Life Uncut - Ask Uncut - Ask Ben

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

Hey Lifers, Today's special little ep is one that we promised a few weeks ago! Britt's boyfriend Ben jumped on the pod and they spoke a bit about their relationship and how they navigate long distance. (You can listen here!) Firstly, we finally hear Ben's thoughts on the shrine. Sorry for creating your longest running argument Britt... Then we find out a lot more about who Ben is and what it was like growing up in Switzerland and becoming a professional footballer (not soccer player; we listen and learn). -I matched with a guy on hinge and things were going really, really well. I was the first person that he'd been with since a bad break up a year ago. After a few weeks of everything going great, he's now become really "busy" when ever I try to make plans. I haven't seen him for 3 weeks. He tells me he likes me and likes hanging out with me. I've reassured him that I'm happy to take things slow because I really like him. -Is it always the case of "if he wanted to, he would" -How does an emotionally unavailable person become emotionally available? If you have a question, or an ask uncut aftermath, send it in to our InstagramYou can join the facebook group here and follow us on tiktokTell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because we love love! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Wollongong land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany. And we have a very special guest joining us once again. He's become a permanent fixture on the wall, on Brittany's wall.

On my shrine. On the shrine. It is Ben. I'm back. I'm back. Ben, welcome to Life Uncut. Thank you. Did we not scare you off the first time?

No, I had fun. I had fun. You had fun? I mean, don't get too excited about it. Yeah, let's give us some in. No, it's going to be good. It's going to be good. It's a new experience for me.

I like new experiences. everybody enjoyed having you on and listening to the ins and outs of the relationship side of you guys but we did say that we were going to get you back on to answer some ask uncut questions from a male's perspective and that's what you are and that's what you'll do but before before we answer some questions which for everyone who wrote the man like thank you so much for all your questions there was some colorful questions for ben there were and there was something he's refused to answer which i had to do with some men's genitalia so i understand why he asked yeah no there's a question about like a ball sack and he was like maybe we can pass that one yeah i mean

nothing is off limits for us but apparently you have limits apparently ben has self-respect that's what i'm getting discussing another man's ball sack wasn't high on your list for today no it wasn't what i imagined when i woke up to be fair well i think the number one question to start with and it's the question on everyone's lips is how's your ball sack yeah it's great can confirm is the shrine the shrine you saw it finally in real life is it as bad as everyone laura producer keisha don't bundle me in there i had not seen the shrine i was only being told second hand about the shrine i also saw it for the first time when ben saw it to be fair it is a little bit weird because a shrine is meant to be for dead people and i know it's not a shrine they've told me it's

a shrine i don't think it's a shrine okay guys don't fight i don't like it it's meant to be meant to be a display of our love which is fine which is great it's cute but it's kind of like arranged like a disease or something it's like it's got candles around on the floor there's a few it's like roses white roses and all that kind of stuff what are you on about it is three photos that's it in my whole house i think we need to add some more photos to kind of take the shrininess out of the as in not photos not of you photos of other things like maybe Delilah I'm happy with me being on the wall but that makes it more shriny no I think it just it's just a Paris photo shoot I think we have some lovely pictures together I think we need to add

some more so it's a little bit diversity okay right now it's more like a homage to Paris although then I do want to kind of very romantic for me by the way yeah you did a really great job you guys both look like models but i do think that if it was to add more photos to the wall it's more from different parts of your it's that makes it real shrining right now it's just like a nice tribute but we're heading real we're heading really deep into shrine territory this is i just want to make a tribute to my love this is a tribute shout out to ben to be fair we we have this thing where we take polaroid pictures and we have a little you're gonna make everyone's gonna know how crazy i know we have a whole book of polaroids yeah and it was ben's idea ben bought

a polaroid no it was my sister's christmas gift yeah but then you were like let's take polaroids all around the world to make a polaroid book so that's what we do so we have a polaroid shrine that's cute no i like that but like it's it's nice that it's in a book where you don't have to look it's not open for everyone to see okay so what's the verdict take the shrine down you want to take because i'm gonna i'm gonna i think i meant i meant this right i'm just gonna take them all down stuff you all i'm gonna take all the pictures down you don't get put pictures up with Delilah you don't get a spot on my wall okay can we stop fighting about the shrine it looks very polished it's hung a little bit too high if we're gonna get critical but it's great and I

