Life Uncut - Attraction - Is it a "grower" or a "shower"?!

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

September has been given a new name - Soft launch September! We talk all things soft launching a partner, a baby, even soft launching yourself back in to singledom! Is it cute and exciting or just plain annoying!? Also, Britt's coming home! We hope!We've been told our whole, Hollywood movie impacted, lives that when we meet our person, we will know! They will be everything! But what happens when we get slapped in the face with reality and someone ticks every one of our boxes, except that we don't necessarily want to rip their clothes off?We are talking ATTRACTIONDoes this mean that they're not 'our penguin?'Does it mean that we should continue dating them in the hopes that those feelings develop?Does it make us a bad person if we call it quits in search of the spark?This episode was brought to you by DermaVeen. If you suffer from dry, itchy or sensitive skin DermaVeen might just be your saving grace. If you loved the episode, please hit 5 stars, subscribe and share the love, because well, we love love xSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany and I'm Laura and I have some good news. Well I mean it's good news for me, maybe not for Brittany but it's kind of good news for you guys as well. What's the good news? Am I in on this good news? Am I privy to this information? Well you just told me about the good news which I mean you have emotional and sad whiplash from it but I'm excited. Brittany is like 99.9% getting a flight back to Sydney. She's gonna come and join us in this hellhole which do you know what originally when Britt's trip was booked she was only supposed to be going for six weeks just you know go spend some time fall in love run around frolic be nude and obviously because of the state of affairs that

we're all in it extended brick couldn't get a flight back but she's just brought me the good news and that is that sooner rather than later we won't have to do these recordings of zoom recordings and i'll be able to touch you and get all up in your 1.5 meter space i don't actually know if this is good news or not like part of me it's a bit bittersweet part of me is the tiniest bit happy i'm like you know what i am ready i'm ready to come home do life uncut face to face again get back into normal life get back to my apartment get back to a little bit of routine and not staying up all night so I can work on Australian time but the other part of me I'm like fuck like I'm over here with the love of my life and I'm having a great old time and I don't want

to leave him again so it's definitely going to be bittersweet and I'm definitely like you just said I'm going to have some real emotional whiplash when I get back but that's for future Brittany tomorrow's problems are tomorrow's problems but also I don't know if people necessarily know you and Jordan have actually only spent quite a small amount of time face-to-face prior to this trip so it was like this time that you guys got to have like this trip it was the make or break it was what was either going to galvanize the relationship or it was going to be that real one-on-one time where you were like oh long distance Jordan is better than face-to-face Jordan fucking kill each other I like FaceTime Jordan yeah I like the one where we just sex no no but it's like for you guys

that don't know the timeline Jordan and I met fell in love very quickly saw each other every day but it was probably only for about three months give or take a week then he left and he was away for three to four months before I saw him again then I was only supposed to come back here for six weeks I wasn't supposed to be with him for six weeks so we ended up spending more time apart than we had together so these five weeks that I was coming over to see him was really really important and the fact that I ended up getting stuck here I guess was a little bit of a blessing in disguise because we were able to spend some really good time together we were able to be like you know is this is this legit is this fucking real are we really going to do this so imagine if you'd

gotten there you got stuck there and then you realized you didn't like him like this was the perfect outcome from this situation but it could have gone very very badly it really could have and I'm sure there are plenty of people that that has happened to but I mean I actually thought about that I was like what if I do get stuck here for six months who knows I mean it's that could happen and it didn't work out and I just thought you know what I would just I would be so fine on my own I'd probably just go and cruise off somewhere he's not the sort of person that would ever throw me under a bus he would look after me at the same point so like I wasn't overly worried about there's always somewhere to go there's always something to do

but yeah look guys it is a happy ending for now but when I come home again I don't know when I'm going to see him again he might not even be back this year he might not be back till next year and even then we're not sure if the Australian Open goes ahead he'll come back but what we're facing is probably for the next five or six years if we stay together is like six months apart at a time it's pretty insane so well and I think as well like there's so many people who have been in your situation in the past like you know two years especially because of this COVID situation like there are so many people who have had and been forced into doing long distance from their partners or even if they haven't done long distance they've been forced into making some really

radical decisions about their relationship that's either fast-tracked it and then they're now in the same place or they've had to do this prolonged time apart so I know that we've been saying this for ages but there is there is such an episode in long distance and managing long distance and now you've got some real first-hand experience because my long distance experience was not a good one so I think it's really great that like you have been able to manage this in a way and be able to keep the spark alive and to be able to like not have jealousy creep in or all the other things that can sometimes like rear its ugly head in long distance relationships and yeah guys there's an episode of this coming i know we've been saying this for a while now but now she's well and truly

versed in it yeah i just need a bit more experience but i'm good to come back and do it but laura i was thinking today i was like i cannot believe i actually cannot believe that we're in september like i feel like it was yesterday that we were like well welcome to the new year it's 2021 it's September we are coming towards the end of the year which is bonkers but do you know what September is no but I know that you like you think that this year has gone fast and I feel like it's been the slowest year of my fucking life I haven't slept in seven months guys like I am yeah wow I mean that's self-inflicted you keep reproducing I just think it's weird that I was like pregnant in January and had a baby and now that child is crawling and has two teeth like I for me

nah does not feel like a fast year at all feels like the year that's never ending but before we get any further today's episode is brought to you by our sponsor which is Dermaveen so we just want to say a very big thank you to them and Dermaveen is a product that gets a very good nudge in our household with dry scaly crusty little kitties they have some amazing skincare products and I don't know about you but with the change of season and coming out of winter my skin is so dry and crusty but speaking of a change of seasons do you know what September is Laura? I do know what you're getting at I know what September is September is soft launch September because we are going to talk about this soft launch September and I have a few feelings okay for

anyone who doesn't know what a soft launch is and what we're talking about right now a soft launch is when you might see someone on social media and maybe it's a famous person maybe it's an influencer hell maybe it's just your friend and they're in a new relationship or they've just started seeing a guy or a girl or whoever and instead of coming out and being like this is my boyfriend this is my new partner they do a soft launch they might just post a picture of their dog or they might just post a picture of their hand or maybe like a bit of their side arm as they're holding hands on the couch there's a lot of different ways that you can soft launch a new parter what a soft launch is it's a it's a tease it's a tease it's a way to build anticipation

it's the way to get people talking about oh my god did you see laura had a new boyfriend or something's definitely going on there's something there but we can't find out who it's a way for people to be like i'm gonna tease this but i'm not sure when i'm gonna drop the actual bomb and it can be as small and minute as like two glasses in the photo like two wine glasses and then there's no person in it it's just the two glasses and you're like had the best night it's like shit like that where you're like oh my god who did she have the best night with you tap on the picture there's no tag on there there's nothing it just leaves you wanting more and then a week later there might be like an elbow like someone else's elbow in the frame and

you're like slowly it's driving you insane and you want to know more than ever and it's gotten to the point where there are so many comedians that have taken the piss it's gone pretty viral on social media so they have given it its own month which is soft launch september now laura how do you feel about a soft launch? Mate, I have so many feelings about this. And also I feel like one of them is me going to be criticizing you because I know that you are partial to a soft launch, Britt. And I am not. No, hang on. I actually am not. I have had friends that have soft launch, friends and non-friends, and I fucking hate it. Like, I'm like, why are you doing this? I actually never soft launch. You soft launched Jordan. No, I didn't. This is a

common you did no I didn't you're lying we're gonna have a fight on the podcast everyone I know why you think I did but I didn't the way that Jordan came about was I didn't soft launch because it actually like Wallace is part of me that sort of wanted to start to show him before I knew that I was ready to say hey I'm committed to this person I was doing a Q&A on my Instagram and I was answering loads of questions and somebody said to me show us a time you were happy so I put a picture up with Jordan. It could have been anywhere. You couldn't see his face. It was just a time I was happy. That was it. That was my soft launch. I didn't say it was now. I didn't say it's current. I didn't say I am happy. Don't raise your hand at me like you're in a classroom. I haven't

finished. Okay. I have so many things to say to this, which are like, Brittany, you can live in a delusional land and you can tell yourself that that's not what you did. The reason why that is not true is because this was on New Year's. You're away. You're out. You're on holidays. And Jordan came to see you and you had been posting photos which were by the pool and in that area so everyone who follows you knew that it was a current photo because it was taken in the same area that you had been posting photos the day before it was a photo that only showed half of his face and the guy's sock tan no no face no face yeah there was no face everyone who saw it was like even the daily mail was like who is britney with so you can convince yourself that you didn't soft launch

