Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler - Swimming Naked with Elizabeth Olsen

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Elizabeth Olsen joins Chelsea to chat about why she swims naked every morning, her thoughts on reincarnation, and why she’s the perfect woman for a man with a fish pic in his bio.  Then: A guncle wants to help his niece steer clear of becoming a Mean Girl.  A single mom struggles to connect on the apps.  And a young lawyer can’t get her man to commit - so she’s stuck paying double rent.  * Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at [e-mail] * Executive Producer Catherine Law Edited & Engineered by Brad Dickert * * * The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the Podcast author, or individuals participating in the Podcast, and do not represent the opinions of iHeartMedia or its employees.  This Podcast should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, mental health counseling or therapy, or as imparting any health care recommendations at all.  Individuals are advised to seek independent medical, counseling advice and/or therapy from a competent health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issues, health inquiry or matter, including matters discussed on this Podcast. Guests and listeners should not rely on matters discussed in the Podcast and shall not act or shall refrain from acting based on information contained in the Podcast without first seeking independent medical advice.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropic Berry Energizers, now at McDonald's. Made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine. Details at mcdonalds.ca and participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. each week we're connecting the dots between books the internet and pop culture with your favorite writers book talk creators and plenty of overthought opinions listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts did you hear the new episode

of the hey jonas podcast we are at d23 so we'll see who stops by the cast of frozen stopped by Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Adina Menzel. I auditioned for Frozen. What? For Kristoff. They said, okay, what are you going to be singing today? I said, I don't know. That must have been why you didn't get it.

Oh, you probably won. Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen from Star Wars, and more. And I guess I can share that, uh... No way. Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements.

We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicist for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stiller, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just announced all my tour dates. It's called the High and Mighty Tour. I'm coming to Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Virginia, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Detroit, Michigan, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, Ohio, Denver, Colorado, Portland, Maine, Providence, Rhode Island, Springfield, Massachusetts, Chicago, of course, Indianapolis, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, Albuquerque, Mesa, Arizona, Kansas City, Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nashville, Tennessee,

Charlotte, North Carolina, Durham, North Carolina, Saratoga, California, Monterey, California, Modesto, California, and Port Chester, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. I will be touring from February through June. So go get your tickets now. If you want to come see me perform, I will be on the High and Mighty Tour. Okie dokie. Hi, Catherine. Hi, Chelsea. How are you? Well, I am fresh. You know what I've done since we last spoke? I went to Antarctica, then I went to Vegas, and now I'm in New York. I am a globetrotter. You're all over the place. I mean, like more so than normal. I'm all over the shop. How was Antarctica? It was redonkulous. It was absolute

mayhem. I have never been on a trip that was so ridiculous. And it was like a conference on psychedelics. So half the people were like researching psychedelics and the other half of the people were doing psychedelics. Let me guess which category you fell into. Yeah, well, I was somewhere in the middle. I had a blast. I met so many fun people. I had an incredible time. Antarctica was majestic and gorgeous, and I just was blown away. It really was one of the best trips of my life. Oh, my gosh.

That's amazing. Now, did you see penguins, actually? Yeah, we were close up to the penguins. We went kayaking next to whale, humpback whales. They breached in front of us. There was a polar plunge, but I was a little bit sick that day because I had a tricky night the night before. We crossed Drake's Passage.

passage. How was it? Was it awful going through Drake's Passage? Crossing Drake's Passage was crazy. I brought my friend Christine. I made some really cute friends. I had a blast. It had every element of an incredible, it was like adult camp. We would just run from one floor to the next floor and then go knock on each other's cabins. There was a lot of, a lot of shenanigans. Like a very cold summer camp. Yeah, I loved it. Excellent. Oh, and also I'll be on the Today Show. I'm co-hosting the Today Show tomorrow with Jenna Bush. So anybody can watch us. Yeah, I co-host with her for an hour tomorrow.

Well, we have a really exciting week this week because we actually have two episodes coming out. Today and tomorrow, we'll have new episodes coming out. So our guest today, if you want to tell everybody about that, is very exciting. Well, we have two from the same movie. Elizabeth Olsen is today,

and tomorrow is Devine Joy Randolph. We're releasing two episodes this week to promote their movie, which is called Eternity. Okay, we're sitting here with Elizabeth Olsen. I'm so excited to talk to you. I watched Love and Death, I don't know how many times. I thought your performance, you and Lily Rabe together, that was Lily Rabe, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your performance in that, because they did that show before with some other cast. They did, yeah. I think Jessica Biel, right? Your performance in that was earth shattering. You were so fucking good.

I couldn't I couldn't stop watching your performance and I'm not some big ardent acting fan or something I don't even like I just thought you were so every nuance and the subtleties of like the way that you I was like I just couldn't wait to see you in more stuff so it's like whenever I see your name in something I know it's gonna be good that is so nice of you I loved getting to do that so much I had so much I had the time of my life playing that part so it's really nice when other people I think you can tell if someone's having fun with something right maybe but she was just a great character and I felt like I could do no wrong in her shoes and I and I just love humor and drama like I just think there always needs to be humor no matter how dramatic something is and

I had so much fun with her so it's because that's based on a true story a woman who murdered her husband for those of you haven't seen love and death you need to see it she murdered it's on HBO Max. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I forgot about that part. I'm here. I'm here for that. But it's based on a true story, but it is the unraveling.

It is just the unraveling of a woman. And I mean, how do you even, like, what did you, are you a serious, I mean, you're a serious actress, obviously. Yeah, I take my job very seriously. You remember, you memorize your lines and go to work. Yes, yes. Yeah, I do a lot of preparation. But would you consider yourself a serious actress? to you? Are you very serious when you are working? Yeah, I'm very serious. I'm very playful. I feel

like every year I've doubled down how much I love doing my job. And I come from so many different types of training that I went to and so many different types of conservatories. And the fun part to me is the preparation and the discoveries that you have during that time. But I don't take myself seriously. But I do take everyone else showing up to work. I have to show up also prepared and that's a form of respect to everyone else who's showing up to work in my opinion and so I like setting a standard of you know hopefully people aren't like learning their lines on the day but you get to set a standard sometimes right that way without like verbalizing it and I think that's just a form of respect for like everyone who shows up to work yeah I think that's nice

