that, which is, you say that dating hasn't been your priority. That's totally fine. It doesn't have to be a priority. However, if you date scant people, then when you find someone who slightly fits, they will seem like the rarest thing of all. When actually, if you date a bit more, you'll end up meeting someone who blows your way and realizes all those slight fits were not fits. They weren't actually fits. They were just people that you were letting in for the reasons Ash has hinted at, which is,

is, you know, you had this really traumatising breakup, which you felt came out of the blue, and maybe it did come totally out of the blue. Maybe there were signs you didn't want to see. I don't know. I wasn't there. I wasn't there. But when you have had a traumatizing relationship, you also say you keep your cards close to your chest that suggests to me that you don't let people in and you don't often communicate with them because you're scared of like that humiliation. You pick someone who you thought would be a perfect casual hookup, even though, even though they then ticked off every single one of your like superficial boxes and then you built a fantasy around them maybe being the person that melds as ash pointed out someone who's unavailable

with your fantasy why why do those things go together why would like the reality of this person which is that they were initially standoffish they're not they were aloof from you they felt elusive why is that so attractive let's look at that let's look at that i have a theory let's go on Have a theory. Hit us with it. Break up two years ago, came out of the blue, you got broken up with, is what I have deduced Watson. And you're like shocked by it.

And I think there was a part of you which saw the standoffish man who then was interested in you. And it activated your chase function. Yeah. Because it's like, what if this reverses the story? So before I loved somebody and they rejected me, this started out with a form of rejection or implied rejection from this like standoffishness. and then what if I can rewrite it by making them choose me?

Well, yeah, exactly. But it's also a form of avoidance because you're picking someone who's not even into you at the start, you can't probably be there fully present. And you've worn them down enough, but it's a casual hookup. And you then were like, well, what if this is more? You knew deep down it's not more. You knew it couldn't be more. That's not, you didn't do a bad thing or a wrong thing.

But you want a relationship where you can bring someone to your family. Like you want that. honor that pursue that and i would say the confession i would say that is one of the most positive things out of this but next time you're dating think about getting vulnerable much earlier with someone else who actually can be vulnerable back this is the this this is this is this is the huge project i set for myself in 2025 and i've had to continue working on 2026 and it every time i get like an avoidant flare up or want to pull away or want to not communicate how i'm feeling and by that i don't mean just saying anything willy-nilly because, as I saw the other day, communication is also a responsibility to regulate

before you communicate. It's not just bombarding people with random shit. It's saying, you know, when someone is like, oh, I really like you, you have to examine yourself and think, do I really like them to? Yes, I'm going to tell them that. Oh, you miss someone? Well, don't just stonewall them and not text them back. Say, oh, I want to see you. It's that kind of vulnerability and honesty, which creates the relationship you actually want. So you not holding your car to the chest unless, you held your car to chest until the crisis point which was he was going to leave and you were like actually I really like you all of this

if I think you'd started to say that a bit earlier like oh actually I really like you you might be at a different place in the fantasy and the reality anyway again you didn't do anything bad all of this is lessons but thank you for writing to us because I think it's a turning point for you and all of us have done it

all of us have done it and I'm sure I will again okay we're now off we're off to our various lives Ash, I will see you next week. See you next week. Bye. Bye.

Bye.