Jordan but you did okay so in my I can see I can see my defense in my defense it was never an intentional soft launch it was like in all honesty it was a lot someone said show me when you've been happy it was the last time I could remember that I'd actually been happy and I was so happy so I was like cool this is going to answer that question no part of me thought that this was a soft launch otherwise I would have said had the best time at the bottom you're like it feels so nice to be falling in love and then just like really ambiguous. Okay. There are a few influencers who I have noticed are very partial to a soft launch. Bella, who was on Lockie season, I have noticed, and I followed Bella for a long time. Like, you know, we've been friends, but I have

noticed it over the years that she loves a soft launch. Ruby Tuesday Matthews, also partial to a soft launch. Now, I mean like live your best life. You can do whatever you want on your social media the reason why I find a soft launch weird I guess is because it's not so much about the person and their relationship it's about the followers and their reaction to the relationship and so like if we're supposed to unpack what a soft launch is the term soft launch comes from something that businesses do when you're trialing a new product or you're trialing like a new service to market and you'll do a soft launch on that product in order to garner your customers feedback right It's advertising. You're like building suspense. Yeah. So you're like, okay. So you're like trying

to garner feedback on a product or you're building suspense. How can that then be related to a boyfriend? Like the only reason why people are doing it is in order to create suspense, in order to like create a hype around their interests in their own personal love life. And I just think it's a little bit self-indulgent. Oh, it's completely self-indulgent. Okay, good. It's like, we're completely taking our personal branding way too seriously. That's what it is. Why do you think people give a fuck who you're dating or who you're not dating? I just think it's, I mean, I think there's actually, oh my God, Brittany, you are so partial to a soft launch.

This is killing me. Hang on. Who else have I, I've never, I haven't dated in 10 years. Who am I soft launch? Okay, everyone. Britt and I actually kind of dated the same guy many years apart. That was not a soft launch. I saw him like twice.

I used to call him man mountain because this guy, it was literally like a man you could climb. He was so attractive. you and but he was also did you try like white bread which actually leads us so well into this episode for today we're talking about attraction but okay this guy man mountain he was so hot he was literally white bread though the most boring he's beautiful yeah boring man he was so hot that he never had to try and be interesting that's how i that's how i described him you know those people that like roll out of bed don't even put shoes on and just walk down for a swim and you're like

holy shit you are so hot that was what he was like and now Laura and I didn't know that each other dated the same guy I just came up in conversation one day like we were just talking about I was like I've dated someone similar to that and then we started talking about his everything about him and he's like this we're like this sounds very familiar figured out we dated the same person but you dated him way more seriously than I did I hung out with him like twice but Brittany started sharing photos of his dog on her stories and I was like holy shit it's a fucking man mountain soft launch here we are Laura and I are zooming right now and I'm pretending to masturbate to the phone because I'm like get get as if I did not solve launch him we so what

happened was we literally hung out like twice and then I was it was not going anywhere we were not interested but we're to this day still friends and he had a really cute dog so we kept hanging out I put photos on the dog that is not a soft launch you obviously don't know how to soft launch if you think that is a soft launch Laura but I did look I can see how people think I soft launched Jordan but that sort of like makes me feel a little bit unwell because I'm not fond of the soft launch so that was an unintentional soft launch I think you guys need to just like back off me a little bit now yes Laura you've got your hand up again sorry I have my hand up it's really hard on zoom because we can't talk over the top of each other okay I have one more thing to say

and this is like playing devil's advocate here I know I went in hard and I said that it's like a very like self-indulgent thing to do to do a soft launch I do also think it comes from a place of being very excited about being in a new relationship and like having this connection with someone but obviously the relationship not being progressed enough to be able to share it I think that if you find yourself doing a soft launch and the intention isn't so much to bait your audience because like for example I'm sure people do it who don't have huge following so their intention isn't to be like to their friends hey look at who I may or may not be dating I think that sometimes people do this idea of a soft launch more so because they're so excited

about this person but the definition and the parameters around the relationship is ambiguous and they're not comfortable with being like hey here's an intimate photo of my partner because the person's not their partner so they don't want to like seem as though that they're over eager or give the person the wrong impression but they also want to be able to share this really special time and how excited they are about this person and so doing a soft launch I guess it doesn't always have to be as self-indulgent as what I'm saying I think for anybody out there who's done it and feels personally victimized by me right now there is an other side to this that I can completely appreciate as well like we take the piss and we have a laugh and like as I said I've just sort of

semi done it in the past whilst I don't love seeing people do it there isn't anything wrong with it it's exactly what you just said is right Laura sometimes you want to share moments of your life without completely exposing yourself as well so you might want to share a really fun moment at a friend's party or engagement or whatever you're there with this person that you're seeing You want to take a photo, but you're not ready to say, hey, I think I'm seeing this person or, hey, this is the person in my life right now. So you soft launch. And I think that's absolutely fine. And, you know, a lot of celebrities, a lot of famous people and the big people with big followings, I think for them, it comes down to privacy too. They want to share that they're

happy and in love. They want to share that they're off the market, but they're not ready to be bombarded with articles and interests and paparazzi and things like that. So I think that's why the big dogs do it? See, I think for me, that's the one point of this that I don't agree with. I don't think that the big dogs, i.e. celebrities and influencers do it because they're wanting to create ambiguity or they're not wanting people to like be talking or have that interest. The problem is, is I think that they actually do it because they are trying to drum up their audience. They're trying to create engagement. They're trying to create commenting and hype. I actually am more suspicious when influencers and celebrities do it because I

think that it's really agenda and motive driven. So for example, Kendall Jenner recently did a soft launch of some guy that she's seeing. And yeah, sure, the articles aren't about the guy and his name, but the articles are all about the fact that she's doing a soft launch. Everyone's like, who is he? And so then the followers who are super engaged go into overdrive trying to figure out who this person might be. I think the hype is even greater and it's more intrusive because there's this element of like, I'm not letting you know this, but I'm going to give you just enough. I'm going to give you a nugget to keep you guessing. So I think that it's far more tactical when an influencer or a celebrity does it than just say someone who has a smaller

social media following who maybe is just doing it because they're not comfortable yet to share their life with their friends or their family. Yeah, look, I think you're being a bit pessimistic. I think we need to give the big dogs the benefit of the doubt in some cases, like a hundred percent what you've said is true. No, I am being a realist and it's just because you are feeling threatened. I feel so, I feel so attacked. But no, while we're talking about the soft launch of relationships, the antithesis of a soft launch of a relationship, you can actually soft launch your way back into singledom. Have you seen that?