think the shrine is fine and and you know what maybe producer Keisha went hard on the shrine situation to start with but our listeners came in hard for you they support you and they don't think it's shiny and I appreciate that from every single listener because I felt really victimized not an interior designer and one thing I'd like to add that I don't think people are aware of the criticism that did come through about the shrine was that they were too small and they were too high on the wall that they are definitely too high they literally I can't even reach them what I would like to say is I moved into Laura Byrne's house and those holes were already there I took the holes that you put on the wall what shrine did you have up I had just had a massive

picture of a palm tree mine was a shrine to summer anyway let's move on from the shrine Ben, one thing that we did get off the back of last week's episode was that we spoke a little bit about the two of you, your relationship, how you guys met, but not really much about who you are as a person when you're not with Brittany. So I guess like understanding a little bit of background as to who you are, like where you grew up, I think would be a great way to kick off this before we get into answering questions. Now you don't get off scot-free.

We ask everyone who sits behind these microphones, what is your accidentally unfiltered story? which is basically if you are a true fan of the podcast you would know your most embarrassing story in football right there's this thing where when you sign for a new team you have to go up and sing so basically you've never met those guys you you sign for a team you say hello to everyone hey nice to meet you blah blah blah i'm going to be here whether it's on loan or new team and you have to stand up at dinner everybody's banging their glasses and you are nervous like nervous as hell like because you know after dinner you're going to have to sing in front of strangers and all that kind of stuff so what do you mean sing why would you sing it's a it's a initiation type

of deal i've been at teams where you have to pay money or you have to pay for dinner for everyone's dinner all that kind of stuff but normally you are in training camp somewhere for the team bonding and pre-season is on the way and you know i've been on loan or i've been away from my parent club three times in a year so i had to sing three times in a year and i hate it it's really it's nerve-wracking i'm like shaking what's your karaoke song well it was meant to be ain't no mountain high enough first of all it's singing in english which is obviously not my mother tongue you're singing in front of strangers who are booing you they're throwing food at you oh that's fucking horrible and you literally stand there with a little banana in your hand or a soul shaker

or whatever and the room's quiet you don't have a microphone obviously very professional and you just have to go for 30 seconds and if they don't like it they just go right do another song and and all that kind of stuff and it really ruins your day it's really embarrassing i can't sing i'm happy to play football in front of people in front of a stadium in front of a crowd if i have to go up on stage on a chair and talk to people install sphere in me so i'm literally standing there my shake and going like that it's a hard one okay no we're not just a tiny little bit we won't make you do 30 seconds just 10 listen baby ain't no mountain high ain't no valley low and then you just good no we need a little more one more bar ain't no river wide enough baby

if you need me call me no matter where you are no matter how far no worry baby i think it's wildly endearing i don't think that's embarrassing at all i didn't throw banana at you or anything yeah it was that good okay it was impressive i really wanted to get to the encore though i mean to the chorus i wanted to get to the middle of it well normally you pick a song where people can clap along so everybody gets involved but because you don't know the crowd you don't know the people you just pick which song you feel you can do the best what so you're not picking like celine dion ballas no no you are the wind beneath my wings yeah all right well let's get into some of the questions and never hear you sing again

yeah so i the first one first one that came in how tall are you um six foot six he's so tall even i feel little standing next to you and that's a rarity like i don't really feel little next to anyone no neither do i it's a nice comfort where you're it's not wait can we just unpack that for a second it's a nice comfort why why do you need to feel little because i'm broad and i'm tall and she keeps complaining about her neck because she has to like i look up to give me a kiss think about all the short girls i go to a chiropractor now since i'm that's not an exaggeration since i started dating ben i genuinely that's not from kissing guys yeah use your imagination i genuinely have to my neck goes at an unnatural bend to look up at him

all the time what keisha who's like four foot nothing is standing next to us like what the fuck are you talking about she's five foot one she also has a she's five foot two sorry sorry it's good for you to do that because you're on your phone so much Keisha said it's actually good it's good for you to look up because we're all on our phones so much looking down yeah no well can confirm it's not well tell us a little bit about where you grew up because you live in Scotland now but that's not where you grew up no I grew up in Switzerland in a in a small town started playing football when I was six and then kind of got scouted the first time by by FC Basel which was like the big team when I was 10 and that was like the first big step you go into

professional academy and all that kind of stuff is that very young for being sort of scattered or is that kind of a standard age as to what people would be kind of standard i think i really find it hard if somebody says hey he's six years old he's 10 years old he's got a chance he's got no chance i think it's very hard on young boys girls dreams to somebody say at 10 years old hey you've got a chance so i think you can make it i think there are many ways to become a professional athlete whether it's people blossom early people blossom late but in the norm is like the sooner you can get into an academy the better but 10 years old seems pretty young for someone to say you're not going to be good enough i think it also depends on the place in which you grow up