yeah so I guess I take myself seriously a little bit but I also don't take the job of being like an actor very serious right like the other elements that come with it like what like uh like speaking as myself like I don't want to be a spokesperson for anyone or anything no I don't know how to do that I don't know how to do it well I get nervous doing podcasts because they're long yeah and I get anxious that I'm going to say something that will then I think is like great in the moment and then afterwards you're like why why does everyone care that i think people should go to movie theaters like oh we're not even like i should be like i would why was that i don't know i didn't i read that quote why was that what was the issue with that i don't know

i it's just what how i conduct my own business is how is like that i want to be in movies that that are in theaters i'm not telling anyone they have to go to the theater but who had a problem with that in the first place that you said go and go that people should go to the theater i didn't even say that i said i only want to do movies that are in theaters that are not just for streaming yeah but like streamers have are very important streamers are great but they then release it in another way like that's an important part of it because we don't have video i mean i go to video stores but like most people don't so i'm not i don't know it's just i always feel like i'm gonna say something that i just i'm not even aware is

gonna offend people but also who gives a shit i know i wish i were more like but i feel like that's how you've lived but that's but I think that just goes to show you how silly it is you know what I mean you didn't say anything wrong there's nothing wrong with saying you wanted to be in movies that are in theaters what's wrong with that that's what an actor wants but that's good practice to remind yourself that when there is backlash it's usually it's so nothing it means nothing yeah you know so you should be less worried about what you're not saying anything wrong in the first place like you know I get it I mean you're pretty you're a private person you're pretty private right you don't have like a big public profile in terms of your personal life

at all no no and I want to respect that for you during this interview also because you're in a safe place you don't have to talk about anything you don't want to talk about but I love this conversation because so many people call in and we are women so this is how women deal with stuff but it's like we all have to say this over and over to ourselves who gives a shit until it breaks through and it is inside of us yeah you know yeah because it doesn't matter yeah I think that's why I've always been drawn to everything you do is because is it is because it really feels like you don't give a shit and you're also very intelligent and very um and and you're also like you go to the the ends of things like you have an interest in something that's small and then

you go to the very ends of it and then you get to let let us watch you explore it and I find that to be so satisfying as someone who is a fearful person and they're kind of scared of everything generally speaking i am one of six children and i know you're one of six children what number are you i'm four four i'm number six out of six and same parents same parents i feel like i know your parents do you have same parents all six kids from just the first four oh okay okay and then different mother for the for the second two okay yeah and so do you think being number four out of six. So you're a middle child, but also a baby. So a middle child and a baby. Yeah. I really feel like the baby. You feel like the baby. Yeah. Cause it's like 10 years. Okay. And yeah. Of

being the baby. Cause usually the babies are rebellious and less fearful. Yeah. Well, I didn't get that Jean. I definitely, I watched, I watched, I observed, I decided what I wanted to do what I didn't want to do. I was very clever with my parents about how they set precedents before me. And I held them to those precedents. Can you give us an example? Yeah, like sleeping over at your boyfriend's house in high school. How old were you when you were allowed to do that? Well, I wasn't. And I was like, well, I'm either going to lie to you and tell you that I'm not, or you're going to know where I am and I'm going to tell you that I'm doing that.

Great framing. Great framing. it's how I it's how I spoke to them about underage drinking as well well that's good I was like I there's vodka in my room

because when I go to parties I want to bring my own that's nice that's actually smart too yeah I didn't want to drink other things and I

yeah it first starts off as a fight but then I think I'm being really rational well you are being rational that's I mean if you frame it that way as a child

to the parent what does the parent they're like wait I just lost that argument anyway like it's so responsibility forward

right So you were rebellious, though. I was very rebellious. I'm still very rebellious. I have a problem with anyone telling me what to do. Right. I don't like that. Right.

Which is why I wouldn't be great on a movie set because of all the things that you mentioned about being prepared. I fly by the seat of my pants. Yeah. So if someone tells me to memorize something, I'm like, you mean, like, I'll spit it back out of my own verbiage is what I think. And they're like, no, no, these are the lines in the script. And I'm like the most people pleaser of a person.

When you go to acting school, cause that's serious, you know, that can produce serious actors. When you go to art, like what are, what is something that you've learned or what are the things that you learn in acting? Cause you know, so many people go to school and then they're in a profession that they went to school for and they're like, I didn't need to be like, I didn't even need to get that training. So what are some of the tools that you have acquired from acting class that you could share with us that you still use today? So much. Like what? Tell me, I'm voice work where you place where you place your voice depending on the character depending on the character's disposition depending like for Candy for instance in Love and Death she it comes

up in a time where she's a very performative woman so I use like way more vocalizing of different registers in my voice that were more feminine than what I naturally rest in and there's also like more of a sing-song quality because it's more pleasing as a woman in that time so those are the kinds of things that you would start with and dialects you play around with script analysis so that you're not repetitive in an arc, like those kinds of things. Wow. And so do you use a coach each time you go on to a different project or you just do this work on your own? It's a bit of both. There's a dialect coach named Sarah Shepard who I've been working with for 15 years and she's also a great script analysis partner. And so she and I sometimes have discoveries together. It's amazing

how much if you think about you were just kind of joking about getting more in touch with what did you say not the natural world but you were talking about just getting in touch with like the spirit universe the universe align yourself with the universe yeah yeah so I feel that way about when you're trying to figure out how the character you're about to play where they hold their breath how they breathe how deep are those breaths where do they like hold their body tension I feel like there's so many realizations that you have about people just in that kind of discovery that like make you feel aligned with like their universe in some like spiritual way. And I feel so much more comfortable kind of exploring as these other people interacting in the world almost more so

than myself at times. Let's talk about your movie Eternity. Do you want to tell us how to, cause I don't want to ruin anything by describing it myself. Sure. I'll try something. Okay. You try. Eternity is about an 89 year old woman who dies and ends up in the afterlife. 89 was kind of but number I just chose. I don't actually remember how old she is, but she dies, ends up in the afterlife and her husband who died two weeks before her, who is her husband for 65 years, is there waiting for her along with her first husband who died in the Korean War. And she has to choose which husband she would like to spend eternity with. And it's a struggle. And it's a very big struggle because do you choose the easy comfort that you know of 65 years or do you choose

the path that you never got to take or do you choose something that's neither and the thing that I loved is imagining this woman who I think went by the time you're about 90 I'm sure like there aren't too many really big decisions you have to make like you've kind of made a lot of big decisions in the first half of your life and not the second half of your life and how shocking it would be to have to and how overwhelming it would be to have to make such a big decision that's not menial tasks about like errands and taxes or something and yeah this is yeah this is like the biggest it's like it would kill her all over again it does it makes you think it's a very thought-provoking movie because it really makes you consider what you yourself would do in that

kind of situation yeah do first of all do you believe in the afterlife do you believe that there is one? I don't. I, I, I'm always wanting to hear about other people's experiences with spirits, with aliens, with afterlife, with religions. I, cause I, I find them to be so comforting and I would love to be comforted myself, but I am not comforted. I don't, there's nothing that feels exactly like that I can connect to, I guess, but I'm really happy for other people having these thoughts and dreams. I'm happy that other people are delusional and have to think there's an afterlife.