Or have you seen where all of us, maybe you've been following someone, right? You know, they're single. You can, you can, I mean, like, let's be real. We can all tell someone's posts from when they're single. You know, if someone's single from their gram, then all of a sudden they've soft launched their boyfriend. They're in love. Everything's loved up.

you know that they're happy you can tell once that relationship is broken up because the soft launch to singleton starts and whether you want to believe it or not we are at a point in our generation where social media it is like a cv it's what friends look at it's what perspective lovers look at people online dating it's what prospective employers look at like you you go for a job now people go and search you it is everything so it's really important if you're all of a sudden single to be like hey guys don't forget I'm single so people soft launch their way back into singledom and I think that starts with like a couple little bikini photos you know a couple of wild nights out drinking with your friends you can soft launch your way back to

saying boys girls slide on into the dms I'm back baby I agree with you I don't think social media is everything I think that people choose which world they want to live in whether it's the digital world or whether it's the real world but I do think that social media has become a personal CV like I completely agree with that and I think that we curate the life that we want people to think that we have we curate an impression of ourselves almost like a social media first impression and you can give the impression of being single if you're trying to like attract new partners and you also very much can give the impression of being coupled up and being closed to new advances I had a really interesting thing happen to me years and years and years ago

now this was wasn't so much a soft launch or a soft breakup but it was a soft something that wasn't the issue but okay so I went through a really bad breakup I've spoken about the guy quite a few times on the podcast it was like my really tumultual toxic ex so we had finally broken up and my family and friends were like thank god you have gotten rid of this guy and he's out of your life but for me the problem was is that we'd broken up and gotten back together so many times that my friends and family were in this weird state of like, we don't know if we can say anything bad about him because Laura always goes back to him. You're like the boy that cried wolf. Totally. Are you broken up or not? I don't know. Totally. But it was glaringly obvious how badly

he was treating me. Anyway, I had made it so clear. I'd made it so clear to my friends and family. We were never, ever getting back together. And I had also made it really clear to him that we were never getting back together. A couple of weeks had passed and he was still trying to chip away at me to get back together. And I remember I had to go and see him for something, something had happened and I needed to see him, which like, that's a terrible idea. You never need to see someone face to face if you're trying to like go no contact, but whatever I did. And he posted a photo of Buster. So I didn't even know he had taken a photo of Buster, but he posted a photo of Buster from the day and was just like, love my little pal to try and give the impression to our

friends and family that maybe we were getting back together which is exactly what that impression would do if you were all of a sudden back posting like it's basically saying like had the best night with Buster like it's a soft launch he soft launched his way back into your life with your three-legged dog Buster and that is not on buddy it was so manipulative and obviously then all my friends and family called me the ones who had been really vocal about how much they hated him and were like hey what's happening are you getting back with him because he's just posted a photo of your dog. And I realized how manipulative social media can be in, in allowing us to kind of portray what we want people to think of our lives. And that was like, absolutely not true. We were not

getting back together, but he wanted people to have that impression. And he kind of wanted me to deal with that backlash or that sort of like repercussions if we were to. So I know that this has completely gotten off track, but I just think there's so many ways that people can soft launch themselves in and out of relationships. And it's really interesting how we use social media to either leverage and manipulate our following to be engaged or we do it to try and like garner feedback and see people's reactions to where we're at in our personal life yeah I mean look the more I think about it you can even soft launch and a lot of people do and I know there's other reasons for this and we we can chat about that but people soft launch their babies as well

like once you've had a baby it might be two weeks later and then no think of how many influencers or people you follow just put like their little pinky nail on it's just a nail and you're like had the best day with you and it's just like a nail and then you're like but they've had a baby they've soft launched it and then you're dying to see it is it a boy is it a girl when did you have it like there are so many questions and it gets people talking it's a soft launch of a baby do you know who did this so elise knolls elise knolls and her partner hadn't posted any photos of their baby's face which i like i'm all for that if you don't want to share photos of your children i think that that's like every mother or father's like you make that decision between yourselves

but they didn't share any photos of their baby's face for so long so everyone of course is interested they're like oh is that is that a bit of an ear like what is that there everyone wants to see a bit more because we're curious creatures and social media has kind of made us feel like we are entitled to see more of people's lives for so long there Elise Knowles hadn't posted any photos of her child's face and then almost overnight she just posted a full face photo of her kid and was like here he is yeah I've had enough I've decided I can't give him a secret anymore here he is but here he is I don't know I don't I wonder what shifted in her to go from being someone who didn't want to share the baby's face to being like okay I'm cool with sharing this

on social media now was that a soft launch yeah I feel like I remember reading about this I like I could be very wrong but I feel like she was like you know like we just wanted to have a little bit of time together as a family and and just not putting it out there and we've decided now that we we think that the time is right you know just a bit of privacy which is so just into Franklin she's just done that she started by posting photos of her kids and she's just changed her mind she just said you know what from now on we don't want to do that anymore we've just we've changed our mind and we're entitled to change our mind again if we decide to show their face but for now and so it's completely a personal thing and a private thing but I just think it's funny when

people just put like the toenail or the fingernail of their newborn baby and that's it no name no birth date no weight no boy or girl nothing I just think it's hilarious I think that there's a really interesting conversation in there so maybe we need to have this later down the track it's hard for me to be unbiased because obviously I do share Lola and Marley and I speak a lot on this podcast we're really open with our lives but there will absolutely come a point where I think my children will have more agency of choice and if they ever express that they don't want photos taken or they don't want to be shared on social media then I think that their privacy has to be taken into account it's almost like children when they're a baby and when they're at toddler age

they're an extension of you and your life because you're so immersed in their life and you're so interconnected but as they grow to have a little bit more individuality I think and a little bit more ownership over their sense of self maybe my perception around that will change quite a bit and I think that there is such an interesting conversation in this so like let's unpack that whole aspect down the track a little bit further okay we'll put that on hold for another episode but I'm gonna call it right now that Marlee Mae is 100% I feel like she's got no choice she's gonna end up like a comedy instagram influencer she's gonna be like 18 years old she's gonna be funny as fuck she's gonna be doing reels like you and mash she's gonna i reckon i'm

gonna call now and look she walks around the house with so much attitude now she's got a hat on backwards she's got her sunglasses on she's do you know how she woke up this morning this is how i walked past her bedroom and she was in her cot and she turned around she goes hey laura what are you doing i am not kidding she calls me laura you can't sit with us hey laura what you're doing i was like this cannot be real you are not too anyway guys enough about that we have an awesome episode for you today this episode is real nostalgia for me it's back to our roots it's just you and me baby me and brit unpacking the whole world of life love relationships when we started this podcast it was originally a relationships based podcast and over time like

we've evolved. We obviously are covering other topics. I mean, we're still in our undies in the bedroom recording. We haven't evolved that much. But at our core and what really like interests Britt and I is this conversation around human connection, around what makes great relationships, about what we can do to be active participants in our relationships and be able to live our best lives in love. You know, the whole we love love that we say at the end of every episode. And so today's episode, we're unpacking this idea of attraction and we put polls out to you guys. there was so much feedback that we received but whether you've dated someone who you have been fundamentally not attracted to but then maybe that attraction has grown over time or what it's like

to date someone who you're fiercely attracted to but there's literally nothing else there so we're going to get into that in a moment but before we do you guys know that we never do an episode without our favorite segment and that is accidentally oh Brittany wants to do it together Tried to just say that in sync. And that is accidentally unfiltered. Oh my God, it never gets less lame the more that we do that. I mean, I love it personally. No, we love this section, guys.

