Life Uncut - Ask Uncut - Not your Darl!

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Hey Lifers! Welcome to your therapy Thursday where we all trauma bond and feel better about ourselves because other people have bigger problems than us! First up today, we unpack whether an Australian designer or a reality TV influencer is in the wrong. Is it fair to out someone if you think they're wrongly asking for a hand out, or is it more wrong to try and publicly humiliate someone? Our vibes this week:Keeshia: The Briefing's episode "Was Queen Charlotte the UK's first black Queen?" here Britt: Jury Duty on Amazon Prime Video here   Then we jump into your questions! Our next door neighbour is a sex worker, and we have a 4 month old new baby (read: sleep deprived, exhausted, overwhelmed, all the things). We don’t have any issue with sex work, it’s just… really loud, a lot of spanking, whipping, moaning etc. This is a problem because on the rare occasion we get to sleep, we are often kept awake by the noise. I’m conscious it’s her job though so what can she do? Vice versa, a crying baby probably isn’t the best for her business. Help! 😩 Are terms of endearment in the workplace ever appropriate?  I’m getting married in November and some people are assuming they’re invited to my wedding. I’m talking to the borderline friends that I see maybe once or twice a year saying statements like “I can’t wait for your wedding” or “have you finished your guest list”. It makes me super uncomfortable and I don’t know how to respond so I just kind of awkwardly laugh.  Do I just need to wait for people's disappointment when they don’t get an invite or do I tell them now that we don’t have enough space for them and they’re not on my list? Help! If you have a question, 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! xxSee 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. Did you just have a testy pop? Maybe. I think you did.

You're like, uh, Laura. Well, that's how I feel. Do you know I've been up since... What, you feel like a prepubescent boy in a testy box? Because we've got to really dig deep into that one. I feel like a 14-year-old male. Male. Man.

Fuck. I... Shut up. Well, it's going to be a long one. I've been up since 5.30 this morning. Guess what I was doing, everyone? Ninja warrior. Dancing.

Dancing. Doing the drive. Who wants to dance at 5.30 in the morning? No one. not even my dance teacher who didn't arrive on time because he slept in I got to the studio and I was like hey didn't know where you at and he was like uh asleep and then I waited for 45 minutes until he got there so yeah isn't that the worst thing when I did it not long ago actually I did it to you the worst thing when you wake up to a message that's like a where are you message and

you're in bed and you're like holy moly I love that you say I did it to you recently because there's not been a time recently where you replied with I'm still in bed so I'd love to know when you were just running late. No, there was. Remember we were supposed to be on a meeting and I was in bed and I woke up and the meeting was done. And I was like, sorry, fam, I missed the boat on that one. I slept through my alarm and you guys have finished the meeting and I am in bed. No, do you know what my absolute pet hate is? Like that I can handle because that's at least like a reflection of a mistake. My pet hate is when someone says, oh, the traffic was really bad, but they know, and you know that there was no bad traffic because you both drove the same route.

no that is my the other day absolute fury the other day i was like they're not gonna believe this i was like guys sorry the traffic's really bad there was a hectic accident i was like they're not gonna believe it a whole tree fell across a whole tree fell across the road onto crushed a car it's not funny crushed a car and you couldn't get up the road and i was like i took a picture i still haven't shown you but i was like i have to take a picture because they're not gonna believe me when i say the traffic was bad when you text us that i looked at laura and i was like oh she's doubling and down she's really she's like oh there's a tree on the road that's why I had to take the picture you scooted over that how's the dancing oh I'm not good I don't believe that it's going

it's dancing it's I'm moving my body in the direction of a dance how many dances do you know three four that's pretty good I know four four and I'm in the midst of learning my last one okay yes look I know four but none of them very well but we're getting there anyway when I can update you guys properly I absolutely will and I'm sure you're all dying and on the edge of your seeds. But anyway, Ask Uncut, this is where we answer your deep, your dark and your burning questions. But before we do, we had a couple of things we wanted to talk about first. Now, the first thing I wanted to say is that there has been the cutest thing going down in the Life Uncut discussion group. We feel so grateful for the incredible little community that we have and

for how amazing as community members you guys are to each other. And there was just the sweetest thing that happened recently that I wanted to kind of touch on now, Melissa Swansborough. She is one of our community members. She posted in the group that her daughter, like her baby had lost her beloved Noni. Now, I don't know if you're a mom, you might get what this is, but like most children get like really attached to a singular Teddy becomes their comforter. And it's the thing that they'll, you know, take with them to when they go to bed, they take with them to daycare or whatever. It's like a comfort blanket. A lot of kids call it a blankie, a blankie, a comforter, a teddy whatever it is so melissa's little girl lost her comforter which she calls her noni there

was photos she basically posted in the group and she posted a photo of her little girl with her blankie and was like does anybody in the group have one of these something similar so that she doesn't have to be without her very precious little item and to reiterate she's put photos in of her daughter and since she's a newborn for three years with pictures of her with this blanket like it has been stuck to this little girl for three years. Now, Deborah Carroll, who's another Life Uncut community member, she wrote back and wrote, oh my God, you wouldn't believe it. But yes, I do. I got three of them from my baby shower a few years ago and I still have two of them brand new. Now, the reason why this is so bloody cute is because Deborah went and she sent her these

little comforters completely off her own bag, didn't want anything for it, didn't even want money for the postage, just wanted to do something that was so nice for someone else. And the thing that we love more than anything is how incredible, no matter how big, how small, how incredible it is that you guys all band together to help each other out. This was just such a little and sweet act of kindness that we wanted to say, you know, we see it when it goes down in the Facebook group and we are so, so grateful. Well, especially when Debra sent it and Melissa had said, you know, let me pay for the postage at least, like, let me help you out. And she just literally said, don't worry about the money. Take it as a gift from a stranger, buy yourself a coffee instead, enjoy your day.

