The Uneducated PT Podcast - Is having a boyfriend cringe? Ep 134

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

In this episode, we dive into the viral Vogue article asking a very 2025 question: “Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now?” We unpack what the article actually meant, how people reacted online, and what this says about the modern dating landscape — especially for young women navigating identity, independence, and social media. We explore themes like:Why some women feel “cringe” posting their boyfriends onlineHow relationships went from being a status symbol to something people hideWhy singlehood is becoming an identity, not a waiting roomThe pressure to curate your love life for an audienceThe fear of settling or looking naiveThe role social media plays in turning private relationships into public brandingWhy privacy is becoming the new power moveWe talk about whether this shift is empowerment, avoidance, a reaction to past relationship trauma, or just another side effect of modern online culture. We also dig into what all of this means for mental health, confidence, trust, and why dating feels so much more complicated than it used to. Perfect for anyone interested in the psychology behind modern relationships — and how online culture is reshaping love, identity, and what people consider “cringe.”

Hello and welcome to the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. The goal of this podcast is to bring on interest and knowledgeable people from all walks of life, learn a little something from each conversation and for you, the listener, just learn something from each episode. So don't forget to subscribe to the channel, press the box below, show some support, and I'll see you on the next episode. Okay, did you just read the article that I sent you? I bet you didn't.

I'm just out of the shower after a run, right? I started it. I started the first one. I know the article you're talking about I've seen people talk about it for the last one. Okay, amazing. When you're going to talk about it today. So I'll give the listeners

a little bit of update and then we'll go into it and then we have some of our favourite Reddit questions to answer on the back of that. So where is it? So Vogue had a magazine out or an article out the other day on their magazine saying is having a boyfriend

embarrassing now. And I'll just read parts of the article for you. So if someone, so much as says my boyfriend on social media, they're muted. There's nothing I hate more than following someone for fun, only for their content to become my boyfriend suddenly. This is probably because for so long, it felt we were living in what one of my favourite sub-stackers called boyfriend land. A world where women's online identities centred around the lives of their partners, a situation rarely seen reversed. Women were rewarded for the ability to find a man and keep

a man with elevated social status and praise. It became even more suffocating when this could be leveraged on social media for engagement and if you're serious enough financial game. However, more recently there's been a pronounced shift in the way people showcase their relationship online, far from fully hard launching romantic partners. Straight women are opting for subtle signs, a hand on a steering wheel, clinging glasses at dinner or the back of someone's head. On the more confusing end, you have faces blurred out wedding pictures or entirely professionally edit videos with the husband or the boyfriend cropped out of all shots women are obscuring their partner's faces when they post

as if they want to erase the fact that they exist without actually not posting them I'll just skip ahead to some other bits of it as well so when I did call out on Instagram plenty of women told me that they were in fact super Some featured the evil eyes, a belief that their happy relationship would spark jealousy so strong in other people that it could end the relationships. Others were concerned about the relationship ending and then being struck with the post. I was in a relationship for 12 years and never once posted him or talked about him online. We broke up recently and I thought, and I don't think I will ever post a man again, says Nikki 38. even though I am a romantic I still feel like men will embarrass you even 12 years in so

claiming them feel so lame and what else but there was an overwhelming sense from single and partnered women alike that regardless of the relationship being with a man was almost guilt was almost a guilty thing to do on the delusion Diaries podcast fronted by two New York based influencers Haley and jazz they discussed whether having a boyfriend is now lame why does having a boyfriend feel republican uh read a top comment boyfriends are so out of style they won't come back in until they start acting right uh read another with thousands of likes in essence having a boyfriend typically takes uh takes hits on women's or as one a comment comment or claimed funnly enough both of these hosts have partners which is something

i often see online even partnered women will lament men, partly in solidarity with other women, but also because it is now fundamentally uncool to be a boyfriend girl. And then I sent you over, Rob, I don't know, did you see the video that I sent you of someone's take on that article? I only saw a bit of the article to start off with. I haven't seen the video yet. So essentially, right, so the entire article on Vogue is basically speaking about how other women and influencers and podcasters and people alike are now basically saying that it's uncilled to have a boyfriend and they wouldn't post them.

And your man takes a very good, I think it's a very kind of thoughtful kind of piece on that article, basically claiming how the reason a lot of women won't post their boyfriend anymore, and claim it's uncool is because it will actually take a hit on their social media profile if they claim to have a boyfriend because a lot of them fear that if they like there's a lot of currency in single women online and a lot of there's a lot of even um things on Reddit there saying how oh I posted my boyfriend and I lost 100,000 followers. yeah I'm Jay I've got the video in the background he's got like captions on it yeah basically just saying like attention sexual all that sort of stuff so I'm assuming it basically means most of like if if the woman's hot for example she'll have loads might

have loads of followers because of that obviously for other content reasons as well but that's one of them and I'm getting the impression that as soon as those guys that find her sexually attractive, realize she has a boyfriend and is unattainable, there's no point, and she might start then posting about him more, Bella has to turn off. Or the other side of it, like, living your best life, you single queen,