You write in your embarrassing moments, we read them out. But I am actually mixing it up a little bit today. And I have, and I can't believe they said that. Now, we bring this back and forth every now and again. So I've got a really good one today that I wanted to bring. But you can hit us first, Lauren. Do you have your accidentally unfiltered? Okay, I do.

Now, this one, Britt, you're going to love this because this is off the back of your story that you told the other week which one I tell a lot of stories on this podcast Laura like my life is cooked no if you didn't hear the story that Bridget shared the other week about her moon cup like her period cup and how she had it in her handbag at the tennis and the security guard pulled it out of her handbag and was waving it around like what is this young lady is this a fucking shot glass please don't try that at home we received this accidentally unfiltered and I thought it was very funny and it also tied in perfectly so here we go. So I'm listening to Brit's horrifying story with the security guard

and the vagina cup and I remember what happened to me. This is a real doozy. I finally also ordered myself a vagina cup online. I live with my sister and my parents so when a few deliveries arrived at home I opened them at once knowing that I was expecting mine to arrive. So here it is this quite large silicone shaped cup. Anyway lucky for me I had just started my period that day so I went up to the bathroom I gave it a little wash and here I am trying to insert the cup into my vagina it hurt so much I called out to my mum and I was like mum I don't understand I can't get the vagina cup to fit in my clacker anyway turns out turns out my sister had also started a candle making business and I was trying to shove a silicone candle up my vagina hang on was this how big

was this candle was this like a big chandelier candle goes on she's like it was a medium-sized candle I literally think she tried to shove a small cup-sized candle mold into her vagina this is everything her mom walked in and what are you doing and she was like the vagina cup doesn't fit her mum was like it's a candle mold you literally i you could you could not script that that is so fucking funny but it's like it reminds me if you haven't done it before and you don't know what it is like when i first got mine i had no idea there were sizes i bought i didn't know but i bought like a maternity post baby like postpartum one it was so big i couldn't get up my vagina and then when i did it just felt like it was stretching me and i was like how do people because everyone

been like this is the most comfortable thing did she get it in there that's the question did she make contact with the cervix did it go inside I remember we once had someone write an accidentally unfiltered story and they had given a tampon to their little sister she'd just gotten her period for the very first time and there was a big age gap between them she'd given her tampon to her little sister to try and use and her little sister was like I can't get it in and was really upset and then her older sister was like okay well like you know tell me what you're doing try and explain it to me she had been trying to shove a tampon in her bum hole it is like that we had another girl that rode in exactly the same thing but she was given a pad and she didn't know what to do with

it so she rolled it up and tried to put it in like a tampon and it was a whole pad oh like this there's got to be some something is wrong at the moment with the way we're educating our children if we don't know how to put pads and tampons in yeah it's the fact that we don't talk about it enough well we do here at life uncut that's for sure I reckon there would just be so many moments like that like I just didn't even think a story like that was possible it there must be so many moon cup period stories and I don't just mean period stories like gross ones but funny ones like that if you guys have any other funny moon cup stories send them away because I just love them have you tried one yet no I've never tried one I have to get the maternity one because like

you said Brit I need to get the big massive saucepan one because my vagina is so humongous now after two children. Thank you for that. Okay. I'm going to give you one little piece of homework this week. I want you to go and get it, try it for your next period and then report back how it is. Okay. Well, I've only had two periods since having Lola, since being pregnant with Marley and Lola. It's been almost back to back two and a half years, three years now. And I've just gotten my period for the first time two months ago because I've had two of them and they come monthly. Who would have thought? But it's so different. This is one thing that no one tells you either after you have a baby your period is completely different to what it is like beforehand

maybe not for everyone but for me and for so many mums that I've spoken to it's just a totally different experience it hurts more it's heavier it's just like shark week it honestly is completely different and I don't know if a moon cup would cut it I actually know the way you're describing it I think a moon cup would be better I honestly was I didn't try it for like a year with my sister telling me my friends telling me I was like no way it is the best thing I have done like I cannot stress it enough you don't have to change it there's no leakage it it takes like you if you get the bigger one it will you'll change it once a day even with a heavy flow like it's absolutely amazing I think that you really need to try if any of you have been thinking about trying it

this is your little uh kick up the butt to go and give it a whirl this episode is brought to you by moon cups just in just in general just just moon cups in general okay all right give me your I can't believe they said that I want to hear it all right it's been a while since we have done and I can't believe they said that but this one just really like I literally read it and said I can't believe he said that so it that's how it's made it on the pod it served its purpose I was on a first date at a restaurant at night time with someone who I thought was pretty sweet and pretty mature the date was going well plenty of chemistry and the food was abundant it was Italian my favorite anyways we were walking back towards our cars we were chatting away as we were walking past one of

those grates on the ground you know the ones the big metal drainage grates and I thought I'd be cute and go oh I never walk over those I'm too scared but I'll fall through I giggled a little bit did a dainty little jump over I thought it was elegant and cute still giggling I look at this guy trying to get my flirt on when he looks me up and down and says we both saw what you ate I don't think you need to worry about that I was so shocked and didn't know what to do so obviously I just laughed and kissed him what she said but when I got home I thought about it and I never fucking saw him again I'm like I'm so mad that you rewarded his bad behavior by kissing him no that's a terrible idea I think he doesn't know when you're in those moments where you're like

surely that just didn't happen I'm gonna blank out that huge red flag that he's hitting me in the face and kiss him and then she's going home she's been like what the actual fuck I mean like I'm sorry but that is that is that is horrific it's like when I dated that guy and he told me that I was he's told me that I was hot but he said if I lost five kilos I'd be even hotter oh man no this is not like I think we need to stop dressing this up as being like oh people who are mean to us are really attractive like red flag red flag red flag do not reward bad behavior if we have taught you nothing over the past two years from doing this podcast is that you don't fucking kiss a guy who comments on what you eat or the way you book or just no no no no well laura in our listeners

defense how many times have you or i told a story there's been a huge red flag and then at the end we're like but we still slept with him but we still dated him i still dated him for a year and then i was in love with them it's true i think i had sex with all of them but i learned my lessons so guys for this episode now i say that but we've already done an entire episode before we got to this part i literally feel like we we have done the episode i'm in a good mood now you made me laugh but let's talk about some attraction okay so we get this question in so many different ways shapes and forms on ask uncut almost every other week and we thought instead of just answering one person specific question we would do this and unpack it as a full episode because we thought

it was well and truly deserving of the time and attention that it needs I'm just going to summarize a question that was sent in by a listener and like I said this is exactly the type of question we receive every week but here goes I'm in a bit of a dilemma I met a guy through the apps and have been on four dates with him we're in lockdown so it's just being walking and coffee dates he is literally the guy I've been looking for he's hot he's got his shit together he doesn't seem like a player who will ghost me next week. Can you tell that I've dated some doozies? The problem is I don't find myself attracted to him. We've sat down to drink our coffee a few times and I just don't find myself getting that real pull or wanting to sit super close to him. He

smells good. He looks good. I find him funny and everything, but I feel as though maybe we just don't have chemistry, which also doesn't make sense to me because we banter through messages a lot and I find him really fun. How important is it to feel the spark? And do you think attraction can come in time down down down oh it's such a biggie which is why we're doing an episode on it i think that i how about we before we get into it laura how about we read out some of the polls that we did oh all right let's do that then britney i'm going rogue all right so we did put some polls up because we wanted to know have you guys dated or would you date someone that you weren't physically attracted to we wanted to know that if you have was it because you valued other