because like i think it also depends on how prolific soccer is the town that you are living in but you know can we refer to it as football sorry sorry sorry football i did not mean to offend you but i do think like you know for some people they might get into the sport a little bit later but where you grew up it was massive yeah and it was common for kids to start very young Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, Switzerland is lucky we've got the mountains. So there's a lot of winter sports, skiing, ice hockey is very popular, gymnastics and all that kind of stuff. So we're a small nation with a lot of options for sure. But football is definitely number one. So when you actually got into and you were kind of, I guess, scattered at such a young age, what's the transition then like? Like, do they kind of just keep an eye on you? Do they have you in a specific team? Do they really sort of push intensive training onto you at that age? Like, how do you then move through the ranks? yeah your training really intensifies so from your local team where you maybe train once or twice a week it's straight away to maybe four times when you're 10 years old and as you go

through the ranks will be every day you know be maybe six times a week obviously games on the weekend and all that kind of stuff so you really progress with your age group and it's literally like a pyramid system where at the end of every year the weakest one kind of falls away and maybe new additions come in and all that kind of stuff so it's really it's really a competitive environment from from a very young age and are they instilling this discipline in you as a child like i know as an adult athlete you obviously have to watch what you eat and you don't drink and you train so hard and you have vitamins and you do all this stuff do they start doing that at 10 12 years old in the academy or do they give you still a little bit of leeway like you're still a kid you're still

maturing no they still let you be kids i do remember we got this list in pre-season and he says okay you can have this and this like your parents supposed to pack you this lunch and supposed to have one slice of bread and 10 grams of butter and one slice of ham and my parents were like let the kids be kids let them eat what they want but I think at 10 years old they did a great job of giving you other stuff like you know manners and all that kind of stuff so to this day if I meet somebody up I take my hat off because at 10 years old when the coach came he said well take your hat off when you say hello and a firm hand check and all that kind of stuff so they give you also stuff you need in daily life not just you have to take vitamins and all that kind of stuff

I think that comes maybe a little bit later when you're more in your teenage years. And when you enter this kind of program at such a young age, do they still prioritize like schooling, education alongside sport or does sport take a precedence? Sport is really at night, evening, nighttime. I was still in normal school, which meant I probably got home from training at, I don't know, eight o'clock and then it's quickly food and then it's another two hours of homework. So it's it is tough. Later on, I went into a sports school, if you will, where I was there with 20, 25 other athletes playing different kind of sports where we would get Tuesday and Thursdays in the morning, we'll get off school, we would go to training, we'd have extra training. It's kind of a center of excellence type vibes. And Friday's afternoon, we would have off as well.

So your weekly lessons would reduce from 38 hours to about 25. so you can balance your school make sure you know on a Friday afternoon if you needed to go to away games you have time to do that I was really lucky to have a supportive family who you know my grandparents would pick me up from school just to make it on time to training and pack my bags and I've ruined about five washing machines just because of diving in the mud and in the sand and all that kind of stuff so I always had my support system at home so for me it was always only football obviously my parents made sure my mom in particular that you know you're gonna have to get your grades and all that kind of stuff which is very important of course and the sports class

kind of enabled me to do both because you can get a little bit too much but I think it starts off as a dream and I think football is still fun up to a certain age and then when it comes to the point where you turn professional and start earning a little bit of money I think that's when football starts to become a job and I mean a job it's a passion it's something I love it's something you should love like I love football but I think the fun goes out as a child and goes into a professional environment where it's really if I don't do well this year I might not be here next year and I think as a young kid that's like it can be a little bit scary and I think in the moment you don't realize that this is actually the case you just want to have fun and play football with your

mates but I think that's the switching point from it just being a hobby and having fun to right I'm going to have to make this work if i really want it when i was 16 i left to go to england i was scouted by a team called aston villa which is in birmingham and i was still in school and you know eventually i left for england spent seven years in england really grew up as a young man as an adult and to this day it's one of the one of the best times i've had also because i had some difficult times with injuries where you know you don't just recover in a week or two months on the sideline and you're in a foreign country with you know people you're not familiar with in a different culture how things are done differently communications differently and I really enjoyed

it I still got friends to this day from from my old team and then decided to go play in Switzerland in my home country for two years and I thought it would be great and it wasn't great I didn't enjoy living back home I'm probably the only Swiss person who doesn't want to be there yeah want to be there what was your reasoning for what not wanting to be there and not enjoying it it was difficult because I grew up British in a way where this is how football is done in an academy in the UK the biggest league in the world and I go to Switzerland and it was just a different mentality it was a lot more me me me what can I get look what I have look what I can afford type of mindset whereas maybe the team spirit wasn't as good which obviously showed we got relegated