It's really nice and cozy to think about it that way. I love, exactly. It's a comfort to talk about it when people talk about it. Because obviously we're never going to fucking know until we die. And we'll probably won't find out then either. No. But it is comforting to think

that something does happen after. but where I lose it is like, I believe in energy and I believe that energy doesn't die, right? You see, if you've met someone, they're in your heart forever, whether they're here or they're not, I believe in that. That's science, right? And we have a psychic coming on the show in a few weeks. So I just read her book and she talks about all these people who have, you know, near life or past death experiences or people who talk to you from, from like, if I asked my mom to show me an orange out of place, my mom's dead. If I ask her to show me an orange out of place, I'll see it within 24 hours an oversized orange that's not in a grocery store right like so i i get that every

time but you could it's when people start talking about reincarnation that i they lose me because i'm like then that involves magic that involves that then we're putting a little potion you dying and then okay and then you're gonna come back as this dog or this other person like when people talk about past lives did you ever see glazer's film birth with nicole kidman where her dead husband comes back as this little boy I remember it because of her haircut in it yeah she had a pixie what's it what's it called birth oh birth right no yeah is it called birth yeah it's called birth yeah how did I miss that it was a while ago I don't know yeah 2000 yeah or night yeah 2000s early 2000s maybe and so her husband's reincarnated as a little boy and it's very

I mean it's she falls in for this little boy Nicole Kidman a grown woman yeah debating whether or not she's supposed to be. Well, that's not the first time for her. She's always with little boys now. Remember last year's movie or that was two years ago? This is like a seven-year-old. Well, listen,

in one of those books, in Many Lives, Many Masters, is that the book? Have you ever read that book? Okay, Many Lives, Many Masters opens with this story about, correct me if I'm saying the wrong book. I think I'm saying the right book.

It opens with a story about this boy who speaks a foreign language that his parents have never spoken to him. he's like three or four years old and he talks about having a wife and children in another country and and i think it's italy or spain he speaks fluent italian or spanish whichever the country is and he talks about his wife and he and he talks about the village he lives in and finally the parents after a certain amount of time go and research it and they find this woman who has two small children and lost her husband and he's like i'm her husband so like you hear stuff like that

and you're like oh yeah that is inexplicable like it is inexplicable but also involves a lot of fairy dust and magic like the magic part is and the reincarnation i just find that to be do you believe in that i i like the idea i know you don't i mean i also like the idea of her going to heaven and you know and there's elevators and people are working you know what i mean in this movie like but it's also our movies are kind of nihilistic in the sense that it's like just like sell sell cell when you get to the afterlife it's just it's just like a capitalist afterlife that has like belief in nothing it's and there are different versions of heaven right yeah describe you can say that part yeah there's a yeah there's a lot of different eternities that you can choose and

some of them are uh like the workout world or there's the there's the eternity where you can be infantilized for the rest of your life and pretend to be a baby uh and have a mommy and there's that kind of world there's queer world there's clown world there was Studio 54 is that what it was called?

where people could just do cocaine and not die and smoke smoke smoke and you'll never die again that is fun and that sounds like they would have a casino also I could get along well there do you love casinos? I hate casinos

okay no I have a residency in Vegas I perform once a month because that's about as much as I like to work and um not excluding a present company excluded obviously um but I I I don't like the vibe I it makes me uneasy I had to I spent the day in in Vegas this last time I was there because we went to see Alanis the next night yeah and spending the day in Vegas makes me uneasy yeah I don't like to be there when the lights are like when it's light out I've only been once and i don't remember sleeping how have you avoided vegas this your entire life i mean no one's asked me to do like a one-woman show there i'm not performing don't you have to do like press ever in vegas like what about i've never done cinema con or anything or batch no no luckily no i have

very few married friends really and if they're married i met them married yeah what about astrology what do you think what are your thoughts on astrology um so a few a few of them so i think a lot of them sound, all of the signs sound like I could have a piece of myself aligned with each of them. Yet someone, Patty, who is with me today, who does makeup, she had a friend of hers who reads charts from Iceland. Just, I got, I sent her all the information where you're born, what time of day, your birthday. I think that's kind of all you need for a birth chart. And she had said something to me that brought me to tears. It was so spooky. And she had made this like 13-minute voice message. And I journal every morning for the most part. And I've been doing that for a few

years. And it's kind of where I have my own realizations about where I am in my psyche and my mental health. And I was having this realization a week before listening to this where I realized I just need to travel more. I am so fulfilled by traveling and being in one place has never made me comfortable. I always want to be on the go. And I had that realization. And then she took like two minutes to tell me how important travel is for my birth sign just days later. What is your birth date? February 16th. Okay. I'm February 25th. Oh, interesting. So you're Pisces. I'm a Pisces, but you're Aquarius. yeah um yeah so that moved me like so i do believe there's something to it i think there's definitely

something about that when you were born what was going on with the planets when you were born like that kind of hysterian astrology is when they i think is probably what you did because i've done something similar to that i i think that's a pretty like i don't like it when it's a predictor of the future like i find it to be nonsense i also don't want to know and yeah of course like Don't tell me. Yeah, right. I don't want to know either, really. Because then I'm going to make decisions that are affected by you just saying that sentence to me,

and I can't unhear it now. It's like a friend of mine. She, I think, went to the same Mysterian astrologer that you use. Jade? Yes. Is Jade the woman in the valley? It's a guy. Jade's a guy.