traits have you ended something with someone because they didn't feel physically attracted to them so let's just see what the results were have you ever dated or would you date someone that you weren't physically attracted to now 36 of you said yes and 64 of you said no so for this is just our listeners guys out of this poll more of you double have said that you would not date someone you weren't attracted to like that is how important it is for you but also i think 36 percent like a third of people have said that they would date someone who they feel zero attraction to and like maybe we didn't preface this well enough in that like I don't think it just needs to be physical attraction but like if you have absolutely no attraction to someone whatsoever what is it

that makes that person not a friend like what gives you the motivation to want to then go on a second date or a third date or a fourth date with them and now there's so much to this when when Britt and I first started talking about this, we were like, is there enough of an episode in this? And now we're actually doing a two-part episode on this. So here's a mini series. So we're going to talk about this idea of like how you can build attraction and how it can form over time. But also there's going to be a second part to this episode where we're going to go into different types of sexualities and how different people feel attraction. So we're going to talk about in a second episode, we're going to go into things like sapiosexuality, which is being

attracted to intelligence we're going to unpack things like pansexuality and also demisexual there's all these different names and terminologies which are how people are attracted to others and how we express our sexuality but we're not going into that just yet that is for part two baby yeah and what you just said is true and that's what I want to say to the question that you just wrote out from our listener you know she's been seeing this guy she's he's really nice they have bands there's no attraction the question is what is it about him that is leaving you with a thought like I should probably see him again should I push through this like why you need to ask yourself why you're thinking that is it because you're in a situation now where you're just really

really wanting some companionship you're a bit lonely obviously the world is crazy at the moment and people are people are lonely people are wanting company is that the reason are you just really ready to settle down and you're desperate to put a square peg in a round hole and try and find someone to fit the life that you're really craving or is it just that you're looking for a friendship and you've because it's to me it sounds like this guy in particular could be a really great friend you get along you've got banter now do I think that you can successfully be with somebody that you are not physically attracted to yes yes I do the second part of this and another one of the polls that we put out was if you have dated someone so if you're if you're one of those

36% of people who have dated someone who you're not physically attracted to is it because there were other traits that you were attracted to over their physical attractions so 85% of people said yes and 15% said no so there's 15% of people out there who are dating people that they're not attracted to physically and they fucking don't even like them as people which makes me think you guys really need to reassess where you at what you doing yeah that's like a self-esteem thing you need to reassess like why do you want to be around someone or why are you giving somebody multiple chances if there is nothing about their person that you want. But I think that that's like a whole, that's a bigger picture to unpack there. The real conversation here is can attraction grow

over time and the overwhelming amount of messages that we receive from you on Life Uncut, but also on my own personal Instagram as well, is that there are so many of you who originally started dating your partners and you weren't attracted to them. Like I cannot tell you the number of messages we received from people who were like, I was not physically attracted to my partner whatsoever but over time that attraction grew and now I think that they are the sexiest person on earth and this idea of attraction the more that I looked into it the more that I better understood what compromises and what makes us attracted to people because like we all know and we've all experienced that feeling where you might be on a bus and you're like holy shit what is it about

that person almost like a love at first sight type feeling but it's this like overwhelming sense of like and you haven't even necessarily spoken to the person yet it's just this primitive and that is hot yeah maybe they're just hot maybe it is maybe they're just hot but I think also sometimes there's someone who you might have that feeling for and it's not necessarily just based on looks now whilst we did receive so many messages from people on all of our accounts that said hey like I had an amazing relationship I have an amazing relationship with someone that I'm not physically attracted to that I wasn't physically attracted to. We had just as many people write to us saying that they've ended their relationships because they weren't physically attracted to the person.

So we did do one last poll that was, have you ended something with someone because you didn't feel physically attracted to them? And 80, 80, 80% of you guys said, yes, you've ended it because there was nothing physical there. 20% said no. So 80% is pretty big to say, hey, I was in a relationship. And I ended it because I wasn't physically attracted anymore. That is a lot. Now, obviously there's going to be people who are outliers to this. There are going to be some people who listen to this podcast who probably think I'm not sexually attracted to my partner at all, but we're really happy together and we have a great relationship. This conversation is probably more for the majority. And I would say for the majority, physical attraction is really,

really important. And when I say physical attraction, I don't mean that your partner needs to be the hottest person in the world there might be somebody who looks at your partner and doesn't think that they're attractive at all but you need to find your partner attractive and I guess for me the reason why it's so important is because attraction is what differentiates a friendship so I have male friends who are amazing people I love their morals I they are fucking funny that everything about them is what I would want in a partner however I'm not attracted to them and I have never been attracted to them and so I can't see myself ever well I definitely can't now because I'm in a very committed relationship but I could never see myself I just don't think

I'll ever go there I just think that that option's off the table now no I could never ever see myself of ever having a physical relationship with them because it gave me the ick and no amount of time spent with them, no amount of exposure to them ever grew that attraction. So attraction is predominantly something that's like quite subconscious and it happens without us having to put a lot of effort into. However, the more that we did some research into this, the more that we realized that attraction is not unbiased. As much as it's subconscious, we still have a bias towards our attraction and it's created by five different things. Now you guys know that we always do our research when it comes to this stuff. And according to Dr. Claire Holt, who is

psychologist and professor at the university of southampton who teaches a literal module on the psychology of attraction there are five main factors that contribute to why we are attracted to the people that we're attracted to so proximity which sounds weird because you're like if you're from a small town and then you end up dating someone from your small town proximity plays a huge factor in this and when i say proximity i mean the more exposure you have to someone and if their morals align with you, if you find them funny, often that attraction will build. So when we say, you know, sometimes you need to give someone a chance, even if you're not first attracted to them, there is very much the potential that it could grow into something.

Another thing that builds attraction is similarity. So how alike are you? And I think this is why we often end up dating people who look quite similar to ourselves or have very similar characteristics or personal traits to what we display well i don't know laura if uh well i mean you have seen it because it's fucking funny this is like the rest of you guys have seen this is a perfect perfect time um this just happened this afternoon a few hours ago someone one of our lovely lovely listeners thank you shout out in the life uncut podcast group they woke up in the morning and they saw a photo on their instagram of jordan and myself happy in front of the sunset I posted it yesterday I was like cute date night then they kept scrolling the next

photo that came up on their page was a photo of Laura cuddling her dog Buster now this listener has put both the photos together and she posted in the group she's like okay is it just me or is Brittany literally dating the male version of Laura then someone has gone ahead and I can see the similarities someone has gone ahead cropped it out zoomed Laura up put Jordan's superimposed Jordan's beard onto Laura's face and put them side by side and I am fucking cooked I am dead I cannot unsee it I'm dating you I'm dating a male version a hairier version of you guys if you haven't seen this jump onto life uncut podcast on our Instagram I actually just posted it it is so funny Brit I know you're obsessed with me but you are literally dating the male version of me who's

much better at sport than I am but this is this idea that we are attracted to people who look similar to us obviously this is a bit of a stereotype and there's going to be a lot of people out there who are dating their partners and their partners look nothing like them but I think like there is such a truth to the fact that we're often quite attracted to people who look similar to us people always say that Matt could be my brother and that's where the whole Instagram account came from which is like siblings or dating well a lot of people have actually no one has ever pointed out until this day that I'm dating you that has not happened but what people have pointed out I have had heaps of people slide into my DM since I started dating Jordan

