Love Lives - #18 Aziz Ansari, the problem with consent apps and is one person always punching above their weight in a relationship?

Episode Date: January 19, 2018

The anonymous account of one woman's bad date with actor Aziz Ansari is the topic on everyone's lips this week, which ties in rather nicely with the launch of a new app that's meant to be used to officially give someone sexual consent. However, we feel there are a lot of problems with apps like this, and as usual, we're sharing all our thoughts in this week's episode. We're also pondering imbalances in relationships: is one person always punching above their weight? And is it necessarily a problem?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton.

Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, the Independent Lifestyle Desk's weekly podcast on love, dating and relationships. Hosted by me, Rachel Hosey, Assistant Lifestyle Editor. And me, Olivia Petter, Lifestyle Writer. Each week, we're discussing the core dating issues affecting millennials today. There are so many podcasts out there on relationships, but we didn't think that any was really speaking to our own experiences as two single ladies in our 20s. And that's why we decided to launch Millennial Love. This week, we are thrilled to welcome back the wonderful Helen Coffey,

the Independence Deputy Travel Editor, who you may remember from the very first episode of Millennial Love. Helen, welcome back. Hi, it's so great to be back. The pleasure's ours. This week, with the lovely Helen, we are talking about the furore surrounding Aziz Ansari, which I'm sure you've probably heard about. If not, we'll tell you all about it very shortly.

And quite linked to that is the impending launch of a new app that's actually meant to digitalise the process of consent before sex, which is a bit bizarre. So we're going to talk about that. And then we will talk about when it comes to relationships, whether one person is always kind of punching above their weight. So whether that's in terms of looks or career or whatever, there's an imbalance there. So interesting that I can't wait. Yeah, I'm interested to hear what you have to say about that, because I'm not sure I've

never ever really necessarily noticed it. Wow, I really have. Maybe that's because you're always the one that's being punched is that the right phrase as in I'm the one that's so much better yeah exactly so you wouldn't notice no you might still notice classic me anyway we'll get to that um guys Olivia what have you been up to this week um so i don't think i've actually mentioned this yet i'm doing veganuary for an article um yeah which means that i have basically been dreaming about cheese for like three weeks well in december olivia was like turned to me and goes hey i've got an idea do you want to do veganuary with me and i was like absolutely not i was really hoping you would come on board i

feel like i really need your support through this because i'm having dreams about halloumi most evenings especially when i'm hung over it's so hard over halloumi's the one when you're hung over like there's nothing you can eat as a vegan that's not too bad for you vegan alcohol um because wine generally is not vegan yes i found that out was shocked yeah so i've made a few slip-ups so i didn't realize that was a thing so i've had red wine apparently that's not entirely vegan i've also had honey in a salad no no no in a salad dressing in a salad dressing it doesn't matter how you eat it also when i when i did my first like vegan food shop at whole foods feeling so virtuous i bought all this stuff back.

And I was unpacking it, and I realised I'd bought goat's milk yoghurt. And in my mind, in the shop, that was vegan because it was like a healthy milk alternative. Obviously, it's not vegan because it's with goat. Not quite, but you know, none of us are perfect. You're doing better than the rest of us. I mean, it even had a picture of a goat on the packaging. Yeah, I mean, you clearly were not thinking. No. But fun the packaging but fun but fun yeah you're doing it so that's good how about you thank you helen thank you

me um i went to a distinctly non-vegan bottomless brunch at the weekend which was incredibly fun it was at this place called rascals in shoreditch and it's the most millennial thing i've ever seen like the walls are all our favorite color of millennial pink there's like neon words written like in you know on the wall like all lit up and then they serve it's bottomless um bucks fizz and espresso martinis and lots of food and then these drag queens come out and it was absolutely fabulous um i didn't mean to actually quote like ab fab and call it absolutely fabulous i just mean genuinely but it's quite funny because i was with a friend who was doing veganuary and they were very accommodating but i felt a bit bad for her because like when the puddings came out i had this like epic chocolate brownie and she had

a plate of strawberries i mean i would have liked strawberries with the brownie to be honest, but still. Still, she gets to feel better than you. That is the upside of doing a veganuary. Possibly. Fortunately, we were told all the alcohol there was vegan friendly. Excellent. So that didn't stop us having a very merry old

time. You been doing anything fun, Helen? Well, I feel like I'm going to combine the two of your things. So I went to brunch. Love brunch. I combined it with a walk with my friends because we think now, you know, it's January, we've completely changed our lives.