and then as soon as they get linked up with someone, then it's like, well, you're not, you're not here for me anymore. I think, like, the ones that's, the ones that use the whole, like, look, it's either a man hurts you, you hate men, you don't have a good relationship

or you're jealous of the person. There's a couple of things there. Anyone that has a partner that's swinging in that argument is generally using it just for fucking clout. There's also the other aspect of that where it's like, yes, you might lose a lot of followers because there might be men following you

because you're good looking and now you've posted about your boyfriend so they unfollow you. But also on the flip side, it's like the single women who don't have a boyfriend and they touched on that. and again them two girls on that podcast the delusional diaries podcast both speaking about how it's lame to have a boyfriend while they both have boyfriends yes and i suppose that kind of keeps the the following base of the you know single women who follow them for their kind of single luxurious lifestyle they'll lose a lot of support that way as well man also most men that are following women just for how they look probably aren't going to unfollow them just because they have a boyfriend no probably not that's not going to make a difference well it's not like they were going to get with them anyway well i think i think a lot of men are delusional like that they're like uh like

because there is this and i remember listening to this i don't know if i read this on a substack article or um it was on a podcast or something and um it was someone speaking about how um um the dangers of social media and like dating apps and stuff like that is it gives you the illusion of you have options even if you're like in a relationship and like you know let's say you're fighting with your partner and in the back of your head it's like oh well never mind them you know I'll find someone else because you have these illusion of there being loads of options because you see loads of women or men on social media and like even if it's even if it's not like rational thoughts it's like it might be subconscious You do have the illusion of, you know, that's a potential partner for me because they keep coming up on your faith. It's probably similar to like Stockholm syndrome, not quite directly, but if you are seeing this person every day, maybe every hour of the day, you feel like you've got a relationship with them or you convince yourself that you do.

And as soon as they then take something that you knew about them away or add something extra in, it will throw a lot of people off. it depends on mentally stable you are as well i think i think that i think that definitely plays a factor but like i said there was there is stories of like um of like influencers hard launching their um hard launching their boyfriends and then losing a lot of followers on the back of that so i presume if that is your career it is something that's going to be a real uh fear of yours it depends it completely depends on what your purpose of your content is as well. Like if you then, if you go away from

well-being to now, like just well-being in general to purely focusing on my relationship and I want attention from my, like, why would they be following you still? They're not getting their content that they want from you. If it's just the case of every now and then there's a picture of this person, that won't affect it too much, hopefully. But if you completely change the purpose of your social media presence, of course you're going to lose followers, aren't you? You'd love to see the stats of men versus women

on following when a female influencer hard launches a partner because it would be interesting because I think most lads that follow fur looks are delusional love that they just stay watching anyway I don't think having the partner makes much of a difference

as long as I get to keep looking at her I'm going to keep following her yeah yeah I think that's because you've got a relatively logical mind whereas some people people would just be like, would genuinely be upset about it, I reckon. Damn that stupid brain. Yeah.

But it's also, I think they're also saying as well, whether it's, okay, they're in a relationship or not. It's like, okay, and now does your, is your content based around like having your boyfriend feature in that, whether it's like you's like doing a weekend away or stuff like that? And then they're essentially saying now that like, oh, like this isn't what I'm following you for. I'm not following you to see you and your boyfriend. I'm following me to see you doing whatever you were essentially created to do in terms of your social media. Yeah.

Whereas that article's almost like suggesting that as soon as you find out that someone's got a boyfriend, you are not interested in them anymore because they've changed their life. Well, it's essentially saying that it's uncool. Yeah. So you should be single. Yeah. which is which is a bit bizarre anyway so we'll go on to a couple of of reddit ones that kind of ripple down from this but in different ways as well so not posting my boyfriend that much on social media so my boyfriend male 27 argued with me female 28 about how i barely post him

this is not the first time we've spoken about this topic but it seems to keep coming up whenever i talk about posting on my Instagram. For context, I have a little over 2,000 followers. I mostly post about travel, random aesthetically pleasing photos and myself in tasteful fashion. I want to say I post every three to four months out of the year and I mostly post stories like one to three times a week. So in my opinion, not that often. For stories, it's me in the gym, what I'm eating sometimes, what I'm doing with my friends. Again, a selfie now and then. My boyfriend and I have been dating about a year and three months. I've posted him on my story for National Boyfriends Day in October for his birthday and for our anniversary and for Valentine's Day. He did have to ask me to post him in

October for our anniversary and for Valentine's Day though, even though at first he said I didn't have to, but he wanted me to, so I did. I do have one picture of him on my Instagram along with other pictures of where we went on vacation together, but I don't have him tagged. He said he feels a bit insecure about the random guys I follow on there and who liked my pictures, but I honestly don't talk to them or pay any mind. I'm barely on there to begin with, but I've had to since high school, so I don't want to make a new one from scratch. I like my privacy, which is why I don't post that much about my life and with my relationship before I was the same way. I'd post stories with him there, but not too much. So is he right to feel like I don't want to show him off

or am I the asshole I guess she answers that herself, doesn't she? Does she not... Is she embarrassed by him? No, no. I don't know there. She touches a point that like

she has people that follow her page that it doesn't matter to her. They just follow her page. She follows people back. Like, I just follow people and it didn't matter. They were just people. I didn't like fancy them.