saying that we could be siblings as well that like the whole siblings on dating thing and I didn't I can sort of see that but I can see it more I see more you in Jordan now than I do but that was I just want to put this out there on the record for everyone to hear I have never seen that before I am not dating Jordan because I have a secret crush on Laura that I just want that out there the real question is Brit that everyone wants to know is do you think about me when you're having sex with Jordan I mean obviously you're all I think about 24 7 Laura so similarity guys there's more to this though than just whether Brittany is fantasizing about me similarity isn't just necessarily similar in the way that you look similarity then what the more that you get to

know someone similarities display themselves in all different ways it could be that you have the same political views it could be that you have the same morals the same ethics similarity is like who you are at your core just as much as it is who you are and the way you look the next thing that really impacts attraction is this idea of reciprocity. Attraction is reciprocated. And now I am so fucking guilty of this and have been in my past relationships. There have been times where I have like found myself really liking a guy or starting to really like a guy just because they liked me first. Oh, see, my problem is like, I like his people that didn't like me back. In my, I've married people before in my head that didn't even know I existed. Yeah. That's

a real problem but Brittany you were also single for 10 years mind you I was never single and that's because I had codependency issues so we both had our own problems guys we bring you this podcast from years of experience that's what we always say but this idea okay that someone might not even be on your radar a friend maybe who you hadn't really necessarily looked at them romantically and then you got wind of the fact that maybe they were interested in you as more than a friend and you start to look at them differently and you start to think oh maybe maybe I could go there or maybe this could be something. And that's where the attraction starts to build. It's this idea of when somebody shows you affection and shows you interest, it almost triggers something that can

build attraction as well. I can take the piss as much as I want, but in all honesty, in the past, I have actually done that. I have dated people where I know there was nothing there. I never, ever would have even crossed my mind to date someone like that. There was no attraction, but they would have got me at a point in my life where I was down I I wanted attention I needed to feel wanted and I think that that is as much as we want to say that is not a factor in who we choose to date it 100% is if you're in a time where you're a little bit vulnerable or you're you've just gone through something really toxic and emotional or you need to feel some confidence you need to feel wanted you need to feel loved we're humans like it is human nature to want to

feel loved and like someone cares for us and if you're in one of those points in your life I know a lot of people that date someone for the sake of literally having someone there helping them get through a tough time 100% that is that is definitely a factor Laura that I think at some point in our life most of us are going to go through the last few factors which contribute to why we're attracted to people is obviously physical attraction you know like that we can't deny that you know there's definitely going to be times where you see someone and just the pure beauty of them knocks the wind out of you. And now physical attraction is different for every single person. There are definitely some things that are influenced by society, you know, like

for women, stereotypically, we like older men who are financially secure, who have their shit together and guys like chicks with big boobs. Like these are all stereotypes, obviously, but we've all been exposed to different things and we've all been conditioned from a very young age to find certain attributes and qualities in a person attractive when it comes to physical qualities point number five which is the last one in this list is familiarity so we are attracted to people who we're comfortable with we're also this is so weird but there's some freudian shit in this we're attracted to people who remind us of our parents who have similar quality especially if we've come from healthy relationships with our parents and they have modeled what a great

relationship is we you know if maybe if your dad or your mom is super funny or they're charismatic or they're you know whatever it is we often look for similar traits in our partners to traits that our parents display and it is weird and it makes me feel strange saying that but there's truth and there's a lot of research in the pudding I think I mean like Jordan doesn't remind me of my dad at but I think in terms who reminds me of you we've established that um I think that overall like for me to sum it up I think you need a little bit of everything you need to definitely have a level of physical attraction you need to be attracted to other parts of your partner as well whether that's their personality what they want in the future their beliefs anything but there definitely has

to be a level of physical attraction now does the physical attraction have to be there from day dot No, I don't think it does. I think that you can 100% start to date somebody that you're attracted to all their other values and the physical attraction can grow. And I say that from experience. I say that for two reasons. One, I've done it in the past. I dated somebody that I had no physical attraction to at all at the start. He was my roommate. We'd lived together for a little while and that is how we met. He was so kind and he was so funny. He was so good at his job. There were so many amazing aspects about him he looked after me a lot he'd always cooked me dinner he was just a great human and after time an attraction developed now that attraction was never there

now that it's done and I look back there is no attraction there but at the time we started to date and physically see each other I was so into him I just thought he was the greatest thing and some of my friends were like what are you doing like this doesn't look like you know you said you had no attraction to him you guys don't look like you are suited to each other and I was like I'm just obsessed with him because he was so funny and so kind and every other part of him was amazing all of a sudden I just felt like one day I woke up and I was like wow what a beautiful sexy human and I look back now and I was like whoa what was I thinking but I 100% think I 100% think that like if somebody has so many amazing traits that of course the attraction grows of course you can

become obsessed with them and of course you can have an amazing relationship but can you date someone successfully long term and marry them with no physical attraction even though they've got every other part I think that's just going to cause a lot of problems down the track well I think you're robbing yourself if you do that like I okay I agree 100 physical attraction can grow maybe sometimes in like modern dating we're almost sold a little bit of a lie like you know we've talked before on this podcast as well where we're like chemistry isn't the most important thing you have to look for other values and whatever else that align with your partner but you cannot say it is not important like and I think we're going to rob ourselves if we say that physical attraction

is not important at all and we're going to rob ourselves of like a really healthy zesty fun sex life because there's only so long that you're going to want to have sex with someone who you're absolutely not attracted to like that's going to wane and we already know that sex wanes as it is in a relationship. So if you don't have that connection to start with, it's probably not going to get any better. It's probably going to get worse. But that's not to say that I don't think that you should date people who are outside your box. I absolutely think that if somebody ticks all of your criteria, but you don't feel physically attracted to them, that you should potentially still give them a go and still go on a couple of dates. See where you're at, because

I think that you can assess yourself whether that connection is going to grow and if you get to maybe I don't know four or five dates maybe you get a month in if it hasn't started to develop then it's probably not going to develop and I think that's when you need to make a decision to call it because there's only so long that you can force yourself to feel something for someone if it's physically not there yeah and conversely to that you can be walking down the street and see someone that is so smoking hot and you're like holy shit I'm gonna bang that that is the hottest guy you sleep with them you try to go on dates with them and they're they have the personality and the humor of like a wet cardboard box and you're like I can never see you again

because there's nothing else there whilst attraction is important we have to look at attraction holistically because physical attraction and looks they fade one day we're all going to be old our boobs are going to be at our knees we're going to have wrinkles we're going to have bags we're going to have gray hair it's going to happen and then what have you got if you have no personality in your life in your partner if you've got no humor if you have no connection if you don't want the same things if all you had was the fact that you thought that they were the hottest thing then you're not going to have anything down the track so this is why we say it's so important to have a holistic view of attraction yes I agree and also my boobs don't make eye contact anymore

as it is they're already looking at the floor after two kids so lucky you guys are funny yeah I think that maybe that's why some people and maybe if we're if it depends on the life stage that we're at, especially as women, if we want to be in a relationship because we feel like our biological clock is ticking, if we feel like maybe we're going to miss the opportunity of having a big life partner, if that's what we want, then we might sacrifice attraction. We might kind of put that down the ranker as being not important. And I understand that priorities shift over time. And maybe when something becomes more important, i.e. having children, having a committed partner, the attraction thing may not seem as important to you and that's okay but I still think it has to

be there in some capacity I don't think that you can have a healthy long-term relationship with someone who you are physically not attracted to at all and the fear of that is because at some point you're going to get the ick like you you don't want to be with someone who eventually you're in your relationship they repulse you when they touch you that is a very real thing and I know that we received a lot of messages from people who were like I tried so hard because my partner was so great there was such a good person but we got to a point where the thought of them touching me or being intimate with me repulsed me and that's a really unhealthy relationship for so many other reasons we know like sex is very important in a relationship sexual connection sexual energy

being able to connect with your partner on that level is something that the majority of people see as a real fundamental part of a relationship. And it is also because that is something that sets a relationship apart from being a friendship, which we already kind of discussed in the beginning. One thing I want to touch on Brit, which you just said as well, is like this idea that you can have intense physical attraction to someone and there can be nothing else there. I mean, that was man mountain for me, the guy that we talked about at the beginning, he was everything I wanted physically in a partner. Like he just was beautiful. Brit's like noddling along because I know that man mountain was a beautiful man and he's a beautiful