So we had a gentle stroll around the park for an hour and we were like, we're so amazing. We've done so well here. Yeah, you're like, you can't touch me. I'm so healthy. Look at my abs. I mean, no. No, I do that too.

I don't even know where they're supposed to be. I eat healthily for like one day or I do like 10 sit-ups. And I'm like, but where are my abs? Why don't I have abs yet? This is the question. I know. Apparently, you have to be like dedicated to a healthy lifestyle for like ever. And then you might have abs,

but whatever. Abs are overrated. Yes, they are. Halloumi is not. Preach, girl, preach. Shall we do bio of the week? Yeah. Okay, so this is one that I found

on my search. His name is James. He's 27. So the first part is like, I'd say, you know, six out of 10. It's the last line again again with the disclaimers

gets it just go because I just I just don't want to start and you'll be like this is rubbish alright okay right here we go

originally from Dublin love to travel go out and binge watch TV shows think I hit all the generic basic bitch lines gentlemen on the streets still quite polite

between the sheets I love it I quite like that. He sounds lovely. I really like that last line. I also think it's possibly no better time to be, you know, still quite polite between the sheets, actually. Well, quite. Exactly.

Particularly given our talking points this week. Well, yes, he would do very well, you know. It's important to be polite in all aspects of life, I think. On the streets and in the sheets well quite exactly i think the rest of his bio is just yeah fine like you know but you'd swipe right for that line wouldn't you i mean i don't think i did oh i want you one of you to go out with him well i'll keep swiping through bumble and maybe i'll find him and I'll swipe right. Okay. I'll keep you posted. Thank you.

So that bio is quite linked to what we are going to discuss today, which is this big saga around Aziz Ansari. Now, if you don't know about this, allow me to fill you in. An anonymous woman known as Grace shared this story in a piece for a website called babe.com which obviously are not a very well known you know news website about a date she went on with the actor and comedian Aziz Ansari and he's known for his roles in Parks and Recreation and Master of None. So she told this story about how they met at the 2017 Emmy Awards after party which was last September. They exchanged numbers numbers messaged for a

bit and then he asked her out on a date about a week later they went out for dinner and according to her he like abruptly suggested they leave when they get the bill and she hadn't even finished her drink so they go back to his and start making out and kissing and that this is when she starts talking about how she says the situation escalated too quickly. She makes it sound like he was being very pushy and forward and they were snogging. But he was pressuring her into doing more things. He's apparently starts undressing himself and herself. She says she was, you know, giving these nonverbal signals that she wasn't into it, into it.

But she talks about how uncomfortable she was but he kept you know forcing herself on her apparently eventually she goes home in an uber he messages the next day saying i had a fun time and she replies saying she did not have a fun time and that he ignored clear non-verbal cues and kept going with the advances. Now, it is a really, really interesting talking point that has divided people. What do you guys think? This whole thing has made me really worried, actually. I don't know if you guys will agree.

The sort of backlash against Aziz for that story which a is from someone anonymous we don't know who she is b i mean if you actually read the article very badly written sorry babe.com but um just not well put together making kind of insinuations about oh she doesn't she likes white wine but he gave her red wine as if he somehow was already manipulating her which is just mental um and I I've heard it now called a lot of times sexual assault which oh I'm really not comfortable with that I feel like what is upsetting to me is you got to this place in kind of the me too movement where people are just conflating rape with I had a negative sexual experience or a bad date or you know I'm not saying for a second I

think that he was particularly polite between the sheets um and he's no James he's no James at all but where you know where was the woman's agency in this? Where was her voice? I think that as much as we need to tackle a culture of men, you know, thinking of women as just sexual objects, we need to actually think about what are we teaching women, you know, about our bodies and that, you know what, if you don't want to go home with them, don't go home with them. If you start something and you're like, no, just say no and leave. Obviously, in some situations, yeah, they might get aggressive