in the first year relegation means when a team is in the top division they drop down one yeah because they had a bad season right so when those two years came to an end i said hey i really want to go back to the uk and up in scotland signed for dundee united played there for four years it was a team who was yeah a little bit in a disarray was in the championship which is the second division in scotland we were close to getting promoted the first season we lost on penalties on the last day which was heartbreaking yeah the second year we got promotion so we went up to the top but it was the covid year so it was no celebrations like you finally achieved what you set out to achieve and you celebrate it on the balcony because you're only allowed to leave the

house for one hour and then the following year was the first year in the premiership in the top league with all the big teams and there were no spectators there and you're just kind of playing training ground games where you're you're playing match days but there's nobody to cheer you on all the big experience the energy is different yeah the energy is completely different and then finally my last year there it was full house sold out games and then I decided not to extend my contract why did you want to leave I just felt like I have proven myself over those four years or two years especially in the top league and I wanted to take that next step and play for a bigger team with higher ambition with winning trophies with you know maybe international football and then the

opportunity came up to join Celtic where I'm at now which is by far the best club in Scotland the most professional club in Scotland I mean the fan base is huge worldwide obviously I met here when I was here with Celtic and we had 10-15,000 people come to our stadium and watch our game so everything that comes with a big team is what I wanted the professionalism the attitude the coaching the facilities and celtic really have it has it all you said something interesting before if it had the question oh we're just going to ask you some things like you know where do you see yourself in five years time and ben responded to that with i have no idea where i'm going to be in five years time and i think that could be confronting for some people because some people

have a very clear vision of where they want their life to be at each sort of milestone goal but what you mentioned is that when you work in a professional football sense or maybe in a professional sporting sense it can be quite hard to pinpoint where your life's going to be because you're dictated by opportunities yeah and you're dictated by the teams that want you how do you navigate that inability to kind of grasp what's in the future in terms of like planning for your future in terms of being able to set really clear goals or are you okay with having that as a bit of a question mark i think you need to be okay with having a question mark over that because i think in in football there are very little people who can kind of choose

where they want to play and how they want to play and at what level and all that kind of stuff so if somebody said to you where do you want to be in five years i think that's more of a question of what would you have liked to achieve in five years rather than where would you want to be in five years because transfer windows there are change of management there are change of circumstances injuries all that kind of stuff so it could really go in any direction football is obviously a global sports so there are a lot of good teams across the globe but it really is one of them ones where when the opportunity comes up of maybe a transfer or a loan which is when you kind of leave your parent club to go play for another team for six months you have to evaluate those things

and you just don't quite know what's around the corner it was very short-lived in terms of your career is in your younger ages so you need to maximize your opportunity your income and all that kind of stuff but you just don't quite know when and where the next opportunity comes from so you literally could be anywhere I think it makes it hard in a relationship and I think it's the the most difficult thing that we have come across now is that we can't make plans and we can't see where we're going to end up or how we're going to navigate it because every time I ask do you think I should move over there in two years do you think you should come over here it's always the same answer i can't tell you i don't know how to make that plan because i could be gone in a year i

could be gone in four years so it's really hard in a relationship it'd be hard even if we live together to make plans because you can't settle because you don't know if you're going to move but it's very hard when we're not physically in the same country i would think it is harder for a partner of an athlete i think the athlete kind of dictates of where he's going because of the longevity of the career and all that kind of stuff and maximizing it but i think our case is a little bit different where i love where i'm at you love where you're at and then it's probably not a matter of where it's probably just a matter of when in terms of when are we actually going to be physically living together and all that kind of stuff so it's maybe a question that's open-ended where you don't

know the answer but i feel like if you talk about it and explain the situation then the partner gets an idea of right i understand why you can't commit to this i understand why you think that way do you find and maybe there's more question for you brit do you find the understanding makes it easier or do you still think it's challenging not having sort of like a clear direction because like i mean especially for women when you want to have like a bit of a time frame for your personal self do you find that hard or is it something that you can work to it's a double-edged sword it makes it easier when you understand and i 100 understand i know how it works now and we talk about it all the time but it's funny because I understand it and we have the conversation and then three weeks