But she was told by him, at some point in your life, you're going to break both of your ankles. So she, like there's two ways you can go with this, right? At the same time? we don't know so her reaction was well i can't do anything i can't rollerblade or roller skate can't do anything dangerous i just have to be careful so i don't but he said you're going to so in my mind that means go ahead and do whatever you want it's going to happen one way or the other and get it over with and well she hasn't done it yet she hasn't broken her ankles so she's just afraid it's a really fucked up thing to tell somebody it's like why don't you just leave

that part out who wants to know about that also like now she's gonna not do so many things that could like create joy in her life. So wait, talk to me about journaling. How did you get into the practice of journaling? I don't remember where it started. I think I like writing. Yeah. Do you handwrite in your journal? Is that how you do it? Yeah. Do you think that's more impactful than writing, like typing it in? I think there's something that happens when you slow down your brain to write out a word slower than you could type it that I think helps you have new thoughts. like you're not ahead of it you have to be slower um and so I it helps me like slow down how fast my brain is moving and sometimes it doesn't work and it's completely scattered thoughts

but I started doing it I don't know I just started doing it every morning three years ago along with jumping naked into my pool and you do that every morning I yeah I do oh my god I love this one thing it's just yeah I don't heat it sometimes it's not that cold but I love swimming naked so much. And I know you love taking pictures of yourself naked. I love to be naked. I mean, I like my underwear and bra on. Yeah. I don't think to be full. I mean, I don't have a problem with nudity, but I, I, yeah, I just want to be in my bra and underwear all the time. I want to be naked in water all the time. Yeah. Well, naked in water is a nice feeling. Yeah. Yeah. And smoothing through it. I don't want to just like sit in a cold plunge. I want to move through. So do you

swim every morning or you just jump in? Just for like three to five minutes. I just slowly swim. So which order do these things happen in? Do you journal first or you get in the pool first? I get in the pool first. What's the very first thing that happens when you wake up? Do you brush your teeth first? I brush my teeth. I make coffee. While it's being made, I jump in the pool. I do like 80-year-old calisthenics afterwards to warm up my body and mobilize and stretching up blood flow. And then I journal with coffee. Wow.

That's delightful. And I do a version of this even when I'm working. That's amazing. But it usually involves a bathtub that I don't swim in, but sometimes I'll still do the water part. Yeah. And how long will you journal for each morning? It depends.

I try and give myself 10 minutes minimum. And what do you think that's brought to your life that you didn't have before? Enough like self-reflection that I think it's been helpful problem solving. It's been helpful making plans. It's been like for what I want or what I think I need. it's been helpful creating a like trying to understand something that had happened or something that's happened to someone else and why they respond in certain ways so i think it helps it's it's to me a version of meditation and therapy without while like uh trusting your own

instincts in some way but i'm so therapied as a person you seem very together i spent so much time in talk therapy and i started doing a new therapy that i've become obsessed with what's is called somatic therapy oh yeah yeah somatic therapist and i'm really it's i'm brand new it's like truly only a month of a new thing yeah so how does that work can you talk about it sure i mean i'm not going to do it well like i'm not i just because it's so new to me so maybe you can help me but i was surprised how your therapist no you do it yeah i mean there are certain you know exercises you can do mindfulness yeah these sorts of things but at the same time it kind of just feels like regular therapy but when I started it I found I had a real purge for like every time I

talked to my therapist it was like like purging weeping like every single time for like six months well because somatic means your body right your somatic therapy so yeah and so what's happening right now at least what I'm experiencing is they listen to whatever you want to speak about that day maybe for like 15-20 minutes until something in you is changing that you're having a physical response to and then they want to talk about that physical response and basically give you tools and exercises that help your physical response that is connected to your brain so that you can at least help yourself have similar like if there's something in a relationship that comes up and that makes you feel a certain way whether it's like rage or overwhelmed you talk about it and

then you work on an exercise that helps try and rewire your your brain's response yeah that gives the message to your body yeah like soothe your nervous system oh I see it's very activated so it's not just talking like you're doing you're doing you're interacting right with tools yeah do you know what EMDR is that's the tool oh okay because it sounds like EMDR a little bit where I haven't done that yet you change your reaction to something it's like what you're saying and like if you have a traumatic memory you go back to that memory while you're holding these kind of instruments. I don't really like vibration. Yeah. And you reframe the way that you react to that response. So that's in the neighborhood of what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You seem

very together and grounded. You seem very together. Well, I'm okay. I'm doing just fine. Would people, would all the people that are closest to you in your life describe you as together? Yeah, they would. I, I think the thing that I'm trying really to explore now in work is like of wildness because I think I need that especially as I get older I think you become like more I do at least become almost like more responsible and and I kind of want to have fewer responsibilities and be a little bit wilder wow and I can do that in a in a way with work yeah and like find an edge that I that I want in my life I want to see you do that on screen I like I would love that yeah I mean you are like that as an actress you kind of you could see that

you're not, you're, you're acting like, you know what I mean? I mean that in the best way. But I like watching people act. So it's fun to me to get to like act instead of just be a version of my, just like a version of myself and like be cool or something. Cause I don't know how to be cool, but some people are really good at it, you know, and are really charming just being themselves. And I much rather like invent something else. That's the sign of an actor. We're going to take a break and we'll be right back with Elizabeth Olson. The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropic Berry Energizers, now at McDonald's. Made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor.

The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine. Details at mcdonalds.ca and participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying,

Shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.

Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility.

Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport.

And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, a.k.a. the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicist for letting them do our show. we've had a lot of great guests like sarah sherman not that great actually can you help me can can

you help me shape this yeah how about we flip it on his head right how about we flip this around okay what is the surprise woman who actually you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird adam scott this entire time you've been expecting adam sandler to come to visit the show i i would never let go of that i have i would never set expectations for something like that if the universe allows for something like that to happen i'm open to it i'm always going to accept you know danny mcbride fine yeah it's all this fragile masculinity exuding i could smell it walking down the hallway to be honest with you i was like is that weed nope it's fragile masculinity ben stiller no because a lot of times in out of context people don't get it or even know

what a circle is you know what i mean like you're like oh what's this state everyone's so dumb and fake right fake and and also not interested or just like oh i've got my life i don't care about your life and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us oh and by the way will ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode but he's just so busy listen to hollywood handbook on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts elizabeth olsen and we're back do you go by lizzie you go i do yeah okay lizzie listen okay okay katherine what do we have in store for us today well we're gonna start with dustin his subject line is gunkle with mean girl nieces wait gunkle gunkle gay uncle

Gunkle. So he says, Dear Chelsea, I'm a longtime fan, and I was actually born on your 10th birthday. Did you wish for more gays? He says. Probably. On your show with Sasha Mamet, you mentioned that there is nothing worse than girls who become bullies. My nibblings, my brother's kids, are being raised to want for nothing, whereas we came from a frugal Jewish household. Not only does this make it impossible for me to spoil them myself, but the eldest literally dressed as a mean girl for Halloween.