It's just a low-key message. It's not for attention. It's not for anything else. It's just because you're good humans. Over the years, there's been so many small acts of kindness that have gone down in the discussion group, big and small. And so much of it happens without us having to do anything. It's just between you guys.

And so we want to say that even though we know that it takes on a life of its own, we see everything that happens and we love how much you all support each other. Now going from the absolute sweetest of sweets to something a lot less sweet. you know or you might know if you've been following along on the gram it is fashion week at the moment it is fashion week I don't know if a lot of people care or not I don't know what the vibe is in Australia anymore but regardless it's fashion week are you going are you partaking how do you feel about fashion week now I usually just do one show every fashion week actually I don't even think I went to last year but the year before I only did one I usually

just pick one of my favorite designers and I go and this year I'm actually going tonight just to one show with Kim, who is one of my stylist's best friends. And I'm going to marry Sadiq because I love her. I wear her and I want to support her as somebody that I know. She's an amazing Australian designer. So I'm just going to my one show. Well, I think overall the interest in Fashion Week has truly declined across Australia. I remember like five or six years ago, the media coverage that it would receive, the amount of money that was poured into it as an event, the calibre of like, as in every single designer would have a show at Fashion Week. And now I think over time, it has become less and less. And that's because like brands have multiple ways now to show and

to get their collections out. And also because more brands now are not just doing a summer and winter range. Like a lot of collections are seasonal. They're based on like six week or eight weekly drops. So I feel like the fashion industry has evolved quite a bit. Now there's something that happened recently and I had a few feelings about it. Britt and I were talking about last night and it was all around some leaked DMs between an influencer and a fashion designer. I feel like if you have been following Fashion Week over the last couple of years, you probably have noticed that more and more the people who are attending Australian Fashion Week are predominantly influencers. And also there has been this huge shift over the last couple of years

where it is predominantly reality TV stars as well. And I think that in the industry, there's a little bit of push and pull between diehard fashion experts, and that's what they live and breathe, and then the reality TV people who come in attendance each year. So the article that came out last night was Carolina, you might remember her from Maths. She's quite a controversial reality TV star. And I would say overall, she hasn't been the most liked reality TV star. Well, I didn't watch it, but I've read a lot about her. And everything I've heard is that it was very controversial. She had the affair. People don't seem to love her. I can't make a

personal comment because I don't know her and I didn't watch it but the general feedback hasn't been great around poor Carolina. Yes and look I mean on one hand we can say was it the edit on the other hand we can say is it her as a person who knows because none of us actually know who she is as a person but basically what happened was she had sent a DM to Australian fashion label called Michael Lasordo. Now a very respected well-to-do very successful fashion label who was putting on a show at Australian Fashion Week. Anyway, the message was this. Hi team, I would love to watch your show at the AAFW in Sydney on the 15th. Is there any possibility I could get an invitation? Thank you. Now, this is the response to the leaked DMs. Hi Carolina,

thank you for your message. It would be in my view respectful to be supporting and following the brand's page before asking for a free ticket or an inclusion to the anniversary show. Now, Carolina went on to write a very big response to this. She wrote back saying, I'm so sorry. I'm more than happy to follow. I truly do love the brand. I actually come to check out your new posts regularly. Please don't be offended. I only follow 300 or so people and they're my family and friends. And then she, it's a very long explanation, but basically she said the reason why she only follows such a small amount of people is because otherwise she misses those that are close to her. And also because social media for her became a place that wasn't good for her mental

health and so therefore she wanted to keep her following small the reason why i know in depth the exchange between a fashion brand and an influencer is because these dms which i would assume would be private dms were released to daily mail and this was the headline the headline was leaked emails reveal popular designers takedown of a reality tv star begging for an invite to australian fashion week show before she is brutally turned down i think this is so shitty actually of of the designer. I think that, okay, let's wind back a little bit. What has happened here to summarize, Carolina wanted to go to Michael's show because he's an amazing fashion designer. She obviously didn't have an invite. So she slid into the DMs and said, I'd love to attend.

He's called her out because he's like, you don't even follow me. So it's a no, but that wasn't enough. He then screenshot it and leaked it. The way Fashion Week works is, I mean, a lot of influencers or a lot of people in the public eye or a lot of the fashionistas, they get direct invites from the brand. The brand will put a direct invite out saying, I know I want you there. So like, please come. But for everybody else that wants to attend, because people forget, there are a lot of just people that are everyday people that love to attend fashion week because they love fashion. What happens is you register to go. So you register, you fill out a form, you put your occupation, you put what shows you want to go to, and then the brand will then say,

yes, you can come, you can get an invite. So that's generally how it works. So I think A, Michael the designer is obviously a little bit pissed that he's like you haven't even gone through the normal route like you've dm'd me directly he's probably pissed about that which isn't something in my eyes to be pissed at at all I was like take it as flattery why do you think because like there's quite a rising trend of like influencers being entitled like brand singing influencers are entitled and therefore they shouldn't be asking for things like it's entitled for them to ask so why do you think it's not a big deal that she has kind of gone out of her way to say hey give me a I don't think it's a big deal because I also don't think it's a big deal that he said no.