I say was like he still is he's still around he is a beautiful beautiful man of course there were other things that aligned like we had some values that aligned but from like a real emotional connection there was nothing there and I think sometimes we can almost try and convince ourselves and try and force a connection and force this deeper level of a connection just because someone looks so good like we want it there because we're like oh they're so hot if only if only things were easier and if only things were better as in like we were more compatible so I reckon I forced that relationship for a hell of a lot longer than what I should have I really wanted it to work just because I was so physically attracted to him so I just soft launched him in two days I was out

no but just going back to something that you were saying about you know the fact that if there's no physical attraction and you're with them for all other reasons that you could get the ick I was listening to a podcast it's called foreplay radio now this podcast is years old but I just found it really interesting it's a sex therapist Laurie Watson and a psychologist Adam Matthews and they both talk about different patients they've treated obviously it's all anonymous and they just it's just a podcast like you know where they talk shit they talk sex they were saying that one of their clients came in to see them and they had been married for a long time they thought they were in this really happy relationship the husband was very wealthy

she was a she was a female they've been married for like 15 years the husband was very wealthy he got into some financial problems and he lost his job and he lost all their money all of a sudden she said I was revolted by him oh as soon as he lost his job and lost his money I was disgusted by him I got the ick and I had to leave and this is I mean a I mean what happened for better or for worse. You just threw that in the garbage bin. B, this is what's going to happen when you are being that superficial and basing your relationship on what we're taught as a child to look for. You want security, you want someone with money. I just think that that is so far from the foundations of a healthy relationship. And it's just a prime example of the fact that she

thought she was attracted to him, but she was attracted to the lifestyle. And somehow she stayed in that for 15 years the second time it got tough and she didn't have that money anymore she was out the door but I don't know if you can say that it's superficial necessarily because I don't think and this comes back to this idea that attraction is largely subconscious I honestly think that sometimes we're attracted to people and we don't understand why because we haven't really had that cognitive thought pattern behind it we haven't sat down and gone what is it about this person that I'm attracted to. And, you know, in her case, it was obviously feeling security. It was having someone who was stable. It was someone who made her feel like they were loved by being

able to buy her things or show her that sort of stability. Now, I don't necessarily think that that is an intentionally superficial thing. The reasoning behind that is because this idea of attraction and how we're motivated by attraction is actually controlled by a part of the brain called the limbic system. Now the limbic system, here I am getting all science-y for you guys. You're so science-y. I love when you do your research. Don't let anyone tell you that this is not a well-researched podcast. So the limbic system is a really primitive part of the brain and it is the same part of the brain that controls things like hunger. Like hunger is not something that we necessarily have conscious control over. It's a feeling that we get and we don't have

prejudice towards the feeling of hunger in the same way we shouldn't have prejudice towards our feelings of attraction you know we don't have control over who we're attracted to I can confirm that I literally just ate a whole pizza and I had no control I had no control over hunger okay well this comes into the whole idea of higher order thinking uh you could exercise a little bit of self-control that might have helped there but maybe not so there is this theory that in order to like be able to really create a relationship that you can be proud of that is a healthy relationship that is stable for all the right reasons that we can't just rely entirely on attraction and I mean that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone but like attraction just like

chemistry it can be super misleading we can think oh my god this has to be the relationship for me this has to work out with this person because I feel so strongly about it whereas maybe it taps into pattern behavior so for me for example and I know I've mentioned this before but I was always dating the same type of guy and I was having very dysfunctional relationships and I was too busy putting all my thoughts into the attraction and into the chemistry and the way I felt about it then tapping into this conversation and this idea of higher level thinking so really unpacking why am I attracted to this person which Brit this woman that you're describing if she had sat down in the very beginning and been like what is it about this person that I'm attracted to she may

have been able to kind of reduce down that she was actually attracted to his money more so than she was attracted to him as a person. So I think sometimes, especially if you're in a situation now where you're dating and you haven't found the right person, you're unsure about like, you know, this whole concept of settling, which I think there can be a lot of fear around, well, I don't want to go on a date with a guy or a girl who I'm not attracted to because I don't want to settle. I think maybe give it a chance because if they are somebody who has so many other amazing qualities to them, maybe they're different to the type of person that you've been dating before and there might be a reason why those other relationships haven't worked out

there is the possibility that attraction can grow just from spending time with them and getting to know them however like we said if it doesn't grow don't force it because you don't want to be in a situation where you have completely sacrificed something that is so incredibly important in relationship just because you don't want to be alone and if you don't have a physical attraction in a long-term relationship it's going to rear its ugly head in other ways later down the track now there will be points where you don't want to have sex anymore you don't want to be physically intimate anymore because you love being with this person but you get the ick and they repulse you and this we had so many people write in this exact thing they're saying I'm in a really tricky

situation I've been with my partner for a long time I absolutely adore them I can't imagine my life without them because they're all I've ever known but I'm repulsed by them like physically that's what they say they're like it's so full on isn't it it is because they're like it's it's a comfort it's what they know they love who the person is they love what they could could create together they love their morals they love their family they love what they've done in the past and their memories and the idea of a future but the one part when they come they're like I physically recoil when my partner touches me every day I make up stories we had a guy write in and he said he started to take overtime shifts at work because he didn't want to be intimate with his partner and

he didn't know how to avoid it. He didn't want to end it with her because he loved her. So this happens on both sides. This is both men and women. But issues like this are going to arise if you are forcing yourself to have this relationship where you have no physical attraction. Whether we want to admit it or not, it is a huge part of our life. It is a huge part of our relationships and strengthening the relationships, having those emotional bonds, feeling really close and drawn to your partner there's just no way you can dispute that and if you force this for too long these sort of situations are going to happen to you down the track well I agree and I also think that like you become bonded to them as a friend you know when you say like I can't imagine my

life without them absolutely it's it's that's a friend yeah it's a friend it's like you can't imagine your life without your best friend but then what is it that sets that relationship up from being different and I think you know I've been in this situation before one of my long-term five-year relationships I got to a point where I had the ick so so bad so bad it was exactly what you described Brit like we hadn't had sex in so long because I was physically repulsed by the idea but I loved our life together and then the more that I look back on that relationship now the more that I realize I wasn't in love with him he was a great person I really liked him but I was in love with our life I was in love with what we built and walking away from that was so hard

that he was never the right person and I think we can get ourselves especially when there's this whole biological clock when when other friends are in relationships when we feel like why is everybody else dating and I'm on my own there's this scarcity mindset we can make huge compromises on what we want in a relationship and there are some things that it's okay to compromise on and maybe for some people attraction is something that you can compromise on with the hope that it grows in the future but compromising on it all together having zero attraction to your partner and just hoping that they're a good person and they bring other things to the table I don't think from like a long-term perspective that that's really a good enough compromise or that you'll