She's only 11, but she's already a stunning natural blonde, so it's clear as vodka that she's going to be that popular girl and going to be trouble. I love these kids with all my heart and simply want them to be the beautiful human beings I know they can be. As the childless by choice uncle, do I keep my mouth shut or try to push this more? I don't get that much quality time with my family, so I try to be easygoing and conflict-avoidant when I'm around them because I'm a middle child. I know you're equally obsessed with your nieces and nephews. What should I do best, Dustin?

We've got him here. Hi, Dustin. Hi. Hi, how are you? This is our special guest. Elizabeth Olson is here today. Hey. Hi, Elizabeth.

Hi. Hi, Chelsea. Hi. Are you, you have nieces and nephews? I do. They're very, very little, though. They're very little. Yeah.

But I also, I don't know. I'm really scared of. Conflict. Of conflict myself as well. But I also don't know how to give other people advice on parenting if they're not your kids. or like, like you can only just, I don't know. So that's kind of, that's kind of the first thing that I was thinking about. Yeah. It's pretty tricky, even though you are an uncle, like, you know, you can only really talk to your, is it your sister or your brother?

It's my brother. I mean, can you, can't you have an honest conversation with him about, cause like bullies have been bullied. So someone bullied her, right? Like, and it's an important conversation to have with young girls. And she literally went as a mean girl for Halloween because I feel like she emulates and, like, idolizes that. Uh-huh. Well, I think, okay, first of all, you should, I mean, would you feel comfortable having a conversation with your brother about it?

Yeah. So you should do that first. Just be like, we can't have her grow up to be a mean girl. So as a team, this is a team effort. You know what I mean? You join forces and you're like, okay, listen, let's do this together because I don't want, you know,

she dressed up as a mean girl. That's a little bit of a red flag, blah, blah, blah. Like, we don't want her to look at that as a guide for anything. And then the other thing that you can do is demonstrate how cool it is to be a nice girl like you can be blowing those you know what I mean you can be talking about women who are supportive of other women and you can instill that in your time with her without being preachy about it you know what I mean just by by talking

about other women and women helping each other and like you know nobody wants to be excluded nobody wants to be left out like all of those themes are I mean that's what uncles are for you know that's what an aunt and uncle role is it's not like it's someone else's kid you are related to her. They're not necessarily going to say, you know, I mean, it is a little preemptive what you're talking about, but I understand what you mean. And I think you just have more conversations around it. You know, how important is to be a nice person to other people, to care about other people and putting yourselves in those situations. Because sometimes when you are growing up and you are young, you are just like, you're looking to the future as like, you're not even

it's understanding the experience you're in. You're looking forward so much to what is going to be right. And actually taking the time as a kid to think about other people and how it makes, how things make people feel. And when her feelings get hurt to also take those moments, you know what I mean? As a teaching moment to explain to her, you know, to remind her, cause nobody wants to feel excluded or left out or bullied like that. So I don't know if any of that's helpful. I feel like you should just start having the conversations around it. I think so. Well, now I'm going to have to because they're going to hear about this podcast. Yeah. I also think like you're the cool uncle. So they're naturally going to gravitate toward you,

want to know what your opinions are on things. And what I like to do in these sorts of situations is like have one on one conversations with the kids and like what's going on, like what's happening in the friend group, like what's the goss right now and like act like you're very interested in it because it is kind of interesting and it's all sort of high school or, you know, junior high at that age. But when they start telling you about specific situations, that's where you can kind of get into the nitty gritty. Like I had a niece who was saying like, oh, this one girl in the friend group said something means we're all ganging up on her on Snapchat. I was like, well, you know, we had a conversation about it and I think she made some different choices

because we talked about it. But it wasn't in the sort of schooling way. It was like, oh, tell me what's going on. Like, what's the gas, girl? I think it's really helpful with what you said that I'm still learning with people in my own life is that are grown adults like trying not to just focus on what maybe you shouldn't be doing but highlighting the examples like you're saying of of the role like this this is an example of something positive and showcasing that as opposed to what not to do yes and and sometimes people need to learn like the framework matters always applauding the people that are doing the way you want her to behave like whether it's Taylor Swift and all the wonderful things she does, I mean, with her money, or whether it's

an actual person that you see doing something nice for another person and pointing it out. She is obsessed with Taylor Swift and is loosely named after her. So I think that's a great role model example. And also like, it's also a warning shot. It's like, be careful who you're, you know, who you're not nice to, because you never know when you're going to run into that person again in your life. And you're never going to know if they're going to have an opportunity to help you wants or you might need something from that person like some people's brains work better like with almost like a threat tactic you know what I mean because when what's that saying in Hollywood like be nice to the people on your way up because you're going to need them on your way down

something like that right like it's true you you you be be careful you never know how people are going to come in and out of your life or when you're going to need a favor from someone so there's also that tactic if you it depending on what her personality is like so those are a couple of ideas anyway. We're still learning what the personality is, but she's definitely super precocious and outgoing. Good for you for having your eye on it. Precocious and outgoing is all fine. It's all fine. You know, like that's good. And those things that can end up as strong, strong assets and will, but definitely be active about it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Will you follow up with us if you have a little conversation and get some hot goss about what's happening

with the 11 year olds? I will. I'll let you all know how they respond to this. Thanks, Dustin. Thanks, Dustin. Nice to meet you all. Nice to meet you. Bye. I was, were you bullied ever growing up at school? No, my husband hates me talking about my elementary school experience because I, I had just the

loveliest high school, elementary school. That's nice. Yeah. I mean, there were definite, like we, for the most part all got along and there were probably a few people who don't feel that way, but out of 50 people and then 120 people that graduate we all cared a lot about having a cumulative high GPA and we cared about supporting the basketball team and the basketball supported the arts and it was a very yeah like we would we would go to rehearsal and then we'd go to the basketball game the basketball players would go