So like, you know, I live by a bit of a motto of like in life, don't ask, don't get, right? You can ask and it can be a no, but you could ask and it could be a yes. But what I don't like here is she asked and it was a no, that's fine. He has every right to say no. And at the end of the day, I think he should have said no because she should have been following the brand. There's a simple rule. If you're going to ask for something, you show your support.

If you loved them so much, you show your support. And I say that because I know that's happened to you and I, Laura, like we get that a lot. Even with Life Uncut, we get a lot of people write to us saying, absolutely love you, you know, love you both, love the podcast, would love to be a guest on there, would love to send you a product, maybe you can talk about it. And you go onto their page and they don't follow Life Uncut. They don't follow you, they don't follow me. And I'm like, do you even know who we are?

Or are you just going to every like publicity to try? And so there's a part of it that I understand why he was like, come on, bro, like at least follow me. So that was dumb on her behalf. She should have at least followed him. but I don't see why this has gone any further. I don't see why this exchange had to even leave the DMs. All she has said is like fucking kissed his ass. All she has said is I love you. I'd love to attend. All he had to say was, I don't want you there. No. And you know, you probably should

have followed me, which is fine. That exchange is fine. Why then did you have to go and I'm assuming sell it? Or even if you didn't sell the story, you've leaked it. Why would you go and leak the article for any, there's no reason then to publicly humiliate someone. I have so many feelings about this. When I read it, I was like, Oh, I think it says a lot more about the brand than it does about the influencer. And like, look, this is not us being like, Oh, let's support the influencers. Someone protect them. I just think like, it's very easy to hate on an influencer. And I know obviously because Carolina Santos, maybe she is not the most liked influencer after her time on maths, but she does have 135,000 followers. Brands use influencers to promote

their products. All brands do it. It is an incredible, effective, and very, very cut through way of marketing and advertising. So I think it's a bit rich to pick and choose in terms of course you can pick and choose who you want at your shows, but I think it's a bit rich to pick and choose who you will hang out to dry versus who you're okay with collaborating with on your products. And I think that the issue for me here is that because she's not liked as a person, it's almost like it's been green carded that it's okay to humiliate her. Like how dare she ask for something? Yes, I agree with you, Rich. She should have been following the Instagram page, but there's loads of brands that I wear and that I like, and I'm not following their

Instagram page. Like I'm not supporting it on Instagram, but I support it with my money. Totally. But you don't also write to them and ask for something free. And I'm assuming if you ever did that, which you wouldn't, you'd follow them. Totally. Totally. But in flip side to that, I speak about this from, you know, the aspect of someone who has worked in the world of influencing. Brands ask for free things all the time from influencers. Brands constantly, and I'm talking like all brands from big to small, email and ask influencers to promote products or do things for free and don't respect that they have a huge platform

and audience that is actually their business that they can monetize on. So I think it kind of goes both ways. And for me, I think if you're a high fashion brand, if you're someone who is trying to cement yourself as being premium, a luxurious product. Why on earth would you want to get down in the down and dirty of trying to humiliate some influencer? It just makes you look like a bully. I don't think it makes the brand look premium. I think it makes the brand look tacky that you've screenshot these photos and then publish them through Daily Mail. I just, I think it, to me, the whole thing screams of tackiness from the brand. Yeah. It's like what I said earlier in

the episode when I said, if these sorts of things hit different in Australia compared to the rest of the world. And one thing I want to add to that is the word influencer in Australia is a dirty word. We don't see it as something that should garner any respect. We sort of almost say it like it's such a negative thing. Oh, they're an influencer. They're just an influencer. Whereas in other countries around the world, it is quite respected and like influencers are the people that would be invited to the front row of fashion events because the brands realize that these are the people that are actually buying these products. And that is the thing. These are the people that will wear these outfits that the fashion designers are promoting. So I don't

understand why there's all this hate towards them, but I thought this was really interesting. And I really, really liked that she came out and said it. So the ex Vogue editor, her name is Christy Clements, big deal. Obviously Vogue is big in fashion. She does just come out in response to this year's fashion week. And she said, I reckon they deserve to be there as well. They being influencers quote, everyone has the right to participate and enjoy fashion week. That's not me being woke that is the reality yes fashion week is not quite as elite as it used to be but you know what fashion is entertainment the audience is just as important as what is on the catwalk and I personally love to see all different kinds of people in the front row fashion can't afford to

be like that anymore it's a numbers game and it should be something that is enjoyed by everyone regardless of what their background is I think that that is a brilliant statement from someone that is in a respected fashion industry. Yeah, but I think the big thing that's different about this is that we have people of different calibres. I think because she comes, one, because not only is it from reality TV, but because she was the reality TV villain, it makes it easier to humiliate and hate on.