regardless of how you see it like if he sees the other guys as good looking guys that's more that's more on his insecurities than anything else if her page is about travel and jim and she has posted them a few times if you have to ask to have someone post you well that's that's already kind of fucking weird well this is the thing and it kind of um uh trickles back into that article from Vogue it's like it's not I don't think it's it's currency for

women to be posting about their boyfriends and so they don't and like she says that she doesn't post often but she says she puts up like three or four stories a week of her in the gym

and stuff like that yeah well like three or four stories a week I post every what three months is that what she said that's what she said yeah

yeah like don't we we do that more in the day yeah but we're social media horace yeah but like so like she said it's travel gym stuff for that she's put him up so here's the question here's the question here's the question why would it be why is it acceptable for her to or why do why does she why she's so inclined to put up pictures of her in the gym or her on vacation or where else did she say her in a nice fashion tasteful fashion but what's the issue where her posting a picture of her boyfriend because I presume they probably have like if they spend most of time together I presume they they do things together like

I think it depends really because like she she'd a lot of the stuff that she's posting is probably and I'll get a lot of hate for this probably for approval from whatever followers she's got like I know but then that can include here's my boyfriend approve of me or approve of him but I guess then that takes away from her

so I don't mean that as a slight towards her at a total just what do you think she gets more likes for a picture of her on her own in her thing that she's

whatever her outfit is she's gonna wear that night or a picture of her and her boyfriend going out that night depending on her followers but generally I would say a picture of her and her own

her outfit yeah from men and women like men because for various reasons but one of them being appreciation of how she looks but we're from women of similar like um background or whatever because she they're celebrating her being doing what she's doing as a woman and and maybe um if she put up that picture of her and her boyfriend in terms of the female aspect you know maybe they're girls who don't have a boyfriend and are like

oh boy friends but there's also going to be people that don't have boyfriends that are just like oh do you know what i'm happy for you i've followed you for a while so it's just difficult to gauge what the actual reason in his isn't it yes but if we if if we're going to if we're going to look at the ratio of okay um you know you get more attention more likes more comments you on your own single versus you with your boyfriend it probably suggests them two things that you have both said whereas like men in terms of you know appreciate appreciate how she looks on her own subconsciously having thoughts there

like oh yeah I'd get with her and it also depends how she posts like we don't know what her posts look like if she's putting up a fucking picture of a nice beach like on her vacation grand if she's there like with her fucking ass out in front of the camera on her holidays and her boyfriend's foot is in the background

you might I can understand me my question things a little bit or if she's constantly posting pictures of herself with friends and stuff as well if it's just purely her or the scenery it's a bit different whereas if it's with her and friends

and she's happy with that and maybe he doesn't match the aesthetic she's going for how would you how would you feel about that I don't feel shit man I might just point in it out like that would make you feel shit

like okay well like put it this way if you're with someone for what a year and three months and they've and they're let's say she's regularly posting now she says that she's not but it seems like she kind of is at the same time um and you're like not feature and any of them things i like if i was the boyfriend as well i would be a little bit like oh what's what's going on here you know hard lunch me now he got the national boyfriend's fucking day yeah yeah fair um but yeah it's a kind of

it would raise it would raise thoughts in my head that's all i'm saying it's it's a it's a hard one um as a lad because like it goes two ways depending on who's looking at it either like you're being seen as very insecure or no it's someone someone wrote underneath um if you and your boyfriend value social media posts over real in-person interactions you're going to have a hard relationship also if you like your privacy but are willing to share with 2000 people question mark question mark question back oh does he say that he likes his privacy does he no this is someone commenting is that no someone commented underneath said uh if you just if you and your boyfriend value social media posts over real in person interaction basically

saying like if you're if you're fighting over social media posts rather than just enjoying each other's uh in person interactions then there's probably going to be issues but also he questioned like Like, if you're, if you say you enjoy your privacy, but you're posting to 2,000 people, like, there's a little bit of, I think the following, I think the following count is a weird one, because like, I have, I have a couple of cousins who are in college who do nothing major on their social media, and they've got a couple of thousand followers, because they follow a couple of thousand people. I think, depending on the age group, having a huge following is very different. I, well, it's like 2,000 people is a lot of people. Yeah? you know man they're on a night out and they're just like oh yeah there i am on instagram they just follow each other and they fucking forget about each other but i don't i don't know how people follow that amount of people and could keep up with it at all i'm looking at it and i'm like i don't see

half the shit that anyone does yeah well your algorithm won't show you everything anyway you can only see so many things but someone else wrote this was a good point i think uh i think you need to rethink your social media motivations you claim to be private about that but you aren't private about posting gym selfies every week posting on social media in general is about wanting attention so you post 80 gym selfies to loads of people who follow you but you draw the line of posting your boyfriend often question mark is that a fair assessment yeah are we team boyfriend or team girlfriend uh uh I'm going to in between Max, don't know.