go past and I ask the same question again and it's not because I don't understand it's because it's all I think about and that also I think has to do with where I'm at in life and where we're at in life and by that I mean age we speak about it many times I'm 36 in a couple of months so the kids and the family and a wedding and settling down as a couple is on my mind a lot I'm freezing my eggs again because I think about it all the time I think that's why I bring it up so much because I can't comprehend how it's going to happen I just can't understand and I can't find an answer because we we want to have kids and we want to be together but I love my career and my life totally and he loves his career in his life and neither of us are ever going to ask the other

one to give it up but then what's the answer so it's a it puts us in a really difficult place and I get really upset by it Ben's like I don't know where to go and I'm like neither it's hard when you ask a question you don't feel like you get the answer because everybody wants to have an answer even if you don't like it sometimes but you just want to have an answer but I think it's a really open question where we don't know the answer but those are the options and you're so right like even if you don't like the answer people want something definitive because then they feel like they can control their life and otherwise without something definitive it's like well it could be four years it could be two years it could be and I understand why that kind of like arbitrary

openness can be anxiety inducing in terms of like football and like your ongoing career and your age what is like kind of the maximum age that people stay in and when that comes do you have a plan for what life could be like after football in terms of career options or where you might see yourself yeah so goalkeepers tend to play a little bit longer because we need to run less which is they're the lazy player one of the one of the perks of my job the the downside is i get hit a lot with balls and the flying boots and stuff like that so you know i've seen goalkeepers play till they're 43 42 oh wow it's a way longer career and ben's 31 so it's yeah so hopefully i still i still have many years to go as a goalkeeper at my age is kind of like your prime if you will

you're still athletic you're still fast but also you have the experience of being a goalkeeper because in football, everybody wants an experienced goalkeeper who is 20 years old. And I think like any other job, everybody wants experienced people who are 17, 18 or... Too young to be experienced.

Yeah, too young to actually have the experience. So experience as a goalkeeper is also part of the package of the talent. So yeah, so hopefully I have many years left. And then I've always said that I'd love to move over here eventually. Again, when and how, we don't know. Sydney FC, if anyone wants to take Ben as a goalkeeper.

I have a few more things that I want to achieve with my club, with Celtic. That end is kind of open, but I've always been into fitness. I can probably see myself being somewhat in the fitness industry after I retire from professional sports. I told him he can be a stay-at-home dad. I've seen how much work it is with Laura, so it seems like a full-time job. Well, I think that's a nice little proper introduction to who Ben is. And I'm genuinely so glad I get to introduce you to somebody like Ben

and such an important person in my life because at the end of the day Laura and I have been doing this for four so long four years and like 450 episodes and I feel like we share so much with you and you've been on the whole ride with us from the very beginning and we all know that we've all been through ups and our downs we've had our moments and it's nice to be able to share that I'm on a high again and I've met somebody a really beautiful person and your support that you guys have given us so many lovely messages about Ben but also I reckon I have had and I'm not exaggerating thousands of messages since I announced Ben and I've been sharing the relationship of people just writing I'm so happy seeing you're happy and that's it just like this one message and it means

so much okay let's get into the questions question number one I think this is a really good one for Ben you to weigh in on because it's definitely the perspective of a man it literally starts with Ben i need your help it says ben i need your help this is a quite a long one so i'm gonna try to summarize it and we would also just like to say that ben has zero experience in this i mean we don't have much but we have a little bit more than him so hopefully the advice don't take it to heart and don't come and sue us if it's terrible don't make any humongous life decisions based on whatever comes out of you yeah but it could be great then this could be your new career you might be a psychologist after this well your ben is actually really the number one thing i was attracted to

with Ben was how emotionally engaged he was. Not intelligent, just engaged. Well, he's clocked in but it's just – He's emotionally engaged and emotionally intelligent and sometimes the things you came out with I was like, wow. Anyway. Maybe I've read your book. You did read our book.

Okay. God, I hope you didn't. No, we did. Do you know, I don't think we've said this, but Ben, the first night we hooked up on the one-night stand, I had obviously a book there. I'm proud of it. I've got one book.

I'm proud of it. I've got one single book. I've got it. And he said, can I take this? And I've just like, it's our first hookup. And I was like, okay. And he goes, can you sign it? And I was like, what is all this?