and that's a completely different situation. But in that story, there doesn't seem any point where he was like, no, you have to stay and I'm forcing myself on you. No, I agree. I think it's almost lazy to conflate this story with a Me Too kind of issue, because it's just it's just not and not only does that kind of trivialize the severity of the incidents that are that are under that umbrella, which are sexual assault and, you know, rape, it, it kind of it dilutes those, those circumstances and those stories from women who,

like, you know, Rose McGowan, like the women who have allegedly been raped by Harvey Weinstein. And I just think given the timing of this story, and even though Grace and Babe, they say that it wasn't necessarily non-consensual sex, the way it's written... I don't know if they actually had sex. I don't think they did

no they didn't know but like you know the non consensual non consensual sexual acts yes you could say they don't say that it's non consensual and I think you're right the issue is more of a wider problem that grace which is obviously a pseudonym felt kind kind of paralysed in that situation that she couldn't properly vocalise her, the way that she was feeling and how uncomfortable she was. And that's nothing to do with necessarily her as an individual, but more the kind of wider way that I think women

are almost kind of governed by society to deal with male ego and male sexual power. And obviously someone like Aziz Ansari is a very powerful Hollywood man. So perhaps in that circumstance, she felt even more kind of passive and silenced, I suppose. Yeah, it's really difficult because no one was there. No one really knows. He's actually released this statement afterwards saying,

it was true that everything did seem OK to me. So when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned. I took her words to heart and responded privately after taking the time to process what she had said. I continue to support the movement

that is happening in our culture. It is necessary and long overdue the thing is he obviously is famous and you know that can be more intimidating um I just from the way it's hard to it's hard to imagine that if she wasn't at least kissing him back like often when you're getting intimate with someone sn snogging, whatever, one person does take the lead more. But if she wasn't kissing back, I'd be surprised if he, from what it sounds like anyway, if he carried on trying to progress the situation. it sounds like anyway if he you know carried on trying to progress the situation but obviously she she might have just felt uncomfortable and like she couldn't say no I don't want to do this it's also incredibly difficult I think to make a judgment based on one person's point of view when

it comes to sex because obviously the experience itself can it can be very different for two people it's just it's just a reality particularly when there are already those kind of power dynamics in place of this famous man and this unknown woman I think you know intrinsically in that situation she was always going to feel like he was going to be at a kind of higher level of authority in that scenario, regardless of what he did. And it was at his place as well. Exactly. Yeah. I just, yeah, I don't know. I think it's been really eye-opening the way that, you know,

women online, you know, I've seen so many people on Twitter going, people are saying if that's sexual assault, then everyone I know has been sexually assaulted. Well, you're finally getting it. And I was like, I just don't agree with that it's happened it has happened to me it's happened to pretty much every woman I know being in a sexual situation where you feel uncomfortable I don't it's not to me it's not assaulted unless you said no I don't I don't really want this and things they carry on which I mean does happen for lots of people, and it's horrible, but if you say no,

and they say, oh, sorry, back off, you know, how is that solved? Because people aren't mind readers, you know. When she said non-verbal cues, I thought, you know, not to overgeneralise, but women can be a lot more intuitive about body language and what's going on so many men I know are completely oblivious unless you spell it out yeah in giant letters what you what you're thinking and feeling particularly like an egotistical man exactly you know in the

throes of passion yeah exactly I think the important thing the crucial thing I think to take away from this story and the way people have responded to it, particularly in light of something like Cat Person, which was also, you know, obviously they're very different and Cat Person was fiction, but that was about a kind of uncomfortable, awkward sexual encounter as told by a female voice. I think the important thing to take away is that we need more of these kind of stories and more of an awareness of this kind of female perspective when it comes to problematic sexual encounters for you know whatever scale i just think it's something that isn't really given enough attention in popular culture or in the media and we need to talk about it more to get a better understanding of those kind of multi-faceted power dynamics in the bedroom between men and women and how it's how it can make people feel uncomfortable or make people misconstrue or or not necessarily

misconstrue misconstrue consensual sex as non-consensual on any kind of scale it's so complex women also we shouldn't be made to feel like you know we owe men or if it is with a man that you're with anything like but we because i think we need to when i was reading that story i just wanted to i wish i could sort of i wanted to shake the woman men would be like there was nothing stopping you just getting up and leaving yeah it sounds like over the course of the night there were like various lulls where he was like, OK, let's just go chill on the sofa for a bit. It wasn't like they were literally in the throes of passion the whole time.