Okay, let me, let me, let me give a little bit of fairness to the other side. So someone commented, I'm married for 10 years, together 12. I think we have like three pictures of each other. I hate having my picture taken and so does he. I have 8,500 followers. Not posting him doesn't mean anything I love with my husband the bits. That's what matters. Yeah, like if she's had that discussion with him and makes him feel secure enough about,

like a post about you doesn't really mean that much. She's obviously not had this conversation with him. Once again, we're talking about someone who's come to Reddit to get the opinion or something she'd talk to her boyfriend about it. They might have had a conversation. They have had a conversation, she says. Depth to the relationship where he feels secure enough to not involved by her shoes.

They've had that conversation multiple times, apparently. Or she's minimised his insecurities around and now she's come on to ready to get validation for what she's doing. Exactly. I think that's the one. She's a snake. I don't trust this woman.

I don't trust this woman. I don't trust any women, actually. It's only taking a few podcasts, we've finally got there. Inclusion made. And someone else wrote social media has got to be the downfall of society, which I agree.

It already has been, hasn't it? Yeah. All right, I'll read one more comment. I'm younger. than you and I can't believe I have to say this but y'all are way too old to be having relationship problems because of how many posts y'all make of each other this person's obviously from Texas social media is fake social media is not worth losing a possible good relationship just think

about this sub at this point half of the stories posted here are fake the other couple you see or that person living their best life could be on the verge of a whole breakdown for all you know and relationship's value is not even is not even in the same universe as the amount of posts it's got if your relationship is rocking because it's not really that strong question mark yeah that's young person knows their stuff okay um we'll go with another one all right so i don't like posting about my relationship on social media i don't like showing people online about my relationship some people think the reason why why people in relationships don't post about their boyfriend or girlfriend is because they're ashamed i'm not embarrassed of my significant

maybe some people like me don't like posting because they want to keep it private for me I don't want to show off my relationship online if I meet someone in person with my boyfriend I'm going to introduce him as my boyfriend of course any photos of me and my boyfriend together that's between me and him I think it's more intimate if I just keep my relationship between us and I don't want people to comment about my relationship or know too much about it this is just a random talk just wanted to see if anyone agrees with me or disagrees Does she say anything positive about her partner in that post? Yeah, she said, if I meet someone in person with my boyfriend, I'm going to introduce them as my boyfriend, of course. But she says I'm not embarrassed. She doesn't say anything like, I love it. She said, I'm not embarrassed of my significant utter. No, she didn't really say anything positive about him, to be honest.

She just basically went on a rant. Yeah, well, let's not read into that as well. that might be us projecting us Yeah, maybe I think she I think she hates our partner Of course you do It's just a talk

Someone around I disagree I love to brag about my man online But I respect your point of view Man it depends It goes back to like the last comment before Like if you If you are like honestly private About your relationship

and you post away anyway that's okay but if you're like it all depends if it's true for it or not like if you do want to hide your relationship from the world not out of embarrassment out of people don't need to know your shit they can just look at fucking

photos of something you ate or a beach okay can I give you my perspective right so if let's say if I was in a relationship and I didn't post that person ever that would be a little bit sketchy because I post everything like I post what I train, I post what I e like I'm always sharing story

What if you have a partner That's because you post Everything doesn't want you posting about then Well if they don't want me to post about them Then I wouldn't obviously But the thing is like In the outside world Unless you like actually go online and go

I don't post about my partner Because they don't want me to Everyone's going to think it's sketchy anyway Well no one's going to know them because they won't know I have a partner because I haven't posted about them and there'll be a sneaky hand there somewhere

and soft lunch soft lunch soft lunch I'm taking fuck off that's what people do nowadays so they do they do soft lunch

is like oh no I was single but now like oh who's the hand or you know oh the Tui is out for food and you kind of

they kind of aim it so it's like the photo has a picture of your food and their food with their hands. When we went out in Sligo, when we went out in Sligo,

inside in the spa, I took a photo of the two Prosecco glasses looking out the window and I had a load of people thought that I was soft launching someone

and I was like, no, I'm just showing that I'm living a boogey fucking life. Yeah, I bet you, I bet you your views on that story were like, huge. I also lost followers

some mutual followers of my ex as well. Wow. So there we go. It's even happening in the Jay wrote that vocal article. It showed I was just being watched until I did something like that. Wow. But when I found funny, it was like, no

romantic interest with that person, but I was like, I think it's a nice photo. It's a lovely green setting. I'm in a spad, a robe and there's two glasses of prosceco. So we're saying it doesn't just happen to sexy influencers, female influencers, it also happens to

cheer. It happens to sexy male influencers. Yeah. It also happens to raging alcoholic fitness influencers from Limerick. I've only had two points in the last

minute. I can't believe people have followed you over that. That's wild. Yeah. I wonder, that's funny. I've also, man, I've also had people recently following, uh, uh, on following me over leaning into mental health stuff.