But ultimately, I think that social media has massively changed the dynamic of Fashion Week because we do see the very front row is now majority influencers and a lot of them have come from reality TV because they're almost instantaneous, massive audiences that they gain. And the audiences that you gain when you've done a reality TV show are hugely engaged audiences. And now the thing that I think where this whole fashion industry is coming to a bit of a tipping point in terms of like fashion week shows is that 10 years ago, five years ago, it was elite. We used to look in and you couldn't see behind the wall. It was like untouchable. It was the Lara Bingles. It was all

of people who you looked in at and you felt their world is so unattainable to my world. But now it's full of people who you literally know what they had for fucking breakfast because they posted on Instagram. So the accessibility to it has changed. But I think in this instance, whether you like Carolina or not, this trend of trying to humiliate influencers for asking for something that pertains to the industry that they're in, I think is kind of low. And we saw it last year with the young girl who asked a restaurant if she could have a free meal in exchange for advertising. I think it's a bit rich if you have an issue with an influencer asking, but there's no issue with a brand asking an influencer for it. I think if we're going to have an issue with it one way,

then influencers should also be able to say to brands, why are you asking for stuff for free? Well, yeah, because you don't see influencers taking screenshots of every brand and saying, stop asking me for free stuff. Just jumping in because I actually just found this very, very interesting. I only looked at this up as you guys were talking. The website Social Blade, it is this kind of algorithm program that analyzes the percentage of engagement of influencers. And a lot of the time brands that will choose to work with influencers will check the engagement rate of that particular influencer to see whether their brand being advertised with them is worth it. What would you say would be like a normal engagement percentage for an influencer?

Oh, no idea. You're asking the wrong person. I mean, around about a 3% to 4% for an influencer would be worth it in the brands money-wise. It's deemed as high. Yes. It sounds low, but it's actually high. Karolina's is only 0.67%. So yes, she's got 135,000 followers, but when your engagement is 0.67%, what I mean by this is that I think the reason that this brand has decided to release this DM is because

I think that they're trying to create the allure that they have integrity. that to be a part of that brand you have to have integrity and yeah but the percentage has nothing to do with integrity well I actually think it does because it's kind of her saying you know the exchange in that situation is can I have some free tickets to your fashion show I'll promote it on my Instagram like that's kind of the assumed exchange right if your engagement is really low that makes it less worthwhile for a brand to say yes to that they're trying to out her and I do think that they have absolutely tried to humiliate her but I do think that there is a point to what they're saying they're kind of saying like you're not even following the brand the engagement that

we would get and also your reputation these are all negative things to our brand but what I don't think stands for integrity is working alongside Daily Mail and releasing DMs I think that that so fundamentally lacks integrity that it does the opposite of what they're trying to achieve which is to say how dare this influencer think that they're so good that we would give them a free ticket. It's like, but you are so, you are so petty. It's definitely not that you released it to Daily Mail. I think it kind of like undoes exactly what they're trying to achieve by being that petty ultimately. Anyway, before we get into answering all your deep, your dark and your burning questions, it is time for vibe and unsubscribe. And Keisha has a very good one today.

Also, I just wanted to quickly say we get a lot of posts and we get a lot of messages to the Instagram, sorry, posting the Facebook group asking like, what was that thing that Laura recommended or what was that thing Britt was talking about, I do try to link them in the show notes. So you should be able to tap on the show notes in the episode and actually go straight to whatever the vibe or unsubscribe is. Well, maybe we need to start putting them in the discussion group as well. Oh, you're not a bad idea. I'll get onto that. My vibe for the week is actually an episode of the podcast, The Briefing. And this is with Jan Friend, who you might've known if you came to the live show. She was one of our wonderful guests. Jan did an episode

of The Briefing with a British historian named Cindy McCreary. And do you guys know the show on Netflix at the moment, Queen Charlotte? It's the Bridgerton spinoff. Sure do. Yeah, it's like the number one show, right? So it's all about Queen Charlotte and how she fell in love with King George of England. Now, they are real people in history, right?

So 18th century history. This whole episode, it's titled, Was Queen Charlotte the UK's First Black Queen? And that is because the queen in the Netflix depiction is black. and when Bridgerton initially came out with this colorblind casting everyone was like this is great we need more diversity blah blah blah but this podcast episode actually kind of unpacks a little bit more of like the nuance of is it problematic to have a colorblind casting when it is so not representative of what actually happened you know the black experience at the time it also ignores

all of the slavery and she kind of goes into how she thinks these things are really great because they're very entertaining and it kind of touches on some of the cultural things at the time but is it problematic to ignore the hardships that people then face it's really ignoring the fact that like black people at the time did not have status they didn't have opulent wealth you know that kind of thing and it also could potentially run the risk of reshaping people's frame of mind around history especially people who are viewing it or watching anything about who's watching Bridgerton though and then thinking this is true and I think people know it's labeled as fiction based on fact. And that's where I think it's interesting that they've used the

real character names of people who actually existed in history. That's where I think it gets a bit muddy. Anyway, this whole episode goes into the real history of Charlotte, whether she did have African heritage or not. It's just super interesting. It's not like too opinionated. It's not like you should or shouldn't enjoy these TV series. It's just like, you should probably just be aware that, you know, these things can shape your perception of history. So I really like it. I'll link it in the show notes. Jan, for the briefing, it was excellent. Well, mine is way less progressive.

My vibe this week is called jury duty. Now, I know you've seen it, Keisha. It is also something that is absolutely trending. I actually haven't seen it. My housemate has been watching it, so I've seen bits and pieces as I've walked past the lounge room. He's obsessed. He, like, cannot stop watching it.

It's on Prime, so Amazon Prime, and if you haven't heard of it, it is it's with James Marsden as the lead now I have crushed on James Marsden my whole life he's beautiful I got to interview him over the summer and he's just as beautiful in real life but what it is is it's the inner workings of the judicial system so it shows you all the jurors it has bailiffs and judges and the person that's on trial and James Marsden plays himself it's supposed to be a real trial turns out this whole cast is an actor there's only one person in the whole show that's not an actor and that is one of the jurors. He thinks he's been summoned from the public.