I feel like I get that you're unsure of yourself and you don't know where to stay, where to go, what to do, but if she felt really uncomfortable, she could have just left. I feel like what I read between the lines is that, and this often happens in female-male dynamic in the bedroom, she was looking for some kind of affection and tenderness. Didn't voice it, didn't know how to voice it, but kept hoping that might somehow happen out of the situation.

It was never going to because, you know, all of the backstory means she wasn't going to get what she was looking for out of that encounter but I think it sounds like she was staying because part of her wanted that but did not know how to get it it's interesting as well because we talk about consent and we talk about consent for sex but we don't talk about consent for sex, but we don't talk about consent for actually all the little bits before the sex. And I think, you know, I would argue that other parts are more intimate

than the actual penis in the vagina. Thank you for explaining sex. Thank you, thank you. Just in case anyone wasn't sure. Anyone wasn't sure how it happens. The birds and the bees have got you covered. That's what goes down. To our younger listeners, you're welcome.

Just for that education. But yeah, this is why the issue of consent, I think, is so interesting. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts podcasts here's a show that we recommend i'm jesse kirkshank and on my podcast phone a friend i break down the biggest stories in pop culture but when i have questions i get to phone a friend i found my old friend dan levy you will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines.

And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a node. That's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com And this brings us on to this app we want to talk about called Legal Fling. Now, this is not the first of its kind, but it's due to be released in February.

And it's got a lot of people talking this week it is an app that in its own words allows you to request consent from any of your contacts because sex should be fun and safe and it includes sexual preferences including your do's and don'ts so you can specify whether you want to give approval for photos and videos to be made condoms to be used std free guarantee explicit language use and bdsm so here's an interesting one thoughts initial thoughts it's just bizarre isn't it it's so weird why does anyone like first of all who thought i have many issues with this but first of all who thought this was a good idea because who thought that this was actually going to do anything that was helpful because first of all it's not even legally binding in the uk i was reading an article on vice about a um consent

lawyer and she said that you know there is nothing about this that would stand up in court it's kind of in in the line with if you see two people kissing in a rape case that would kind of equate with them saying yes to each other on an app like it's essentially completely defunct like there is no way that this validates that consent process in legal terms it's just impossible and the founder even admitted that in the UK and the US it's not legally binding so the name is you know duplicitous yes but most importantly it just I mean it just blows my mind in so many ways but I think crucially it it reduces the idea of consent which is very much an emotional and an intimate thing between two people to a kind of binary

transaction on your phone and that's just I don't think that's something that we should even try to digitalize because of all the emotion that's bound up in that kind of conversation and the intuition that is typically like surrounds consent I think there are so many issues firstly can you imagine being in that like you know heated moment with someone where you're getting towards the sex thing and then sort of just pausing and being like hold up let me just send you a like a request for consent and can you fill in what you want to do and what you don't want to do and what you feel okay with talk about buzzkill yeah but i don't think that's even when they do it i think the

idea is you do it before you have that like date set to have sex. But how do you know? Exactly, exactly. How can you know? And what if you change your mind? Well, that's my other thing. You could start like making out with someone and think you want to do something and maybe you've already, you know, done the consent thing and then you change your mind.

Secondly, it's done with your fingerprint. So if someone's like passed out, someone could quite feasibly use their fingerprint to do the consenting thing when they didn't mean it. And then that's putting them in a very dangerous situation. That's all getting a bit Black Mirror, to be honest. Like that was my main actually. Well, I didn't specifically think of that. And that's absolutely terrifying.

and that's absolutely terrifying. But my main thing with it was that it potentially has this kind of really dark side of, you know, a rape case going to court and someone say, look, she consented, I've got it on my phone. Now, as much as it doesn't stand up in court, I think it would add to a pile of evidence that's already tilted towards being in favour of the guy.