Really? Yeah. I think I've lost 100 followers in the last couple of weeks and I think my mate said to me he was like, well, you are kind of getting like dark and weird with the memes

and I was like, yeah? Because that's what my brain is thinking. Yeah. It's one of those, isn't it? Like, it's fair enough that you're posting that. And to be honest, it's fair enough that they unfollow you.

Like if that's the sort of input that they don't benefit from and it actually maybe makes, not that you're making them feel worse, but their interpretation of what you've posted makes them feel worse. They were all just here for pints, single life and going off the rails.

Would you say most of my followers would unfollow me if I had launched a girlfriend because they're all following me because of my good looks and not the memes that I post? They'd probably don't think you were taking the piss, to be honest. Yeah, I probably wouldn't believe you. Or they'd stay to see how long it lasts. He'll avoid this woman eventually.

Yeah, eventually he'll ghost her. Yeah, we want to watch the toxic outburst after. Yeah. It's embarrassing to have a girlfriend by Carla Roy. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to write my own Vogue magazine article. Girlfriends are so lame, you know? All right, well, we go on to another one then. I think we've established that this girl hates her boyfriend.

I've got a quick question It was linked to one of the ones that you guys you said before Just a statement Can you use social media Purely doing it for yourself Does that make sense Yeah can you use social media purely for yourself

So like do you mean as in like self-interest So if you say for example You're posting things of you in the gym You're posting things of your successes you're posting a picture of you in a nice dress. Are you posting that? Is it possible I definitely lose a lot of followers if I did that?

I don't know, man. You got more engagement. Yeah, absolutely. You'd be surprised, the dresses work. Is it perceivable that you are purely posting that for yourself? Man,

no. If someone, oh, hold on and they're new. I don't think it is. If someone is 100% secure themselves, doesn't give a shit, they're not selling anything, they're not making money off social media, they just go,

this is my life. Why don't get her tone? No, no. Why don't they just keep it on the phone then? Why are they taking the photo then and post them? Some people don't, I have friends that know my life because I post. Yeah, so you're doing it for your friends.

You're doing it for your friends. I'm not just doing it for your friends. Not just. There's not just. Yeah. You can't post, surely you can't post purely for yourself. Oh, it's impossible. You want those people to know what's going on in your life. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that like it's a huge, a huge number of people.

But there could be people like that. Generally, those people don't have big followings. It's just their friends. So the reason it's called share is because you're sharing it. Yeah. You can't, you can't, you can't, you can't share something on social media. and it doesn't matter if you have 300 followers doesn't matter if you have 20 followers you are sharing that for other people to see so there is whether you want to admit it or not there is this underlying underlying human nature to be seen to be validated to feel part of like a community like that's like in your biological nature so like you it's the reason that people do it right it's the reason that people share it with other people is because they want other people to see it to validate them to like it to comment to say that was a great picture like even you can pretend you're the most

secure person in the world and obviously it's it's on a spectrum of how much we need that external validation but external validation is a very normal human nature that all of us have within us because we needed it to survive if we didn't have if if we didn't um you know bring something to the tribe we'd be left on our own and we would we would die so like it's part of our survival nature to want that external validation and social media is just a byproduct of that evolutionary process

do we do we say that because of the sides of the social media that we see and also like John that we also post for some validation as well yeah yeah well like some people it may not be a validation thing

not necessarily validation but I don't my main point is you can't just post it purely for yourself like you would just keep it on your camera roll if it's just for you to look at and for you to benefit from it stays on your phone and doesn't go anywhere i know i know what you're saying in terms of like yeah it's not like it's not like external validation and like internal validation like they're not two separate things they can both exist at the same time and you can want to create something for yourself

like whether it's a great picture but then the minute you start to share it you're trying to express what you created or what you enjoy or what you appreciate with the world and in essence you are sharing it for other people you are sharing it for the world

it's just a sliding scale isn't it and I think this might be what you're saying as well like someone that posts a picture of them in a bikini could be doing it 95% to advertise said bikini 5% for personal like validation someone else could be posting that picture

mentally 95% for personal validation, 5% intention for the advertisement. There's a slide in scale for sure. I'm getting that. Is there a chance, is it possible that there is 0% chance, sorry, 0% intention that it's for anyone else? Is it possible to post it 100% for you?

No, because you wouldn't post it then if it was just 100%. We're also talking about a bikini shot. like what about just a nice sunset that's still for people you're sharing other people to see what you're experienced in it's nice we're talking about validation from other people or we just come here there's a great have any has watched the life of walter milton yeah do you watch that film there's a great clip in this you would have seen on social media if you didn't see the film and it's like he's about to take a picture of um something in nature happening and i think it's like two

animals or whatever and he's like uh he turns to the photographer and he goes um are you going to take the picture and he goes and he turns around he goes that sometimes when i like a moment uh when i like a moment so much uh i don't like the distraction of the camera so he's just looking at it with his eyes and not trying to take the picture now if he was to take the picture he is doing that to share it with other people to share it with the world if it's 100% for yourself you don't take the picture. Yeah. Or even, even you could argue maybe in that situation, 100% for yourself right now. Like you could be taking the photo for you to look at in the future, but you're not fully then present with what you want right now. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's an interesting one. And I think,

I think it's not healthy to deny that you don't crave external validation. I think it's important to understand that it's in our human nature. It's just... I think it's healthy to want it as well. Like you were saying about the tribe aspect. Like you should... Yeah, it's fine to want some validation. Yeah. Unless you're carrying who wants to move out of the woods on his own

with no fucking Wi-Fi. The loneliness epidemic, let me just fucking become a hermit. Yeah, yeah. Let me ignore everything I preach and do a complete opposite. Oh, I want connection, but I'm leaving the world. Yeah, yeah.