I thought it would be a good joke. I was like, I leave Australia with a signed book. I've never met anyone who's written a book. So I was like, hey, just sign it. Sign your book. Sign your book. It's your book. Do you know, I'm pretty sure that was the only copy that we had

because it was during press time. Yeah, and he took it. It was our mutual book. Well, it's mine now and you're not getting it back. Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Okay. All right, all right, all right. Everyone, if you want to go and buy the book, it's still available.

it's a fucking great book ben i need your help i met this beautiful man on hinge we planned to go bowling have dinner a few days after talking we got along really well we both agreed that we were ready for something serious and don't like the concept of sleeping around because it doesn't align with our morals we saw each other a few more times we had fun we were very comfortable he'd say things like you're beautiful gorgeous and perfect i could get used to being with you Now he's aware that I'm a big overthinker and continuously tells me that I have nothing to worry about. However, it's been three weeks now since I have seen him.

Whenever I try and make plans, he's busy, has something on or has something the next day that he can't make it to. He never really has proper reasons for this. It worries me because when we started seeing each other, he was super keen on me staying and hanging out all the time. He tells me he likes me and he likes spending time with me but he's not actually spending time with me. His voice is concerned that he doesn't want to get hurt again

and he thinks it's moving too fast and he says he has his walls up. Now he says he's not sure if he wants something serious. Oh, just leave. I am also the first girl he has slept with and seen since his ex but that was a year ago. I am constantly reassuring him that I'm here for him and I am not going anywhere and I will be patient with him. I'm happy to take things slow because I have strong feelings.

Am I going to get hurt? What should I do in this situation? Because are these current actions he's displaying red flags? So to summarize. It's a really big question. Yeah, this is why dating is so difficult, isn't it? So to summarize, they started off red hot. They were both keen.

He has completely pulled back. The slow fade. I think she might run the risk of being just a rebound because i think she mentioned that she was the first person he he's been with after but a year later i mean was he the first person yeah yeah well we've got to go off what she says right or what he says not always the truth everybody yeah that's true yeah difficult one i think just every right to kind of speak to him and kind of say hey listen i feel like you've been really keen feel like you're not as keen anymore like is everything okay you can't just be coincidence

you know being busy and changes in his lives but i would just be blunt and kind of say hey look i really like you but if you kind of don't like me back then just let me know and it obviously might not be nice for her to hear but i think she's better off knowing and kind of reaching out to him say listen this is how i feel but if she then gets nothing back and it's just short answers and all that kind of stuff i think you might not be into it that much well i also think on that like I mean I completely agree but I feel like if somebody's gone from being hot like they've made you a priority and then you've barely heard from them for three weeks yes like three weeks is a long time your actions don't match it's a really long time in early dating to not hear from someone

or for them to not make any effort to see you because they're too busy because even if they're too busy with work or whatever else they'll facetime you they'll call you if they're really interested if they can't physically see you they will make you feel like you're still a priority in other ways i think yeah i think with us we were literally spending every single moment calling each other so i was like this happened to me i want to tell her or all that kind of stuff i also think there's an aspect here he's basically pulled back and he's giving you nothing and you are still saying i am here for you i will not rush you i will wait i have strong feelings for you i'm not gonna hurt you you've given him every single thing saying that i'm available to you when he has said

he's not available to you so i think that there's an aspect of you being like i'm gonna be here for you no matter what and he's like cool i can go to whatever i want then totally easy part it's like you literally went 85 and he's come 15 he didn't have to come anywhere to try and meet you in that instance i think she can maybe pull back and then see if he kind of reaches out to her because we always kind of last minute want to hold on if we just feel like he's just leaving us or he's just running away from us so maybe that's the way to get him back on board a little bit yeah and I think also I personally don't think it's necessarily healthy when you're in a very early stages of relationship yes you might really like someone but I don't think it's healthy to make yourself

so available to somebody who's not investing in you back and you say like you're an overthinker and I don't think that you're overthinking when somebody hasn't shown you or done anything to reaffirm that they're interested or that they're invested over a three-week period like if you've only just started dating and then they've gone from hot to cold that in itself is a very confusing thing and so you're now saying that you're totally available to him that he you know you're not going to hurt him you're taking on all of the risk in this situation he's taking on absolutely nothing and you at the end of the day are going to be the one that gets hurt in this so I think having some self-preservation early on is really important and sort of saying I like you but I need to have

some clarity around where you're at in this, because I'm not going to wait. I'm not going to sit around whilst you figure out your life. I'm here. If I'm still interested when you are available and you're interested, then we can work it out then. But I think completely keeping yourself open without limits only puts yourself in a position where you can be manipulated or you can be hurt. There is a chance to like, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. There's a chance that you are the first person he's been with. He was really hurt in his past relationship. It's early days and you've come on too hot and when you've said i really want to be with you and just you there's no one else he might be a pressure yeah he might be a little bit scared