Like, well, she wore a short skirt. She was flirting with me. She consented on an app, you know. Yeah. And I can really see it being twisted that way. I know it's supposed to be making things safer. But really, as we were saying, I mean, you can take back consent at any time up to the act and then during the act. There's no time when you can't say, you know what, no.

Yeah. So it seems really superfluous like it can be it's completely redundant I think that sort of taking back consent thing is something that a lot of women struggle with though because you sort of and this was an issue that was raised in cat person you might decide decide you want sex and if you change your mind so that puts you in a difficult position because you get really worried that then whoever you're with is going to be really pissed off and angry and be like but you you said you wanted to five minutes ago and like that's not really fair

why would you say that and then change your mind and like i think it's actually a busted song about this which is like surprisingly dark um it goes it happens every time you're giving me the sign we start to get it on but then you stop me you know i've had it up to here you need to be more clear something something something i don't remember the words but yeah that's pretty dark aside aside from the point busted lyrics are actually incredibly sexist and misogynistic but that's besides from the point sorry rachel sorry what i what i go to school for they're like i see her in her underwear i can't help but stop and stare and go and stalk their teacher at her house and watch her while she gets undressed it's perverted but anyway yeah sorry besides the point still um yeah i think it's i think i think the creators of this app sort of had their hearts and heads in

the right place they wanted to do something good and you know raising awareness of how important consent is is a good thing yeah but i think limiting it by constraining it to an app you are constraining it almost to like a time period before you do anything and I think Helen you're right it's important to clarify that consent can be discussed or taken back at any point during the sexual encounter that you're having it's completely dependent on the individual and I think to put any sort of limitation on that is silencing someone who may feel uncomfortable or like they want to take it take their decision back which is totally fine preach you might end up having a dating disaster guess what it's time for now guys it's a dating disasters of the week

all right so thank you so much for sending this story in. It is a cracker. And it's a very interesting one, this, actually. And you'll see why once I finish. Here goes. It happened in my second year of university. I'd noticed a guy who lived in my block quite a bit and decided to pursue something post our match on Tinder.

We got talking and he seemed sweet, the classic assumption before every first date, but said first date was nothing short of tragically awkward. There was nothing wrong with the guy, he was a tad shy maybe, but we just didn't click. It felt like an interview where every question and answer was so perfectly posed, followed by a polite nervous laugh. It was exhausting. But after a perfectly pleasant stroll in the park, we went back to my house. We were, ironically, sat on the love seat in my living room, and the gap between us was incredibly electric, as if there were a live current between

us, but not at all in a good way. Sort of like, I'm going to die a brief but violent death if I touch that kind of vibe. I think deciding that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the film choice for us to watch was also quite an accurate representation of the date. Why I decided to go with that bloodbath of a movie, I will never know. With it being a student house, the indoor temperature was obviously close to Baltic, so I decided to put on my dressing gown, at the time thinking this was completely fine. That perhaps had given off the please-can-you-go-home-now vibes a little too strongly, as my housemates kindly pointed out to me after he'd left.

Oops. Furthermore, choosing to eat fish and chips as our romantic meal also quite easily sums up the amount of romance on the date too. Stale, and something you quickly regret having had as an aside I never regret fish and chips he left swiftly after some clearly not subtle yawning from me and I can't remember if I even got a hug goodbye at least the film was good oh wait it wasn't I just got nightmares from that as well as the date itself the end now i find this um a really good disaster date because there's nothing in it that makes you go

oh my god that one thing was an absolute nightmare it's sort of just everything that makes it a bit disastrous like in a really low-key way low-key disastrous low-key but probably very common i think it's kind of the bit where she puts her dressing gown on kills me yeah that is do you know what it just took me back because that's such a university date in inverted commas because now you know as a working person in london who's now 30 i mean that's just not it's not a date that's hanging out at someone's house and putting your dressing gown on. Well, that's the thing. I don't know when, you know, it transitioned from, or you'd sort of just hung out with boys and got together,

until you started dating. I think it was my final year of uni, I started properly dating. Before, it was murky water. Ugh, I still don't think I'm properly dating. I think those lines are still really blurred. You're still young. Oh, shut up, Rachel. You'll get there, Olivia.