That is, well, to be fair, that's a, like, a vicious part of, like, connection and disconnection. It's like, you crave connection, so you do the, like, the complete opposite. That's not conducive to you getting connection. It's like, you isolate yourself even further. It's kind of like, do you know when, like, when people go on, like, on a weight loss jersey or a weight loss journey, but then they, like, self-sabotage by, like, going out drinking or, or bingey and stuff like that. It's like, they want something, but then their behaviours don't.

align with what they want because you know their their head gets in the way essentially how anyone that's like in a people person job like PTs of that all that but generally hate people like you like lots of people you like lots of types of people you like

meeting new people but there's just that little part that's like people yeah i think i remember this i remember listening to a psychologist talking about that and uh uh they said something like people pleasers aren't um well well i'm obviously kind of generalizing his point a little bit but he was like people pleasers aren't aren't nice they actually have a lot of hatred in them uh within them um but it's just how they kind of grew up uh through childhood that to that like so they wouldn't get abandoned they they learned to to try and kind of tiptoe around people and say say yes as much as possible but there's nothing there's nothing nice about

being a people pleaser it's not they're not doing it from a place of they're not doing they're not saying yes from a place of like genuine kindness more so from fear a lot of the time yeah i'd agree with that i think as well you because you're you probably have to have a certain amount of emotional intelligence to do that and an understanding of what people are thinking and doing and how that might be perceived. And as much as then, yeah, when your people please, you get that positive feedback.

Yeah. With that processing of that positive feedback, you also process a lot of what they do negatively and you think about that. So it's just overwhelming, isn't it, to get into a social situation because you're, you're bombarded by this is great, but also I'm interpreting the fact that this could be really bad at the same time. and it's just exhausting. Yeah, I love that meme. It's like, oh, so you're a people pleased or who have you ever pleased?

Never myself. I bet you please yourself all the time. I knew someone was going to be set up. Okay, so I'll go with another one. Does anyone have any wisdom here? I know this gets posted on every relationship tread like once per day. Just looking for advice about how to navigate a budding, or committed relationship within the complicated storm of social media likes and DMs i personally

understand maintaining some very benign relationships on social media some minor flirtations with people from my past life but when i start dating someone new i would probably scale that back to complicate things though my new partner is a visual artist and has tons of fans he claims to dislike social media but he cannot maintain his career without some presence on instagram and facebook i post almost nothing and when i do it is more inclined uh or he is more inclined to comment over text or calls me and it's more real i prefer that but i notice he i notice he is like many other male acquaintances who like any of their friends who post swimsuits or modeling selfies i get it i like those posts too enjoying the human body is natural usually i like these folks

photos in my mind, but when I see he is liking lots of women on socials, how do I frame this for myself without shutting down and getting suspicious or letting it ruin my vibe with this guy who pays me lots of attention? I know that my feelings are natural and this kind of thing gets posted all the time, but how do you manage the feelings of jealousy or feeling put off in your own mind? Okay, so basically she's saying how, okay, you get into a new relationship, you'll have people who, you know, might have been kind of, have a little flirtation. with you on social media and stuff like that from a past life

and she's dating someone new who is a visual artist and has lots of followers and he's also liking girls in swimsuits and modelling selfies I had a little bit of this with an ex and not flirting with anyone

like there was nothing like I was last in there at the comment where it's like I scale it like I scale it back and it's like do none of it I had like a couple of different posts with a few different girls that like there was huge things around their body image and mental health and like they

put up these photos after like a big transformation journey and I liked them it wasn't a I'm attracted to you I liked them I'm like don't supportive grant there's other ones then with other people where they're like we know how it is there's some photos that go up and the photo doesn't match

what the content is. The content could be a whole big feel about mental health and it could just be showing your ass on the post and like so all I got in trouble

like in a few of those and it didn't matter. It didn't matter and it wasn't even a huge amount of me that was even so this person had like an Instagram post about mental health

but like it was her like with like a bikini something with a not bikini but like very very like kind of like those you know those in the fucking thread

photo shoot kind of things yeah yeah yeah something like that inside in the gym and like it was literally there was part of the actual caption where I was like well that's pretty cool

did you even read the caption or did you just double touch no I read that for a final man not attracted to this person which is even worse I actually liked it because of the caption. Oh, so you got in trouble.

You got in trouble because it was a raunchy photo, even though you liked the photo because you were reading the caption. And I explained that, but it doesn't matter. So I did stop. I didn't stop because of that, but that still got held on to. That makes sense, right. So it doesn't matter what you say.