watch all of our ballet performances or whatever it was there's community again yeah and so I'm and so I just I had a really positive experience that's amazing and so let's talk about why that is important community right now in this time that we're living in with regards to America. I don't know if that's what you were talking about, politics. I feel this way about the political situation. For me, it's about actually the things that we have in common that aren't politics. Right. Like a bunch of people going to their local theater to watch a bunch of kids perform in like a Halloween show or a Christmas show. Like my friends in Sonoma, I live there part time. It's like my way of having a life that feels like it's part of a community. It's very,

it's very community oriented being a second homeowner there was very hard to kind of slip in and be and ingratiate yourselves with the community so we started off like bartering and trading like genuinely we're like we have grapes who wants them we don't want them we don't want to do anything with them who can like we'll trade with you you guys have it and then be our friend and our friends have like a movie night once a month that they curate at the square theater that's a private theater and those kinds of things I just think are really important for people to get together and have something else in common, whether it's that I also feel the same way about sports. I'm a big Dodgers fan. I can't say I'm a big baseball fan, but I think I am because

of how much I love the Dodgers. Congratulations on winning the World Series. Thanks. I love those boys so much. And some of them are men, but a lot of them are boys. And I'm so happy for them. It was very surprising. I just think when you you just don't know what people's political points of views are when everyone has this other thing in common yes that brings them together meaning are you referencing the dodgers yeah i see what you're saying yes yeah i think it's really important to because we're so right now it's it's really hard to not label people you know you want to label people so people are choosing to label themselves a lot of the time yes right right we have like a lot of identifiers now uh-huh and they just become more specific yeah so it is important

for us to remember that like, I really need to find ways. I know personally, I need to find ways to be more open-minded about, about not being so preoccupied with the political landscape and more focused on the individual person. Like I have work to do on that. Like, I love what you're saying about, it's funny when you say about community, like that's how I felt when I was in Spain. Like there's a community there. I'm not even really part of it, but there is a community there. It's the same guy at the coffee store every morning. It's the same guy at the bike shop. And it's like, And so when I was reading something you were talking about before you came in and I was like, yeah, we need a community reminder. We need like a community update.

Yeah. And we can't do it from our phones. Like that's creating siloed experiences, not actual interaction. Right. Right. You need to be in person with people doing something that is absent of politics. Yeah. So getting back on a more human level.

And I think people just have more rituals in other countries than we do around that. Especially in-person rituals. Yeah, we were talking a little while back about the third space, how we used to have, you know, the local bar you'd go to or the Moose Lodge or church and people would meet in these communal spaces that were not work and were not home. And we just don't really have that anymore. And suddenly it's like online is the third space, but it's not actually like it can't actually be our third space. but it's the place where a lot of people are spending most of their social time. Yeah, yeah. And it's not effective.

Yeah, it's not healing. It's not healthy. Well, our next caller is Amy. Dear Chelsea, I am a 41-year-old single mom of two, running my own business, juggling kids, pets, a mortgage, and about a thousand responsibilities. I've been divorced for over a decade, tried just about everything in the dating world,

apps, speed dating, matchmakers, even a few ill-advised trips back to exes, and I've been truly single for the past two years, partly because the apps are stupid and exhausting, partly because my kids are in every sport known to humankind, and partly because I lost faith in men, especially with the current political climate. Here's the thing. I want connection. I want a partner, someone to share the joy and the weight of this full, messy, beautiful life with, someone who makes me feel cared for, loved, and special. But dating feels daunting. My small town is a red pocket in a blue state, the kind of place where you find guys

holding a fish in their profile pics, and you only get five matches if you want someone educated. As a Japanese woman with a unique name and a career that requires some privacy, putting myself fully out there online feels complicated and uncomfortable. So how do I start fresh? Do I travel to meet people? Am I overlooking ways to connect and meet people? Or should I just lean into the single life and adopt more dogs? I do want to be surrounded by animals when I retire, so maybe start now. Amy. Hi. Hi. Hi, cutie. This is our special guest, Elizabeth Olsen's here today. Hi, nice to meet you. Well, it sounds, where do you live? I live in Southern Oregon, just across the kind of the border of California. Yeah. I mean,

listen, the world we live in, you do kind of have to put yourself out in ways that are not normal. You know what I mean? Put yourself out there. If you are interested in meeting someone, first of all, I would say like, I understand your disappointment in men. Most women are disappointed in men these days. It's not unusual. You're not alone. Like I am, I can't, I can't even believe men. You know what I mean? So I, I'm an advocate for like remaining true to myself first and foremost. If someone were to come along and blow my socks off, absolutely. I'm down, but I'm not, you know, actively looking for it. But I think if you really are, then you should own it and you should put yourself on the apps and you should go outside of your comfort zone and the out of your

community and just find any ways that you can like hiking groups, biking groups, tennis groups, whatever those, you know, whatever you're into, just engage yourself and like set a period of time to actually activate yourself to go, okay, for the next six months, I'm going to focus on finding somebody that I can connect with, you know, like really put all your energy towards it. Your free energy. Cause it sounds like you have a lot going on, but your, your free energy towards it you know and travel get out of there get are you far from Portland no it's about like four four and a half hour drive yeah go there for a weekend and and sign up for things that are going to be like intersex you know what I mean where there's like like my friend she just got

divorced and she went on all the apps and she loved it she's like oh my god this is so exciting this is so exciting and then she just joined a bunch and she lives in Portland actually and she she joined a hiking group and the next two weeks later she was like dating this guy she's like oh yeah, we're, we're dating. So like things like that, where you are forced to meet and engage new people. Cause you'll probably meet some really cool friends too. Yeah. You know? So I would just say to, you know, I don't have anything, any problem with the apps. I just feel like it can be daunting for a single person to be on apps. It's kind of depressing. You know, I know what you mean about men holding fish. Like, I don't know. I don't know who told men to do that. Like

Why are they holding a fish in their profile? How many women want to go fishing? Not a lot of us. Not a lot. I would love to go fishing. Would you? Would you love to go fishing? I was taking private lessons.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. She's already married, so we can't set her up with a fisherman. Yes. Well, and I was fishing with my kids already. So, you know, I do things for my kids, but do I really want to do that when I'm not doing it for my kids? Not really. No, but I do think like, I think it's important when you want something in your life to say it, write it down.