To clarify, I am two years younger than Rachel. Two? Yes. I mean, is it two? Yeah. It feels like more sometimes. I'm very wise. But thank you for sending the story in. We loved it and it's very relatable, which we always enjoy.

So let's move on to our final topic of today, which is, is one person always punching in a relationship? Now, I find this super interesting because I kind of think it's true. When I say punching, I mean punching above their weight. I have discussed this with my friends before, and I feel like it is incredibly common or at least more common to see couples where arguably your beauty is in the eye of the beholder I will accept but arguably the woman is more attractive than the man and I feel like you see that I'm talking about heterosexual couples here obviously if you see I feel like it's rare to see couples where the man is subjectively more

attractive than the woman i disagree i have definitely seen many couples where the man is more attractive but more maybe not more but the same the same yeah often it's with um well i don't know i used to work at a catering company and there were a lot of models that worked there. And often the male models would be super good looking and sometimes their girlfriends would come and pick them up from the shifts. And they were just... They'd be really average. They were just average looking girls.

How does an average looking girl like me get a male model? Asking for a friend. Asking for a friend. I don't know. I just think the whole idea that like attractive people like attractive people isn't necessarily some always true but then i don't think the punching thing is limited to the woman being the more attractive one but then you have to remember it is much easier for a woman to make herself look more attractive than a man. That's true. You know, when you think about makeup and clothes and accentuating your body parts.

How you do your hair. Yeah, guys can't do that. So maybe that's why people often think that the woman is the more attractive one. That's true. But I also think it is, it's funny, the sort of idea of punching. I really think that, like, there's a power dynamic in it that is not really about what you look like it's about who holds the power and thinks they have the upper hand I who thinks they're more unguessable and

there's a lot of guys that are totally average looking that think I'm amazing and we sort of buy into that attitude like I definitely have done that with guys oh my gosh she's so great and like when we obviously inevitably broke up my friends would be like he was really super average looking and horrible you were just in the weird place if he'd convinced you that he was amazing I think that also is to do with how much you like someone because I think regardless of what someone looks like you're kind of blinded when you first fancy someone and you you always think, well, I mean, at least I do, you always think that they're kind of out of your league,

regardless of what they look like. And often I've said that to girlfriends, and they've been like, are you kidding? He's so average looking. And you think he's like this dream guy. Like, why are you still obsessing over him? I just, I don't know. I've been discussing this with one of my friends recently um and we

were saying that we think there is always one person who you know has the power because the other person maybe thinks they're less attractive um but my friend said to me we were sort of discussing this about boys and going oh but I don't know if I fancy him enough blah blah but he really fancies me and she was saying but actually I think I prefer to be the more attractive one in a relationship I don't see I don't know because I think having someone being with someone that thinks that you're so much more attractive than them it's a bit of a I don't know it's quite unattractive as a quality isn't it and they lack confidence I don't want to it's quite unattractive as a quality, isn't it? Yeah, that's the thing. And they lack confidence. I don't want to be worshipped for being some beautiful goddess. Yeah, but not to the point...

Yeah, I do want to be worshipped like a goddess. But you have to fancy them back. Yeah, but I don't want them to have an insecurity about worshipping me like a goddess. You know what I mean? I don't want them to think, oh, you're so much better than I am. I'm so poor and feeble and but you're so amazing

like that's horrible yeah but you also don't want to be with someone too pretty true because like whenever I've dated guys I'm like you're already good looking I just feel I just yeah I'm like I hate this I really hate this some of my friends say it just like dating someone who's really hot it just makes them feel insecure paranoid like unworthy and that can't be fun no it's for me it's if they've got a really good body because I mean I don't mind my face but I know I could work on some some things but if you like you look beautiful thanks I was just fishing that's all right but no like I remember dating this guy once who had like I mean just an amazing body he I had but no like I remember dating this guy once who had like