He's just an American guy. He thinks he's been summoned and he has no idea that the whole thing is fake. Every single person is an actor and the shit that they put this poor guy through, the stories and everything gets so crazy and the whole idea is just to watch his reaction. It's unlike anything you've seen. But how?

It feels like the Truman Show. How on earth could it be? It sort of is. But how can that be legal in terms of filming someone without them consenting to being filmed in a reality TV show? No, I actually can answer this. So you have to sign consent after the fact. It's the same with radio.

You can record someone without them knowing but you can't air it. He knows he's being filmed. He thinks he's part of a real situation and they're filming it because they are going to show the world what it's like. They bring all these jurors in. They're like, hey, guys, we're going to all be filmed. We're going to show what it's like going through this process. But he just doesn't know that everyone's an actor

and he's the only person that's nodding on it. So they're like setting him up. So he thinks it's a documentary. But so they kind of throw questions at him and correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't seen all of it. But like people on the show will be like, hey, bro, I need you to do this favour for me. Like I need money or like they basically,

it's like a human experiment. They're testing how far they can push this guy and just waiting to see whether he'll crack or whether he'll like be a good person or not. I just wonder like what have you got to the end of it? And he was like, no, fuck you. I don't want to be the lead role in some TV show. i didn't know it was being filmed imagine if that was the outcome they're just throwing a couple

extra dollars i'm sure that's why they buy him out yeah there's all this stuff on tiktok at the moment though about whether he knew like whether he is also an actor or not there's like all conspiracies about whether he's in on it a lot of people are starting to say nah he's an actor that has to pretend he didn't know but i don't think i'm i'm you know i'm the optimist and i'm forever the optimist i want to think that it's true apparently he comes off as just being like the best guy ever he is he's amazing he's amazing and everyone asks him to do stupid shit and his responses is always so good and he's always so loving and helpful and it's just like I haven't seen the end yet but watch it if you're wanting something different and a bit of a laugh that's

jury duty on amazon prime not sponsored just love it question number one I'm getting married in November and some people are assuming they're invited to my wedding I'm talking the borderline friends that you know you kind of only see once or twice a year they're saying things like I can't wait for your wedding. Have you finished the guest list yet? It makes me super uncomfortable because they're not invited, but I don't know how to respond. So I just awkwardly laugh. It was recently my birthday and someone said, I just can't wait to see you walk down the aisle, but she's not on my list. On your Instagram. Do I need to wait for people's disappointment when they don't get an invite? Or do I tell them now that we don't have enough space?

do i tell them they're not on my list sos help how many friends do you have that think they're better friends with you than you are with them apparently a lot this makes me wildly uncomfortable i okay if this was me actually this was me this is me i did this i did this in november last year guys i think you just tell people you're having a smaller wedding like you have to be honest if you're not inviting people 200 people on the instagram and you're like but if they by small i meant just like small enough that you couldn't be invited i'm in a small army no i think you have to be honest you can't just not invite them and then wait until it's closer to the wedding and then they've figured it out because I did that and then I had a friend who was like hey when

am I gonna get my invite and I was like oh yeah the invite so what did you do invited her see this is exactly what not to do don't follow in Laura's footsteps you don't you don't leave it so long they're so awkward that you have to sympathy invite them to be fair though it was like literally a week out from the wedding and she was like hey was that me no oh my god you got your invite no it wasn't even a week it was like just before and I was like we haven't you why do you think how I mean it's next week but also like it wasn't someone who I'd sent a save the date to it was like a really rogue out of nowhere like I understand if you've gotten to save the date that didn't get the invitation in the mail I was like I get that but this was like someone who I

had not seen in years not spoken to in years and they were from kind of a past life and they messaged and were like, Hey, like, can't wait to see you. When's the wedding? If you haven't gotten a save the date, a message, a call, a conversation. If you haven't got a carrier pigeon, if you haven't had a morse code, smoke signals delivered to your house, don't bring it up. Okay. Wait, I had to even write back. Sorry. Who is this? Because I didn't have their number saved. That's how random that one was. Okay. Anyway, this is not helping. I am deceased. I feel so I need to know is wait you invited them well kind of but then they didn't come so it all got awkward it got so awkward anyway I'm a conflict avoidant you know this have you spoken

to them since no no I love we're getting to your deep trauma now let's answer this poor girl's question well I think okay I feel really uncomfortable listening to this because I also don't like conflict first of all I want to start from those people that are listening I'm not even going to answer this girl's question straight away we'll come back to that the people listening because this goes to everybody. If your friend or someone you know in your stratosphere is getting married, my advice is to never go to them and say, I can't wait for the wedding. Don't ever assume anything because you don't know someone's circumstances. I think the best thing to say is like, are you so excited? Have you picked your

dress yet? What are you thinking? Like be engaged if you're a friend, but don't put somebody on the spot and be like, so do I pick my bridesmaid's dress or are you picking it for me? Like, don't, don't assume anything. That's where I want to start. Like make it easier for the couple getting married. I think you can assume if you're a best friend that you're going to be invited to their wedding, unless they're not having a wedding and they're eloping. I think you can assume. But if you're someone who is like on the periphery of the friendship, like it's an acquaintance, it's someone you see like once every six months. If your number's not saved. Yeah. If your number's not saved in their fucking phone. If you're not friends on Instagram,