It'll be seen whatever way someone wants to see it. That's true. But also, if you look at it from her perspective, of your, like, and raunchy photos. Yeah. But, like, you, you'd say something if you were there fucking, like, in every single

woman's photo you could possibly find or searching them out. Like, I see, I see some, I see some people I know who are married and the people they follow, and I'm like, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see that all the time.

There's only fans, like, there's actual fucking videos where this is just leading to you, like, buying her underwear online like Joe these ones are actually bad and I'm like I'm like I'm a fucking saint compared to these I think I think some I think some men

like and they could have like three kids and a wife and I think they don't realize that they leave like a social media print behind like the women that they follow and the pictures that they like you're you're flicking true Joe is someone like to reel so you can switch over to that side you're flicking true

and then there's just this ass in front of you and you like look at the bottom of it's like liked or followed by blah blah blah it's like you're married with two kids how do i get in trouble for what i did that's so funny just going back to what you said before ja this is an open question obviously there's no real direction with it but in terms of those mental health posts that the first picture is on their physical transformation what are both your views about that being celebrated. Obviously

great mental health if they're feeling better about it. Great if they're feeling physically transformed. But if a lot of their mental health issues or concerns are around self-image and you are now celebrating... This isn't me attacking you by the way. I've done this. I know. I know what you're saying.

Get fucked. Is celebrating them now then being in that physical form a good thing? Can you give context to the post? Can you give context to the post, please? So they're talking about...

Or Jared, the one that Gerr's talking about. So it would have literally been a body transformation post. Okay, but our mental health had improved because she went to this journey. And then he was talking about, you know, years of insecurities and bullying from being overweight and, you know, going through, like, living a life like that. Like, so, like, the caption, that's why I like, the caption talks about, like, it hit home for me. you know, being overweight, feeling different, getting bullied, having things said about you. John, that's going to fucking destroy a person.

Yeah. Don't be wrong, man. If I, I joked one of the lads is like, I would love to do one of those photos shoots, but I'd love to do mine differently, like in a fucking bathtub full of cupcakes or, Joe, maybe holding a fucking double cheeseburger in front of my crotch out in the field with a sun hat on. You know, something like, do I put my own take in a bully. those photos generally are used obviously for that validation

but it's to bring that like it draws someone in to read what's going on the caption yeah 100% so I agree I know what you're trying to say Rob and like yet a lot of the times um can be unhealthy a lot of the times yeah people will like proclaim about like improving their mental help but yet they're they could be like holding on to the validation of the internet for you know

being a certain size and you know they actually they might be using that to make themselves feel better about themselves which in turn probably means that well their mental health might not be as great um as they think like you like you see it all the time right so someone is get someone is out of a relationship and then they start like posting like raunchy photos of themselves and what they're trying to basically do is you know get validation that they are attractive and that they are wanted by people because their boyfriend or their ex-boyfriend doesn't want them anymore um so like when you're claiming confidence through that it's not really confidence isn't it but at the other end of the scale as well it's like i think we also fall into the trap of you know um

thinking that everything that gets posted of someone with their top off or in a bikini has to be you like oh that person struggling mentally or that person has body image issues or that person is suffering with kind of disorderly and and when in reality someone could have lost a lot of weight or done a photo shoot and actually they feel physically better and they feel mentally better as well and I think they're allowed to celebrate that as well and if you know and in turn they can improve their mental health as well and but I know the paradox of a lot of the times we see people who are incredibly lean and yes they're probably struggling a lot mentally

it's because it's hard because you can't tell what a person's going through mentally through a picture but like I know I know my experience and I talk to talk to your clients about at that time up in Project Fitness I have photos back when I was 1991 kilos

looked fairly fucking fit and athletic in a suit as the height of my eating disorder mental health in the toilet I was I was colossally fucked I looked great with a smile but like and that's why if I was to do something like that now in the future I would end up doing it differently I'd probably have a photo to show my progress but I would take the piss and do my own spin on it

I'd also show the the one meal that I ate on repeat the shitty nights I went out to do a run those crap workouts all that stuff I wouldn't just put up for me yeah a photo of there and a photo of now. But do you think that a lot of people in the fitness industry, a lot of people in the fitness industry or in the coaching industry have a very similar experience to you in regards to that. And a lot of times coaches can then project that onto other people and say, oh, you're not healthy mentally because, you know, you're using that picture with your top off to, you know, show other people how great you feel. But like, you're using your own experiences of, oh, I've been there

when I was at my leanest I was also mentally you know unwell and a lot of I think a lot of coaches can then project

that onto you know other people who are sharing their transformations does that make I have I have two

I have two transformation and post out of what the six seven years I've been doing this they kind of wanted to do it I was kind of like

well we don't we don't have And like one guy was like, there's such a huge fucking difference in me. He was like, I feel better I want to do it. But they weren't for them, they didn't feel like they were in the same kind of kind of same position I would have been

in. So like, it would have been a rejection of me and then to be like, no, you can't do that because you're just going to be glorifying your weight loss, blah, blah, blah. They were fucking happy. They were happy. They felt good. What do you think? I think to sit on the fence is purely content.