Like you want to change the energy around it. You know, like the subject matter, you want to meet someone, write down exactly what you want in them. Not physical necessarily, but what are you looking for in a partner? What are you looking for in connection? And really reminding yourself, spending time with those thoughts a little bit every morning when you wake up, whether it's journaling or just writing some affirmations or devote some area of your life to putting energy towards meeting somebody and see what happens in about six months. Because I mean, this is the first step you called in to see about this. And like, I think things change and your energy changes up when you start to take active steps towards something, you know? Yes. Yeah. And I like that

You said put a time frame on it because it is daunting to be just out there, you know, for the foreseeable future. But if I say six months, I'm going to prioritize this. That feels more doable and not like hopeless amount of time. Right. Because when you don't meet somebody or when you go on horrible dates, it's like, what am I doing? I could have stayed home with my dog. Totally. Yes.

Yes. I mean, I've just been learning to enjoy my company more and more and more as I get older. I really have a good time with myself and I'm sure you feel the same way. So it's great that you have that, you know, that that's an option too. Cause if you put so if in six months you have not met anyone worthwhile, then you can really just start focused on being by yourself. You know what I mean? You can be like, okay, I made an effort and I did, I tried and then see what happens, you know and get another dog if i don't meet anybody six months i get another i think that's your reward that's the answer really for everything it's just to get another dog you know yes yeah but i'm glad you have a good attitude about it and then you have a good attitude in general like

you know that's fun oh thank you yeah totally all right well thanks for calling in amy thank you thank you for having me bye bye you guys are so good at this oh god i love watching you do this slide wow really yeah oh my god thank you yeah it comes so quickly and so easily well most people don't you think about this this is how I think about this podcast and I say it all the time sorry if you're if you're listening to me and repeating myself as usual but I think really all you ever need when you have a situation is you need someone who has nothing at stake in your life to give you their opinion like objectively yeah and that's what this is you know you just need someone else's opinion yeah they don't need to know any other details they don't even know

about your past. They just need to know about one thing. What is this situation specific? Right. What's the context of the situation? But I would never think about joining groups like a biking group or a hiking group, whatever it is. I just think that's such great advice for people to go and meet people in person instead of it feeling like this thing that's so removed from them on their phone. Yeah. I heard this thing the other day with the apps. It's like, of course the apps are a business they're meant to keep you on the apps not necessarily to help you find the person and i read recently they're they basically like siphon off the good peoples they're showing you kind of the crappy the crappy one so you stay on it for longer well and i had a

friend that told me that you can pay to be put in front of people but then you're like is she desperate because she's paying to be put in front of people yeah she was explaining this to me like about how it's such a business basically and how fucked it is yes aren't you happy you don't have to deal with this yeah i i don't i don't know if i would be i don't know how to do now i do enjoy being on other friends apps but i do i find it kind of entertaining but that's because i'm so removed from it i like to go through my sisters you know and just respond to her from her to other people i love doing that i love that it's so i'm so much more invested when it's someone else rather than myself.

Sure. Are we going to take a break and come back? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We'll take another break and we'll be right back to wrap up with a Lizzie Olsen. The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropic Berry Energizers now at McDonald's made with freeze dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor.

The all new Red Bull Energizers now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine. details at mcdonalds.ca and participating canadian restaurants excluding quebec when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up,

without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks

Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.

Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements.

We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, a.k.a. the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicist for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on its head, right?

How about we flip the script, okay? What if the surprise woman, who actually you think is the straight man, is actually the one who's acting weird? Adam Scott. this entire time you've been expecting adam sandler to come to visit the show i i would never let go of that i have i would never set expectations for something like that it seems like if the universe allows for something like that to happen i'm open to it i'm always going to accept you know danny mcbride fine yeah it's all this fragile masculinity exuding i could smell it walking down the hallway to be honest with you i was like is that weed nope it's fragile

masculinity yeah ben stiller no because a lot of times in out of context people don't get it or even know what a circle is you know what i mean like you're like oh what's this everyone's so dumb and fake right fake and and also not interested or just like oh i've got my life i don't care about your life and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us oh and by the way will ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode but he's just so busy listen to hollywood handbook on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts on the new podcast solita we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman i can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude

is offering me a ride on his motorcycle i chose option b i'm julie pinero and i travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here.

It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back with Lizzie Olson. Do we have one last question? Yeah. So I think this is a quick answer, even though it's a little bit of a longer email.

So Stella, her subject line is one foot in, one foot out, and I'm paying double rent. Dear Chelsea, I'm 27 years old, and in my first year of practice as a lawyer, I met my boyfriend in law school. From the moment we started seeing one another, he was very casual. He made it clear to me that he was not looking for a girlfriend, did not see himself having kids, and was very, very career-oriented. At the time, I was okay with taking things slow and being casual. Since we were both in law school, this made sense, and I was also not desperate to get into a relationship, had not given kids much thought and was focusing on my career. After six or seven months of casual dating, he officially asked me to be his girlfriend and

we've been going strong ever since. Now we've been together for three years and I'm starting to wonder whether casual for him is a permanent state of mind rather than something temporary while he was going through law school and figuring out life. What I thought was a slow, intentional foundation for a deeper relationship is starting to feel more like a bad omen, one where I'm getting strung along until I finally reach my limit and walk away. Everyone around us is moving in together, getting engaged, having kids. Meanwhile, we hardly, if ever, talk about the future. When I bring it up, he brushes it off by saying every relationship is different.

When both of our leases were ending last year, I suggested moving in together. At the time, I was living alone and he was with a roommate. He told me he wanted at least one year of being on his own before he could be comfortable settling down. I respected his wishes, although it was a bit frustrating to realize we're spending most nights together anyway. It feels like we live together, just with twice the rent. This is annoying.

I know. Since then, there has not been a follow-up from him, no renewed conversation about eventually moving in. I'm trying to give him grace. I'm trying to be patient. But with every passing month and still no real conversations about where we're headed, I keep asking myself what he's doing. And more importantly, what the hell I am doing here. What are you doing? My best friend's older sister was in a relationship with a man from the time she was 22 years old.