I mean just an amazing body he was a proper gym bunny and I just thought oh I'd like this is literally making me feel the worst about myself I've ever felt

it's not and it's not anything he was doing it was just by existing yeah this sort of chiseled down so I thought no this isn't the person

for me it's hard because I feel like you want to date someone that you kind of feel like a bit proud and smug like when you're walking around like holding hands or whatever just be like yeah I got this guy true but I think attraction is obviously such a personal thing and I know that

for me looks as I'm sure it's the same with you guys it often really has very little to do with it like it might initially attract you to someone but fundamentally whether someone is you know aesthetically a 10 out of 10 or a 6 out of 10 there's so many more qualities like personality qualities that i find attractive but you have to fancy someone yeah but there are but i'm saying the main things that make me fancy someone are not really to do with looks like okay tall might be the one thing that i'm like need to be tall but aside from that like a sense of humor intelligence charm those things make me attracted to someone that's the thing that's the thing you just need to fancy them yeah yeah um and it's whether you fancy them for whatever like you know if they have this amazing personality it can't like you can still find that so hot and so like oh my god want to jump you right now because you're so fun yeah

but maybe that's why i don't know do you think there's some sometimes an imbalance in who is subjectively more attractive because do you know i hate it when it's like oh oh she's really fun that like to be like, she's so funny. Yeah, it's definitely a negative for men. I know. Whereas if you said to me, oh, he's so fun, I wouldn't think, oh, you don't fancy him. I think, he sounds great.

Yeah, exactly. And they do say, you know, like, what do they say? Like, a guy can, like, laugh a girl into her pants or something. Laugh a girl into bed. Oh, yeah, that can, like, laugh a girl into her pants or something. Laugh a girl into bed. Oh, yeah, that's it. Laugh a girl into her pants. I mean, I don't really know what I was getting there with that. That sounds so predatory. I know.

I don't really know what that means. But that's it. Like, if someone's funny, sometimes it can just get you. Yeah, I think so. Can I just point out that, in case he's listening, my boyfriend and I are completely on the same level, and no one is punching. No, no, no, no.

I've met Ollie. You know, I see you're both fantastic human beings in every sense of the word. Why are you laughing? I don't know. It's not a joke, guys. No, I don't know. I don't know if one person is always more attracted to the other or not.

And I don't know which position it's best to be in. feel like obviously ideally everyone would just feel equal but I don't know if that actually happens certainly from my own experience it's hard to tell from my own experience I'm just trying to think about guys I've dated like whether I thought I was punching or they were punching I can't I have like a couple of guys in mind who I've dated where I felt like yeah we're pretty even um but you know I've also had cases where I have felt like maybe on like an aesthetic not that I think I'm like gorgeous but I I always find with me if I'm out with them and I find myself thinking like checking out other hot guys in the bar or something then I feel like I'm not into this guy enough and I've said that before but I feel like that's often how you don't really want to feel yeah no he does don't want to be checking out other

guys your dates are about too much Oh God always scouting that's a bad sign Rachel okay good I'm gonna learn from this that's all we've got time for today ladies what a great chat it's been. We've had light. We've had shade. We've had seriousness. We've had joy. We've had fun.

We've had seasons in the sun. I hoped you were going to say that. I'm so pleased. I was wondering where you were going with that. I think I'm really revealing a lot about my music tastes in this episode, which are top draw. As you can tell. But thank you so much

for listening, everyone. Please do subscribe to Millennial Love. Please give us a nice little five-star rating and a review on iTunes if you have a second. I realise there's not much

in that for you, but it is very nice for us and it helps other people discover the podcast. And if you have a dating disaster story, please keep them coming. We love hearing about them. You can email them to us via millennial.love at independent.co.uk

or you can tweet us at Rachel underscore Hosey or Olivia Petter 1 and all stories will be kept anonymous. Thank you so much for joining us, Helen. It's been a real pleasure, guys. It's been so much fun. And thank you again for listening, everyone. And we will see you next week. Bye-bye.

Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power.

Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.