be able to live a fulfilled and happy relationship and life with them the other thing to note is that of course in long-term relationships sex isn't always going to be as frequent or maybe as passionate or as intense as it probably was at the start in the honeymoon phase that's normal it's normal to have sex less you have kids you have stresses you have busy lives that's normal but what's not normal and not okay is to be repulsed by your partner and and actually be like working double time and double shifts to avoid your partner to avoid being intimate you don't want to touch them or the thought of your partner touching you revolts you and makes you physically sick like that is not normal yes you'll have sex less but you should still want that sex you should

still look at your partner and be like I love you you're so hot let's do it well I mean that leads us into the whole conversation and when we started having this originally we were like how do we talk about this in a way that encompass everyone and it's impossible to because we all show up to sexuality differently and we all experience attraction and sexuality differently and that's why we were like this is so a two-part episode where we will get into the idea of asexuality and demisexuality because people who experience sexuality in that way will have a fundamentally different concept and approach to this conversation. So we just want to make it really clear that we are not talking about those sort of subsects of sexuality either in this conversation

right now. But this is the whole reason why we do this podcast. We hope that everyone is just like living their best fucking relationship and having their best life. And whatever relationship you're in, that you're having conversations, that you're optimizing your relationship and that you're working on it to be able to be as happy and as fulfilled as you possibly can be in your relationship. And you are not an asshole if you're dating someone and you don't feel that attraction and you decide to leave them. That's the other big part of this conversation is that so many people feel like I'm such a bad person because they're such a great guy or girl, but I'm not attracted to them. You're not a bad person. You don't have to date someone that you're

not attracted to. You don't have to feel bad for wanting more for yourself and you don't have to try and fit a triangle into a square. Okay look I think we've sort of covered this point we've covered episode one but just to summarize this what Laura's trying to say is fundamentally you gotta want to bang your partner. You just gotta. You gotta want to have sex yeah I think your partner is a really important part of this whole thing. I'm glad that you all came to our TED Talk. Thanks very much. All right, guys, you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our lowlight of each and every week. And I haven't thought of mine yet. So Britt, what is your suck? Okay, my suck is that there is, well, I mean, I should say

there is, there was, there is a snake in the backyard. We saw that there was a snake. And then this morning one of the neighbors must have killed it because the snake was dead on the driveway so that is my I know that's my suck I was like cool it's like it sucks that it was alive it sucks that it's dead but at least it means it's not because I think it's a dangerous one so at least it's not in the house I think because it's hurricane season here all the rains are coming so all the animals like they are going nuts and trying to get inside that's my suck okay wait wait who the hell kills a snake and then just leaves it on a driveway it's like really foreboding kind of omen here is the snake so i took a photo and i went up close to it i actually don't think someone intentionally

killed it and i'm hoping it's the same snake actually now you got me thinking it might not be the same snake it looks like it has been run over on its neck because neck was a bit squished so i reckon it was probably an accident well do you know what i reckon that that's probably the snake suck for the week as well 100 it's a shit week for the snake my sweet it was actually my week for last week but i wasn't allowed to talk about it when we recorded but now i can my sister sherry got engaged finally after oh god i think uh i think it's been six years yeah six or seven years she's been waiting a long time and now i know jay had had her now fiance had had the ring for a long time and he'd been hoping because they met traveling they went on this three around the

world trip together he was hoping to go back and do it overseas and then obviously covid kept prolonging it and it got to the point where sharon was like we need to fucking do this like we're in lockdown for however many more impending years so they bought their first home together and he proposed on the first night in the new home so that is 100 my sweet i'm very very happy that is bloody adorable and also guys we're going to have sherry on the podcast in the next couple of weeks to talk about because sherry is a nutritionist and she runs her own very successful instagram where she helps people with like living their best lives through nutrition and their relationship with food and so we are going to get Sherry on in the next couple of weeks to answer

all your questions in regards to this which we put out on Instagram a couple of weeks back now now my suck and sweet okay my suck is and I know I've said this every week for like the past couple of months we are living in a two-bedroom apartment and I cannot stress this enough there is four humans and a dog that's the size of a great day and we live in an apartment we don't have a study it is literally just two bedrooms a bathroom and a tiny little living area that's a combined living and dining it's so full-on right now it's insane it's fucked it's so fucked there's a mountain of laundry behind Laura in this I always feel like we need to take a photo of it so that people can see there's a mountain of laundry behind her zoom you know what you need to do you need to

get one of those zooms where you can change the background to like look like you're in an office or something you know how I live my life I don't need to hide this from you okay but just to describe to you guys where I'm actually recording this podcast I'm sitting in Marley's bedroom on the floor I have the phone shoved in her cot lent up against some toys so that I can see Brit I've got the laptop on my lap and I have the podcasting machine next to me and I'm leaning against the single bed that's in Marley's bedroom this is how I'm working it's insane and it's insane that we've been doing this for so long now so we actually went to a house inspection on the weekend it was a five bedroom house I would not even know what to do with myself with that much space we'd never

see you again you'd be like who wants to play hide and seek and not find me mommy's gone we went to it and look the problem was is that the place had a really bad floor plan so upstairs was a bedroom and a lounge room and then the middle level would have been the kids rooms and the dining room which would have meant that the kids were going up and down the stairs all day to use the lounge room it's so fucking weird who designs a house like this so I got so excited because I I felt like we had found our new house and I felt like this situation was a lot more temporary than what it is and then we went and saw it and I was really disappointed and it's the second house inspection that we've been to now and we just can't find something so yeah look I'm gonna

sit in Marley's room for another day so that is my Sark my suite for the week was yesterday yesterday we went to the beach we went for a quick swim we went for a really nice walk everything was socially distanced but it was just so nice to have a hot day and be able to spend some time as a family outside of our yeah i bet well that's a that's a good second swing that is it that is it guys you know what i when brit comes back we have really grand plans for us both to move into places that are a little bit bigger so we can both have a bit of a studio room i thought you were gonna say to move in i thought you're gonna say we have grand plans to move in together and i'm like i'm not across the split. We all know that Brit's obsessed with me. So I'm getting a bigger house

so that she can sleep in our bed. We're going to get a super king size bed and have a polyamorous relationship. Anyway, guys, that is it from us. That was so weird. We've been talking for way too long now. And if you haven't joined our Instagram, it's Life Uncut Podcast. Go have a look at the photo of me and Jordan. And also we have the Life Uncut Discussion Group, which is on Facebook and that's for anybody who wants to join the broader conversation or to talk about the episodes or to ask questions among other community members. There is 51,000 people in that group now. So jump on into the Life Uncut discussion group as well. Or just to have a laugh. It's so funny. Like people post the funniest shit on there. It's I go there just for my daily

entertainment. And it's also just like when we started that Facebook group, we wanted it to be a place where like-minded people could get together. And so the thing that's really wholesome and heartwarming about it is that everybody who's in the group loves the podcast. A lot of people share very similar ideas and similar outlooks on the world. Obviously not everyone. You're never going to find a space with 51,000 people where it's an echo chamber of the same thoughts. There's definitely some debate that goes on in there. However, 99.9% of the time, it's super healthy and super respectful and I just love that it is a very wholesome and uplifting community and like if you guys are interested in jumping on and doing any of the meetup groups if you want to

meet people in your area if you want to make more friends there are little offshoot meetup groups in that group as well so check it out jump on the Facebook group and guys you know the drill tell your mum tell your dad tell your dog tell your friends and share the love because we love love I'll see you next time.