I think that you can't just assume, but also that doesn't help because obviously these people have assumed, which just means that people feel like they're closer to you than you do to them. You have to be honest. I think you have to say, oh, look, we're having a bit of a smaller wedding. Get ahead of it. I think say, you know, maybe we're going to do a dinner beforehand. We'd love you to come to this or something, but you do have to be honest because especially if they are expecting that they're coming, if they have already brought it up with you and you've laughed it off or whatever that almost solidifies to them that they are coming the fact that you didn't say anything in the first place send a don't save the date send them a card that's like don't worry about

saving this day you'll be free do whatever you like a laugh off is an acceptance basically you've accepted their rsvp when you laugh you accepted their rsvp so now you need to unlaugh and probably tell them and just explain you don't have to be honest like you're not close enough to me but you can say we're really tight with numbers. I would love if you want them to, we'd love you to come to like the pre-party, whether that's the hens, or maybe you're just going to, maybe you throw a little get together before for people that can't make it. But I think you just really need to be honest because economically there's, there's a lot of reasons, but economically we don't live in a time anymore where you can just say, Oh, I just add these

people onto the wedding because I, I feel uncomfortable because it's weddings are so expensive. And when you're paying for people per head, you want to make sure that you're filled with people that you genuinely really want to be there. And it is your day and you do hopefully only have one of them. So you need to be pretty true to yourself, but the longer you leave it, the more chance you'll have of ending up like Laura. I want to say something from my own experience because I am so deeply conflict avoidant that by avoiding conflicts or things that I perceive as being conflicts, I only make the situation worse. Like I'm avoiding an email at the moment that I should have sent three months ago and it would have been completely

fine at the time. But now when I send it, it's going to be a problem. And I know that. And so I'm continuing to avoid it. You did that with your wedding as well. I remember we had this convo on regarding your wedding dress. Oh yeah. About my wedding dress. I don't like disappointing people. And so therefore I delay that conversation so much, but there comes this tipping point. The tipping point is when you delay something to a point where it becomes so much more of a big deal. And I think the thing is, is once you've sent out your invitations and then someone kind of assumes they're coming, but then they don't know they didn't get an invitation. Now they feel like you haven't spoken to them. It just creates a bigger situation than necessary. And I think the

easiest way to get on the front foot with this is just to put on your big girl panties and say to your friend or whoever it is, your loose acquaintance, you know, I would love for you to be able to come, but unfortunately we have to keep numbers small. And I hope that that, you know, I hope it doesn't upset you, but you know, if we could have you there, we would love to have you their little white lie, even though you don't want them there. I'll send you a picture. Yeah. And I think that that's the easiest way of going about it. But I think don't ignore things so much that then they become bigger than they need to. Totally. And I speak from experience. It's a bad idea. Anyway, I feel like that that is kind of the best advice we can give on this. Question

number two. Hit me. What would you do in this situation? Our next door neighbor is a sex worker and we have a four month old newborn baby. Reed, we are sleep deprived, exhausted, overwhelmed, all the things we are on a first name basis but we don't know her that well she hasn't explicitly told us that she's a sex worker just that there has been a ramp up in the number of people coming over to her place and there is sex noises at all hours of the day and night so we went looking on instagram and found her professional page we aren't prudes and don't have an issue with sex work it's just really really really loud a lot of spanking a lot of whipping and mostly a lot of loud moaning our units share an adjoining wall with our bedroom where the baby sleeps in with us

and the garage where we figured out some of the action takes place is basically less than 10 meters from our bedroom window this is a problem because on the rare occasions we get to sleep we are now kept awake by the noise i'm conscious it's her job though so what can we do vice versa i'm sure a crying baby probably isn't the best for her business help what is the solution i think definitely like this works both ways a crying baby's killing her vibe as well and i'm sure that the sexy noises are killing your vibe when you're trying to sleep and with your baby i think the sex part probably has nothing to do with it the sex worker part i think it's the fact that there is someone working from home that's obnoxiously loud like if your next door neighbor

is in a band and they're practicing on the drums all day or you know or dj deck that's trying it's the same thing they're working from home but it's interrupting you or if you're just like your neighbor's just gotten into a new relationship is banging till the cows come home being loud about it same thing i think the only thing you can do here apart from moving which you probably don't want to do i think the only thing you can do is what you do in this situation like literally take away that the fact that it's sex work you can write a note or go over and speak to them and maybe talk about a way that you can both work around it are there different hours that you could both do or is there a way that maybe you can explain that it's keeping your baby up can

you keep it down between 10 and 11 because it's the only time that they have a nap like there's definitely ways again I really think the sex part has nothing to do with it I think it's just your next door neighbor's really loud you can have that conversation because we have people all the time writing saying that they slip notes under their neighbor's door because they have sex too loud like there are always these kind of things yeah but I think it's a bit different when like you can't say hey can you work around and not work these hours because I guess like she's probably on call or they're probably on call for the time that's needed. Do you know what I mean?

Like they're not going to be like, I'll do no work between 10 p.m. Yeah, but maybe she could line up the orgasm part for like the nap time. So like climax at the peak nap time. Maybe make her aware that the acoustics in the apartment aren't great so she could get some more soft furnishings maybe. Like that could be a good solution. You can put soundproofing in. Probably wouldn't look great.

Like you're fucking in a studio. Yeah, like we have soundproofing in here right now. Like there's just foam. You could pad a little bit of extra soundproofing, I reckon. Padding on the walls could go a long way for lots of different reasons. Make it feel like a bit of a sex dungeon. Look, I think you hit the nail on the head, though, in respect. Like because on one hand, yes, she's keeping you awake.

But I'm sure if you can hear her having sex, she can hear your screaming baby. And that is probably just as frustrating, if not more frustrating at times as well. But I think that you probably can't do a hell of a lot. I looked into this because I was like, can you run sex work from your own house? Like, is there some sort of legalities around this? But it turns out as a sex worker, you can run your business. You can work from home as a sex worker. Yeah, great.