I think I used to think that they were perfectly fine and there was no issue with them and that I swung the other way and when you post it, I don't think it's healthy to do that. My main concern is that becoming the focus of their social media or their focus of their self-worth. So like if they're posting stuff about them having a nice type, depends what the purpose of their social media is, but if they're posting stuff about them having a nice time and they get 12 likes and then they post this transformation and everyone's like do you know what we should be celebrating that this person has managed to achieve this and they get 150 likes for me as much as that is amazing that they're supporting that change hopefully for the better

why are they not supporting them then in all of the other stuff that they're doing and how happy for that life and i just i worry that it puts a lot of importance on losing that weight and I do completely do completely agree with the fact that losing that weight sometimes does have a huge impact on mental health like being able to go out and express yourself in a way where you feel comfortable doing so it's fucking amazing that that's the case I used to be kind of polarized one way of going you don't need to look better to mentally feel better but you kind of do sometimes if you fill that blockade of i'm not going to go and do this because i look this way well put put it this way we like we glorify weight loss so like if someone loses 10

kilos they will be they might get a hundred likes for that on social media but if someone gains 10 kilos because you know they were suffering with an eating disorder and then they've gone to therapy and they've worked things out and then they're feeling much better and therefore they've you know started um you know uh you know filling themselves with calories and nutrients and like that is a huge deal and now they're actually at a healthy body weight that's that's not going to get a hundred likes well like i'm i'm 30 kilos heavier um stronger fitter with a better relationship with food better mental health than i was uh 30 kilos lighter but nobody

and like I've heard comments from other people that like they've heard other people said you would pick if you were to look

at the photo of me at 91 kilos and a photo of me now you'd pick the 91 kilos as your coach the majority of people and I would have ruined your life

I would have destroyed your life because like I was on I think I had 1,200 calories now like the food like the food was good like I don't know and we'd go good and bad

but like quality of food nutrient wise was very good it was keeping me alive to know but like I destroyed my body destroyed my body destroyed my mental health

but like there will be people that will look at that photo and be like where did it go wrong whereas actually have gone right in a lot of words yeah where it's gone right

like I'm looking at trying to do a skydive next year and I have to lose I have to lose 15 15 to 16 kilos for it you know you can do that you can do that

Melbourne it's fucking expensive man oh the skydiving it's like 600 quits whereas I can do it for charity back here so like 100 and 120 quid in Melbourne all right

so I'm gonna push under pressure to do that I'll do it man I don't like heights and I don't like planes someone's like why are you doing it it was like well it's meant to be like unbelievable

well if you're heavier you get it done quicker so it's just staying same weight Well, I asked them up in, is it the Midlands? I was like, surely you can just get someone lighter to do it with me so we can even out the weight? And they were like, that's not how it works. And I was like, can I wear nothing under the overalls?

So like, Joe, we weigh as little as well, we weigh you in the morning. And I was like, I could do an absolute terrible cut for it. But I already know, like, I tried to do a big fat last thing there was before summer. And I could feel the things that lay. to the eating disorder creeping back in and I was like no not for me let's just train harder okay I'm gonna give you us before because we're finishing up and we've really went on a side time yeah sorry I'm off my meds um so last question from Reddit do you think couples should or shouldn't follow each other on social media and why it shouldn't matter because you if you're in a

good relationship doesn't matter either way it's kind of weird if you don't though I think I think it's weirder to not be following them than it is to be following them. It's not weird to be following them at all. No, it's definitely, it's definitely not weird to follow your partner on social media. It definitely is a little bit more. It's weird if you don't follow them on social media. It's kind of odd, but at the same time, like it, like you said, Rob, it can make, like if you're in a secure relationship, it shouldn't really matter.

but it is kind of weird. I think it depends how active you are because I haven't followed my last couple of girlfriends on Facebook. I've not been friends with them on Facebook or Facebook official or anything because I just don't use Facebook.

Whereas if you're constantly on Instagram I think it's weird. Yeah, I think it's weird there if you know. It's like having WhatsApp and not being girlfriends on that. I think it was a sign. It's the reason why you're ex-inery. Someone says, someone agrees

with what you said, Rob. Someone goes, intense social media use is a red flag. so if you're using social media and you don't follow your like if you're constantly on social media and you don't follow your partner that's or yeah or yeah i think that's a bit strange isn't it yeah yeah if if you're on it all the time you don't follow your partner that's weird like yeah um there you go question answer all right that was fucking yeah that was for these straightforward okay cool that was that was that was it then we've answered that and then last question before we finish up um why can't we come up Thursday night next week is, is... Yeah, what's happened on Thursday next week? Yeah, what's happened on Thursday night, Carol? Let's stick to the podcast, folks.

We are. Who's in the way? Is having a boyfriend crinched to finish off with? Well, I don't want a boyfriend, so... I was just going to say something along the same sort of line. I don't know what you're trying to lead into before we go away together. Thanks for watching. If you like that episode and you want to see more content like this,

make sure you're subscribed. and I'll see you on the next one.