When they broke up, just shy of her 30th birthday, she told me, never waste your 20s on a man who does not see a future with you. It does not take anyone a decade to decide whether they want to be with you. Considering I've been with my partner for the greater part of my 20s, I cannot help but wonder if I'm failing to take her advice and I'm doomed to make the same mistake. So, Chelsea, what do you think? Am I ignoring the writing on the wall? Yes. Or am I just being impatient? Yes.

Stella. If you can't have that conversation, I don't think it's worth your time. if he isn't there to show up just to have the conversation about it. Agreed. It's over. It's three years. Like if you love someone,

there should be no problem talking around anything. You should be able to talk around marriage or about marriage, around marriage, around moving in. All of those things shouldn't be, you shouldn't be scared to bring something up. And you shouldn't be campaigning to be someone's choice. No, or roommate or any of it. It's like you're trying to figure out what he's thinking.

Like you decide how you're treated by people in this world and you're devaluing yourself by being remaining in this relationship when you're not getting what you want. If these are all the things that you want, that you've stated, that you want a partner that you're going to live with and you want a family and you want, and you're like, I don't like the compare game. I don't care that your friends are getting married. Who gives a shit what your friends are doing? You have to figure out what you want and then get that.

But also don't lower your level of respect for yourself. Those are the things you want and you're not getting them. you must walk out the door and go find somebody who's going to give them to you because somebody will happily be there for that yeah i i also think that when you're in these relationships the thing that you keep going back for is the crumb that you really what you want is just the full fucking meal and all they're doing is giving you a crumb to keep you along for a certain amount of time later until they realize need to give you another crumb to keep you along and it just sounds like you get stuck in that cycle that you can't really see the bigger picture yeah and then

you're just addicted to yeah you're kind of it's even the way she framed like he said i was his girlfriend he started calling me his girlfriend it's like that's also your decision you why does he have to decide when your girlfriend or boyfriend you're my boyfriend you know like the whole framing of this letter makes me think that you what's her name uh stella stella you need to like actually spend some time alone and build up your self-worth like because yourself i want you to like respect yourself in a way that you aren't going to tolerate this behavior from anybody yeah any man you don't need that at all period you want somebody who's obsessed with you who's like excited to be with you not too obsessed i mean honestly healthy healthy obsessed do you

have a if you don't want to talk about this you don't have to do you have a cute engagement story about how you got how you got engaged was it romantic yeah i think it i mean it was romantic in the sense that i mean one of the reasons i i loved eternity reading that script is because I really think of my husband as a Larry who will die in his nineties choking on pretzels. Like my husband is incredibly neurotic, very uncomfortable all the time, always has something wrong with his anything, like his coccyx, his like his pinky, like, and he actually has things wrong with him, but they're always like this like 1% odd thing and they have real diagnoses. But so he then like tells himself all the stories. And so when we got engaged, we went to this place in Northern

California in Inverness. And he was acting just like he was just so annoyed there wasn't like a cheese board. He asked for a cheese board and we got there and I was like, you've never cared this much about a cheese board before. And he was freaking out. This place had a wood burning fireplace. It was massive. And he couldn't start a fire. And he was like, what kind of man doesn't know how to start a fire? He was just so mean to himself trying to figure out how to get this fire going it's like it's embarrassing if I had asked someone to get a fire and then and then it was like 30 minutes later he proposed when we were outside but like he needed there to be a cheese board going in order for it to feel romantic or something but the way and then also he like

tried to go down on his knee but we were on um oh he's gonna hate me saying this but it's fine because he's charming but we were on this wood dock so he like goes down on his knee and he's like oh sorry this really hurts so it's just and it was just the two of us like there's not a single photo like it was just so lovely i loved it so much just because it was him and all of his like yeah did you know you were gonna marry him yeah we talked about it like i i think it's crazy to not know if you're about to get engaged well no i mean oh how soon how soon it is you know like what yeah this is very unexpected it's so unexpected that I have to leave but how long after you started dating him did you know did you know for sure you were going

to marry like was it quick yeah we moved yeah I and I didn't know I'd even want to get married or have kids or anything like that but um after a year of being together I was actually renovating a house when we first started dating. And I sort of realized six months in that we'll probably move into this house together and wanted him to be a part of making choices. So it didn't feel like my space and it felt like our space. And I think after living with each other for a very short period of time, it was, I mean, he's truly the most comfortable person to be around and the greatest support in my life. And he's so sweet and, and funny and clever and smart. It's very funny. And yeah, his goal every day is to make me laugh, which is also annoying when I'm mad at him,

but he does it very quickly and early in the morning and it's really annoying often. Oh, well, that's really sweet. Yeah. He's great. So we knew, I knew pretty early and we talked about it. Well, this is a nice way to end the podcast talking about a nice, healthy relationship and a nice straight man in the world. Yes, he is. He's a really good person. That's good for our listeners to hear about. And I'm glad, thank you for sharing that with us.

That's sweet. And I'm happy that you have such a good man. Yeah, he's a sensitive, kind, very, like communications, everything. Yeah, no, that's very nice to hear. I was just thinking about Miles Teller in the movie and Callum, Caleb. Yeah, Callum.

Callum, his accent was good. He did a great American accent. Yeah. I was attracted to him in that movie I was rooting I was rooting for Callum I was like

this guy's hot I don't think I've ever seen him in anything I know who he is but I was like yeah okay Nicole Kidman I mean it's funny

it's nice to have two men in a movie and you'd be the center of attention I mean they really wanted to get John Early to make them they wanted to make

John Early laugh the whole time so it really didn't feel like they wanted my attention unless we were doing the scenes oh I see

they truly were just trying to entertain john early the whole time got it yeah john was really enjoying it well he's in the movie too everybody it's called eternity it's out in theaters now go to the theater and see a movie everybody go to the movies thank you elizabeth olsen thanks for having me oh it was such a pleasure i really enjoyed this so great having you i just announced all my tour dates It's called the High and Mighty Tour. I will be touring from February through June. So go get your tickets now.

If you want good seats and you want to come see me perform, I will be on the High and Mighty Tour. Do you want advice from Chelsea? Write in to DearChelseaPodcast at gmail.com. Find full video episodes of Dear Chelsea on YouTube by searching at Dear Chelsea Pod. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad Dickert, executive producer Catherine Law. And be sure to check out our merch at ChelseaHandler.com. it takes to make it out alive listen to the survivor files with elizabeth smart on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts if your bookshelf and your for

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