You just can't do it if there's multiple people. So multiple sex workers working from the same home, because then that kind of blurs the lines as to what constitutes a brothel. So you can still do an orgy if it's only one paid sex worker, is that right? Because there's multiple people there, but it's only the one worker. I did not look into it with that sort of high level detail. What I mean is it's like, for example, if we both were sex workers, we couldn't live together and both work out of the same apartment. Like you can't live with a friend and both do the same

thing. Which is so weird. Why is that? Because then it turns into potentially a brothel. Like the rules around it are kind of shifted. Anyway, look, this is very top line guys I'm giving you right now. This is not a high level information. But the reason why I wanted to look into that, because my very first thought was, oh my God, are they allowed to do that? Like you're in the middle of suburbia. Is that legally okay? But it seems like it is. I think the best thing that you can do is go and get yourself like a white noise machine or something that's going to interrupt the noise from within your bedroom. Can't control what they're doing in their house and they have to make an income, but you can control what's going on in your apartment. So maybe you need

to figure out if you can get better soundproofing in your apartment, or maybe you need to get a white noise machine. So at least if you know, they're gone the whole hog, you can't hear it. I agree but I still think you can have a conversation with your neighbor I think you can still say hey is there any way we can work around or like talk about the noise I don't know if you know it's you know good for you but it's really loud but what are they going to say because like they can't really say to their clients hey could you just keep it down a bit I know you're having a good time and you're almost there but can we just I mean what if there's a small chance a small there could be a small chance that they don't actually know how far the sound is traveling

next door because some buildings have great insulation and some don't so there is a small chance that they have no idea maybe if you tell them they're like oh my god i'm so sorry i didn't know that you could hear every single thing you don't know so i i always think it's best to have a conversation at the start i'm not saying this is an easy conversation that is so awkward hi sorry i just wanted to let you know i can hear you spanking yeah really loud at night time 10 o'clock that new whip you got it's going great guns but it's very loud yeah what do you got to lose i'm trying to think of what i'd prefer like as my neighbor if i'd prefer a baby next door crying all the time or sex all the time i'd prefer sex yeah i think 100 i'd rather way where i listen

to that it's like my bedtime lullaby than a screaming baby oh yeah i would have no issue with listening to other people have sex but listening to someone else's baby scream through the night like would gives me wild anxiety and also because i'm now attuned to crying babies so it wakes me up instantly if someone was having sex i'd be like what's that noise what is that What's that? That's an unrecognizable sound. Am I in heaven? Have I been in the gates of heaven? Is there a rhinoceros in the backyard? What's going on, babe? A rhinoceros? Anyway, okay, next question. What kind of sex do you have? Okay, third question.

Are terms of endearment in the workplace ever appropriate? I work closely with a team of five people in an organization. My colleague often calls me Dahl and it makes me feel very uncomfortable. She never calls anyone else from my team this, only me. And it started approximately three weeks after I started the job when we had a disagreement about something. Am I being ridiculous? Is this actually normal? Are my feelings valid? I don't know how to address this. She's currently going through a very tough time in her personal life. And I feel like if I was to broach this with my manager, it would not be received well. I think it's also important to note that she is young, so it's not a generational habit. I call everyone terms of endearment.

This feels very pointed. I call everyone like- No, there's different terms of endearment that hit differently I'm a big love hey love hi love I do it all the time I do it to everyone do you think love is on equal par with doll though hey doll yeah love and doll they both seem a bit condescending but but doll and sweetheart I say hun you're a big hun I've started oh I've started saying hun because of you and I don't like it hey hun I say to Keisha now but Keisha's the only person I say it to and because she's our only employee it's my only friend I think because you say it so much it started to come out of my mouth and I did it to you yesterday and I was like I didn't like that.

I think it's fine verbally, but when I see it in message, because I know you guys, I know it's not patronising, but if someone I didn't know that well called me hun, I'd be like, fuck off. I say lovely, though, in message. I change it. I say hun or lovely. Hi, lovely.

I think if the person's younger than me, it's super weird then. The thing is, it is very patronising, and I was always brought up that way, that you respect your elders and calling your elders dull is patronising. That's the way it was brought up. And it does. If somebody younger came up to me and said, hey, doll, it's fine. But I'd be like, I don't know about that. I don't know the situation.

I don't think it would be intentional. I don't think she started saying it after a disagreement is in like, I'm going to show you, doll. I don't think it's like, I'm going to get you back, doll. Do you know what? It could be the absolute opposite. You may have had a disagreement and she may be trying to compensate and make you feel that she doesn't want you to misinterpret her,

doesn't want you to think that she doesn't like you, and so therefore she's almost going a little bit too far and now you feel like it's been done because it's a very I mean calling someone dull or calling someone hun that's not the first point of call if you hate someone do you mean like you're actually not going to do that if you dislike someone if anything if you dislike someone you're probably more inclined to not give them any term of endearment at all so I feel like she may be doing it out of a way to try and like overcompensate for a disagreement that you've had and you've interpreted as though it's patronizing potentially I'm potentially looking at this as devil's advocate.

What this is about is you don't like it. It's making you very uncomfortable. You've literally said very uncomfortable. So that's what you have to address here is you don't want to be addressed like that. Outside of telling her that, I don't know what you can do. Besides sitting down and saying, my name's Sharon, like call me by my name. I don't know what else you're going to do. Can I?