so you might have come in a tiny bit hot in those early days so maybe take ben's advice try and match what he's giving you and pull back a bit and let him think you're out doing other things you might be seeing other people let him come to you let him message you and check in on you if he doesn't message you got the answer as well yeah i think it's very black and white yeah fair call take your foot off the gas all right question number two i have a short shot one for you is it always a case of if he wanted to he would or a guy's sometimes a little bit more complex now i think that sometimes we can say and i we've said it before that if someone wants you they'll make it aware to you like they want to be with you you're gonna know if you're confused

they probably don't like you but do you think it's as clear-cut when it comes to men i think men are more complex than that but i do think yeah i do think we go after what we want as you experienced it yourself but i think it also depends of maybe the guy is a little bit more shy i think we've spoken about this brit said to me hey if we met in a bar would you have come over to me and i said no that's not that's not how i feel comfortable so maybe you're an online person only i'm not an online person only but i just i wouldn't have come up to her no i wouldn't so you would never hit on a chick in a bar you would never know i would but like it just not me nine no nine out of ten times i'm very reserved and i would just like see if she would make the first move you want like a sign

from yeah you need you need a little bit of a sign so maybe this guy needs a little bit of a sign okay i have a question what constitutes a good enough sign then if you're at a bar and you're at a nightclub and you see a girl and you really like her like how much of a sign do you need to be able to go over and talk well i mean if she's literally there staring at you there's a good chance she likes you she fancies you but then there's been more complex than that there's a lot of things you need to see as well like how much have you had to drink how much have she had to drink who's she there with is she there with like five of her friends and it's just one of you then it's like this is awkward because if she says no it's five of them kind of potentially laughing at

you so you wouldn't approach a girl who's been staring at you in a nightclub or in a bar if she was there with her friends this is so interesting to know i need my backup no i don't but it really depends on the mood and everything and well i think that this is a really interesting insight because this is not something we realize we often go out with our friends because you go out for safety you don't want to go and sit in a bar by yourself and be like i hope a guy approaches me but i don't think there are many women out there that are like oh he's not approaching me because i'm with my friends we think he's not approaching me because they're not interested and we would also, I mean, I'm speaking on behalf of us, not all women. We would never laugh if a guy came up

to us and hit on us and we weren't vibing it and we like shut it down in a nice way. We would never turn around and being hysterics at that guy. But it's interesting because you think that we would all be laughing at you. I think that if you were somebody, a guy who's super attractive and you walked up and hit on a group of chicks, you would be more likely to be let down nicely than if you were somebody who was not attractive and this is obviously not a nice thing to say at all and I'm not saying that it's how it should be but if somebody who you thought was completely unattractive who had absolutely no chance quote-unquote came up and was like hey I'm like you know really vibing you I think a group of girls would very easily be like oh go away way more than what they would if

a guy was typically a super handsome guy that walked out of GQ magazine well maybe that's just me then because i would never ever and i don't have friends that would ever laugh at somebody that came up and respectfully nicely approached it maybe if they came up wasted off their head you would laugh if somebody genuinely came up shot their shot respectfully and it was no i would never ever laugh in their face and maybe there are people that do i don't mean laugh in their face but i mean yeah i think you're taking it too literally i just mean rejection wise and i think it's easy to say to someone who's attractive that it's you know you should just go up and speak to people but people who are super attractive have a way better hit rate with picking up in the public

rather than people who feel like they're not socially atypically super attractive okay but this is interesting because ben is generally an attractive person you're tall you're handsome that's what i'm saying so if it's hard for you it's hard for everyone so for this question then is it a case of if he wanted to he would or a more complex because we get this a lot from women being like do you think I keep even my friends do you think I follow up do you think I double text like do you think he's just been really busy and he's forgotten do you think he does really like me and he's just hasn't had time to write back yeah I think the double texting and all that it's a little bit overthinking as well but eventually the person if he really likes you

and if he really wants to go after you if you will then he will text and that's not after a week or two weeks that is literally the next day the next morning I feel like yeah my advice would be generally speaking I think a guy if he's interested in you he's going to let you know but it's not always the case like you said they might be shy or they might be really busy or they might need more of a sign from you so I would give them the one sign maybe it's another follow-up text one hey just wanted to see if you were free this weekend love to catch up with you again one more very clear I'm interested and you're going to know from their response it's either going to be I'm busy with no follow-up or it's going to be like oh shit I really can't but let's