Okay. Speaking from experience, I am someone who is guilty of calling people not by their name. I always call people hun or lovely. I don't think I use dull but I always use terms of endearment it's never in a patronizing way or if it comes across as patronizing to someone that's been interpreted as that the intention behind it was never to be patronizing if anything it's almost to like fast track a friendship that's I guess for me the reason why I would do it but I think for 90% of people it fast tracks the friendship and maybe for 10% of people who don't know me who maybe have interpreted me not the way

that I intended it. Maybe they think I'm being patronizing. And I also think it depends on the position of power that you hold in the role. This happened to me in radio and you were there, Britt. One of our coworkers, I called him buddy and that in no way, Keisha's like laughing. I was like, hey buddy, thanks. Said like that. And he- Champ, thanks muscles. Oh see, I would never call someone champ and I would never call someone muscles. But like buddy to me is that didn't even register that that was bad because like I, for example, wouldn't like being called legend. I find that patronizing. See, I called the same guy. You called him buddy. I called him legend. And he liked legend, but he didn't like buddy. And I

find legend patronizing. So I think it's very, very subjective. His response was, hey, don't call me buddy. And I was like, cool. Never will again. And we had a laugh about it. But he loved ledge. We had a laugh about it and that was it, you know? And now, you know, we became Instagram friends and I was like, hey buddy, how you doing? But isn't it very interesting though, that one person was fine with ledge, but they weren't fine with totally. It's all very personal. And I think ultimately, if you dislike a term of endearment that someone's saying, regardless of the intention behind it, it's okay to say, Hey, can you not call me doll? I don't really like it. It makes me feel a little bit weird. It's so fine to say that. And I don't think that that needs to be

confrontational. I didn't find it confrontational when in my workplace, someone said that they didn't like being called buddy. I just went, yeah, no worries. And I've never called them buddy since. If something makes you uncomfortable, it's okay to verbalize it. I don't think you need to go to their manager or to HR because by doing that, you're escalating a situation and making it seem like it's 10 times worse than what it really is. I think the first point of call is just the next time she says it, just turn around and say, it makes me feel so weird when you call me doll. Can you just call me Sarah? That's all you have to say. Or just say, hey, my gran calls me doll. It's weird when you do it. If it is something that makes people uncomfortable, just say 90%

of people are fine and 10% of people are uncomfortable by terms of, you know, names of endearment in the workplace. Do you think it should just be a blanket rule that we don't use it? Because I think we're trying to now assess, does this person like this? Does this person not like this? Do we think it's just a bit inappropriate? And maybe we have become too casual with our work colleagues. I don't think it's the sort of thing that you can put into every work contract ever that it's like, don't ever use a term of endearment. I don't think that's it. I think it's just going to have to be, a tone is going to have to be set by the management at whatever job you partake in. And they'll set the interactions at work by the way

that they behave, the way they speak to you, by the way they address you in emails, by are you going out and having this really close intimate relationship outside of work. I don't think it can be a blanket statement where no one in Australia in any workforce can use a term of endearment because workforces are so different. Like look at the way we work together. It's different to when I worked in a hospital, for example, like you wouldn't speak like that in a hospital. You would never go and have a conversation with a surgeon in the operating theater. I wouldn't walk in and say, Hey hon, we ready to cut them open and get this gallbladder out or what? Like you wouldn't have that conversation. So I think it's, it's a hard

to say it's a blanket rule and it's going to be something that you feel. I definitely don't speak to elders in that way because I was brought up and I feel like it's patronizing. So I would never do it. I completely agree. I think it's the level of professionalism of the workplace almost entirely. So, like, if you work in law, if you work in, like, a more professional environment, I think that terms of endearment would be a no-no. But, I mean, we talk about our sex lives for a job. So, like, of course it's a little bit more accepted for us

to just be more casual with our language, you know. I just pictured, like, there's been a court of law and they're like, hun, I disagree. Like, they're putting their hammer down. It's not even a hammer or whatever it's called. But I also think it depends on the person who's saying it. Like, let's picture it was a, let's say it was one of our male radio bosses who's you know in 50s or 60s here coming and calling me hey hun blah blah

blah I'd be like I don't really know you that well like I feel like it's a little bit weird that you're calling me that whereas with you guys who are my immediate bosses you would call me that and I would like it I think it depends on who it is I also think it's like anything it's the way you deliver it like you know in Australia we always use this as an example but mate the word mate can mean 10 different things. By the way you say it, you can be like, mate, mate, don't fuck with me. Or like, mate, like, you know what I mean? It's the way you deliver it. And I think hun and dal is the same thing. It's the way you deliver. If you're like, hey hun, just wondering, are you going to be coming to dinner tonight? Or like, hun, I told you to get those documents to me at

three o'clock. Where are they? So it's definitely, it's a multitude of things, but at the end of the day, I don't think that's something that we can police. I think it's something that comes down to the individual and you feel uncomfortable in your environment by this particular person, so just tell them. I don't think it has to be as big a deal as you think it is. But then it comes back to the same thing that we talked about with the wedding invitations. We're so conflict-avoidant and we're so worried about saying something

that's going to upset someone, so we just write in questions to Ask Uncut, but keep doing it because we need them all. Send in your questions to Ask Uncut. You can slide into the DMs on Instagram, which is Life Uncut Podcast. You can also follow us on TikTok or if you want to join the beautiful Life Uncut discussion group on Facebook. Go and do that also because we would love you for it. And don't forget, tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog,

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