do Wednesday but I think give them that one sign in case they are like Ben just said that kind of guy that wants to have that confirmation of oh this is going to be a safe place for me to shoot my shot because she's showing me she's interested so give them that one little bit of interest so they without doubt unequivocally know that they're safe to ask you out but I do think we over complicate this I think it's a pretty good and safe rule to say that if someone's interested you will know and if they're not interested you'll be confused and look there's a big difference between interest and actually someone who has is like not just interested but is available is wanting a relationship is like open to what you're open to because someone might be interested

in you they might find you attractive they might want to have sex with you doesn't mean that they want the things that you want and that's what will leave you feeling confused and it shouldn't be that complicated and it shouldn't be that hard and if you're sitting there at night time unsure as to whether they like you, they don't like you, they're into you, they're not into you, it's probably not the fucking right relationship because it shouldn't be that confusing is how I feel about it. All right. Last question to round this out. How does a man who was emotionally unavailable suddenly become emotionally available? The million dollar question. I mean, we've all dated. Every single person has dated someone who was emotionally unavailable,

who then very shortly afterwards got into a long-term relationship and seems to be doing just fine yeah like we've all seen that happen i think it's really simple that one goes i'm sorry to disappoint but what do you mean just like if it's not a person all of a sudden you're you're here i'll give you what you want i'll tell you my deepest darkest secret in the case of we all had that relationship before the relationship and whatever your ex-partner thinks about you if you're not emotionally available and all of a sudden you hear that it's really emotionally available with this new partner then you weren't the one and the new partner is the one i think I mean, I absolutely agree with this. I think sometimes we overcomplicate it when it comes

to relationships and trying to like figure out like, why are they not as invested in me as I'm invested in them? But I do also think that there are some people who will just have the same bad behavior, but in their new relationship, you know, like they'll go from, they might be in a relationship with you. They're not emotionally available. It's toxic. It's not working out. And then we have this fear that, oh, they're going to move on with someone new and they're going to be the perfect partner to that new person. And often they move on to someone new an awful person in that relationship as well. I think that, you know, people don't always just miraculously change, but in the instances that they do miraculously change, it's because you

just weren't the person and they found that person who aligns with them better. In my experience, for example, is I am naturally a reserved person, keeping to myself, maybe a little bit of a guard up, walls up. And then I met you. And in order to make this work, we decided to have open communication on anything because of our different circumstances of having a long distance relationship and i found that it's very easy to open up to you which is something previously it took me a long time to warm up to a person and long time to feel comfortable opening up so i think in yeah in my experience that it comes easy with the person when you know it's that person do you think part of that for you ben is because of the the pressure of making the long

distance relationship work or do you think it's a combination between how much you have to give when you're in a long distance relationship verbally to be able to make it work and also the fact that it's bread yeah well you definitely have to give more in a long distance relationship because those daily things are missing but i think it's not a case of pressure it's more in my case it was more a case of i'm wanting to do this so i think when it comes from a want it's more genuine and comes more natural also can i just say the last part on this if someone goes from being emotionally unavailable to emotionally available there's a good chance i've had some therapy because that's also a really fucking important part of the future yes yes correct i've done some

inner work everybody they've listened to the podcast maybe that's yeah maybe they'll be listening to life on card on one serious note on this are you also and i'm asking you to ask yourself this are you emotionally available to them and are you giving them anything because it's psychologically and scientifically proven that as humans when you disclose something that is really personal or deep or could be traumatic or could just be something that really means something to you and is emotional to you when you disclose that to another person they want to disclose something back this is something to ask yourself are you emotionally giving to him and he's not returning or you just feel like you're not giving anything because he

doesn't give anything so it's all stalemate all hands off because that is something to try maybe try opening up to him in a capacity that you feel comfortable with and seeing if he shares anything back. Yeah. I mean, that comes back to this idea of like vulnerability, right? When we are vulnerable, people are vulnerable in return, but it does. I mean, that is a really hard thing to do when you feel like you're coming up against someone who isn't giving you anything to constantly be the person who's giving the vulnerable parts of your life and your story and to not receive that back can kind of really amplify when someone is emotionally unavailable. So I think like if you are doing those things, if you are sharing and you are being open and creating space for somebody to

be emotionally available to you but they continue to not be then that's when you have to you know make the decision that maybe this is not the right relationship for you well i reckon that's it i reckon that's a wrap on life uncut featuring it's yeah that is it thank you so much ben for coming on the pod could you just fist pump yes i hope i could help in some capacity if you enjoy the episode go on leave a review on apple podcast you can slide into brit's dms and tell you her how happy you are for her because that's really cute too and you know the drill tell your mom to your dad to your dog to your friends and share the love because we love love yeah he doesn't listen no he literally listens to everything